Chapter I: Preface

A word of explanation may help to an understanding of this record of a brief journey in China, in 1911, in the last quiet months before the revolution.

No one who has ever known the joy of hunting impressions of strange peoples and strange lands in the out-of-the-way corners of the world can ever feel quite free again, for he hears always a compelling voice that "calls him night and day" to go forth on the chase once more. Years ago, for a beginning, I pursued impressions and experiences in the Far West on the frontier,--there was a frontier then. And since that time, whenever chance has offered, that has been my holiday pastime, among the Kentucky mountains, in the Taurus, in Montenegro, in India. Everywhere there is interest, for everywhere there is human nature, but whoever has once come under the spell of the Orient knows that henceforth there is no choice; footloose, he must always turn eastwards.

But really to see the East one must shun the half-Europeanized town and the treaty port, must leave behind the comforts of hotel and railway, and be ready to accept the rough and the smooth of unbeaten trails. But the compensations are many: changing scenes, long days out of doors, freedom from the bondage of conventional life, and above all, the fascination of living among peoples of primitive simplicity and yet of a civilization so ancient that it makes all that is oldest in the West seem raw and crude and unfinished. So when two years ago my feet sought again the "open road," it was towards the East that I naturally turned, and this time it was China that called me. I did not go in pursuit of any information in particular, but just to get for myself an impression of the country and the people. My idea of the Chinese had been derived, like that of most Americans, from books and chance observation of the handful of Kwangtung men who are earning their living among us by washing our clothes. Silent, inscrutable, they flit through the American scene, alien to the last. What lies behind the riddle of their impassive faces? Perhaps I could find an answer. Then, too, it was clear, even to the most unintelligent, that a change was coming over the East, though few realized how speedily. I longed to see the old China before I made ready to welcome the new. But not the China of the coast, for there the West had already left its stamp. So I turned to the interior, to the western provinces of Yunnan and Szechuan. Wonderful for scenery, important in commerce and politics, still unspoiled, there I could find what I wanted.

Of course I was told not to do it, it would not be safe, but that is what one is always told. A long, solitary summer spent a few years ago among the Himalayas of Western Tibet, in Ladakh and Baltistan, gave me heart to face such discouragement, and I found, as I had found before, that those who knew the country best were most ready to speed me onward. And as the following pages show, there was nothing to fear. I had no difficulties, no adventures, hardly enough to make the tale interesting.

It is true, I had some special advantages. I was an American and a woman, and no longer young. Chinese respect for grey hair is a very real thing; a woman is not feared as a man may be, and hostility is often nothing more than fear; and even in remote Szechuan I met men who knew that the American Government had returned the Boxer indemnity, and who looked kindly upon me for that reason. If the word of certain foreigners is to be trusted, I gained in not knowing the language; the people would not take advantage of my helplessness. That seems rather incredible; if it is true, the whole Western world has something to learn of China.

But I could not have done what I did without the wise and generous aid of many whom I met along the way, Europeans and Chinese, officials, merchants, and above all missionaries, everywhere the pioneers. To them all I tender here my grateful thanks. And to the representatives of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank wherever I met them, and also to those of the Russo-Asiatic Bank I would express my gratitude for many courtesies shown me.

As I look back I know it was worth while, all of it. Half a dozen months count for little toward the real understanding of a strange civilization, but it is something to have seen a great people in its home, to have watched it at work and at play, for you have been forced once again to realize that although "East is East and West is West," the thing that most matters is the nature of the man, and that everywhere human nature is much the same.

THE ORCHARD,
WELLESLEY, MASSACHUSETTS,
November, 1912.

CONTENTS

I. ACROSS TONKING 3

II. DAYS IN YUNNAN-FU 24

III. ACROSS YUNNAN 41

IV. THE CHIEN-CH'ANG 71

V. ON THE MANDARIN ROAD 101

VI. TACHIENLU 123

VII. THE LESSER TRAIL 139

VIII. ACROSS CHENGTU PLAIN 161

IX. OMEI SHAN, THE SACRED 180

X. DOWN THE YANGTSE 202

XI. FROM THE GREAT RIVER TO THE GREAT WALL 221

XII. THE MONGOLIAN GRASSLAND 236

XIII. ACROSS THE DESERT OF GOBI 256

XIV. URGA, THE SACRED CITY 276

XV. NORTH TO THE SIBERIAN RAILWAY 289

XVI. A FEW FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF CHINA 308

INDEX 323

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE LITTLE "FU T'OU" (CARAVAN HEADMAN) (p. 6) _Frontispiece_

MAP OF CHINESE EMPIRE 3

A YUNNAN VALLEY 6

OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF YUNNAN-FU 6

MY SEDAN CHAIR AND BEARERS 32

A MEMORIAL ARCH NEAR YUNNAN-FU 32

MAP OF WEST CHINA 42

ON A YUNNAN ROAD: MY CARAVAN--THE MILITARY ESCORT 44

WU-TING-CHOU: TEMPLE GATEWAY--TEMPLE CORNER 60

LOLO GIRLS 80

"TAME, WILD" LOLOS 80

A MEMORIAL ARCH. SZECHUAN 92

FORTIFIED VILLAGE IN THE CHIEN-CH'ANG VALLEY 92

"MERCURY," MY FLEET COOLIE 106

CARRIER COOLIES 106

A GROUP OF SZECHUAN FARMHOUSES 114

A VIEW OF TACHIENLU 124

TIBETANS 124

LAMA AND DOG AT TACHIENLU 134

THE GATE OF TIBET 134

A WAYSIDE REST-HOUSE 146

A FORTIFIED POST 146

A ROADSIDE TEA-HOUSE 152

TEA COOLIE CROSSING A SUSPENSION BRIDGE 152

A FARMHOUSE IN CHENGTU PLAIN 162

MEMORIAL ARCH TO A "VIRTUOUS WIDOW," CHENGTU PLAIN 168

THE "REJECTION OF THE BODY" (CLIFF A MILE HIGH), MOUNT OMEI,
WEST SZECHUAN 196

IN THE YANGTSE GORGES 218

TARTAR WALL, PEKING 230

CARAVAN OUTSIDE THE TARTAR WALL 230

A POOR MONGOL FAMILY AND YURT 248

JACK AND HIS LAMA FRIEND 258

MY CARAVAN ACROSS MONGOLIA 258

HORSEMEN OF THE DESERT, NORTH MONGOLIA 268

A LAMA BOUND FOR URGA 278

A MONGOL BELLE, URGA 278

MY MONGOL HOSTESS 284

THE MONGOL HOUSE WHERE I STAYED IN URGA 284

LAMA AND HIS "WIFE" 298

My thanks are due to Robert J. Davidson, Esq., of Chengtu, Szechuan, for kind permission to use the photograph of the Yangtse Gorges. Also to Messrs. Underwood & Underwood, of New York, for the photographs of the Tartar Wall, Peking. With these exceptions the illustrations are from photographs made by myself on the journey. I should like to express here my appreciation of the care and skill shown by the staff of the Kodak Agency, Regent Street, West, in handling films often used under very unfavourable conditions.

E. K.

SUGGESTIONS FOR PRONOUNCING CHINESE NAMES IN THE TEXT

In general vowels are pronounced as in Italian.

_a_ preceded by _w_ and followed by _ng_ is like _a_ in _fall_.
_ue_ like the French _u_.
_ai_ like _i_ in _mine_.
_ao_ like _ou_ in _proud_.
_ei_ like _ey_ in _they_.
_ie_ like _e-e_ in _re-enter_.
_ui_ with vowels distinct.
_ou_ with vowels distinct and stress on _o_.

Of the consonants, _ch_, _k_, _p_, _t_, _ts_ are softer than in English, approaching respectively _j_, _g_, _b_, _d_, _dz_.

_hs_ is approximately _sh_ (hsien = she-en).

MONEY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

Tael, roughly two-thirds of a dollar gold. Dollar or dollar Mex., about fifty cents gold. Cash, about the twentieth part of a cent gold. Li, a scant third of an English mile. Catty, about one and one-third pounds avoirdupois.

A WAYFARER IN CHINA

_For the wander-thirst is on me And my soul is in Cathay._

A WAYFARER IN CHINA