Chapter I: Preface

Every intelligent person that I have met whose good fairy has led him to the Celestial Empire has fallen under the spell of that marvellous people and marvellous land. I am fired with the ambition to cast that spell even on those who have never been there, by showing them as accurately and vividly as I can, with pen and brush, what the face of China actually is.

People _may_ describe with success the soul of a people, provided it is sufficiently near the surface, but the foreigner who has known and loved China for a lifetime would be the first to repudiate the possibility of doing this in the case of China. I would rather take Browning’s view--“Nor soul helps body more than body soul”--and try to set down faithfully the things I have seen, that they may lead others to study China for themselves.

It may be objected that the picture is too much _couleur de rose_, because I have not dwelt on the dark side of things: but there is a use for eyelids as well as for eyes.

This book is the result of a year spent in Shansi, 1893–94, and six months spent in travel through the provinces of Shantung, Chili, Hupeh, Szechwan, and Yünnan during 1907–8. The former visit was mainly spent at a medical mission at Taiyüanfu, which was then remote from Western influences; now everything has changed, and I travelled from north-east to south-west of the Empire and found no village untouched by the great awakening. On the first occasion I was always conscious of a certain hostility in the attitude of the people towards foreigners; this time it was quite the reverse. Considering the behaviour of many travellers towards the Chinese, this seems to me really astonishing; but they are very sensitive in their appreciation of mental attitude, and they responded unhesitatingly to the call we made on their chivalry by placing ourselves unreservedly in their hands. We were repeatedly warned not to do this, but our confidence was justified by the event. In no European country could we have been more courteously treated, and in very few have I travelled so happily and so free from care.

The journey was one long series of pleasant surprises, and my friend expressed the feelings of both of us when, on crossing the frontier into Burma, she exclaimed: “If only we could turn round and go all the way back again!” If any one is induced by reading this book to make personal acquaintance with China, it will not have been written in vain.

NOTE

There is so little in this volume which is drawn from other sources than personal observation, and information obtained from our Chinese and missionary friends on the spot, that I have thought well not to burden the reader with foot-notes. The various details as to the religions of China are mainly drawn from an interesting little volume by Giles, “Religions of Ancient China,” Smith’s “Uplift of China,” and Hackmann’s “Buddhism as a Religion”; while the account of the railways is from Kent’s “Railway Enterprise in China.”

The spelling of Chinese names is according to the most recent standard map, giving the orthography of the Chinese Imperial Post Office.

CONTENTS

Preface vii

Note ix

I. Shanghai 1

II. Shantung, the German Sphere of Influence 13

III. A Day in the Country (Shantung) 20

IV. Shantung Silk 27

V. Tsinan 31

VI. The Sacred Shrine of Tai Shan 45

VII. The Home of Confucius: Küfow 53

VIII. The Yellow River and Grand Canal 66

IX. Journey into Shansi in 1893 73

X. Taiyüanfu 81

XI. Peking 92

XII. The Péhan Railway: from Peking to Hankow 106

XIII. On the Yangtze: Ichang to Wanhsien 116

XIV. Szechwan High-roads 145

XV. Chengtu 161

XVI. The Min River 173

XVII. Mount Omi 182

XVIII. From Szechwan into Yünnan 195

XIX. The Road to Yünnan Fu 208

XX. Yünnan Fu 218

XXI. Tali Fu 234

XXII. Tali Fu to Teng Yueh 241

XXIII. From China into Burma 252

XXIV. The Present Situation in China 257

Table of Dynasties 271

Index 273

ILLUSTRATIONS

_Coloured Plates_

Portrait of Author as Chinese “Female Traveling Scholar”
(p. 236) _Frontispiece_

Tea-House in Old Shanghai 6

A Suburb of Weihsien 16

A Village School 24

Official (Court Dress) 30

Mountain Chair 46

Tai Shan 48

Private House: Küfow 54

Confucian Temple 56

Mounted Military Escort 64

Our Houseboat, Grand Canal 69

Camel Inn 74

Opium Refuge 80

Theatre Stage 82

Pagoda 84

Tiger Brave 86

Scholar--Southern Servant 91

City Wall of Peking 92

Temple of Heaven 96

A Lady of Quality--An Official 100

Boxer--Kachin Woman (p. 253) 104

Mr. Ku 106

The Brakeman on the Péhan Railway 108

Ancestral Tablet 120

Blue Dawn 122

Yeh Tan Rapid 124

Village and Junk 132

The Look-out on the Yangtze 134

Camel-back Bridge 144

Szechwan Highway 150

Sunlight and Mist in the Mountains 158

Buddhist Monastery 166

Military Yamen 171

House on Min River 179

Otter Fishing on Min River 181

Mount Omi Bridge 187

Summit of Mount Omi 192

Copper Idol, Sui Fu 196

Cormorants on the Cormorant River 198

Laowatan River 201

Wha Miao 206

Bridegroom--Funeral Pagoda 213

Temple of the God of Literature 221

Fellow-Travellers 226

Tomb of a Philosopher among Rice-fields 229

Tali Fu 235

Shan Woman 249

_Sepia Drawings_

Cemetery of Confucius 61

Old Examination Buildings 88

Great Wall 110

Chinese Graves 116

River-side Shrine 141

The Chef on the Yangtze 141

City Gate: Chengtu 160

Police Boatman: Min River 181

Signboard of Inn 181

Buddhist Monk beating Fish Gong while Chanting 189

Tiger Shrine 189

Our Military Escort 203

“Orphan Spirit” Shrine 203

Tower of Refuge 204

“Omi to fu” Shrine 204

Miao Woman 206

Upland Village 208

Uh Chai 208

Yünnan Hat 211

Lolo Woman 211

Village Screen Wall 233

Carrying-Chair 233

Suspension-Bridge 243

Bridge made of Creepers 244

THE FACE OF CHINA