Chapter XXVIII: Letter XXVI: PEKING, 23rd May 1866 (2)

To-day we “received bitters unsurpassable,” as the Chinese say when they come to grief—thirty-five miles’ ride at a foot-pace, for we could not leave the baggage in a storm of wind, rain, thunder and lightning, which regularly pursued us. The sandy soil was so heavy that the cart-wheels could hardly turn; the horses were quite exhausted. About two miles from Llama Miao, where the storm had lashed itself to its greatest fury, we came to a small plateau surrounded by low hills. Here we witnessed a phenomenon, new to me, and which I certainly never wish to see again. The thunder, which seemed to circle round the hills, roared savagely and cracked with deafening peals, while the lightning ran along the ground criss-crossing in every direction until the little plain was covered with a perfect network of blue liquid flames, from the meshes of which escape seemed impossible. The effect on the horses was indeed electric. Mine stood still and shivered with fear, breaking out into a white lather of sweat, while the doctor’s, with a scream, bolted madly into space, fortunately taking the direction of the town. It was a weird scene, befitting a witch’s Sabbath. A thunderstorm in Mongolia is indeed a trial to one’s nerves. To put the finishing touch to our misery, when we arrived at Llama Miao drenched, cold, and hungry, inn after inn refused to take us in, and we were for near an hour riding through the wet streets, the people howling at us, and a whole pack of curs yelping and snapping at our dogs. At last we found an asylum in a large but wretched inn; the last tenants of the rooms we occupied had been horses, and my bedroom was also used as a cart-house. We were a good deal mobbed; a foreigner here is a _rara avis_, and we created no small sensation, every dirty ragamuffin in the place crowding into the yard. What excites the greatest astonishment is that we are travelling for no business. To leave all one’s comforts and ride four hundred miles for pleasure beats their comprehension, and the Chinese are convinced that the barbarian has a bee in his bonnet.

_8th May._

Llama Miao is a large Chinese colony in the midst of a sandy desert, four or five thousand feet above the level of the sea. The Mongols call it Talonoru, which the Russians have softened into Dolonor. The Chinese name, which means “llama’s temple,” is taken from two huge monasteries of llamas, “the old temple” and “the new temple,” which stand by the side of a small stream outside the town. They are rather villages than temples, however, and contain, as the landlord and other natives told me, several thousand llamas. We were unable to go into them, for the river, swollen by the rain, was impassable; but we did not much regret this, for all the temples have a strong family likeness, and we have both had our fill of big Buddhas and dirty shaven monks with idiotic faces (the llamas are by far the lowest type in China), out of whom there is not even any information about their fraternity to be got, for if you ask them some question touching their order, it is ten to one that they will reply by another about your clothes. We contented ourselves with a distant view of the Miao. In size, but in nothing else, they reminded me of the Troitzkaia Lavra near Moscow, which is also quite a small city.

The Mongols flock to Llama Miao to sell their horses, cattle, wool, and raw hides to the Chinese, who, in return, supply them with corn of all kinds, and such simple manufactured necessaries as the Mongols require for their camps, at between three and four times Peking prices. A measure of corn, which costs 100 cash in Peking, costs 3½ times that amount here. This trade, for the landlord says there is no other, has been sufficiently attractive to convert Llama Miao into a town, 6 li (2 miles) long by 4 li (1⅓ mile) broad, and densely peopled. We passed a dreary day, shivering in our fur coats. We saw no good horses for sale, but one fine little gray pony, private property, was brought to a farrier’s opposite, and bled in the street. I have since heard that there is a great business done in bronze idols.

_9th May._

We had a better chance of seeing the town and horse-fair as we rode through to-day. Yesterday the rain had made business dull, but to-day there were hundreds of little horses for sale; their owners were leading them about, strung together in packs, or galloping them madly about, to show off their paces, to the great danger of the mob, and especially of the small boys, who were scattered from under one horse’s feet to another’s, but always escaped by a miracle. The show was bad in quality, for the best horses are not brought in until the summer or autumn. Our horses, from their superior grooming and feeding, were much admired, but our saddlery received an ovation. “Ai ya!” said an old Chinese horse-dealer, passing a dirty thumb over my saddle, “a man may grow old in these parts over the border, and never see such a saddle as that! Unsurpassable!” Besides the horsey gentlemen, there is a large population of craftsmen, such as ropemakers, basketmakers, shoemakers, and the like. With the exception of a few large well-built places of business, which have even some pretension to ornamental architecture, the houses are small and poor. Altogether, Llama Miao is not a place worth a visit on its own account; we merely took it as a good point to reach and turn back from. If it had not been for the fact that we were riding back to Peking, I should not have been sorry to leave it.

We stopped at a small roadside inn for breakfast. The people were such a contrast to the town-folk, who are always impertinent and obstructive. The villagers are simple creatures, and so civil and obliging. Sitting on a bench outside the inn was a very small boy, dirty to a degree, but excessively pretty, feeding his younger brother of three years old with a sort of macaroni, which he was stuffing down his throat with chop-sticks; the father, a good-humoured countryman, was sitting hard by, resting and smoking his pipe. I gave the little fellow a sixpence, which he so sweetly made over to the younger child. As I sat chatting with these people up rode a well-dressed Chinese, followed by his servant also on horseback. He stopped, called for a cup of tea, drank it, and went off without paying. I saw that my friends loved him as a mouse does a cat, and asked who he was. He turned out to be a customs officer. “A terrible fellow,” said one; “if travellers don’t bribe him, he stops them, and takes their luggage, swearing that they are smuggling.” The respect which the Chinese have for their rulers is truly touching. Our charioteer made me promise to-day to give him a pass from the Legation when we reach Peking, without which, and perhaps in spite of which, he, being a countryman, would be mulcted at the gate on his return home.

About twenty miles from Llama Miao, at a place called Shui-Hsien-Tszŭ, the sandy plain ends, and the character of the scenery changes completely.

The road winds down a steep ravine between hills and rocks of every variety of shape; a tiny torrent follows the same line. There are a few trees, leafless as yet, and here and there the lower hills are tilled. Cottages are plentiful, and the number of travellers shows that we are on the high-road to Peking. We passed the night at Kou Mên Tzŭ. The people were as civil as possible, but very inquisitive, examining all our belongings with childish curiosity. They were above all delighted with my field-glass, through which they begged to be allowed to look. They took the greatest care of it, and if any one was too eager the others shouted, “Don’t snatch, don’t snatch.” It was given back to me by the elder of the party, who said with the greatest gravity, “Venerable teacher, you have opened our eyes,” and then proceeded to lecture upon us for the benefit of a party of new-comers. “What are you come to sell?” said one, interrupting the lecture. “Sell things!” shouted my exhibitor indignantly; “what thing are you? He don’t sell things; he’s an officer like our chih hsien!”—which office is promotion for a brass-buttoned mandarin of a rank about equal to a parish beadle. Popular enthusiasm reached its height when I pulled out an old number of the _Saturday Review_ and began to read. I can now realise the feelings of a giant in a caravan, travelling from place to place and being shown wherever he goes.

_10th May._

Below Kou Mên Tzŭ runs a mountain stream, over which there is a rude bridge supported on fascines filled with rubbish and loose stones. The village, from the left bank of the river, looks very picturesque, and there is a temple on the hillside that is a little gem in its way. After ascending the river for some little distance we dived into another mountain gorge, more beautiful and wild than that of yesterday. The rocks are bolder and more striking, and the hillsides are covered with a dwarf wild fruit tree bearing a pink flower as brilliant as the wild rhododendron of the Alps. There are a few tender shoots, too, on the stunted trees and shrubs, which, with the mosses and lichens covering the different strata of rocks, add colour to the landscape. As the road is a perpetual zigzag one is constantly coming upon fresh surprises and new forms. To-day’s ride would have been perfect had it not been for a storm of wind and sand which destroyed our pleasure. We rested at Hung Tu̔ng Tien, and our abode for the night was at Lao Wo Pu̔, a quiet little place, where the inn, which stands at a turn of the road, is perfectly circled by hills, as if it were in a devil’s punch-bowl. As we sat in the pretty inn-yard we agreed that in spite of bad weather and cold (we had found ice in several places) we had seldom enjoyed a day more. One advantage gained over our previous days was that by loitering on the way and stopping to “sit a sit and rest a rest” in different cottages, where we were always made welcome, we managed to arrive at the inn after our servants instead of before. It is such a bore having to look after the cleaning of the rooms and the stabling of the horses in the midst of a gaping crowd of wonderers.

_11th May._

Descending the pass the valley widens; the mountain streamlet becomes quite a river, which we have to cross over and over again; it is very rapid, and at the fords the water reaches to the horses’ girths. The ground here is carefully tilled, and well irrigated as it is, must be fertile. I saw a jolly old couple cultivating their little field together: the old man was painfully working out furrows with a hoe, while his wife, stumping along on her small feet, sowed the seed out of a wooden vessel, with a spout like a watering-pot, which she tapped with a stick to let the grain fall out by degrees. I hope they may have a good harvest. Our two resting-places were Kwa Ti Erh and Kwo Chia Tu̔n, a large village with particularly disagreeable inhabitants, whose practice it is to eat much garlic and then breathe in the face of travellers. The sand-storm this afternoon was one of the worst I have seen. It blinded us and threw a yellow pea-soup fog over scenery that is as beautiful as mountains and river can make it.

_12th May._

We were warned last night to be on our guard and look out for brigands, but nothing came of it. This morning we turned off into another pass steering south-west. Here we had a change in the landscape, for the hills were covered with trees and brushwood, showing more green as we got farther south. The people cried wolf again about robbers, but they do not seem to fancy attacking Europeans; the bore of it is that we are bound to do escort duty and stick to the cart, which would not be safe without us and our revolvers. The Chinese are in mortal terror of them, so a bumbailiff from the Chih-hsien’s yamên at Fêng Ming Hsien begged us to let him travel with us for company and protection. He had been all the way to Kou Mên Tzŭ on foot to claim a debt of six taels (£2). He told me he was between fifty and sixty years old, and had been a confirmed opium-smoker for twenty years and more, smoking regularly twice a day, once after each meal. He was as hale and hearty as need be, walking his thirty miles a day with a heavy pack on his back, for, with an eye to the main chance, he was going to combine with his official business a little peddling trade on his own account—a fresh proof that opium if not taken in large quantities is not so enervating after all. As for its effect on the mind, some of the cleverest Chinese are habitual smokers. I must say that I have never seen anything which bears the faintest resemblance to the horrors of opium-smoking described in books. This man told me that opium still gave him delicious dreams, but said he regretfully, “It’s all folly, they never come true.” Our first fifteen miles lay along very broken ground—terrible work for the horses—but so picturesque, that if any brigands had appeared I should have expected them to come out decked in ribands and tall hats like Mr. Tupman. A common crowd of Chinese ragamuffins would have been sadly out of tune. One descent that we had to make was so abrupt that I fully expected our heavy baggage-cart to come down with a run; however, the carter showed his ingenuity, and improvised a drag with a huge log of wood which he lashed behind the cart, fastening it to the axletree with a tourniquet; this made an effective but not very lasting break; as the wheels wore through the wood he tightened the tourniquet, and so brought the cart safe to the bottom. From the top of the pass we had a magnificent panorama of mountains, range rising above range, north and south, in huge fantastic masses, with dark foreground and melting blue distances. Beneath us to the south lay a little hill-girt valley green with young wheat and trees almost in full leaf, a little Eden in the wilderness. At the farther end of this valley is a pretty hamlet called Niu Chuên Tzŭ, where we breakfasted in a clean, tidy inn. We had now travelled over a hundred miles through narrow mountain passes, but soon after we had left Niu Chuên Tzŭ our road opened out into a valley so broad as to be almost a plain. The sun was setting and lighting up the mountains that separated us from China as we rode into Fêng Ming Hsien, a pleasant town to look at, but to us very inhospitable; the best inns rejected us, and we were so mobbed and persecuted after we had found a resting-place, that I was obliged to appeal to the executive to get the inn-yard cleared. The executive made its appearance in the shape of a large and very dirty gentleman with an unkept tail, who by dint of a deal of threatening and bad language procured for us peace and quiet.

_13th May._

Of course, because our inn was particularly dirty and bad, the innkeeper was proportionately extortionate. He was evidently a bad character and rather fallen in the world, and had taken us in, in spite of prejudices which he shared with the rest of his fellow-townsmen, in order to make a profit out of us. We were glad to be quit of him, the inn, and the town. Our mid-day halt was at a very different sort of place, a little village called Shou Hu Ying, which takes its name from a tradition that the famous Emperor, Káng Hsi, once came here a-hunting, and killed a tiger on the spot where the village now stands. There was only one inn, humble enough, but very clean, and a few pots of flowers in the principal room gave it an air of smartness. The guest-room also served as village school, of which all the paraphernalia were scattered about. There was the magisterial chair and scholars’ stools covered with bits of felt or sheep-skin,—more luxury than we had at Eton,—well-thumbed copies of the San-tzŭ-ching,—three character classic,—the Chinese boy’s primer, a few cheap writing-materials, and a copy-book in which some little urchin had been making laborious attempts at copying the numerals and other simple characters. By way of ornament there was a picture of four little boys representing the seasons, dancing round a basket of impossible flowers with the most grotesque contortions, with the superscription, “The four seasons when prosperous beget riches.” In the cause of letters it was satisfactory to know that we were not interrupting studies, for the dominie had given himself and the boys a holiday, and had betaken himself to a fair at the neighbouring village of Po Li Nao, in order to go to the theatre. It is very funny to hear a class of little fellows droning out the classics, of which they don’t understand a word, in chorus, the tones of the language making a sort of cadence. The system of teaching a boy a lot of characters without their sense, each character simply representing a meaningless sound to him, could only exist in China. We passed Po Li Nao, some fifteen li farther on, and to the great astonishment of the sightseers did not stop to hear a play by a troupe of poor strollers. “What! been to Po Li Nao and didn’t go to see the theatre! Ai ya! that’s strange!” said a footpad of whom I asked the way. At any rate we saw what was better, Po Li Nao itself, one of the most picturesquely situated little places I have seen in China. It stands at the foot of a bend of low hills, above which rises a towering range of dark, jagged peaks, and beside it winds a clear pebbly stream, breaking here and there against large stones; add to this a few quaint Chinese buildings, plenty of trees, and all the bustle of the fair. We had a difficult sandy track again for the heavy cart; we were 13½ hours on the road, stopped two hours at noon, and only accomplished about thirty miles. We put up at Kwa Yo Erh, where, as at all small places, the people were civility itself, our landlord even turning his family out of his own house in order to lodge us comfortably.

_14th May._

We took care that our host, who combined the profession of military officer with that of innkeeper, should not lose by his civility, and we parted with mutual expressions of goodwill. We had a climb of it up a steepish hill, on the top of which is a temple to the god of war, and then descended on to the valley of Ku Pei Ko̔u by a winding road cut in stages over a precipice such as one finds on a large scale in Switzerland and the Tyrol. More than once on our journey through these mountains I have been put in mind of the Alps, not only by the scenery which, if it were not for the absence of snow and glaciers, would stand the comparison well, but also by the goitres and cretinism which seem to be the curse of mountainous districts. The other day at a cross-road I asked the way of a man who was collecting dung for fuel; he turned round and said very simply, “I know nothing, I’m only an idiot; ask him,” pointing to a man ploughing, “he knows everything.” Deafness, too, seems rather common, probably owing to the very hard weather which prevails during some seven months of the year. The old people seem hearty enough, barring their hearing. I came across none of a very advanced age, but one old fellow of seventy-nine was very hearty, and to all appearance likely to remain so, but he was by many years the _doyen_ of all I met, and anything past seventy seems to be looked upon as extraordinary.

We had a scorching ride to-day: there was a good deal of electricity in the air, which told upon us when we had been some hours in the saddle. As we were a full hour ahead of our baggage we turned the horses to graze, and sat down by a brook to smoke a cigar. As luck would have it we had no matches; however, there was a house not far off, so the doctor volunteered to go and beg a light. On arriving at the cottage he found forty or fifty people engaged in a “white affair,” which is the euphemism for a funeral, because white is the colour of mourning. A dozen or so of the relations, friends, and neighbours were seated round a bier weeping and crooning officially, while the others, waiting till their turn came for grief, were smoking their pipes and retailing country gossip. They were very civil, and presently—for apparently the attraction of seeing the foreigners was superior to that of mourning by commission for a poor old woman—all, except those actually on duty round the coffin, were crowding about us as merry as possible; even the women with their heads bound up in white cloth as if they had the face-ache turned out to have a peep at us from behind the house, grinning and giggling as if they were assisting at a marriage.

We did not go into the town of Ku Pei Ko̔u, but stopped at an inn just outside the gates; so we had all the advantage of the fine view over the Great Wall of China, with pure air to breathe, instead of the garlic and muck-stained atmosphere of the town.

During the whole of our journey from Llama Miao to Ku Pei Ko̔u we did not see a single Mongol, much less a camp. The ground is not suited to their nomad and pastoral habits; it is colonised exclusively by Chinese, principally farmers from the province of Shantung. Europeans have very rarely followed this route; so far as I can make out they have been seen here once, or at most twice.

_15th May._

This day week we were shivering in furs at Llama Miao. To-day a gauze shirt was too much; the flies were a perfect pest. It was too hot to do anything but sleep, which they put out of the question. It was not until after dinner that we could venture out. We went up a hill behind the inn, from which we had a fine view of the sun setting behind the heights which the Great Wall scales. In the valley beneath wayfarers were hurrying to reach the town before the closing of the gates; the rear was brought up by a herd of about a hundred pigs, the last travellers who entered China this night by the gates of Ku Pei Ko̔u.

About Ku Pei Ko̔u and the road back to Peking I wrote to you last year, and this letter is too long already. Three days brought us home to the Legation.

_P.S._—By the bye, although the part of Mongolia we visited is set down on the maps as belonging to the province of Chi Li, which it is so far as its government is concerned, I have spoken of _China_ as bounded by the Great Wall. No Mongol living beyond it would consider himself as an inhabitant of China, and the Chinese themselves speak of the places which are “Ko̔u-wai,” outside the mouth or frontier, as Mongolia. In Stamford’s large map of China and Japan you will see how Chang Chia Ko̔u, Dolonor or Llama Miao, and Ku Pei Ko̔u are placed—some of our other halting-places are also given, but you would hardly recognise them from their spelling.

_May 20th—Sunday._—Went round some of the curiosity shops, where I was shown, among other things, a wonderful ewer and cover of rock crystal, about a foot high. I have seen nothing finer of its kind than the carving. In the days of Chien Lung the Magnificent, himself a great patron of art, when a fine piece of rock crystal, jade, or cornelian was brought in from the western mountains as tribute, a committee of taste decided the shape to be given to it, and fixed upon the artist to whom it should be entrusted by Imperial Command.

_May 21._—The pious Chinese are all off these days making a pilgrimage to a holy shrine among the hills, called Miao Fêng Shan, to burn joss-stick as a sovereign prophylactic against disease and misfortune of all kinds.

_May 22._—The thermometer standing at 100° in the shade. The heat frightfully oppressive. Happily on the following day there came a great thunderstorm, with hailstones as big as pigeon’s eggs. This cooled the air. The formation of the hailstones was curious: a nodule of ice surrounded by a coating of frozen snow, which in its turn was encased in ice. Bad for heads!

_May 27._—An outbreak of the “Heavenly Flowers,” or smallpox, causes general consternation and vaccination. Any one who is opposed to vaccination had better see the ravages of this horrible disease in an Eastern city; so common is it that no Chinaman who has not “put forth the heavenly flowers” is considered quite complete. It is like distemper with dogs in Europe.

_May 29._—Dined with Dr. and Mrs. Wells Williams at the American Legation, a handsome and delightful couple now entering middle age. Dr. Williams, the author of a Chinese dictionary, and that most encyclopædic book _The Middle Kingdom_, is one of the most learned of sinologues. He began his career in China as a missionary in the south, but his great talents rendered him necessary to the American Government, and he is now _chargé d’affaires_ here. He was very interesting, talking, among other subjects, on the paper currency. Bank-notes, it seems, were first introduced in the days of the Sung dynasty, during the reign of Shao Hsing (A.D. 1170). At that time copper was scarce, so the Government issued great notes (Ta Chao) of the value of 1000 to 5000 copper cash, and small notes (Hsiao Chao) worth from 100 to 700 cash. Officers were appointed everywhere to issue and receive these notes. They were to be renewed within seven years, and fifteen cash in every thousand were deducted for the expense of making them. They were said to be “kung ssŭ pien,” “convenient both for the public and for private individuals.” Marco Polo mentions them with praise.

_June 1._—My new colleague, Sir Eric Farquhar, arrived from England. An old schoolfellow. He was accompanied by Mr. Brenchley, a most accomplished traveller, who seems to have been all over the world, and being a great naturalist and profound observer, is a charming companion to boot.

_June 10._—The last few days have been occupied in showing Brenchley the lions of Peking. To-day we went to breakfast at a fashionable Chinese restaurant, “The House of Eternal Prosperity,” in the Ta Shih La Erh, which we call Curio Street. In order that we might make a genteel appearance and observe the ten thousand proprieties, my servant Chang Hsi insisted on our going in carts. Walking is so vulgar! We were jolted and bruised over the indescribable ruts and paving-stones to a horrible degree, but our dignity was kept up. We found the House of Eternal Prosperity very shabby and dirty, and we should have had a much better breakfast at home.

_June 15–20._—Two more parties of travellers arrived. More work as “intelligent guide.”