Across China on Foot THE RIVER MEKONG

The journey which I was about to undertake was the most memorable of my travels in China, with the exception of those in the unexplored Miao Lands; for I was to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the dreaded Salwen Valley. I had made up my mind that I would stay here for a night to see the effects of the climate, but postponed my sojourn intead to a later period, when I stayed two days, and went up the low-lying country towards the source of the river; I am, so far as I know, the only European who has ever traveled here. Not that my journeyings will convey any great benefit upon anyone but myself, as I had no instruments for surveying or taking accurate levels, and might not have been able to use them had I had them with me. However, I came in contact with Li-su, and saw in my two marches a good deal of new life, which only acts as an incentive to see more. My plan on the present occasion was to travel onwards by the following stages:--

Length Height of Stage Above Sea

1st day--Tali-shao 65 li. 7,200 ft. 2nd day--Yung-ch'ang-fu 75 li. 5,500 ft. 5th day--Fang-ma-ch'ang 90 li. 7,300 ft. 6th day--Ta-hao-ti 120 li. 8,200 ft. 7th day--Tengyueh 85 li. 5,370 ft.

On Friday, February 26th, 1909, I steamed up the muddy mouth of the Mekong to Saigon in Indo-China in a French mail steamer. To-day, February 3rd, 1910, I cross the same river many hundreds of miles from where it empties into the China Sea. I cross by a magnificent suspension bridge.

A cruel road, almost vertical and negotiated by a twining zigzag path, has brought me down, after infinite labor, from the mountains over 4,000 feet below my highest point reached yesterday, and I now stand in the middle of the bridge gazing at the silent green stream flowing between cliffs of wall-like steepness. I am resting, for I have to climb again immediately to over 8,000 feet. This bridge has a wooden base swinging on iron chains, and is connected with the cliffs by bulwarks of solid masonry. It is hard to believe that I am 4,000 feet above the mouth of the river. To my left, as I look down the torrent, there are tea-shops and a temple alongside a most decorative buttress on which the carving is elaborate. At the far end, just before entering the miniature tunnel branching out to a paved roadway leading upwards, my coolies are sitting in truly Asiatic style admiring huge Chinese characters hacked into the side of the natural rock, descriptive of the whole business, and under a sheltering roof are also two age-worn memorial tablets in gilt. My men's patriotic thermometer has risen almost to bursting-point, and in admiring the work of the ancients they feel that they have a legitimate excuse for a long delay.

At a temple called P'ing-p'o-t'ang we drank tea, and prepared ourselves for the worst climb experienced in our long overland tramp.

The Mekong is at this point just 4,000 feet above sea level, as has been said; the point in front of us, running up perpendicularly to a narrow pass in the mountains, leads on to Shui-chai , and on again to Tali-shao, itself 7,800 feet high, the mountains on which it occupies a ledge being much higher. For slipperiness and general hazards this road baffles description. It leads up step by step, but not regular steps, not even as regularity goes in China.

"There are two small arched bridges in the journey. On the first I sit down and gaze far away down to the shining river below, and must ascend again in the wake of my panting men.... Where the road is not natural rock, it is composed of huge fragments of stone in the rough state, smooth as the face of a mirror, haphazardly placed at such dangerous spots as to show that no idea of building was employed when the road was made. Sometimes one steps twenty inches from one stone to another, and were it not that the pathway is winding, although the turning and twisting makes unending toil, progress in the ascent would be impossible.... Mules are passing me--puffing, panting, perspiring. Poor brutes! One has fallen, and in rolling has dragged another with him, and there the twain lie motionless on those horrid stones while the exhausted muleteers raise their loads to allow them slowly to regain their feet. There are some hundreds of them now on the hill."

This description was made in shorthand notes in my notebook as I ascended. And I find again:--

"I have seen one or two places in Szech'wan like this, but the danger is incomparably less and the road infinitely superior. We pull and pant and puff up, up, up, around each bend, and my men can scarce go forward. Huge pieces of rock have fallen from the cliff, and well-nigh block the way, and just ahead a landslip has carried off part of our course. The road is indescribably difficult because it is so slippery and one can get no foothold. My pony, carrying nothing but the little flesh which bad food has enabled him to keep, has been down on his knees four times, and once he rolled so much that I thought that he must surely go over the ravine.... Rocks overhang me as I pass. If one should drop!... But one does not mind the toil when he looks upon his men. In the midst of their intense labor my men's squeals of songs echo through the mountains as the perspiration runs down their uncovered backs; they chaff each other and utmost good feeling prevails. Poor Shanks is nearly done, but still laughs loudly.... A natural pathway more difficult of progress I cannot conceive anywhere in the world; and yet this is a so-called paved road, the road over which all the trade of the western part of this great province, all the imports from Burma, are regularly carried. Should the road ever be discarded, that is if the railway ever comes over this route, only a long tunnel through the mountain would serve its purpose.... We have just sat down and fraternized with the man carrying the mails to Tali-fu, and now we are working steadily for the top, around corners where the breeze comes with delicious freshness. Here we are on a road now leading through a widening gorge to Shui-chai, and as I cross the narrow pass I see the river down below looking like a snake waiting for its prey."

Roads are needed far more than railways.

Being hungry, we sat down at Shui-chai to feed on rice at a place where a man minded the baby while the woman attended to the food. Over my head hung sausages--my men swore that they were sausages, although for my life I could see no resemblance to that article of food--things of 1 1/2 inches in circumference and from 12 to 60 inches long, doubled up and hung up for sale over a bamboo to dry and harden in the sun. Hams there were, and dried bacon, and dirty brown biscuits, and uninviting pickled cabbage. By the side of the table where I sat was a wooden pun of unwashed rice bowls, against which lay the filthy domestic dog.

Outside, the narrow street was lined to the farthest point of vantage by kindly people, curious to see their own feeding implements in the incapable hands of the barbarian from the Western lands, and the conversation waxed loud and excited in general hazards regarding my presence in their city.

Stenches were rife; they nearly choked one.

A little boy yelled out to his mother in complaint of the food he had been given by a feminine twelve-year-old, his sister. The mother immediately became furious beyond all control. She snatched a bamboo to belabor the girl, and in chasing her knocked over the pun of pots aforesaid. The place became a Bedlam. Men rose from their seats, and with their mouths full of rice expostulated in vainest mediation, waving their chopsticks in the air, and whilst the mother turned upon them in grossest abuse the daughter cleared out at the back of the premises. I left the irate parent brandishing the bamboo; her voice was heard beyond the town.

But I was not allowed to leave the town. All the intellect of the place had assembled in one of the shops, into which I was gently drawn by the coat sleeve by a good-natured, well-dressed humpback, and all of the men assembled began an examination as to who the dignitary was, his honorable age, the number of the wives, sons and daughters he possessed, with inevitable questioning into the concerns of his patriarchal forbears. Accordingly I once again searched the archives of my elastic memory, and there found all information readily accessible, so that in a few moments, by the aid of Bailer's Primer, I had explained that I was a stranger within their gates, wafted thither by circumstances extraordinarily auspicious, and had satisfied them concerning my parentage, birthplace, prospects and pursuits, with introspective anecdotal references to various deceased members of my family tree. I did not tell them the truth--that I was a pilgrim from a far country, footsore and travel-soiled, that I had been well-nigh poisoned by their bad cooking and blistered with their bug-bites!

I rose to go. Like automotons, everyone in the company rose with me. The humpback again caught me, this time by both hands, and warmly pressed me to stay and "uan" a little. "Great Brother," he ejaculated, "why journeyest thou wearisomely towards Yung-ch'ang? Tarry here." And he had pushed me back again into my chair, he had re-filled my teacup, and invited me to tell more tales of antiquarian relationship. And finally I was allowed to go. Greater hospitality could not have been shown me anywhere in the world.

The day had been hard going. We pursued our way unheedingly, as men knowing not whither we went; and at 4:00 p.m., fearing that we should not be able to make Ban-chiao, where we intended stopping, I decided to go no farther than Tali-shao. The evening was one of the happiest I spent in my journeys, although personal comfort was entirely lacking. The place is made up of just a few hovels; people were hostile, and turned a deaf ear to my men's entreaties for shelter. For very helplessness I laughed aloud. I screamed with laughter, and the folk gathered to see me almost in hysterics. They soon began to smile, then to laugh, and seeing the effect, I laughed still louder, and soon had the whole village with tears of laughter making furrows down their unwashed faces, laughing as a pack of hyenas. At last a kind old woman gave way to my boy's persuasions, beckoning us to follow her into a house. Here we found a young girl of about nine summers in charge. It was all rare fun. There was nothing to eat, and so the men went one here and another there buying supplies for the night. Another cleared out the room, and made it a little habitable. The bull-dog coolie cooked the rice, Shanks boiled eggs and cut up the pork into small slices, another fed the pony, and then we fed ourselves.

In the evening a wood fire was kindled in the corner near my bed, and we all sat round on the mud floor--stools there were none--to tell yarns. My confederates were out for a spree. We smoked and drank tea and yarned. Suddenly a stick would be thrust over my shoulder to the fire: it was merely a man's pipe going to the fire for a light. Chinese never use matches; it is a waste when there are so many fires about. If on the road a man wants to light his pipe, he walks into a home and gets it from the fire. No one minds. No notice is taken of the intrusion. Everybody is polite, and the man may not utter a word. At a wayside food-shop a man may go behind to where the cooking is being conducted, poke his pipe into the embers, and walk out pulling at it, all as naturally as if that man were in his own house. An Englishman would have a rough time of it if he had to go down on his hands and knees and pull away at a pipe from a fire on the floor.

No father, no mother, no elder brother had the little girl in charge. She was left without friends entirely, and a man must have been a hard man indeed were he to steel his heart against such a helpless little one. I called her to me, gave her a little present, and comforted her as she cried for the very knowledge that an Englishman would do a kind act to a little waif such as herself. She was in the act of giving back the money to me, when Lao Chang, with pleasant aptitude, interposed, explained that foreigners occasionally develop generous moods, and that she had better stop crying and lock the money away. She did this, but the poor little mite nearly broke her heart.

Ban-chiao, which we reached early the next morning, is a considerable town, where most of the people earn their livelihood at dyeing. Those who do not dye drink tea and pass rude remarks about itinerant magnates, such as the author. I passed over the once fine, rough-planked bridge at the end of the town.

In the evening we are at Yung-ch'ang. Here I saw for the first time in my life a man carrying a _cangue,_ and a horrible, sickening feeling seized me as I tramped through the densely-packed street and watched the poor fellow. The mob were evidently clamoring for his death, and were prepared to make sport of his torments. There is nothing more glorious to a brutal populace than the physical agony of a helpless fellow-creature, nothing which produces more mirth than the despair, the pain, the writhing of a miserable, condemned wretch.

Great drops of sweat bathed his brow, and as one, looked on one felt that he might pray that his hot and throbbing blood might rush in merciful full force to a vital center of his brain, so that he might fall into oblivion. The jeers and the mockery of a pitiless multitude seemed too awful, no matter what the man's crime had been.

Yung-ch'ang is as well known as any city in Far Western China. I stayed here for two days' rest, the only disturbing element being a wretch of a mother-in-law who made unbearable the life of her son's wife, a girl of about eighteen, who has probably by this time taken opium, if she has been able to get hold of it, and so ended a miserable existence.

On a return visit this mother-in-law, as soon as she caught sight of me, ran to fetch an empty tooth-powder tin, a small black safety pin, and two inches of lead pencil I had left behind me on the previous visit. I have made more than one visit to Yung-ch'ang, and the people have always treated me well.

Along the ten li of level plain from the city, on the road which led up again to the mountains, I counted-no less than 409 bullocks laden with nothing but firewood, and 744 mules and ponies carrying cotton yarn and other general imports coming from Burma. There was a stampede at the foot of the town, and quite against my own will, I assure the reader, I got mixed up in the affair as I stood watching the light and shade effects of the morning sun on the hill-sides. Buffaloes, with a crude hoop collar of wood around their coarse necks, dragged rough-hewn planks along the stone-paved roadway, the timber swerving dangerously from side to side as the heavy animals pursued their painful plodding. To the Chinese the buffalo is the safest of all quadrupeds, if we perhaps except the mule, which, if three legs give way, will save himself on the remaining one. But it is certainly the slowest. I am here reminded that when I was starting on this trip a journalistic friend of mine, who had spent some years in one of the coast ports, tried to dissuade me from coming, and cited the buffalo as the most treacherous animal to be met on the main road in China. He put it in this way:

"Well, old man, you have evidently made up your mind, but I would not take it on at any price. The buffaloes are terrors. They smell you even if they do not see you; they smell you miles off. It may end up by your being chased, and you will probably be gored to death."

The buffalo is the most peaceful animal I know in China. Miniature belfries were attached to the wooden frames on the backs of carrying oxen, and were it not for the huge tenor bell and its gong-like sound keeping the animal in motion, the slow pace would be slower still.

Turning suddenly and abruptly to the left, we commenced a cold journey over the mountains, although the sun was shining brightly. A goitrous man came to me and waxed eloquent about some uncontrollable pig which was dragging him all over the roadway as he vainly tried to get it to market. Some dozen small boys, with hatchets and scythes over their shoulders for the cutting of firewood they were looking for, laughed at me as I ploughed through the mud in my sandals. We had been going for three hours, and when, cold and damp, we got inside a cottage for tea, I found that we had covered only twenty li--so we were told by an old fogey who brushed up the floor with a piece of bamboo. He was dressed in what might have been termed undress, and was most vigorous in his condemnation of foreigners.

Leng-shui-ch'ang we passed at thirty-five li out, and just beyond the aneroid registered 7,000 feet; Yung-ch'ang Plain is 5,500 feet; Pu-piao Plain-is 4,500 feet. The range of hills dividing the two plains was bare, the clouds hung low, and the keen wind whistled in our faces and nipped our ears. Ten li from Pu-piao, on a barren upland overlooking the valley, a mere boy had established himself as tea provider for the traveler. A foreign kerosene tin placed on three stones was the general cistern for boiling water, which was dipped out and handed round in a slip of bamboo shaped like a mug with a stick to hold it by. Farther on, sugar-cane grew in a field to the left, and near by a man sat on his haunches on the ground feeding a sugar-grinding machine propelled by a buffalo, who patiently tramped round that small circle all day and every day.

Turning from this, I beheld one of the worst sights I have ever seen in China. Seven dogs were dragging a corpse from a coffin, barely covered with earth, which formed one of the grave mounds which skirt the road. No one was disturbed by the scene; it was not uncommon. But the foreigner suffered an agonizing sickness, for which his companions would have been at a loss to find any possible reason, and was relieved to reach Pu-piao.

Market was at its height. It was warm down here in the valley. The streets were packed with people, many of whom were pushed bodily into the piles of common foreign and native merchandise on sale on either side of the road. A clodhopper of a fellow, jostled by my escort, fell into a stall and broke the huge umbrella which formed a shelter for the vendor and his goods, and my boy was called upon to pay. Fifty cash fixed the matter. I walked into a crowded inn and made majestically for the extreme left-hand corner. Everybody wondered, and softly asked his neighbor what in the sacred name of Confucius had come upon them.

"See his boots! Look at his old hat! What a face! It is a monstrosity, and--"

But as I sat down the general of the establishment cruelly forced back the people, and screamingly yelled at the top of his voice that those who wanted to drink tea in the room must pay double rates. His unusual announcement was received with a low grunt of dissatisfaction, but no one left. Every table in the square apartment was soon filled with six or eight men, and the noise was terrific. Curiosity increased. The fun was, as the comic papers say, fast and furious; and despite the ill-favored pleasantries passed by my own men and the inquisitive tea-shop keeper-as to peculiarities of heredity in certain noisy members of the crowd, a riot seemed inevitable. I stationed my two soldiers in the narrow doorway to defend the only entrance and entertain the uninitiated with stories of their prowess with the rifle and of the weapon's deadliness. Boys climbed like monkeys to the overhead beams to get a glimpse of me as I fed, and incidentally shook dust into my food.

Everyone pushed to where there was standing room. Outside a rolling sea of yellow faces surmounted a mass of lively blue cotton, all eager for a look. The din was terrible. All very visibly annoyed were my men at the rudeness of their low-bred fellow countrymen, and especially surprised at the equanimity of Ding Daren in tolerating quietly their pointed and personal remarks. I became more and more the hero of the hour.

Turning to the crowd as I came out, I smiled serenely, and with a quiet wave of the hand pointed out in faultless English that the gulf between my own country and theirs was already wide enough, and that Great Britain might--did not say that she would, but might--widen it still more if they persisted in treating her subjects in China as monstrous specimens of the human race. This was rigorously corroborated by my two soldier-men, to whom I appealed, and a parting word on the ordinary politeness of Western nations to a greasy fellow , who felt my clothes with his dirty fingers, ended an interesting break in the day's monotony. In the street the crowd again was at my heels, and evinced more than comfortable curiosity in my straw sandals. They cost me thirty cash, equal to about a halfpenny in our coinage.

Since then I have paid other visits to Pu-piao. On one occasion in subsequent travel I had a public shave there. My arrival at the inn in the nick of time enabled me to buttonhole the barber who was picking up his traps to clear, and I had one of the best shaves I have ever had in my life, in one of the most uncomfortable positions I ever remember. My seat was a low, narrow form with no back or anything for my neck to rest upon, and afterwards I went through the primitive and painful massage process of being bumped all over the back. Between every four or five whacks the barber snapped his fingers and clapped his hands, and right glad was I when he had finished. The yard was full, even to the stable and cook-house alongside each other, the anger of a grizzly old dame, who smoked a reeking pipe and who had charge of the rice-and-cabbage depot, being eclipsed only by my infuriated barber as he gave cruel vent to his anger upon my aching back.

This reminds me of an uncomfortable shave I had some ten years ago in Trinidad, where a black man sat me on the trunk of a tree whilst he got behind and rested my head on one knee and got to work with an implement which might have made a decent putty knife, but was never meant to cut whiskers. However, in the case of the Chinese his knife was in fair condition, but he grunted a good deal over my four-days' growth.

This little story should not convey the impression that I am an advocate of the public shave in China, or anywhere else; but there are times when one is glad of it. I have been shaved by Chinese in many places; and whilst resident at Yün-nan-fu with a broken arm a man came regularly to me, his shave sometimes being delightful, and--sometimes not.

I had another rather amusing experience at Pu-piao about a month after this. A supplementary coolie had been engaged for me at Tengyueh at a somewhat bigger wage than my other men were getting, and this, known, of course, to them, added to the fact that he was not carrying the heaviest load, did not tend to produce unmarred brotherhood among them. The man had been told that he would go on to Tali-fu with me on my return trip, so that when I took the part of my men , in desiring to get rid of him, he certainly had some right on his side. The day before we reached Yung-ch'ang he was told that at that place he would not be required any longer; but he decided then and there to go no farther, and refused point-blank to carry when we were ready to start. I should have recompensed him fully, however, for his disappointment had he not made some detestable reference to my mother, in what Lao Chang assured me was not strictly parliamentary language. As soon as I learnt this--I was standing near the fellow--he somehow fell over, sprawling to the floor over my walnut folding chair, which snapped at the arm. It was my doing. The man said no more, picked up his loads, and was the first to arrive at Yung-ch'ang, so that a little force was not ineffective.

Indiscriminate use of force I do not advocate, however; I believe in the reverse, as a matter of fact. I rarely hit a man; but there have been occasions when, a man having refused to do what he has engaged to do, or in cases of downright insolence, a little push or a slight cut with my stick has brought about a capital feeling and gained for me immediate respect.

Fang-ma-ch'ang, off the main road, was our sleeping-place. Travelers rarely take this road. Gill took it, I believe, but Baber, Davies and other took the main road. This short road was more fatiguing than the main road would have been.

We again turned a dwelling-house upside down. People did not at first wish to take me in, so I pushed past the quarrelsome man in the doorway, took possession, and set to work to get what I wanted. Soon the people calmed down and gave all they could. My bed I spread near the door, and to catch a glimpse of me as I lay resting, the inhabitants, in much the same manner as people at home visit and revisit the cage of jungle-bred tigers at a menagerie, assembled and reassembled with considerable confusion. But I was beneath my curtains. So they came again, and when I ate my food by candlelight many human and tangible products of the past glared in at the doorway. After dark we all foregathered in the middle of the room and round the camp fire, the conversation taking a pleasant turn from ordinary things, such as the varying distances from place to place, how many basins of rice each man could eat, and other Chinese commonplaces, to things military. Everybody warmed to the subject. My military bodyguard were the chief speakers, and cleverly brought round the smoky fire, for the benefit of the thick-headed rustics who made up the fascinated audience, a modern battlefield, and made their description horrible enough.

One carefully brought out his gun, waving it overhead to add to the tragedy, as he weaved a powerful story of shell splinters, blood-filled trenches, common shot, men and horses out of which all life and virtue had been blown by gunpowder. The picture was drawn around the Chinese village, and in the dim glimmer each man's thought ran swiftly to his own homestead and the green fields and the hedgerows and dwellings all blown to atoms--left merely as a place of skulls. They spoke of great and horrible implements of modern warfare, invented, to their minds, by the devilry of the West. Each man chipped in with a little color, and the company broke up in fear of dreaming of the things of which they had heard, afraid to go to their straw to sleep.

As I lay in my draughty corner, my own mind turned to what the next day would bring, for I was to go down to the Valley of the Shadow of Death--the dreaded Salwen. I had read of it as a veritable death-trap.