Chapter VIII: Hankow to Ichang

I left Hankow, without seeing a gleam of sunshine upon it, by the deck-over-deck, American-built, stern-wheel steamer _Chang-wo_. She had some hundreds of Chinese and two China Inland missionaries on board below, and her very limited saloon accommodation was taken up by four Canadian missionaries returning to SZE CHUAN, and the inevitable baby. They had fled nearly a year before, after the destruction of their houses in the riots. I was greatly indebted to two of them. I had a cabin directly over the boiler. The floor was very hot, and even with the window open I could not get the temperature below 74°, and they gave me their cool room in exchange.

The captain was kind and genial. He let me tone unlimited photographic prints in the saloon, ignoring the dishes and buckets involved in the process, and the engineer provided an unlimited supply of condensed water, free both from Yangtze mud and from the alum used to precipitate it. But he had a unique affluence of bad language, which neither the presence of clergy nor women sufficed to check, and which was brought out with slow, thrilling, and emphatically damnatory deliberation on the many occasions on which we ran on shoals.

I had abundant occupation in writing, printing and toning photographs, learning a little from Mr. Endacott of the region for which I was finally bound, taking walks below past the Chinese cabins, where the inmates were reclining in the bliss of opium smoking, the faint, sickly smell of the drug drifting out at the open doors, or on the upper deck to watch the fleets of strange junks through which the _Chang-wo_ steamed, howling and bellowing. Lumbering, unhandy craft they look, but they are handled with consummate skill.

The Great River was at its lowest winter level, and its shores, so far as one could see them under these circumstances, were most monotonous, and then it was midwinter. We steamed for hours between high, grey mud-banks, ceaselessly eaten away by the rush of the current, gaining little beyond an idea of the vastness of the level country, the depth of the grey alluvium, and the extent of the commerce of which the Yangtze is the highway. To get deep water we were often close under the right bank, and had the _divertissement_ of being pelted with mud and with such names as “foreign devils” and “foreign dogs,” an amusement which one would have supposed would have palled upon the peasants in the years during which these steamers have been running.

Our progress was not rapid, owing to shoals and changes in the channel, and the _Chang-wo_ anchored at night. Then, during the day, there was the frequent grinding sound of running on gravel, or the thud of touching a bank, or the buzz of a whirlpool created by ourselves in steering clear of a junk. All day long resounded the melancholy note of the Chinese leadsman calling out the soundings, varied by the sharp “Hard a-port!” or “Hard a-starboard!” of a European officer as some peril presented itself, or the low and terrible maledictions of the captain on all and sundry, as far back as the builders of the ship. The grounding was exasperating, losing us two hours at times. Quick as thought at every touch on shoal or mud-bank down clattered the anchor, and various skilled operations followed, which invariably resulted successfully, but at one time the navigation was so intricate, and the water shoaled for such a long distance, that, after getting off a bank after two hours’ tedious work, the steam launch was lowered to sound ahead, and direct us by signal flags.

Still it was hard to get up any excitement over these mishaps, even though the captain enlarged on the risk of losing the wheel or the rudder. Very little diversified the monotony of the winter voyage, but when I returned in summer, and could look over the banks, a vast population and innumerable industries were to be seen.

Yo-chow, a fortified monastery on a high promontory, once a place of considerable domination, and Yo-chow Fu, a large city near the junction of the Tungting Lake with the Yangtze, are the chief features of the featurelessness. This lake, a vast but imperfectly known sheet of water, surrounded by towns and villages, is of very great importance to the trade of the rich HUNAN province.

The farther route lies among embanked watercourses, great flats of muddy land receiving alluvial accretions from each summer’s floods, and shallow meres with a wealth of wild fowl I never saw equalled, and abounding in fish, both fish and fowl being snared in great numbers by the nearly amphibious inhabitants, by many ingenious devices born of Chinese poverty.

Among the many varieties of boats are pairs of large _sampans_, lashed together, and at once kept apart and connected by platforms, on which reeds are piled to the height of a haystack, the lowest part of the centre of the load being recessed and shored up for a sleeping and cooking place. These reeds, which are a speciality of the Yangtze for 900 miles from its mouth, and attain a height of fifteen feet and over, are as invaluable to the people of this region as are the vast reed-beds of the Liao to those of Southern Manchuria, furnishing them with building, roofing, and fencing material, as well as with fuel. Quite a large part of the internal freighting business of this low-lying level is the transport of these reeds on sledges over the marshy ground, on four-wheeled wooden trucks, which might be called “trollies” if they had rails to run on, some dragged by men, and others by the quaint, appropriate water buffalo, as well as loaded on coupled boats.

In the late afternoon of the third day from Hankow we anchored in the rushing mid-stream of the Yangtze, abreast of the treaty port of Sha-shih (Sand Market), opened by the treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, and, as was fitting, first occupied by the Japanese. I was not prepossessed with the city either on the upward or downward journey. Communication with the shore is tedious, difficult, and not free from risk. Several of the boats which attempted to reach us were unable to “catch on,” and even a lighter, failing to make fast, was carried far astern and did not work her way back till the next morning.

At low water Wan-cheng Ti, the great dyke, averaging 150 feet in width at the bottom, and twenty-five at the top, twenty feet high on the river side, and forty on the land side, which follows the Yangtze for twenty-five miles to the west of Sha-shih and thirty to the east, effectually conceals the town from view, only a seven-storeyed pagoda and the curved roofs of temples and _yamens_ appearing above the heads of the crowds which throng the roadway on the dyke-top.

China must have been a greater country when this great public work was constructed than she is now, for this dyke where it protects Sha-shih is a noble, three-tiered, stone-faced construction, on the top of which are remnants of a stone balustrade; and broad, stately flights of stairs are let into the stonework at intervals, each tier of stairs being about twelve feet high. It must have been fully as impressive as the superb walls on the Chia-ling at Paoning Fu, which still remain a thing of grandeur and beauty.

Sha-shih is pre-eminently and abominably dirty; and on this fine embankment dirt is in the ascendant, and dirt and bad smells assail the traveller on landing. Much of the refuse of the crowded city at the back is thrown over the river wall, accumulating in heaps which at low water conceal half of it. Steep steps lead up these vile mounds, and appear to be preferred to the stone stairs covered with slippery, black ooze. Below the heaps lie from one to two thousand junks with crews on an average of ten men each, and frequently the junkman’s wife and family in addition, giving an average floating population of 10,000.

Beggars’ huts encroach on the top of the embankment; and when I write that hosts of gaunt, sore-eyed, mangy dogs, and black pigs each with a row of bristles standing up along his lean, curved back, and beggars, one mass of dirt and sores, are always routing and delving in the heaps, the reader will not be surprised that I did not find Sha-shih prepossessing. It has always had the reputation of being hostile to foreigners, which hostility expressed itself unpleasantly in a riot in May, 1898, when the China merchant’s, S. N. Co.’s premises ashore and afloat, the new buildings of the Imperial Customs, and the Japanese Consulate were destroyed. The three steamship agencies in 1898 practically withdrew their agencies from the port, the British Consulate was withdrawn, Japan has taken no steps towards occupying her concession, foreign trade and passenger traffic have fallen off materially, and so far the port must be pronounced a failure.

A noisy and dirty rabble follows a stranger; mud is thrown—and, as is the fashion of mud, some of it sticks—bad names are bandied about freely; the foreigner is conscious of a ferment which may or may not result in more active annoyance, and, after being nearly suffocated by the ill-mannered and malodorous crowd in a fruitless attempt to see the lions of the city, he retreats not reluctantly to his steamer, which, in my case, was detained by heavy fog until noon of the next day.

(_From a Chinese Drawing._)

But Sha-shih, though unprepossessing and unlikely to fulfil the expectations formed of it as a treaty port, is one of the most important cities on the Yangtze; nor is its importance a thing of yesterday. Two miles above it lies the _Fu_, or prefecture, of Ching-chou, of which it may be regarded as the trading suburb. All around are the remains of fortresses and cities, mounds, earthworks, and look-out terraces, ancient in the days when our fathers were painted savages, marking the sites of the strongholds and capital of the powerful kings of Ch’u in the early days of Chinese authentic history.

(_From a Chinese Drawing._)

Ching-chou Fu is grandly fortified, and is surrounded by a wide canal of great depth. It is the seat of a _taotai_, or intendant of a circuit, which includes Ichang, eighty miles off, and though not a provincial capital, is of such importance that it has a Manchu garrison of 12,000 men(?), the largest Manchu force south of Peking, the Manchu military colony numbering 40,000 souls. The whole organisation of this colony is military, and it is kept separate from the civil population. Otherwise it has no interest, except that the women have unbound feet and wear long outer dresses, and that the men look lazy and demoralised. Besides this large garrison there are river and lake police, and a small body of militia under the command of a provincial general, and a thousand HUNAN “braves” trained in the rudiments of drill under a brigade-general. “Braves” are fighting mobile troops, whose superior qualities command superior pay. They receive four or five taels a month, while the common provincial soldier only gets one tael fifty cents. Now, as formerly, Ching-chou is regarded as one of the most important strategical positions in China.

It has an estimated Chinese and Manchu population of 100,000, and Sha-shih an estimated population of 80,000, a temporary one averaging 8000, and a boating one (as mentioned before) of, at the very least, 10,000, nearly 200,000 in all. The distance to Ichang is 80 miles by land and 100 by water. To Hankow, with which the great trade of Sha-shih is done, it is 300 miles by water, and would be 135 by land, if there were land! No land carriage is possible, except in seasons of drought, much of that which poses as _terra firma_ on the maps being meres, relapsed agricultural lands, morasses, shallow lakes, fens, watercourses, and reed swamps, most productive wherever areas are drained and embanked.

Among the interesting features of Sha-shih are a ninth century seven-storeyed pagoda, with eight faces, each face recessed on each storey, and containing a stone image of Buddha, and a dark and foul staircase, leading to a remarkable view from the top, and the imposing halls of the trade guilds, of which I failed to see the superb interiors, owing to the clamour and pressure of the rabble. In Sha-shih, as everywhere else, these guildhalls serve the purposes of banqueting halls, temples, and even theatres at times. They number thirteen, named from the provinces or cities of which their members are natives, and each has its patron deity. There are several charitable institutions, including two orphanages, one of which receives 220 orphans annually, and boards them out until the age of sixteen.

Benevolence was considerably strained in the winter of 1896–97, when thousands of refugees flying from famine in SZE CHUAN received unwholesome and insanitary shelter in mat sheds outside Sha-shih, where a terrible and uninvestigated epidemic broke out, and was carried into the city and neighbourhood, so that during the spring and summer it was estimated that 17,000 perished in the city only. Nearly all the refugees, after being kept alive chiefly by the charitable, died, and were decently buried by those societies which in every Chinese city undertake this sacred duty for the bodies of strangers, and for those of the very poor. I am always glad to call attention to Chinese charities, for the continual reiteration of facts on the other side only tends to produce an unfair and one-sided impression of the Chinese character.

(_From a Chinese Drawing._)

Superstition had its say regarding this baleful epidemic, which unfortunately never came under skilled observation. It was attributed to a malignant black bird, of vast size, which was said to hover over the city. It had ten heads, but one had been cut off, and the severed neck bled profusely and continuously, and wherever the blood fell disease and death followed. A day was set apart for the propitiation of this malignant fowl, and fire crackers were burned before the door of every house.[21]

The fish market is an excellent, though an uncleanly one, nets, angling, cormorants, lines with hooks, and great frame nets lowered and raised by pulleys, all being employed. Sturgeon, weighing from 500 to 700 pounds, are caught off the port. There are no unusual articles of diet to be seen, except Japanese seaweed, which is largely consumed in the belief that it counteracts the bad effects of the sulphur fumes proceeding from coal fires!

The Roman Catholics and three Protestant missions hold property in the town, but mission work has to be conducted very cautiously owing to the strongly anti-foreign feeling. There are seventeen foreigners, including the Japanese consul, but not one foreign merchant, though two or three foreign firms have agencies.

Foreign articles, few of which find any place in the customs returns, are to be bought in the shops. Very many of them are Japanese, owing to the energy or, as our merchants call it, the peddling and huckstering instincts of the Japanese traders, who through their trained Chinese-speaking agents find out what the people want and supply it to them. The cotton gins largely used in the neighbourhood are of Japanese make, and cheap clocks, kerosene lamps, towels, handkerchiefs, cotton umbrellas, cheap hardware, soaps, fancy articles of all descriptions, and cotton goods are poured into Sha-shih by that alert empire. Among English goods are rugs, blankets, and preserves and tinned milk and fruits. Most of the dealers in “assorted notions” are Cantonese.

Cotton cloth, raw cotton, silk fabrics, and hides are the staple export of Sha-shih. There are few local industries besides the weaving of cotton. Pewter, “hubble bubbles,” household pewter ware, long bamboo pipes, not fashionable “down the river,” coarse silk twist for plaiting into the ends of queues, boiling salt out of old salt bags, a smoky and smelly process carried on owing to the monstrous price of Government salt, brick and tile making, and furniture-making, specially of carved and gilded bedsteads and cabinets, showy but somewhat trashy, I think exhaust the list. The annual export of raw cotton is estimated at 9,000,000 pounds. Enormous quantities of it arrive to be woven at Sha-shih into a strong, durable, white cloth, fifteen and twelve inches wide, which I saw all over SZE CHUAN, and of which at least 20,000,000 pounds are annually exported. Samples of this make and of English cottons were frequently shown to me by the women in SZE CHUAN villages, with a scornful laugh at the expense of the latter.

Sha-shih is called “The Manchester of China.” In it this comparatively indestructible cloth is graded, packed, and shipped away, the adjacent country being the greatest centre of weaving in the empire. There are 110 dealers in raw cotton in the city, and 114 shops deal in native cotton cloth, and there is a daily market for its sale in the early mornings. Silks, both plain and figured, are also produced in great quantities, and satin bed-covers, which are used all over China. Rich satins are also woven for altar cloths, bed and door hangings, and cushions.

Sha-shih was the first point on my journey at which I encountered the money difficulties which press so severely on the traveller in China. My broken silver was of little use, and my dollars of none, copper _cash_ and _cash_ notes forming the entire currency of the port. The merchants and shopkeepers calculate silver in Sha-shih taels, which vary from 6 to 11 per cent. from the standard Haikwan, Hankow, and Shanghai taels, and the exchange between _cash_ and silver varies daily. There are about 130 _cash_ shops in the town, nearly all of them issuing notes. Notes for 1000 _cash_ abound, mostly issued by small Manchu shops in Ching-chou, for which change can hardly be obtained in Ching-chou itself. The _cash_ shops issue notes for 1000, 5000, and 10,000 _cash_, but though those issued by the banks and pawnshops are current for thirty miles round, they are worthless at Ichang, as I found to my inconvenience. Each hundred _cash_ being strung separately on a wisp of straw or paper, and every string having to be counted over and examined for small or spurious _cash_, the purchase of 10,000, or about 23_s._ 3_d._, is a weighty matter in various senses, and is apt to take from two to three hours, including the time spent in bargaining about “the touch” of sycee silver procured at Hankow.

I have dwelt so long, albeit so superficially, on Sha-shih because it is the most important of the treaty ports opened since the war, and because nothing is known of it by the general reader. Certainly the _couleur de rose_ expectations of an outburst of foreign trade have not been realised, nor, I think, are likely to be, unless the methods of commerce on the Yangtze undergo a radical change. The total trade for 1898 was only £24,444 in value, against £47,509 in 1897, but these figures only apply to the exports and imports passing through the Imperial Maritime Customs. For Sha-shih has not only one, but several, “back doors” through which her enormous commerce is poured, the principal one being a canal to Hankow, called at its western end the Pien-Ho, and which is not only free from the risks of the river, but is from sixty to seventy miles shorter. Altogether several routes to Hankow are practicable, either wholly by canal and lake, or partly by road and partly by canal, the water route being available during the whole year.

The Chinese are rigid conservatives. Junks are always obtainable, and wait the convenience of their hirers, and their freight and passenger charges are much lower than those of the steamers. Certainly if I had not been hurried I should have preferred a junk! The canals pass through towns which offer facilities for both trading and dawdling, so that, although there are two _likin_ stations on the canal route to Hankow, the native trader finds that the junk has many advantages over the steamer. _Likin_ is charged on all goods landed at Sha-shih, and the Imperial Customs duty is, in fact, only an additional tax levied on goods conveyed by steamer. These inland routes are of the greatest commercial importance.

Besides the canal and lake routes to Hankow, the great delta between the Yangtze and the Han is spotted with lakes connected by waterways, and in other directions there are available roads connecting Sha-shih with important trading cities. Among these are the great southern highway from SZE CHUAN, and the great north road leading by the Han and over the mountains to the capital of SHENSI, from which mule carts and mule litters, conveyances hardly known in Central China, descend into the Yangtze plain.

All that region lies below the summer level of its rivers, and it is a problem on which no light is likely to be shed why a country so oddly circumstanced should have become a populous and powerful kingdom at a very early date, and why its chief city has continued to be one of the most important of military positions and of commercial centres in the Chinese Empire.

Returning to the river voyage, after passing Yungtze, the western mountains appeared for the first time. The scenery changed rapidly. The river narrowed; some of its promontories were boulder-strewn; low, wooded knolls appeared above pleasant agricultural country, green with young wheat; and hills of conglomerate and limestone replaced the grey alluvium through which we had been steaming for nearly 1000 miles. Although much detained by fogs, we reached the Tiger Teeth gorge, ten miles below Ichang, in the early afternoon of the fifth day from Hankow. This gorge, which hardly deserves so thrilling a name, is a channel two miles long and about 700 yards wide, in the easternmost of those ranges through which the Yangtze has forced itself on its way to create the Great Plain. This range, rising to a height of 2600 feet, is broken up into peaks, one of which is crowned by an inaccessible-looking Buddhist monastery, this building, a fine pagoda, and great masses of conglomerate being the only noteworthy features until we reached Ichang in the glorifying light of a late afternoon sun.