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CHANCE AND CHANGE 
 IN CHINA 
 
HOUSE BOAT DAYS IN CHINA. 
 By J, O. P. Bland. Pop. Edn. 7/6 net. 
 
 ANNALS AND MEMOIRS OF THE 
 COURT OF PEKING. 
 
 By J. O. P. Bland and E. Backhouse. 
 16/- net. 
 
 CHINA UNDER THE EMPRESS 
 DOWAGER. 
 
 By J. O. P. Bland and E. Backhouse. 
 16/- net. Cheap Edn. 6/- net. 
 
 IN THE FORBIDDEN LAND: An 
 Account of a Journey in Tibet. 
 
 By A. H. Savage-Landor. Crn. 8vo. 
 
 Edn. 3/6 net. 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
CHANCE & CHANGE 
 IN CHINA 
 
 BY 
 
 A. S. ROE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "CHINA AS I SAW IT 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 JLONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
\> 
 
 
 • • • 
 
 LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1920 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER — OLD AND NEW 
 
 I. THE SEDUCTIVE CITY ..... 
 
 II. THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID. 
 
 III. THE BLACK SMOKE ..... 
 
 IV. A CHUNK OF RAW GINGER (siGN OF A BIRTH) 
 
 V. THE PHCENIXES IN CONCORD SING (a WEDDING AIR 
 
 VI. "a WHITE affair" (a FUNERAl) 
 
 VII. PRESENTS WET AND DRY .... 
 
 VIII. FLOWER LAMPS AND LEARNING HALLS . 
 
 IX. FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES . 
 
 X. THE DRAGON HOUSE ..... 
 
 XI. THE GEM-HILL CITY ..... 
 
 XII. THE SERPENT MONTH ..... 
 
 XIII. ON THE " RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY " 
 
 XIV. " FIRE MEDICINE "..... 
 XV. COMBED BY THE WIND AND WASHED BY THE 
 
 RAIN ........ 
 
 XVI. THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 
 
 XVII. IN THE STREET OF THE SHORT MILE GATE . 
 
 XVIII. THE PEPPER MONTH ..... 
 
 XIX. THE CONTEMPTIBLE ONE .... 
 
 XX. " STOOPING SOLDIERS " (bRIGANDS) 
 
 XXI. A PAINTED CAKE ..... 
 
 INDEX ....... 
 
 I 
 
 5 
 i6 
 
 37 
 46 
 
 55 
 
 65 
 
 11 
 
 93 
 106 
 
 126 
 
 135 
 149 
 
 159 
 
 180 
 
 193 
 202 
 225 
 236 
 248 
 257 
 270 
 
 279 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACINO 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A RIVER GUN BOAT .... Frofitispiece 
 
 NEAR THE " CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID " . . . l8 
 
 THE "city of the RIVER ORCHID " (STEPS ON WHICH 
 
 PUBLIC EXECUTIONS USED TO TAKE PLACe) . . 42 
 
 A PUBLIC BURNING OF CONFISCATED UTENSILS AND OPIUM 
 PIPES, AND PACKET AFTER PACKET OF THE DRUG 
 ITSELF. 42 
 
 MY PUPILS LU, WANG AND CHANG, PRESENTED ME WITH 
 
 THEIR PHOTOGRAPHS . . . . . . . II4 
 
 IN THE CENTRE SITS THE DESCENDANT OF CONFUCIUS . II4 
 
 REPUBLICAN TROOPS ON THE PURPLE MOUNTAIN (nANKING). 1 84 
 
 REPUBLICAN SOLDIERS MARCHING INTO NANKING . . I84 
 
 SONS OF NEW CHINA, IN CLOTHES LENT BY THE PHOTO- 
 GRAPHER ........ 224 
 
 THE "new woman" OF CHINA, DRESSED LIKE A MAN . 224 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF NEW CHINA, WITH TWO ARTIFICIAL DOGS, 
 
 IN SUPPOSED IMITATION OF WESTERN FASHION. . 224 
 
 A CITY TEMPLE ........ 244 
 
 REPUBLICAN SOLDIERS ....... 264 
 
, ? . . J . • , ' • •• • » ' 
 
 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN 
 CHINA 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 Old and New 
 
 As we stepped on shore at Hongkong, behold the 
 streets were gay with many coloured flags in honour of 
 the birth of the " People's Kingdom." A high official in 
 the Imperial service, hurrying with all speed to Peking, 
 laughed sceptically at the mere suggestion. " Who is 
 this Sun Yat Sen ? " he said, " many in the north have 
 not even heard his name." Our Imperial friend, however, 
 preferred not to go on shore at Hongkong. He stayed in 
 seclusion on board the steamer and took the precaution 
 to have his queue removed before our arrival in Shanghai. 
 
 Hongkong was certainly a little premature in its 
 rejoicings, but during those first momentous days of the 
 Chinese Republic some confusion arose in regard to 
 dates. I remember no fewer than three " New Year's 
 days," one according to the Western calendar, one by 
 order of the Nanking Government on January iSth, and 
 one on the old Chinese date at the beginning of February. 
 
 In Shanghai the new era showed itself in many ways. 
 Rents of houses, of every kind of lodging, rose by leaps 
 and bounds, for all the world had brought his wife and 
 his wealth to dwell in the safety of foreign Concessions 
 until the storm had blown past. 
 
.7 . CHANCE. AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 '^ w;.0:i.Qpeu. rpadways, outside Concession boundaries, 
 '• 'aiid'On'bits of -Jaiid hastily converted into parade grounds, 
 raw recruits in uniform and out of uniform were learning 
 the German goose step. In the wild enthusiasm of the 
 moment a corps of " Amazons " had offered their ser- 
 vices. The President, it was said, highly disapproved of 
 these women soldiers. How those amongst them, who 
 happened to possess bound feet, contrived anything in 
 the nature of a march, history does not relate. As a 
 matter of fact, except on various occasions when they 
 helped to guard the railway, it was doubtful if they were 
 ever engaged in active service, and after a short time 
 some returned to their homes, and others sought fresh 
 fields of activity. One member of the " Amazon " corps 
 — a distinctly capable young married woman — speedily 
 exchanged the sword for a text-book on Kindergartens, 
 and wisely decided that, as an inaugurator of a Froebel 
 Institute in her native city, she would be of more use to 
 her country than fighting as a soldier — a soldier moreover, 
 who, under present conditions in China, could not even 
 march to battle without a chaperon. 
 
 In those days one came across many quaint sartorial 
 effects in the streets of Shanghai. " Do but look at the 
 cut of the clothes," said Carlyle, " that Hght visible 
 result significant of a thousand things which are not 
 visible." The clothes of fashionable Chinese women 
 became tighter, pinched at the waist, and narrower at the 
 sleeves, in foolish imitation of supposed foreign style, and 
 in happy oblivion of the old tradition that tight clothing 
 indicated poverty. The men, provided they were good 
 republicans, docked their queues, and donned some kind 
 of a foreign hat or cap. In the matter of headgear — 
 
OLD AND NEW 3 
 
 cheap and trashy — Japan almost over-reached herself. 
 By the summer cheap hats were at a discount. The last 
 lot had succumbed to the first shower of rain, and the 
 next consignment was re-shipped to Japan as " not 
 wanted." Some enterprising Chinese tradesmen in the 
 interior decided to make their own hats, and one of an 
 ingenious turn of mind cut his brims and crowns out of 
 discarded oil tins, and covered them with native flannel. 
 One style of foreign hat was considered every bit as good 
 as another, and at Wuchang a Chinese officer engaged in 
 drilling his men had proudly added as a finishing touch 
 to his uniform, a tall silk " chimney-pot." A certain 
 Httle Chinese lady hit on the novel expedient of cutting 
 a large round hole in the crown of her new possession so 
 that her glossy black hair dressed on the top of her head, 
 might still show to advantage. 
 
 But while new China was buying foreign hats and 
 suits of Western clothing and organising military proces- 
 sions of a triumphal nature ; whilst youthful reformers 
 were hurriedly commencing to take to pieces the old wall 
 round the native city, and considering whether or not to 
 melt down the statue of Li Hung Chang into copper 
 cash — dark days of terror and bloodshed were over- 
 shadowing many a town and village in inland provinces. 
 There were armies galore — some Republican, some 
 Imperial, others consisting merely of robbers and 
 brigands. 
 
 Meanwhile the Imperial Government maintained 
 apparently a calm front, conferring degrees and publish- 
 ing edicts to the effect that so-and-so might wear the sable 
 fur jacket with lining, and that some other privileged 
 person might ride on horseback in the outer court. 
 
4 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The final descent from the " Dragon Throne " was 
 worthy of all the traditions of the " Middle Kingdom." 
 In no other country would it or could it have been 
 accomplished so gracefully. One might almost have 
 fancied that the idea of a Republic had partly emanated 
 from the royal mind. There was something uncanny 
 in the sweet good nature expressed in one of the last of 
 those Imperial Edicts : — 
 
 " Great distance separates the South from the North. 
 Each upholds its own against the other, and the result 
 is the stoppage of merchants in the road and the exposure 
 of scholars in the field, all because, should the form of 
 government be undecided so most of the people's lives 
 will be thrown out of gear. Now the majority of the 
 people of the whole nation are leaning towards republi- 
 canism. . . . How could we then persist in opposing the 
 desire and hatred of millions for the nobility and glory of 
 one name. . . . Let Yuan Shi Kai organise with full 
 powers a provisional government . . . and I and the 
 Emperor may retire into a leisured life and spend our 
 years pleasantly, enjoying courteous treatment from 
 the citizens and (here one detects a touch of irony) seeing 
 with our own eyes the completion of an ideal govern- 
 ment. Would this not be a grand feat ? Respect this." 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 The Seductive City 
 
 " Nanking," the " golden burial ground," as it used 
 to be called in days of long past splendour ; Nanking, 
 the " Seductive City," where a thousand years ago 
 pleasure-loving emperors built fairy palaces for court 
 favourites with fragrant walls impregnated with musk, 
 and pavements of " golden lilies " ; Nanking, the 
 southern capital in the days of the founder of the Ming 
 dynasty, but now for long ages a mere ruin of its former 
 self — awoke from her slumbers, and made an effort to 
 look young and spry. Was not the first President of the 
 new Republic actually living within her walls ? Sun Yat 
 Sen, the magnanimous, who " self effacing like ice in 
 water," was just now engaged in handing over the reins 
 of government to the hero of the north as quietly and 
 pleasantly as though it were merely a case of passing 
 the salt. 
 
 The Yamen had been swept and garnished in his 
 honour. The king of beasts painted out from its gates ; 
 the human parasites banished from the inner precincts. 
 In the city itself all buildings of any importance from 
 the temples downwards had been turned into barracks, 
 the idols either torn down to make more space for the 
 soldiers or left as part of the furniture of the mess- 
 room. When the President appeared in public an up-to- 
 date motor car with a trim Httle chauffeur in foreign 
 garb took the place of the sedan chairs and red umbrellas 
 and the official insignia of other days. 
 
6 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The city oozed with soldiers — 80,000 at the lowest 
 computation — soldiers in khaki uniforms of Western cut, 
 some of them thickly wadded with cotton wool, soldiers 
 shambling and dishevelled in grey and blue or even 
 magenta-red slashed with yellow. These last were the 
 trained bomb throwers and displayed the nature of their 
 caUing inscribed in full on a white band across the chest. 
 
 Within the city walls upon the grave-strewn hills, where 
 lay the bones of many of those who had perished in the 
 Taiping Rebellion half a century ago, these ready-made 
 warriors blew forth discordant blasts from newly-pur- 
 chased trumpets, morning, noon, and eve. In the narrow 
 roads between the vegetable fields they marched along 
 to the sound of vocal music ; in the busy streets they 
 mingled with the crowd, sometimes walking hand in 
 hand like affectionate school girls, sometimes carrying 
 their birds out for an airing or gently bearing their tea- 
 pots down the road for a fresh supply of hot water. They 
 occupied the tea houses, they lingered in the shops 
 appropriating oddments ; they tried on new uniforms 
 in public places, and at open doorways. They com- 
 mandeered rickshaws, slept peacefully through the 
 morning hours in the horse troughs at the railway 
 station, and did many other harmless and unexpected 
 things. 
 
 " We are paid tofight^^^ they said, and in times of peace 
 they claimed the privilege of doing whatever they 
 pleased. 
 
 Fighting seemed over for the nonce, but within the 
 walls of Nanking a gaping wound remained to tell the 
 tale of the passing of the city from the hands of the 
 Imperialists into those of the so-called Republicans. 
 
THE SEDUCTIVE CITY 7 
 
 The whole of the great Manchu city lay in ruins — a 
 desert of broken walls, grey and cold, of scraps of paved 
 courtyards and apertures that once had been doorways, 
 through which a melancholy vista opened out of suites 
 of ruined apartments. Nothing remained but crumbling 
 heaps of stones, shut in by crumbling walls — the crushed 
 habitations of a proud race that for 260 years and more 
 had lived as a privileged people idHng in the market 
 place whilst other folk worked. North, south, east and 
 west silent alley ways, roughly paved, led through this 
 graveyard of a city — past broken columns that had 
 once been pillars of palatial halls, past battered arch- 
 ways that had once spanned the gates of lordly mansions 
 — all gone now save for one touch of irony — the Spirit 
 Walls * — ^whitewashed and bare, inscribed with a mam- 
 moth character, meaning " Fuh " (happiness). These 
 stood petrified, as it were, like sentinels caught slumber- 
 ing, who had started up to find the gateway gone, which 
 alas, it was their duty to protect. 
 
 How had this appalling destruction come to pass ? 
 Partly, so said some, through the terrible explosion of the 
 gunpowder manufactory in the Imperial City on the raising 
 of the siege. The Republican Army arriving on the scene 
 soon after, put the finishing touches. It had been stipu- 
 lated that there should be no massacre of the Manchus, 
 so the soldiers set to work not to massacre but to destroy. 
 In the panic that followed some of the terrified refugees 
 sought refuge in suicide, others fled to the Tuh Tong 
 Yamen, and some — mostly young women and girls, had 
 mysteriously disappeared. 
 
 * An isolated wall built in front of houses to prevent the ingress of 
 demons. 
 
8 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The descendants of the Manchu garrisons, which in 
 the early days of Manchu rule were established in all the 
 provincial capitals, were divided into three classes — the 
 Djoh, the I and the Pin. The Djoh, being wealthy, had 
 in the majority of cases made good their escape before 
 the commencement of the siege. With true Oriental 
 lack of sympathy, however, there were instances of poor 
 relations left behind to shift for themselves as best they 
 could, and with them some 3,000 or so of their poorer 
 neighbours. 
 
 After the soldiers had had the first pickings, the 
 coolie population followed in their wake, and finally the 
 beggars gathered up the crumbs. In the end it was 
 hardly to be wondered at, that nothing portable remained 
 unappropriated. Fallen beams, doors, gateposts, every- 
 thing in the nature of woodwork were coveted prizes, for 
 the weather was cold just then, and fuel unusually dear. 
 
 No doubt the authorities at Nanking felt that they 
 could not safely ignore the existence of an army of home- 
 less Manchus within the city walls. Something must 
 assuredly be done, the question was how little would 
 suffice. The Tuh Tong Yamen must get rid of them 
 somehow, the sooner the better. Thus it came about 
 that here and there in the ruined city, a few houses only 
 partially destroyed were discovered. These were turned 
 into public refuges and a daily dole of rice apportioned to 
 all who gave in their names to the authorities. 
 
 Green and blue, the green of willow trees bursting 
 into leaf, the periwinkle blue of the ubiquitous calico 
 gown — ^grey stone walls with here and there a splash of 
 gory red — always remind me of the city of Nanking in 
 
THE SEDUCTIVE CITY 9 
 
 the spring time. Not indeed in the heart of the city, for 
 in those narrow streets there is no room left for willow- 
 trees, and even the blue calico gown was less in evidence 
 in the early days of the " People's Kingdom " than the 
 semi- Western uniforms of the soldiers. Within the walls 
 of Nanking, however, one may drive mile after mile 
 along streets, in which there are as many fields as 
 shops — along roads lined with trees and with the walls of 
 gardens — along lanes which creep in and out amongst 
 the vegetable fields, or grassy hills bulging with graves — 
 and some of the graves were especially odoriferous, for 
 they were made in a hurry after the fighting between 
 the Imperial troops and those of the new Republic. 
 
 Wherever one goes, soldiers of some sort are inevitable 
 — soldiers carrying boughs of peach blossom, soldiers 
 pushing along hand carts, heaped high with furniture, 
 soldiers riding rough unkempt ponies with bridles made 
 of rope, soldiers sauntering, soldiers lounging. No 
 wonder there are " flying words " that this regiment or 
 the other is contemplating mutiny ; that the men from 
 different provinces are at loggerheads, and that all are 
 dissatisfied because their pay is in arrears. 
 
 Some finance themselves by appropriating goods from 
 the shops, and the shopkeepers in the wealthiest part of 
 the city, where the silversmiths and silk merchants 
 congregate, had agreed with a certain stalwart company 
 of soldiers to pay them so much a month provided that 
 their shops were left undisturbed. A good many trades- 
 men, however, adopted a more economical plan, and 
 more than one of the big silk stores kept up, as it were, a 
 smiling exterior, but the wide open doors and the shop- 
 men behind the counter were only a ruse. There was 
 
16 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 nothing left on the shelves of any real value. Vegetable 
 sellers from the country were fortunate if, on the way 
 to market, the contents of their baskets were not com- 
 mandeered by the soldiers. They commandeered most 
 things, from the rickety rickshaws to the Httle train that 
 was intended to carry passengers from the railway 
 station four miles outside the city gates to the city — and 
 one day, in the exuberance of their spirits, they com- 
 mandeered the idols. 
 
 The southern troops were the leaders in this crusade 
 against idolatry. That was indeed a day of terror for 
 the priests who lurked behind the temple walls, and for the 
 nuns crouching in the nunneries. The people have at the 
 best but a low opinion of priests and nuns. 
 
 " Ten Buddhist nuns and nine are bad, 
 The odd one left is doubtless mad," 
 
 goes the adage, and that day over a hundred Taoist and 
 Buddhist shrines and temples in the city of Nanking were 
 shorn of their treasures. So sudden was the onslaught, 
 so unprepared were the priests, and so dumbfounded, 
 that not the slightest opposition was offered. The 
 soldiers strode in and out again, destroying as they went. 
 
 " Do your idols eat cake ? " they asked. " If they do, 
 well and good, if not, they are useless." 
 
 And as the idols, one and all, rejected the tempting 
 morsels, they were promptly hacked to pieces. 
 
 In front of our gates stood a humble one-storied house, 
 scrupulously neat and tidy and surrounded by a vegetable 
 plot, in which the lines of cabbage plants and so forth 
 were as symmetrical as the lines of a chessboard. Its 
 mistress, a dapper little woman in a flowing gown of pale 
 grey, was a Buddhist nun, and the house was called a 
 
THE SEDUCTIVE CITY ii 
 
 nunnery, although our friend lived there in solitary state, 
 save for the presence of a serving-woman and two small 
 acolytes. 
 
 On the day of terror, a handful of soldiers followed by 
 a crowd of riff-raff, forced open the front doors and dis- 
 appeared within. In a few short moments they were 
 back again bearing a ponderous " goddess of mercy " 
 of gilded wood, hacked and disfigured. Without more 
 ado they made a bonfire of " her " by the side of the 
 road, but she did not burn readily, and through the 
 next twenty-four hours or so smouldered odoriferously, 
 emitting a smell of singed cloth and burning paint. The 
 little nun took the matter very philosophically. We 
 called in to see her, wishing to buy a trophy, but there 
 was nothing left to buy — only heaps of rubbish, scraps 
 of gilded wood, incense sticks, candle grease and broken 
 oddments. 
 
 We supposed that her source of income had vanished 
 in the flames with her idol, that there would be no more 
 offerings of food or money — no dainty dishes for her 
 own consumption after the goddess had finished with 
 them, but inquiry elicited the fact that she had private 
 means of her own, to say nothing of a brother who, she 
 said, might now come and live with her, in which case 
 she would get on quite comfortably without the " goddess 
 of mercy." 
 
 The soldiers' fray with the idols led to more serious 
 events, and one night we were aroused from our slumbers 
 to find ourselves on the outside edge of a battle. A 
 certain section of the troops had broken out into open 
 rebellion as a protest against their long overdue pay. 
 Half through the night and on and off through the follow- 
 
12 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 ing day the firing continued. The rice shops, the money 
 shops — every shop of any importance in a particular 
 quarter of the city had been looted ; the streets were 
 littered with dead and dying. The men had lost all 
 control of themselves and fought like devils — no wonder, 
 for as the day broke they knew that the odds were 
 against them. They were far outnumbered by the 
 troops that had remained loyal, and to the captured no 
 mercy was shown. During that week 200 executions 
 took place, and baskets laden with bleeding human heads 
 were carried as a warning to others through the principal 
 streets of the city. 
 
 The hot weather comes on rapidly at Nanking, and on 
 sultry days the air was heavy with the peculiarly 
 obnoxious smells without which no Chinese city is com- 
 plete. The primitive methods by which material for 
 enriching the soil is collected in public at street corners 
 in almost every street of the city, was painfully in 
 evidence in the erstwhile southern capital. The old order 
 was changing in many ways, but not in the matter of 
 dirt. On the contrary, the dirt showed up more repel- 
 lently than ever side by side with Western innovations. 
 
 There were many quaint contrasts of the new and the 
 old in these days of transition. One would come across a 
 son of " New China " in immaculate European garb, 
 making a purchase in a shop that was fitted with plate 
 glass windows in foreign style and dressed with haber- 
 dashery and swords, with babies' bonnets and miHtary 
 caps, with looking-glasses and slate pencils. 
 
 The words " MiHtary dress of hat and clothing " were 
 written in large type in the English language over the 
 door, but the salesmen behind the counter had no desire 
 
THE SEDUCTIVE CITY 13 
 
 for uncomfortable European clothes, or indeed for any 
 clothes at all. Overcome by the sultriness of the weather 
 they had adopted their summer costume of nothing above 
 the waist and very Httle below, and in spite of their lack 
 of attire were glistening and streaming with moisture. 
 On one occasion we passed a member of the disbanded 
 Amazon Corps — a girl in masculine garb with hair cut 
 short Hke a boy, whilst a daughter of the old school, 
 sitting on the side of a well, looked after her wonderingly, 
 and then turned and deliberately expectorated into the 
 well water. Why not ? That there was anything 
 unclean in the act would never have occurred to her ! 
 Foreign hats were in great request, and in the street 
 some children, innocent of all other clothing, were 
 wearing as sole articles of attire, hats of plaited straw 
 and frilled silk, and were carrying fans I 
 
 The new era showed itself in many ways within the 
 Yamen gates. One noticed an unusual air of austerity 
 and a marked absence of the " skirts and ornaments " * 
 of other days. Moreover, foreign buildings contained the 
 Government offices, and a suburban villa and a bungalow, 
 occupied, the one by the chief himself and the other by 
 the second in command, were built in foreign style. We 
 found ourselves one afternoon as guests at the bungalow, 
 drinking, what was supposed to be foreign tea, in cups 
 half filled with condensed milk and lumps of sugar. 
 
 The house was furnished in Western mode, and 
 Chinese taste, still untrained in these matters, had decided 
 that a suite of hall furniture would be appropriate for the 
 reception room ; therefore a hat-stand with mirror and 
 coat pegs — all complete — occupied the place of honour. 
 
 • Women-kind. 
 
14 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The Yamen at Nanking boasts a garden of real Chinese 
 type, of artificial lakelets spanned by stone bridges 
 amongst miniature mountains tucked in between pigmy 
 forests. One grotesque " foreign " touch, however, had 
 lately been added in the shape of a glaringly white 
 " house-boat," furnished in foreign style, fitted with 
 electric light and, alas ! built upon a rock — significant this 
 of many other superficial imitations of Western customs 
 in these strange times. 
 
 In most provincial capitals the old examination cells 
 have disappeared, but in Nanking nearly 20,000 of them 
 remain. Looking down from the watch towers, built 
 every here and there in their midst, one seemed at first 
 sight to be perched above a brown-hued sea of " poultry 
 houses " — built in long rows, with narrow passages 
 between the rows, radiating from central alley-ways. 
 
 Each building measured six feet long, and there, in by- 
 gone times, as in a Hving grave, day in and day out, ill or 
 well, the candidates remained during the space of time 
 allotted for the examinations. Their food was passed in 
 through a hole, and when at last the ordeal was over 
 and the doors opened, it was sometimes found that more 
 than one had given up the contest and passed nolens 
 volens before the final tribunal. 
 
 The RepubHcan authorities were making good use of the 
 great examination halls situated at the far end of the 
 forest of cells. 
 
 They were crowded from wall to wall with a squeaHng, 
 screeching army of children — ^poor, miserable, angry, 
 unattractive morsels of humanity. A sharp-featured 
 woman here and there administered harmless though 
 undiscriminating blows with a bamboo rod. 
 
THE SEDUCTIVE CITY 15 
 
 Where had all these children come from ? What were 
 they doing here ? 
 
 The answer was unexpected. They were the purchases 
 of the soldiers from the south — bought at the rate of 2s. 
 a child, or even less, to take back to their homes with them 
 to turn into " tu-di " (apprentices) or for some other 
 useful purpose, but the Nanking authorities had decreed 
 otherwise. All children whose parents could no longer 
 be discovered, and one presumed this to be the general 
 rule, were to be trained for some useful trade in an 
 orphanage run by public funds. The " bear-garden " 
 was evidently the orphanage in embryo, but alas, by all 
 appearances, it was desperately in need of an organiser. 
 
\ 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The City of the River Orchid 
 
 Bamboos — nothing but bamboos, climbing the steep 
 hillside above us, clinging to the precipitous slope below 
 — ^low mountains all around clothed with bamboos from 
 base to summit, tiny valleys in the depth beneath almost 
 choked with the same green feathery trees. 
 
 " A bamboo a bamboo was to me and nothing more," 
 but to a son of Han a bamboo may mean any one of a 
 score or more of useful articles — ^from a delicious food to a 
 summer waistcoat — from a piece of furniture, or a rope 
 of great strength to a delicately constructed flea catcher ! 
 
 The house in which we were staying clung, as it were, 
 to a ledge of rock, a Httle below the summit of one of 
 those bamboo-covered hills, and the drooping boughs 
 were like giant ferns swaying before our windows. The 
 forest was not without flowers. Here and there, great 
 HHes of a luscious creamy white shone like stars in green 
 hollows. Year by year, however, the lilies grow more 
 scarce, for the Chinese cook the bulbs in syrup, and eat 
 them for dinner. 
 
 China with her undisciplined soldiers, her poHtical 
 parties, her aspirations and her tragedies, had been left 
 behind in the plains. The peasant folk Hving amongst 
 those bamboo forests pursued the even tenor of their way 
 untouched, and wholly undisturbed by the doings of the 
 outside world. 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 17 
 
 One hot scorching afternoon we slid rather than 
 walked down a steep, slippery track under the trees to a 
 little village lying in the shadows at the foot of the 
 mountain — a village innocent of shops, innocent even of 
 temples ; there had been one once they said, but now it 
 was occupied as a family dwelling. The houses, clustered 
 together on the banks of a rushing mountain stream, 
 were wreathed around by vegetation of an almost tropical 
 growth, broad-leaved Indian corn, spreading palms, 
 banana bushes, peach trees and pum^elos, and beyond 
 the gardens, fields of waving grain, and beyond the 
 fields, bamboo forests thicker than ever and a blue vista 
 of mountains. 
 
 The inhabitants had practically no need of shops. 
 There are apparently many of these " self-contained " 
 villages still left in China — ^where the people grow their 
 own cotton, weave their own cloth, keep their own silk- 
 worms and make their own silk, grow their own rape 
 seed for oil, their own rice, millet, corn, tea and tobacco, 
 build their houses with mud bricks dried in the sun, 
 make mats of palm leaves, and rain coats of palm fibre. 
 Usually the only two articles bought outside are paper 
 and salt. Even the children's toys, where indeed they 
 possess any, are of home manufacture. The Chinese boy 
 has an ingenious way of making his own butterfly net. 
 He slits a piece of bamboo for a few inches down the 
 middle, and inserts between the fork a slender bamboo 
 stick. This he plunges into bushes thick with cobwebs 
 in the early morning, and winds it round and round till 
 there is an elaborate network of glutinous cobweb 
 threads, and woe betide the insect or the butterfly that 
 comes into too close a contact with this sticky gossamer. 
 
1 8 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The men who gathered round to look with interest at 
 the outside kingdom folk, still wore their queues and 
 saw no reason to change the fashion of their forefathers, 
 for things political had no interest for them. That 
 China was now a ''Min Kueh" (People's Kingdom) and 
 not an Empire, they had heard, but the matter was 
 of no consequence. Besides, it was, as far as they 
 knew, one and the same thing. No soldiers had come 
 to trouble their peace — there were no robber armies to 
 upset the neighbourhood. Honest, straightforward people 
 they seemed, simple and unsophisticated. '' Those 
 who live amongst the mountains," say the Chinese, 
 " are virtuous." " Those who live by the water are 
 wise." 
 
 In the same province of Chekiang, not a year ago, a 
 robber chief, known by the name of " Spirits of Wine," 
 with his army of bandits had raided city after city, pos- 
 sessing himself of large sums of money, killing and 
 destroying. In orthodox Chinese style the authorities 
 had offered him official posts in order to keep him quiet, 
 but " Spirits of Wine," though originally only a stone- 
 mason by trade, is said to have declined any office less 
 important than that of a Viceroy, and as this was not 
 forthcoming, he preferred to remain a bandit. Of late, 
 however, fortune had turned against him — many of his 
 followers had been killed, others had deserted, and 
 " Spirits of Wine " for the time being had retired into 
 private life. 
 
 I was destined to become more intimately acquainted 
 with the province of Chekiang before the end of the 
 year, but not, I am glad to say, with the robber 
 chief. 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 19 
 
 The City of the River Orchid lies on the banks of the 
 Tsien-tang river some 200 miles from the coast. 
 
 Not far from the West Gate outside the city walls 
 there stands a house slightly higher than its neighbours 
 — flanked by two tall banana bushes — so small is one of 
 the upper windows, and so large the banana leaves that 
 one single leaf hangs like a green blind hiding the panes of 
 glass. The house is built on the river bank round three 
 sides of a little courtyard walled in by a high white wall ; 
 from the upper windows one looks across to the opposite 
 shore — backed by a ridge of blue hills. Sometimes on 
 sunny days the opposite shore is streaked and lined with a 
 vivid peacock blue. I used to wonder why the fields should 
 suddenly assume this brilliant tone of colour, but soon dis- 
 covered the cause to be cotton cloth — an acre of it or more, 
 freshly dyed and spread out in long lengths to dry. The 
 sun sets over that opposite shore flooding the water with 
 golden light, and turning the fields and the trees and the 
 mountains an inky black against a sky of crimson fire. 
 
 It was early in November when I first arrived. Along 
 the banks of the river the tallow trees were in all the glory 
 of their blood-red autumn foliage — ^in a day or two the 
 farmers would begin to gather the snow-white berries 
 to sell to the candle makers. The cottager who happens 
 to possess a single one of these tallow trees in his bit of 
 ground possesses an addition to his yearly income which 
 is not to be despised. The monster camphor trees are 
 still more valuable. They stand out here and there on 
 the river bank like forest giants with their glossy ever- 
 green foliage. 
 
 In front of the city the river is the third of a mile wide, 
 a busy scene at all hours of the day. The whitewashed 
 
20 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 houses peeping over the whitened city wall look down the 
 muddy bank to the heavy fringe of brown-hooded boats 
 along the water's edge — the permanent homes of many 
 a large family. The boats come and go, but some are 
 never away for long, and there are always others to 
 take their place. Here and there, stretching far out 
 beyond the shore, are the timber merchants' stock-in- 
 trade — rafts of logs tied together to be kept till wanted. 
 Further down, in a less reputable quarter, are the " flower 
 boats " spick and span — bright with pot plants and gaily 
 curtained windows clean and freshly painted, the dark 
 blots on so many a riverside city — and in passing, one 
 catches a glimpse of young girls in dainty silks and 
 jewellery, peeping forth at the world of which they know 
 so little, save in its saddest and bitterest forms. 
 
 Out where the current flows more swiftly, the fishing- 
 boats are coming in with their cormorants — so tame are 
 the birds, and so obedient that they answer to a call, and 
 so sharp-sighted that often a gesture from their master 
 is all sufficient. It is said that though hundreds of these 
 wise black birds may be fishing together at one spot, no 
 well-trained cormorant will mistake another boat for 
 its own. 
 
 Beyond the city the glistening waters of the river drop 
 out of sight at the foot of the mountains draped in their 
 beautiful autumnal robe, which made one think of the 
 violet and amethyst lights and shadows on the Yorkshire 
 moorland hills. 
 
 A warm welcome awaited me in the white house behind 
 the banana bushes. The clean sweet atmosphere of a 
 well-ordered English household in the midst of the horrible 
 filth of a Chinese city was unspeakably refreshing, after 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 21 
 
 the close quarters on my brown-hooded boat, where for 
 days the cold wind and the unsavoury crew had occupied 
 all but my own private domain (the corner on the bed 
 .quilts behind a screen of curtains). Every detail was a 
 pleasure from the open windows and the banana leaves to 
 the white cloth on the tea table and the fresh herbal scent 
 of a bowl of chrysanthemums. 
 
 The three ** Giao-si " (teacher sisters *) were all at home, 
 as it happened. 
 
 They were the only " outside kingdom folk " in the 
 place, not counting myself ; but then I was only the 
 " from Shanghai come guest," as the people said, and 
 was staying there to " hsi " (play). 
 
 The west gate of the city facing the river looks like the 
 entrance to a tunnel mounted high above the water's 
 edge on the top of two long flights of steps. The steps 
 are black with liquid mud, the walls of the tunnel are 
 black with age and dirt, but the city walls are white- 
 washed and " make a show " (more than that one cannot 
 expect in China) of being clean. The first flight and the 
 second are divided by a narrow terrace, and here not 
 more than a year ago the public executions used to take 
 place. In these days criminals condemned to death are 
 usually shot, and not decapitated, but were it not for 
 the dread of appearing in the next world without a head, 
 one cannot but think that the unlucky victims would 
 prefer the old method to the new — in order to avoid the 
 long drawn-out agony of acting as targets for soldiers 
 who cannot shoot straight. The black tunnel, like a 
 gateway, is a fitting entrance to a city in which the main 
 
 * Members of the China Inland Mission. 
 
22 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 streets are always coated with slimy mud even on the 
 dry days. Morning, noon and eve the water-carriers 
 come and go, and the water, splashing over from the 
 sides of their open buckets, mingles with the mud and 
 the refuse, which in these days of the " People's King- 
 dom " it is nobody's business to remove. Morning, 
 noon and eve carriers of other buckets — the contents of 
 which are destined for the fields — ^pass out of the gates 
 with their odoriferous burdens. They have paid just 
 about three farthings for their purchase. Not long ago 
 there was a talk of raising the price by another few cash, 
 but the bucket carriers went on strike, so the old rate of 
 payment is still in force. 
 
 The main streets are narrow, six feet wide at the out- 
 side, and the paving stones along the centre sometimes 
 rock ominously under one's weight. Through sundry 
 cracks and crevices one catches sight of the stagnant 
 water underneath of — the city drain ! The side streets 
 are usually residential streets, but the houses — chiding 
 behind high walls — are for the most part invisible, save 
 for an occasional inconspicuous doorway. Some of these 
 side streets are hardly more than three feet wide, and 
 lead the way by a series of " knight's moves," till, Hke 
 Alice in the Looking Glass Garden, one almost expects 
 to find oneself at the end, back again at the beginning. 
 
 The side streets are comparatively deserted, but the 
 main streets are so densely crowded that it is usually 
 necessary to walk in single file, and often the way is 
 blocked by some burden bearer, who chants forth a 
 warning note all along the street to clear the road before 
 him. " Take care, take care ; I am carrying oil 1 " — 
 knowing that no one will wilHngly rub up against an 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 23 
 
 oil tin and spoil a good gown. Sometimes the burden 
 will be something far less obnoxious, but, by the magic 
 word oil or fish, the crowd has moved aside, and the 
 bearer has gained his point. 
 
 Fortunately, there is no wheeled traffic, and only on 
 the rarest occasions does a rough-haired little pony 
 patter through the streets, scattering the pedestrians to 
 the right and left, with its rider of the John Gilpin type, 
 who seems to say, as he clatters by, " I came because 
 my horse would come ! " 
 
 The open-fronted shops on either side of the narrow 
 pavement encroach as much as they dare on the public 
 highway, and their privileges are many — some are 
 literally disgorging their goods on to the pavement — 
 and others, old clothes' shops for the most part, hang 
 forth an assortment of gaily-coloured garments over the 
 heads of the passers-by, much as an English inn hangs 
 forth a signboard. Now and again a portion of the 
 pavement is occupied by a street stall, and sometimes 
 by a " roulette table," at which clients, mostly children, 
 are gambling for oranges. A medicine stall, larger than 
 the rest, is only to be seen on fine days, as rain would 
 damage the valuable stock-in-trade — the bears' paws, 
 the tiger jaws, the human teeth, the dried centipedes, 
 the withered lizards, the petrified sea-horses. 
 
 The owner, an aged man with sunken eyes behind 
 great horn spectacles, not only sells medicine, but per- 
 forms operations for all the world to see. I passed him 
 one day busy cupping a patient, who sat in a state of 
 semi-nudity on the side of the pavement, placidly under- 
 going the prescribed treatment, and no one showed the 
 slightest interest. On another occasion I stopped to 
 
24 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 make a purchase of a dried centipede, about five inches 
 long ; price, the seventh part of a penny ! On the 
 bamboo hills, last summer, centipedes were the servants' 
 perquisites, not that any one wished to dispute their 
 claim, far from it. One day an enormous specimen was 
 borne carefully away from the verandah unkilled, and, 
 on inquiring the reason of this apparently gentle treat- 
 ment, the answer was that, in order to fetch a good price 
 in the medicine shops, the poor beast must be slowly 
 scorched to death ! One could not help wondering what 
 price was considered good when the final sum paid by the 
 customer amounted to the seventh part of a penny ! Had 
 my especial trophy been bought for use, and not for orna- 
 ment, one would have soaked it in hot water and applied 
 the lotion externally for a gathering or an abscess. The 
 lizards, so the old man said, were excellent remedies for 
 heart disease, the sea-horses most efficacious for wounds, 
 and the bears' paws good for dropsy. A few days later 
 the old doctor had forgotten all about the dropsy, and 
 muttered that bears' paws were sold for rheumatism. 
 
 In these days of the " People's Kingdom " police in 
 semi- Western uniforms and German military caps are on 
 duty in the streets. They carry loaded rifles with an air 
 of indifference and lounge in doorways in somnolent 
 attitudes. The weakest part of their attire lies in their 
 footgear ; leather shoes are seldom seen in the city, and 
 on a dark winter's afternoon I beheld walking down the 
 muddy street one of these armed policemen, whose shoes, 
 alas, were represented by a dainty pair of pale blue 
 bedroom slippers. Most reputable shops possess a shrine 
 to the god of wealth, and cautious proprietors see to it 
 that the shrine shall not be neglected by offering a feast of 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 25 
 
 pork on the 6th and the 1 5 th of the moon to all employees 
 who have performed daily worship without fail. 
 
 As the twilight hour approaches there rises a volume 
 of smoke from every house, rich or poor. The cooking 
 of the evening meal (shao ye fan) has commenced. Up 
 and down the darkening street one figure after another 
 comes to the entrance of the house or shop, as the case 
 may be, with a handful of lighted incense sticks. In the 
 shops this duty is relegated to the youngest apprentice. 
 He bows to heaven, and bows to earth three times over, 
 places the incense sticks before the threshold and departs. 
 
 The elegant phrasing and handsome lettering of the 
 mottos and scrolls is a great feature in all shops of any 
 pretensions in this literary land. There is an inner mean- 
 ing to some only understood by the initiated. " May 
 you have great joy and good business " is not a polite 
 wish to the passer-by, but a sign by which men may know 
 that the shopkeeper in question is a regular subscriber 
 to the beggars' guild. 
 
 " Neither young nor old cheated here," deceives 
 nobody, but the inscription " Truly not two prices " is 
 an outcome of contact with Western standards, and is 
 gradually being taken seriously. 
 
 Though this is nominally a city of the second rank, it 
 is of considerably more importance than the cities of the 
 first rank in the neighbourhood. The Tsien-tang river, 
 which divides at this point, brings with it much trade, and 
 though the principal industries of the place, the curing 
 of hams and the manufacture of tinfoil money for the 
 dead in the next world, do not sound especially lucrative, 
 the citizens are distinctly prosperous, the good wages 
 
26 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 and plentiful food have tempted many from other 
 provinces to settle in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Three days at the outside, down the river, brings one 
 to Hangchow, the provincial capital, and the Chekiang 
 railway, which " some day " is to run through the whole 
 province. Thence a short train journey lands one in 
 Shanghai, the hotbed of things foreign, and " nearly 
 the same as the outside kingdom man's own country." 
 No wonder then that the " City of the River Orchid " 
 shows traces of Western influence. 
 
 In the main streets one can count by the half-dozen, 
 shops of cheap foreign oddments varying from skeins of 
 Berlin wool, and pink and blue enamelled washing basins 
 to looking-glasses and Httle girls' hair combs. The latter 
 are much in favour just now with the boatmen and 
 others for keeping in order the long straight tresses of 
 coarse black hair, which have taken the place of the 
 shaven heads and the queue. 
 
 Foreign lamps are also much in request, and the 
 Standard Oil Company is doing a thriving trade. Shops 
 selling patent medicines are the most inviting of all, but 
 are seldom overburdened with customers. Our own 
 experience amongst these tidy well-filled shelves threw 
 some sidelights on the situation. 
 
 The enterprising young shopman was not slow to 
 embrace such an excellent opportunity of acquiring a 
 little first-hand knowledge of the drugs that he wished 
 to sell. One bottle after another was brought to the 
 counter with a request that we would graciously con- 
 descend to translate the labels, and give some directions 
 as to the value of the medicine and the approximate 
 quantity to be taken at one time. 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 27 
 
 Foreign hats for men and boys and babies, foreign 
 umbrellas, under garments — sold for outside wear — are 
 to be purchased in some of the up-to-date emporiums. 
 Queer travesties of Western fashions crop up at times in 
 these days of change, and in a city further south, one 
 young dandy is occasionally to be met in the streets 
 wearing a pair of French corsets by way of an outer 
 wrap ! 
 
 The busy thoroughfares in the " City of the River 
 Orchid " literally hum with industry — this arises from 
 the fact that in most cases the shop and the workshop 
 are one. The bamboo workers, the carpenters, the iron- 
 mongers, the coffin makers, the cotton wool carders are 
 all hard at work making their stock-in-trade before the 
 eyes of the passers-by. As to the food shops, that there 
 should be " no deception, ladies and gentlemen," the 
 cooking stoves have been pushed so far forward that 
 they are more than half way out on the narrow pavement. 
 Here, if he so wishes, the future purchaser may watch 
 the concoction of the savoury dish he intends to buy, from 
 start to finish. 
 
 There are other trades of a more peaceful nature. 
 
 The letter-writer sits at his table tracing beautifully- 
 formed characters with his rabbit-hair brush on trans- 
 parent paper for a customer who stands patiently waiting, 
 and who apparently has no concern with the contents 
 of the letter, which will be written in accordance with the 
 approved pattern of these things. Inside the darkened 
 precincts of a shrine, a fortune-teller has appropriated a 
 lucky site for his table of books and papers. The change 
 to the Gregorian calendar inaugurated by the Republican 
 Government must, we think, have somewhat disturbed 
 
28 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 his calculations. In the old days, for instance, an uneven 
 date was considered propitious, an even date equally 
 unpropitious. Should a death unfortunately take place 
 on the latter, the body must not be placed in the coffin 
 till the following day and so forth. On inquiry, however, 
 one fortune-teller assures us that the change has made 
 no difference at all. " You pay your money and take 
 your choice — either the new or the old." In the scroll 
 shops, artists sit at their work within arm's reach of the 
 passers-by — their paints enclosed in neat little card- 
 board boxes, their brushes bristling like the quills of a 
 porcupine, from a bamboo stand. 
 
 The artists themselves are mostly engaged in painting 
 portraits of the dead — painting even as the letter-writer 
 compiled his letters according to time-honoured rules. 
 Hence there is no attempt at a likeness — and, in all 
 probability both in dress and in features, the departed 
 relative of the family of Tang in the next lane is prac- 
 tically the same as that of the family of Ba who died two 
 hundred years ago. 
 
 As we walk through the streets, we have an oppor- 
 tunity of " seeing ourselves as others see us." 
 
 " Look there at those two foreigners ! " ejaculated an 
 old man. " They are as ugly as death." 
 
 " Their eyes are like snails 1 " said another, " and they 
 are wearing snakes on their hats " (the snakes were 
 twisted scarves). 
 
 " That hat," rejoined a neighbour, " is enough to 
 make any one ill with fright." 
 
 These, alas, were not empty words. It appears that 
 the child of the man who lives near the East Gate caught 
 sight of that innocent hat a day or two ago. She cried 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 29 
 
 with alarm, and would not be comforted and has been 
 down with fever ever since. 
 
 " Where do these foreigners put their rice," asked one, 
 surveying the waist line of our English tailor-mades. 
 " They are certainly not made the same way as we arc." 
 
 " They don't eat rice ! They eat beef." 
 
 " Beef ! How can they get beef in this city ! " 
 
 " Very true 1 " agreed the other, " But one thing is 
 certain, they do not eat rice, and their food costs them 
 more to buy than ours does ! " 
 
 In the " City of the River Orchid " it is a punishable 
 offence to kill a cow. Not only would the flesh of the 
 beast be confiscated by the police, but the offender 
 would probably be imprisoned and most certainly fined. 
 On one occasion by the gates of the police station we 
 came across a goodly supply of this forbidden meat, and 
 might for a moderate sum have purchased any quantity 
 we pleased from the police in charge, but a certain air of 
 antiquity about the already cut-up joints deterred us 
 from accepting the constable's smiling offer. There 
 were, however, ways by which beef could be bought 
 independently of all police stations. 
 
 At a large city a day's journey off by boat there lives 
 a colony of Mohammedans, who, by paying a slight 
 extra tax, earn the privilege of killing their own cattle — 
 and occasionally at a village not far away Mohammedan 
 beef appears in the market. 
 
 During a long spell of dry weather the consumption of 
 meat of any kind is often prohibited under penalty of a 
 heavy fine. In the neighbouring city on the occasion of a 
 long drought the city god was borne forth in state round the 
 streets, and the usual proclamation issued forbidding the 
 
30 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 eating of flesh till the coming of the rain. Two men, who 
 had worked themselves into a mad frenzy, headed the 
 procession, holding between them a great wooden fork 
 with which they rushed along blindly as though impelled 
 by some hidden force. The fork, they said, would divulge 
 to them the dwelling place of any who had had the 
 temerity to disobey the order, but the fork, as the foreign 
 teacher pointed out at the end of the day, was unrehable, 
 for had it not led them to the house of his neighbour, a 
 strict vegetarian, and passed by his own door where a 
 goodly joint reposed upon the dinner table. 
 
 On the lines probably of the old saying that " pro- 
 viding is'^pr eventing," every one carrying an umbrella on 
 these occasions will be punished. 
 
 One often hears even in inland China that " every- 
 thing " has doubled and trebled in price during the last 
 twenty years, but even so, the cost of living in this " City 
 of the River Orchid " is absurdly low. 
 
 The " outside kingdom folk " with their expensive 
 tastes for beef, soap, and furniture, and other luxuries, 
 are looked upon as wildly extravagant or extremely 
 wealthy. 
 
 Had one the digestion not of an ostrich but of a 
 Chinese — did one possess his unusual ideas of comfort, 
 his peculiarly insensitive olfactory organs and his im- 
 perviousness to disease, caused, so it is said, through 
 constant though unintentional inoculation of disease 
 germs — one could live very comfortably on the income of 
 Goldsmith's parson. 
 
 Six or seven pounds a year would cover the rent of a 
 family residence, three or four shillings a month would 
 pay the wages of a good cook, provided of course that 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 31 
 
 he were not required to " eat his own rice." For four- 
 pence or fivepence a day and his food one could even 
 secure the services of a house tailor. Rice, the staple 
 food, is about iJ. a pound, eggs run to six or seven a 
 penny, an oil-skin umbrella costs a few pence only, and a 
 pound of charcoal to burn in one's foot stove can be 
 bought for one halfpenny or very little more. 
 
 For the rest (in an orthodox Chinese household) a little 
 slave girl, or more than one, is purchased for a mere 
 pittance to help with the house work, and in poorer homes 
 there will probably be a " Sun Bride " — a mere child still, 
 for whom a small sum of money has also been paid, and 
 who is destined to become the wife of the son of the house. 
 
 These Chinese children grow up in an adult world. 
 
 If our Western children have too many toys, the 
 Chinese children have too few. In these days we do too 
 much possibly for our own small folk — making them less 
 and less inclined to help themselves — but in China the 
 fault is on the other side. The child must adapt himself 
 as best he can to the " grown up " people around him. 
 No " clouds of glory " hover over his early days. No one 
 takes any pains to hide from him the ugly side of life. 
 He soon gets to understand the hidden meaning of much 
 that goes on in the home and in the street, and to know 
 that things are never exactly what they seem to be. 
 
 The neighbour's cat, for instance, is not just a simple 
 cat, but a valuable possession costing possibly 700 cash 
 — and instead of tying it to a turtleshell as people usually 
 do to prevent it from escaping — they have rendered it 
 more or less stationary by the weight of a heavy dust pan 
 attached by a cord to its neck. 
 
 The snake and the cat grieved not at the death of 
 
32 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 Buddha, and therefore they are the only animals, say the 
 Japanese, that may not enter Paradise. 
 
 When Chinese cats die they are never buried, but 
 encoffined in an open basket, are hung out in some 
 exposed place, preferably from the top of the city wall as 
 food for the birds, not from any idea of giving the birds a 
 chance to pay back old scores, but merely to avoid calling 
 down the wrath of the earth gods, who would deeply 
 resent the burial of a cat underground. Cats are uncanny 
 creatures and when a death takes place in the household 
 a prudent Chinese family will send the house cat to a 
 neighbour's for the time being, or see that it is kept out of 
 mischief, for cats have been known, so say the super- 
 stitious, to jump on a corpse causing it to come to life 
 again — ^whether temporarily or permanently history does 
 not relate. 
 
 In the silkworm season, when rats are more than 
 usually dreaded, cats go up in value, and keepers of silk- 
 worms, who have no cat of their own, will probably 
 appropriate some one else's. Its owner is soon on its 
 track, but, instead of demanding its return, he will adopt 
 the more oriental way of standing within ear-shot of the 
 thief and all his neighbours, cursing lustily, which methods, 
 curiously enough, are usually crowned with success. 
 
 In this land, where nothing goes by its right name, 
 there are many ways by which allusions are made, to 
 which, luckily, we " foreigners " are often sublimely 
 unconscious. It would require one well versed in 
 Chinese ways to understand by the words " it is raining " 
 pronounced aloud on a perfectly fine day, that " foreign 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 33 
 
 devils " (foreigners) are passing by, the idea being that 
 when it rains devils are apt to come out into the open ; 
 hence the initiated reaHse at once the meaning con- 
 veyed, and no offence is given. 
 
 Should an antagonist wish to utter imprecations in 
 our hearing, he may possibly resort to the more poHte 
 method of sharpening a knife with great zeal as we pass, 
 signifying the pleasure it would give him to see one 
 decapitated or otherwise uncomfortably disposed of. 
 
 This is a land of signs and symbols, and a clenched 
 fist saves the trouble of saying the word that is always 
 best left unsaid — the word deaths the connection in 
 this case being that as one comes into the world with a 
 closed and empty hand even so does one finally leave it 
 again. 
 
 Seeing is believing, so hopes the man who has the 
 " wooden cats " for sale — ^in other words, the rat traps — 
 and in the sample specimen dangling from a hook a poor 
 terrified rat is crouching, miserably wincing at being 
 thus turned into a pubHc example. But this treatment 
 is kindness itself to that which is accorded occasionally 
 to the " house deer " — ^as rats are sometimes called — 
 and to nail a poor live captive with one paw to the wall 
 as a warning to its companions, is a custom that commends 
 itself to many an unimaginative son of Han. 
 
 A padoga on the summit of a low hill at the back of 
 the city controls its good luck. One gets another impres- 
 sion of these crowded streets when seen from this point 
 of view, and one could almost imagine that a monster 
 chessboard, with squares of black and white, some 
 chipped, some pushed out of gear, lay spread out by the 
 river side. 
 
34 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 Not far from the gates of the city temple, at the end of 
 one of the narrow walled streets in a fashionable resi- 
 dential quarter, there lives one of the wealthiest famihes 
 in the city — the family of Wang. The son and heir — a 
 sleepy youth with projecting eyes and heavy eyelids, 
 whose finger nails, a quarter of an inch long, were bor- 
 dered with black — ^had suddenly developed a wish to 
 acquire a knowledge of " foreign words." True, he had 
 never " read books " (t.^., studied) to much purpose, 
 had done little else but eat and sleep ; but in these days 
 of the new Republic, even the " gilded youths " of the 
 " City of the River Orchid " felt inspired to make an 
 effort of some kind to keep up with the times, and to be 
 able to speak this " fashionable " EngHsh language was, 
 at least, a big step in the right direction. 
 
 Wang's father was dead, and he was the only son, and 
 possessed, moreover, the doubtful blessing of two 
 mothers — ^his own mother and his stepmother. It was 
 said, however, that the two women, now that the " bone 
 of contention " in the shape of Wang senior had been 
 removed, Hved together in peace and harmony. They 
 were not the only women in the house either, the " mean 
 one of the inner apartments," young Wang's wife, made 
 up the trio, but she was often aihng, and of no great 
 account in the household, except as the mother of the 
 baby. 
 
 When the " outside kingdom folk " called at the house 
 they very naturally asked to see the Httle Wang, but 
 those in authority looked doubtfvd. He was dehcate, 
 the sight of us might be too great a shock. As a con- 
 cession the small personage was brought to the door of 
 the stuffy windowless chamber in which he was enclosed 
 
THE CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID 35 
 
 and shown to us from afar. On no account must the 
 visitors come near enough to frighten him, as then 
 assuredly he would burst out crying and lose one of his 
 precious souls. 
 
 The Chinese themselves are always careful never to 
 call a small child from one room into another, as popular 
 behef maintains that the demons, hearing his name, will 
 rush through the open door with evil intent. 
 
 My pupil, Wang, dressed handsomely in fur-Hned 
 brocade, appeared on the scene morning by morning 
 with a boy's Httle satchel under his arm, and two hand- 
 some rings of huge pearls and gigantic sapphires on his 
 fingers. With him came a young relative, a bright 
 open-faced youth of eighteen or so, called Lu, who, 
 anxious to follow supposed foreign fashions, had had 
 inscribed in EngHsh letters on a broad gold ring the two 
 words " Mr. Lu." 
 
 Young Wang and his friend paused every now and 
 then in their laborious reading of an EngHsh book for a 
 prolonged yawn. In China this is no breach of etiquette. 
 The yawns were harmless in comparison to my other 
 trial, which arose from the fact that both the young men 
 were afflicted with permanent colds in the head, and 
 were unaccustomed to such commonplace alleviations 
 as pocket handkerchiefs. 
 
 The 5,000 rules of etiquette have apparently nothing 
 to say on the subject. One could not but wish that 
 these wealthy youths had spent a Httle less money on 
 pearls and a trifle more on handkerchiefs. 
 
 After several weeks of somewhat halting progress 
 Wang and Lu ceased to come for some days. No 
 message of any kind was sent, no excuse made. At last 
 
36 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 a neighbour happened casually to remark that young 
 Lu had gone to his ancestral home five miles away to 
 celebrate the birth of his son, and there would be a wine 
 feast and other festivities in honour of the event. 
 
 So then my pupil was not a schoolboy, as I had fondly 
 supposed, but a married man of some years standing. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 The Black Smoke 
 
 Day by day for twelve months or more, those who 
 lived in the " River Street " watched Ba Giao Si as she 
 passed by on her way to and from the Yamen. Though 
 they must have grown accustomed to the sight, they still 
 looked after her with wonderment, and remarked on her 
 great ability, and on the strange doings at that place of 
 dark repute at which she paid such frequent visits. It 
 had for them that peculiar interest that we all feel 
 towards something with which sooner or later we our- 
 selves may become more intimately acquainted. 
 
 " Ai Ya," said the bamboo worker, '^ the buckwheat 
 seller was here this morning. He had just been to the 
 Yamen prison to sell cakes, and he tells me that two 
 more were caught yesterday and that one was Sing Fan 
 from the cloth maker's place." 
 
 " Sing Fan ! he must be worth several ' wan ' (tens of 
 thousands). They will want a big fine from him." 
 
 " He was eating the ' black smoke ' (smoking opium) 
 when they caught him. He has eaten it now for many 
 years." 
 
 " Many years ! I should think so. His age is not 
 light. He must be eighty or more." 
 
 " I have heard," said another, " from my cousin's son, 
 who is a policeman, that a new proclamation has been 
 sent from the capital, stating that at the beginning of 
 
38 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 the new year, all eaters of the black smoke, who per-* 
 sistently refuse to amend their evil ways, will be shot 
 dead like common criminals." 
 
 " These must be idle words." 
 
 " Alas 1 It is not so," said one who spoke with 
 authority. " I, with my own eyes, have seen the 
 proclamation. Those under forty will be shot, those over 
 forty will be deprived of their possessions and condemned 
 to a long term of imprisonment." 
 
 " Surely, then, it is better to go to the Yamen as thy 
 son's father-in-law has done, and stay for fourteen days, 
 eating the foreigner's medicine, which they say is so 
 good that it takes away all craving for the black 
 smoke." 
 
 " Buh tso, buh tso ! " (you are right, or as the Chinese 
 put it — you are not wrong). 
 
 " If one goes oneself, there is no fine. If one is caught 
 by the soldiers, the fine is heavy, and in any case one 
 must stay as a prisoner and eat the foreign medicine." 
 
 " I have heard," said the first speaker, " that Ba Giao 
 Si has a strange looking foreign needle which she drives 
 into one's flesh, and that she knows from the colour of 
 the blood which flows from the wound whether one's 
 words are true words." * 
 
 The Opium Refuge, as it is called — in reality a kind of 
 Chinese Marshalsea prison — occupies some ramshackle 
 buildings within the gates of the Yamen. The giant 
 figures of the two famous generals of the Tang dynasty, 
 painted in brilliant blues and reds on the outer doors, 
 
 • In doubtful cases a drop or two of the patient's blood dissolved in a solution 
 of apomorphine and alcohol will show the presence or absence of opium. 
 
THE BLACK SMOKE 39 
 
 •protect the place from evil. The picture of a squirming 
 dragon in green and white and blue over the inner doors 
 assures good luck. The inner court, squeezed in among 
 the low-roofed buildings with greasy walls, and windows 
 of torn paper, is Ba Giao Si's consulting room. The dingy- 
 rooms, with a four-post curtained bed in each, are, some of 
 them, occupied by sundry minor officials connected with 
 the opium work, and one has been turned temporarily 
 into a small dispensary, whilst the dingiest and darkest 
 of them all are assigned to " paying patients " — in other 
 words, men of means who have come on their own initia- 
 tive to break off the drug habit under the care of the 
 foreign doctor and her medical assistant, the worthy 
 Bao Djen. 
 
 At one of the tables a bespectacled, moon-faced man of 
 scholarly appearance sat writing. He looked after us a 
 little wistfully. 
 
 " He is a man who has taken a very good degree " said 
 Ba Giao Si. " He is in prison for debt, not on account of 
 opium smoking. He owes an immense sum. I forget 
 how many thousands of dollars." 
 
 I expressed surprise. 
 
 " Not that the debt is anything to do with him per- 
 sonally. It is his brother who should have been arrested, 
 but the brother cannot be found, so they have taken this 
 man instead who, of course, is perfectly innocent." 
 
 " But surely the brother " I began. 
 
 " Well it is said that even the brother is not wholly 
 responsible, but that the debt was really contracted some 
 two hundred years ago and has accumulated by degrees 
 to such immense proportions that the creditors have 
 resolved to go to law in the matter ! " 
 
40 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 Alas ! for the innocent victims of a misdeed committed 
 by an unknown ancestor some two hundred years ago ! 
 No wonder the poor bespectacled scholar looked depressed. 
 
 From the tiny paved courtyard, which was partly 
 occupied by washstands more or less in use, we passed 
 under a crumbling archway, and through a series of 
 tumbledown sheds, the walls of which were black with 
 grease and the floors brown with slime. One had to pick 
 one's way in the dim light. An old copper-like stove 
 presided over by the kitchen god — a little smouldering 
 charcoal and a few pots and pans — suggested an impro- 
 vised kitchen, which, alas, ended in a rubbish heap and 
 refuse indescribable. A door in the wall and a flight of 
 battered stone steps led down into the " Marshalsea " 
 prison. The main building was open on one side to the 
 outer air, or as much of the outer air that could be got 
 into a minute court the size of a small chicken-run closely 
 surrounded by buildings. 
 
 On those winter afternoons of our first visits the light 
 was dull, the air cold and raw, the mud floor glistened 
 with moisture. One or two opium patients, more 
 fortunate than the rest, carried a fire basket, one or two 
 were huddled up under their quilts on beds of straw. In 
 a niche of the stained and crumbhng wall stood a bearded 
 idol with black unseeing eyes, " gazing " into space. 
 The prison was crowded with men, young and old, 
 and three or four women. The latter were chaperoned 
 by the jailor's wife, a hard-featured little woman busily 
 engaged in culinary operations at a charcoal fire in a 
 corner of the " chicken-run." 
 
 They were not all prisoners these people, some were 
 relatives, some friends, who had come to " hsi " (play ! ). 
 
• THE BLACK SMOKE 41 
 
 The cake seller had also appeared on the scenes and was 
 doing a brisk trade. One or two savoury meals were in 
 progress, and, on the whole, in spite of the dirt, the dis- 
 comfort, the unspeakably dreary circumstances in which 
 they found themselves, a general air of satisfaction seemed 
 to prevail. 
 
 This invincible cheerfulness in such distressing sur- 
 roundings surely argues a defect of imaginative power. 
 
 One or two took another and more natural view of 
 the situation, amongst them the well-to-do octogenarian 
 from the cloth firm, standing there in his fur-hned gown 
 holding his long tobacco pipe in slender hands, the finger- 
 nails of which were nearly an inch in length, and grace- 
 fully curved ; but " money covers many sins," as the 
 Chinese proverb has it, and after a few days engaged in 
 " talking price " a satisfactory conclusion was arrived at 
 between the assessors of the fine and the assessed, and 
 Sing Fan was to be once again set at liberty. " He must 
 continue to eat the black smoke " he said, and Ba Giao Si 
 agreed that to give it up at such an advanced age would 
 assuredly cost him his life. Long experience had made 
 her an expert in these matters. During the last twenty 
 years many had been permanently cured under her treat- 
 ment, and during this present year over a thousand had 
 passed through her hands — including the " Marshalsea 
 prisoners " and a certain number of private patients in 
 an opium refuge of her own. The latter, by paying fees 
 of a few dollars, underwent the so-called Malay cure,* 
 and had the good fortune to escape many of the un- 
 
 • A preparation made from the branches and leaves of a species of combretum 
 grown in the Malay peninsula, which, when prepared and administered, accord- 
 ing to certain directions, usually effects a cure in fourteen days. 
 
42 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 pleasant complications from which few of those who 
 break off opium in the usual way are immune. 
 
 The Government authorities, not unnaturally, declined 
 the extra expense of the Malay treatment in the case of 
 the patients in the prison, the majority of whom had 
 been brought in by the poHce. 
 
 There was no doubt that in this part of the country, at 
 least, the authorities were in earnest in their efforts to 
 suppress the opium trade. All pipes, lamps, boiling pots, 
 all that belonged to an opium smoker's paraphernalia 
 were confiscated by the authorities. In the course of a 
 few hours every opium den along the river front was 
 done away with, and on the first month of the second 
 year of the " People's Kingdom," a public burning took 
 place, not only of confiscated utensils, but of packet 
 after packet of the drug itself. 
 
 Similar measures had been adopted in other places, but 
 rumour whispered that some of the opium burnt was only 
 brown sugar, just sufficiently " flavoured " to afford the 
 orthodox smell. 
 
 In the "City of the River Orchid,"* however, there were 
 to be no half-measures. On the sunny terrace in front of 
 the Government school, coolies had been coming and 
 going half the morning carrying material for the bonfire, 
 pipes ornamented with chased silver, inlaid with jade 
 and ivory and other costly luxuries of the eater of the 
 " foreign dirt " were to be turned into fuel, but more 
 valuable than all these things were the packages of 
 opium — ^hundreds, nay, possibly thousands of pounds' 
 worth. The " knower of affairs," as the official is called 
 in these republican days, lent his somewhat shabby 
 
 * Province of Chekiang. 
 
THE '" CITY OF THE RIVER ORCHID." (sTEPS ON WHICH PUBLIC EXECUTIONS 
 USED TO TAKE PLACE.) 
 
 A PUBLIC BURNING OF CONFISCATED UTENSILS AND OPIUM PIPES. AND PACKET 
 AFTER PACKET OF THE DRUG ITSELf. 
 
THE BLACK SMOKE 43 
 
 presence to the scenes. In old times he would have 
 arrived in state in his official chair with his many bearers, 
 his Yamen runners in scarlet silk and black velvet, the 
 red umbrella borne aloft and other official insignia, but 
 these days are over (for the nonce). Shorn of his gay 
 trappings the " knower of affairs " wore a foreign felt 
 hat, like any ordinary citizen, and the plainest of Chinese 
 gowns, for silk is tabooed just now. He covered with an 
 air of haste the consciousness of his own lack of dignity 
 and the difference which these things make in the eyes of 
 the masses, who hardly realise, as yet, that " officials are 
 officials for a' that." 
 
 Finally the signal was given to set the fire alight. 
 Already the mass of fuel had been drenched in paraffin, 
 and in an instant the flames sprang up higher and higher, 
 scorching the white face of the " spirit wall " in the 
 background. 
 
 The people gazing with bovine expression fell back 
 because of the sparks and the fierce heat. They looked 
 neither glad nor sorry. These were momentous days, 
 for China was rising slowly with her massive strength to 
 fight against a curse of long years standing. 
 
 Meanwhile the people kept their thoughts to them- 
 selves or passed on their way smiling. Could it be as 
 some were not slow to whisper, that not a few of these 
 worthy citizens, apparently so obedient and amenable 
 were still the rulers of the situation. The Yamen captives 
 were by no means representative of the opium smokers 
 of the city. Some of the worst offenders, being rich and 
 influential, could more easily escape detection, or, as a 
 last resource, silence detectives. 
 
 Our strangely cheerful prisoners had doubtless methods 
 
44 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 of alleviation of which we knew nothing. Now and again 
 some ill-laid scheme leaked out. Sticks of sugar cane 
 were discovered which had been scooped out and filled 
 with opium ; hollow bamboo poles of sedan chairs had 
 been stuffed with the forbidden drug, and even the ears of 
 pigs had been utilised as receptacles. 
 
 The other day a new kind of pill was offered for sale in 
 the prison, the ingredients of which consisted of soot, 
 yellow ochre, buckwheat flour, salicylate of soda and 
 Buddha's fingers (a species of lemon, valued for its scent), 
 not that one could expect much from such an unpromising 
 mixture. 
 
 Last week a new proclamation appeared on the city 
 walls, issued by an official in connection with the " Opium 
 Suppression Bureau," advising all men to take warning 
 by the " terrible fate " of India. 
 
 " The Indians," so ran the document, " did not do 
 anything but cultivate opium. Some smoked it, some 
 dealt in it, all apparently living a dreamy fool's Hfe, until 
 the British invaded and destroyed their country without 
 their feehng the blow. Don't you think it a pity ? See 
 the red-turbaned policemen in Shanghai, they are among 
 their best class people, so they have been chosen to come 
 here and do the slaves' work. The rest stay in India and 
 endure tyrannical treatment from the British, being even 
 worse treated than hogs and dogs. ... If you do not 
 mend your ways, I, your brother, can love you no longer, 
 and endure you no longer ; the only alternative will be 
 to send for a strong military force to arrest and punish 
 you to the utmost extent of the law " — and so forth. The 
 " brother " was evidently much in earnest, but even the 
 worthy " Bao Djen " laughed at his description of India. 
 
THE BLACK SMOKE 45 
 
 Bao Djen had risen from the rank of a domestic servant 
 to that of a useful dispenser and medical assistant. There 
 are many of the same ilk in China to-day, young men of 
 undoubted ability but few educational advantages, who, 
 alas, are seldom content to remain in a subordinate 
 position, but with the conceit and the courage of ignorance 
 set up as full-blown " foreign " doctors in places where 
 there are none to dispute their claim, and for a time at 
 least make a fat Hving with the " golden thanks " (the 
 doctor's fees) that come their way. The patients, fortu- 
 nately, are not easily killed, and can drink with impunity 
 a mixture made up of castor oil, quinine, sulphuric acid 
 and eye lotion — a favourite prescription of one of these 
 self-made doctors. 
 
 Bao Djen, however, much looked up to at the Opium 
 Prison, is beginning to have a great opinion of his own 
 powers. 
 
 Ba Giao Si pointed out to him the other day that long 
 finger nails, supposed to indicate immunity from hard 
 work, were, in these enlightened times, both ridiculous 
 and insanitary, whereupon Bao Djen gave a superior 
 smile and made answer : — " We doctors find them 
 exceedingly convenient," and forthwith used his longest 
 for measuring out a dose of quinine. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A Chunk of Raw Ginger 
 
 Just round the corner of the tiny lane three feet wide 
 at the back of our house, Hves the second son of the 
 family of Tang. He has taken a literary degree and 
 " wears good clothes and eats a basin of good rice " (is 
 well off). He is, moreover, the happy husband of two 
 wives, who, marvellous to relate, live together in perfect 
 amity, and now, at last, he has become the proud father 
 of a " pearl in the palm " (a son). Thanks greatly to 
 Ba Giao Si's skill and kindness this new arrival seems 
 likely to live and thrive, whereas for many years now, 
 with the exception of one girl, who, being a girl, hardly 
 counted, the baby Tang's have carried out word for word 
 the old French saying : 
 
 " On entre, on crie et c'est la vie, 
 On crie, on sort et c'est la mort." 
 
 The happiest person in the house at the birth of the child 
 is wife number one, who by the way is getting on in 
 years and is not the baby's mother. Some seven or eight 
 years ago father Tang, in despair of ever having a boy 
 of his own, purchased some one else's, Deh En by name, 
 and was bringing him up as the son and heir of the house, 
 but even Deh En, who was of course too young to fully 
 appreciate the situation, reflected in his smiling face the 
 satisfaction of the rest of the household, and assisted in 
 the hanging up of the chunk of raw ginger over the main 
 
A CHUNK OF RAW GINGER 47 
 
 entrance in token of a birth in the family. The Tang 
 house, Hke many other houses of the well-to-do, showed 
 few signs of prosperity. That " order is heaven's first 
 law " is a truth very imperfectly understood in China, 
 and one is often appalled at the dirt, the accumulation 
 of rubbish, and the ill-regulated light and air of these 
 Chinese homes. The guest hall where we sat in state was 
 open to all the winds of heaven, the mud floor was very 
 little warmer than the street outside, and not much 
 cleaner. A brown hen of inquiring nature was prying 
 about for a lost crumb, and dust lay thickly on all the 
 lower limbs of chairs and tables. Sayings from the 
 classics inscribed on red paper and pasted on the walls 
 gave the only touch of colour. There were no cosy corners, 
 no armchairs, no possibility of a fire. The elderly wife 
 rested her pinched feet on a wicker basket filled with 
 smouldering charcoal. She seemed in high spirits, and 
 chuckled contentedly over her rival's child, calling it all 
 the pet names she could think of, such as " little louse " 
 and " tiny dog." 
 
 In the darkened room round the corner the mother was 
 " doing well " on a tonic of walnuts and brown sugar. 
 Outside in the guest hall there was too much air — ^in the 
 bedroom there was too little — and hardly any light at all, 
 for windows in an outside wall of a bedroom are, of all 
 things, unlucky. If there should happen to be one, care 
 must be taken to keep it closed and covered, otherwise 
 the demons would rush in and try their best to destroy 
 a boy baby, though in all probability would pay no 
 attention to a girl. 
 
 Very httle air indeed could get through to the occupant 
 of the bed, which was heavily curtained round with blue 
 
48 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 hangings. It was a handsome bedstead with a canopy 
 of wood richly carved and gilded, and absorbing one entire 
 end of the room. Round the walls dark wood cupboards 
 and piles of red lacquer boxes, bundles, baskets, pots and 
 crocks and rubbish of all descriptions left little of the 
 floor space unoccupied. 
 
 Master Tang was still young enough to display the 
 " racial mark " to advantage — a black bruise near the 
 end of the spine — traces, say the ignorant, of a recent 
 chastisement administered by the goddess in the other 
 world " to speed the parting guest." It is to be seen on 
 almost every Chinese baby in the first days after birth. 
 Baby, however, in those first weeks of his existence is 
 seldom, if ever, bathed, and scarcely ever on view except 
 in full dress. One marvels that his delicate skin is not 
 rubbed red and raw by the coarse garments — adult 
 clothes in miniature — in which he is clad. A long dark 
 skirt is added to this weird costume, which is turned up 
 over the feet and tied round the tiny mite much as one 
 would wrap a parcel in paper. 
 
 A foster mother (the luxury of the well-to-do in China) 
 had been procured for the new arrival, a rosy-cheeked, 
 young woman with bright " boot button " eyes. On one 
 occasion, having been sent with her charge to ask medical 
 advice of Ba Giao Si, she sat ruminating in bovine fashion 
 while the " teacher sister " held the busily screaming 
 baby. It was, therefore, somewhat unexpected when, 
 at the moment of leave taking, the phlegmatic creature, 
 despite the fact that the baby was safely back again in 
 her arms, turned hastily caUing eagerly to the Httle one 
 to follow, for, alas, one of his souls had escaped with the 
 falling tears ! 
 
A CHUNK OF RAW GINGER 49 
 
 Those who have been unfortunate in the rearing of a 
 family, or whose baby may happen to be weakly, look 
 round amongst the neighbours for a strong mother of 
 healthy boys, who will be asked to adopt the child as her 
 " dry son." This implies no responsibility on the part of 
 the adopted mother. It is hoped, however, that as she 
 is evidently a person " born under a lucky star " a share 
 of the good health enjoyed by her own children may fall 
 to the lot of the child whom she has consented to look 
 upon as her " dry son," although she may have little or 
 nothing to do with him from one year's end to the other 1 
 
 Whilst the Tang family rejoiced over their good 
 fortune, the wife of the prosperous owner of the bamboo 
 shop, at the corner of the big street, bewailed her ill luck, 
 weeping sadly as she caressed her new-born baby, for it 
 was a girl, and there were two already, and this one she 
 knew she would not be allowed to keep. The Po-Po 
 (mother-in-law) had pronounced its doom without a 
 moment's hesitation. They would not kill the child, no, 
 but just let it die, and a hundred cash (about 2^d.) to a 
 beggar would settle the rest. There need be no more 
 expense, no more trouble, and the young mother could 
 bestir herself again and make herself useful in the house. 
 Had she given birth to a son, well then, of course, a little 
 care and rest would have been necessary, but as matters 
 stood, it was absurd on the face of it to lie in bed and 
 pretend to be ill. 
 
 Baby, fortunately for itself, did not take long to die, 
 and wrapped in an old bit of matting the bundle was 
 consigned to one of the " Flowery ones " — a member of 
 the loathsome army of beggars — creatures with matted 
 filtli clogged hair, covered with sores and dirt, who share 
 
so CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 with the dogs the privileges of scavengers in a Chinese 
 city. 
 
 The price agreed had been a hundred cash and the 
 place of burial suggested, the " Kuh Tong Tah " (the 
 tower of withered babes), but the " Kuh Tong Tah " 
 to the beggar's knowledge was inconveniently full just 
 now, the very opening through which the bundles were 
 thrust was more than half blocked up with tiny limbs. 
 Besides, the tower meant half a mile's walk or more 
 across the fields. It would be less trouble and quite as 
 efficacious to put his burden down on the bit of grave- 
 strewn land outside the city wall, and give that high 
 falsetto cry recognised by Chinese dogs as an indication 
 that a scavenger is needed. Even if any one saw him the 
 matter was of too common an occurrence to signify. The 
 " respectable " woman who lived near the city gate 
 through which the beggar would pass had openly 
 admitted that she herself had had eleven children — all 
 girls — and out of them all, ten were not " permitted to 
 live." 
 
 There is still another way of disposing of unwanted 
 offspring. Unless one desires, however, to proclaim the 
 matter on the housetops, it necessitates an expedition 
 after dark through the labyrinth of black greasy lanes 
 in the neighbourhood of the Yamen. Just inside an open 
 doorway there stands both day and night a hooded 
 basket, furnished with a few handfuls of straw, in other 
 words the public cradle of a foundling hospital. As we 
 passed that way the other day we saw the gleanings from 
 the basket cradle, spread out on a quilt, like miniature 
 mummies enveloped in shapeless wrappings. The two 
 wee babies were weirdly still and silent as though they 
 
A CHUNK OF RAW GINGER 51 
 
 realised that by some unlucky chance they had made a 
 bad start in life. The caretaker and his wife and a large 
 assortment of friends and relations appeared to use the 
 ** Nourish the Children Hall " as a kind of social club, 
 but work was slack just now. Last week there had been 
 eleven waifs, now there were only two. The plump young 
 woman, who nursed them each in turn, assured us that 
 she had also had charge of the eleven. Their absence 
 from the scene suggested gruesome possibihties, but 
 we were mistaken. Girl babies * had been much in 
 demand of late, some to be turned into slaves, and some 
 into embryo brides. Not only can these valuable assets 
 be obtained, free of charge at the foundling hospital, but 
 the wealthy citizens, who support the place financially, 
 make a small allowance to cover present expenses. 
 
 An important moment in the lives of all well-brought- 
 up babies, during these enlightened times in the **City 
 of the River Orchid," is the day of vaccination. The 
 " heavenly flower disease " is especially dreaded in the 
 second moon, and there is no season of the year when 
 the country-side is entirely free from the scourge. 
 
 Those who can obtain the services of the foreign 
 doctor for the " sowing of the foreign pox " as they 
 call it, consider themselves lucky. Not only is the 
 foreigner's skill greater, but it costs less than that of 
 their own countrymen, who, moreover, have an expensive 
 custom of charging an extra fee should the child be a boy. 
 
 One bright wintry afternoon we trudged forth to a 
 village nestling amongst the trees at the foot of the hills 
 where thirteen small patients were waiting to be vacci- 
 nated. 
 
 • The foundlings are almost inyariably girls. 
 
52 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The tiny serpentine paths, often little more than mud 
 ridges, wriggled round the vegetable fields instead of 
 across, in order to avoid the straight lines patronised by 
 evil spirits. 
 
 In the guest hall of a prosperous farm-house we sat 
 down to wait until preparations for the momentous 
 occasion had been made, for no Chinese baby, of any 
 standing, may be vaccinated, unless first attired in the 
 most costly garments of its baby wardrobe — the brightest 
 coloured silk and velvet, the richest embroidery, satin 
 bibs weighed down with embroidered bats and other lucky 
 emblems — silken hats embellished by brass idols and 
 tinkling bells, by tigers' faces worked in silk, and other 
 preservatives from danger. 
 
 The farmer's wife had evidently not expected her 
 foreign guests. Other visitors had arrived before U8 — 
 three middle-aged women who, with the youthful son 
 of the house, a mere boy of twelve or fourteen, sat round 
 the centre table, deeply engrossed in a game of cards. As 
 one watched the flimsy slips of paper, very thin and very 
 narrow, fluttering from the dealer's hand (a single pack 
 contains 150) one realised the likeness that they still bear 
 to the leaves of trees, of which the first playing 
 cards ever known in China (and possibly in the world) 
 are said to have consisted. 
 
 Though the gains and losses paid in copper cash (about 
 40 = id.) were of no large amount, our farm-house 
 players were as intent on the game as any Monte Carlo 
 gamblers, and seemed quite oblivious to our presence in 
 the room. 
 
 We'sat and sipped our green tea and partook of hard- 
 boiled eggs and melon seeds, and still no sign of the 
 
A CHUNK OF RAW GINGER 53 
 
 thirteen small patients. They had been sent for, they 
 assured us, and would soon be here. The winter's after- 
 noon, however, was drawing in — ^we should be benighted 
 unless we started back before long, but at this point an 
 invitation arrived to go and drink tea and partake of 
 " little heart " (confectionery) at another house in the 
 village, where it seemed the babies in their gala clothes 
 were assembled. 
 
 Two out of the thirteen certainly were there, dressed 
 in pink and scarlet, magenta, purple and blue and 
 unadorned by idols and tigers, for the parents having 
 " eaten the Christian religion " had lost their fear of 
 demons. 
 
 " Where are the others ? " we inquired. We had come 
 all this way by especial request. Why this long delay ? 
 
 The mystery leaked out at last ! The date was an 
 even date — the day was unlucky. A baby vaccinated on 
 an even date would surely die ! 
 
 Ba Giao Si's medical reputation was great in the 
 " City of the River Orchid " — so great that even the idol 
 in a neighbouring temple was supposed to have recom- 
 mended her services ! A patient suffering from an 
 internal disease who had tried one after another of the 
 native " medicine men " turned at last to the oracle in 
 the temple for advice. The consultation resulted in a slip 
 of paper on which the two words were inscribed : " North 
 East." Starting off eagerly, though somewhat wonder- 
 ingly, in that direction the sick man came in with a friend 
 who solved the mystery. " North East ! " he said, 
 " that can be no other than Ba Giao Si's house. Her 
 skill is great. If you go there one evening, you are well 
 
54 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 that same evening. If you go there in the morning, you 
 are well that same morning." 
 
 " Medicine cures the man who is not fated to die," say 
 the Chinese. They are great lovers of medicine of all kinds, 
 and though westerners recoil from some of the ingredients 
 of native prescriptions, the strange efficacy of some, at 
 least, is admitted without a doubt. The brains of a baby, 
 for instance, baked slowly and carefully in mud have been 
 known to cure an obstinate form of skin disease. Abbe 
 Hue mentions a cure for deafness, derived from a plant 
 that grows in the north of China, which restored the 
 power of hearing to a patient whose case had been pro- 
 nounced hopeless by " the doctors of four nationaHtics." 
 
 Whether earth worms, rolled in honey and swallowed 
 aHve are really of any use in stomach disorders one would 
 almost doubt, though they might serve indeed to bring 
 matters to a crisis and thereby accelerate recovery. " I 
 have no more of the mixture you had before," said the 
 foreign doctor to a wishful patient. 
 
 " That is of no importance ! " came the answer. 
 " What I want now is some life-saving medicine." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Phcenixes in Concord Sing.* 
 
 It was a " four coat " cold day, as the Chinese say. We 
 had ridden twenty " li " (nearly seven miles) in our sedan 
 chairs, along the narrow paved paths through intermin- 
 able fields of vegetables and fields of wheat, now and 
 again passing a clump of white walled houses hedged 
 around by the glossy-leafed camphor trees, and on, once 
 more into the open country in the direction of the hills. 
 There were few people about, and no sign of any festivity, 
 but we had arrived, it seemed, at our destination. A turn 
 in the path brought us within sight of the house, a farm- 
 house, large and substantial, surrounded by the usual 
 bit of untidy " no man's land " which it never appears to 
 be anybody's business to keep in order. 
 
 So cold and comfortless was the guest hall with its 
 floor of hardened mud, and unclosed doors and draughty 
 walls that the outer air was warm in comparison. We 
 were, however, destined to spend the day in a still chillier 
 abode. Our hostess, the bridegroom's mother, requested 
 us to go up higher to the bridal chamber, a spacious 
 apartment of an attic-like nature divided by frail parti- 
 tions into bedrooms and store cupboards. Even a corner 
 of the bridal chamber had been utilised as a receptacle 
 for a stack of empty corn cobs stored away for fuel. A 
 handsome four-post bedstead, carved and gilded, hung 
 
 • A wedding air. 
 
56 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 with dark blue curtains, occupied almost the centre of 
 the room, fortunately hiding the corn cobs from view, not 
 that a Chinese housewife would consider useful things of 
 that kind in any way out of place. 
 
 In other particulars, the room was comfortably fur- 
 nished according to approved ideas — a carved and gilt 
 cupboard to match the bed, a dressing chest of dark 
 polished wood, a mirror in a black frame inlaid with 
 mother-of-pearl, and a goodly array of scarlet lacquered 
 boxes, new and shining, containing probably the greater 
 part of the bride's trousseau. 
 
 We sat in state at a large table with our tea cups in 
 front of us, face to face with two silken clad and much 
 embarrassed bridesmaids, awaiting the arrival of the bride. 
 Above the bed curtains a tiny looking-glass for the 
 scaring of demons, and a sprig of cypress and an iris leaf 
 had been attached, the latter symbolic of good luck, the 
 former of long life. 
 
 A deafening cannonade of fire crackers announced the 
 approach of the " Flowery Chair." Peeping from the tiny 
 bedroom windows, each window was just large enough 
 to admit of one adult head and no more, we watched the 
 little procession advancing. The chair closely shrouded 
 in scarlet hangings, richly embroidered with flowers and 
 tigers and other lucky symbols, was preceded by small 
 boys carrying lighted lanterns bobbing at the ends of 
 poles — these were to guide the bride's spirit through the 
 dark night to her new home, the idea being that our day 
 is the spirits' night and vice versa. 
 
 The crowd gathered round, but the invisible occupant 
 of the chair must be taken from her scarlet box away 
 from the public gaze. Our first vision of her was of a 
 
THE PHCENIXES IN CONCORD SING 57 
 
 stiff " wooden " doll-like figure, enveloped in drapery, 
 being borne up the stairs to the bridal chamber in the 
 arms of a male relative of the bridegroom — (none of the 
 girl's own relations are present on these occasions). 
 
 Having deposited his immobile burden on the edge of 
 the bed, he slowly removed the scarlet cloth that covered 
 her head with two sticks of sugar cane, which he after- 
 wards deposited on the top of the bed-canopy, allowing 
 the scarlet cloth to dangle from the projecting ends, a 
 symbol this of conjugal feUcity. 
 
 At this juncture the " woman of luck " (mistress of 
 ceremony) took command of the situation, her chief 
 qualification being that her husband was still Hving and 
 her male children well and strong. 
 
 While the bride washed her face and donned her wed- 
 ding garments, the bridesmaids sat like wax figures 
 showing as little interest in the proceedings as the bride 
 herself. The " woman of luck " saw to the hair dressing, 
 and artificial tresses were deftly wound into the girl's 
 own long hair, and the whole twisted tightly into a big 
 ball at the back of the head and " trussed " with golden 
 skewers. With an expression of boredom, she rubbed 
 white powder into her face till she looked more like a 
 ghost than a bride, but rouge is contrary to etiquette at 
 a wedding, and all the colour is concentrated in the 
 clothes — the " Phoenix " crown and the crimson robes, 
 the silk skirt of many coloured stripes, the tunic of 
 brilHant scarlet silk adorned by a flapping collar of blue 
 and black, magenta and gold, and embroidered with bats 
 signifying joy, with butterflies representing happiness, 
 with peaches that mean longevity, and peonies that 
 stand for wealth. The whole costume was fitly sur- 
 
S8 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 mounted by the Phoenix crown, an ungainly erection of 
 golden tinsel sparkling with artificial rubies and sapphires, 
 turquoises, pearls and other gems. A fringe of blue 
 beads veiled the ghostly face, and rose-pink paper flowers 
 filled in the cavity at the back of the crown. As the 
 Chinese proverb has it : " Three-tenths is beauty, seven- 
 tenths is dress." 
 
 Though neither the bride nor the bridegroom were 
 Christians, the grandfather and the mother had both, as 
 the saying goes, " eaten the Christian religion," and had 
 especially requested that a marriage service should be 
 held. 
 
 The little bride, therefore, attired in her finery and 
 followed by her companions hobbled down the staircase 
 with her bound feet and took her place by the side of her 
 youthful and stony-faced bridegroom. 
 
 After the final ceremony of the two wine cups, sipped 
 by first the one and then the other, the " unloving " pair, 
 who had never seen each other before, ascended the 
 staircase followed by the " woman of luck " and her 
 husband (who by the way are called " the happy couple "). 
 They sat Hke two Dutch dolls on the edge of the bridal 
 bed, paying no attention either to each other or any one 
 else. A Chinese bride is compared to a dove, not because 
 of her gentleness, but on account of her quietness and 
 stupidity. We seized this seemingly propitious moment 
 to offer our congratulations, taking care to address our- 
 selves exclusively to the bridegroom, as the bride must on 
 no account be included. The correct wish on these occa- 
 sions is that the newly-married pair may be able to 
 embrace both grandchildren and great grandchildren, 
 but one should be careful not to look at the bridegroom 
 
THE PHOENIXES IN CONCORD SING 59 
 
 while speaking, as this would mean appropriating his 
 answering salute as especially intended for oneself ! 
 One more ceremony must be observed before the hero of 
 the day can effect his escape from the bridal chamber— 
 the ceremony of " poached eggs in syrup." The bride 
 merely looked at hers, but the bridegroom gulped his 
 down much as one gulps down a dose of medicine, and 
 without more ado, he disappeared just as a frightened 
 rabbit might bolt into its hole. The feast was now the 
 order of the day. 
 
 Downstairs four tables (eight pairs of chopsticks to 
 each table) had been prepared for the thirty-two male 
 guests. Upstairs in the bridal chamber one table was 
 sufficient for the rest of the party, and the bride herself 
 must taste no food that day except surreptitiously. 
 It was a long drawn-out penance that wedding feast in 
 the chilly upper room on that cold winter's day. 
 
 One course followed another, from dumplings stuffed 
 with garlic and swimming in fishy gravy to dishes of 
 sugared pork fat and bowls of dried fish the size of large 
 pins which, alas, we mistook for shredded bamboo till the 
 putrid flavour of the first cautious mouthful dispelled the 
 delusion. "It is always well to have something in the 
 mouth " goes the saying, and monkey nuts and melon 
 seeds filled in the intervals between the courses, but the 
 former were uncooked and less appetising than usual 
 owing to the superstition that cooked monkey nuts (from 
 a play on the Chinese words) offered at a marriage feast 
 would mean still-born offspring ; the vermicelli was in 
 strips several feet long suggesting the idea of long life to 
 the married pair, and the rolls of steamed bread had been 
 decorated with lumps of red, the festive colour. " Work 
 
6o CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 may be hastened," says the proverb, " but not food." 
 The feast would continue on and off for three days. 
 Surely we would stop and "hsi" (play). Could we not, 
 at least, stay till the next day ? 
 
 At last, however, having sat patiently for some hours, 
 and seeing no signs of a natural end to the repast, we 
 forced our way out amidst loud protestations, and made 
 our farewells. 
 
 The white-faced bride still sat with bowed head and 
 drooping mouth, looking as though some great sorrow 
 had cast its shadow over her life. 
 
 In this same province of Chekiang, a wedding of a very 
 different character took place not long ago. 
 
 In one of the wealthy houses of the place there lived 
 an official family of some standing. The only son and 
 heir, a student at the capital, had been for some time 
 affianced to a girl, who, in approved Chinese style, had 
 been introduced into the house as his future bride a few 
 years before, and was being brought up, and trained in 
 the way she should go by the lad's mother. Poor 
 Precious Pearl ! From the first she and the Po-Po (mother- 
 in-law) had failed to get on together. No wonder, said 
 those who knew the family intimately, for she who held 
 the reins of government was one of those overbearing, 
 headstrong women who quarrel with every one and refuse 
 to listen to reason. 
 
 Many a dark story was whispered from ear to ear of 
 the cruel treatment meted out to the future daughter-in- 
 law, and when the end came, there were few who ex- 
 pressed themselves surprised, all that they marvelled at 
 was the means that the girl had chosen, an overdose of 
 opium would have been an easier death to die, but to 
 
THE PHCENIXES IN CONCORD SING 6i 
 
 hang oneself, that must have taken courage indeed ! 
 Precious Pearl was a girl in a thousand — every one said 
 so, and while the miserable tyrant of a mother-in-law 
 was condemned on all sides, no one had anything but 
 praise for the girl. Great was the excitement to know 
 what kind of revenge would be taken by the relatives of 
 Precious Pearl, who, though they lived some distance off, 
 appeared on the scenes with almost incredible speed. 
 
 The son, the future bridgeroom, had been sent for by 
 " lightning letter " (telegram) — so much was certain, 
 and there were rumours that the wedding was to take 
 place after all ! The bereaved family had insisted on 
 this and had, moreover, claimed that the most costly 
 presents imaginable should be purchased in readiness, so 
 that the bridegroom's family should be put to every 
 possible expense. They congratulated themselves also 
 on the fact that the young man once legally married, 
 albeit to a dead bride^ would never again be able to offer 
 the honourable position of " first wife " to any other. 
 Not that this was of much consequence under the circum- 
 stances, the expense of the whole affair was a far more 
 weighty matter, to say nothing of the inevitable " loss 
 of face ! " The wedding of a student to a corpse ! It 
 was indeed, even in China, an unusual occurrence, so 
 unusual, the wonder was'that the old " nai-nai " (woman) 
 who Hved at the gates had not insisted on more than a 
 dollar for her part of the performance. It was she who 
 held the body upright during the ceremony — the poor 
 little dead body of Precious Pearl in the " Phoenix crown 
 and crimson robe " of a most costly description. And 
 the' Po-Po ! Where was she ? All looked eagerly to see 
 how this hard-tongued woman who, by her cruelty, had 
 
62 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 been the cause of this calamity, would bear up under so 
 humiliating an experience, but they looked in vain. The 
 Po-Po had disappeared, no one knew whither. For long 
 after, the great house was left shut up and deserted. 
 
 " Truly ! " said the wise ones, " the ancients were 
 right and when the hen begins to crow, it is a sure sign of 
 trouble." 
 
 Not far from the scene of this tragic wedding another 
 little embryo bride was Hving day by day a life of bitter- 
 ness, and though the circumstances were well known to 
 all around, in their Chinese fashion, no one raised a 
 finger in active protest until too late. Then when the news 
 spread from house to house that the child was dead, done 
 to death by the unrestrained savagery of the future 
 mother-in-law, the neighbours arose, clamouring for 
 revenge. They would not refer the matter to the officials, 
 it would be cheaper and more satisfactory to take the 
 punishment of the woman into their own hands. They 
 bethought them of a plan by which she should be made to 
 suffer in more ways than one. With the dead body of the 
 child fastened to her back, they compelled her to show 
 herself, day by day, in the streets of the city that all 
 might see her shame. 
 
 New China despises many of the picturesque wedding 
 customs as only fit for the " foolish people " who know 
 no better. 
 
 Not long ago a Chinese friend of mine was married in 
 the " new style." " What is that like ? " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, all the same as your way," she aiiswered, " only 
 no prayers," and as far as I could gather, very little 
 else. 
 
THE PHCENIXES IN CONCORD SING 63 
 
 In Shanghai the new time wedding procession is apt to 
 combine, with rather ludicrous results, the old and the 
 new. The soldier in semi- Western khaki-coloured uniform 
 is the most typical figure of modern days in China, hence 
 an up-to-date wedding party likes to be heralded by a 
 troop of sham soldiers (in uniforms borrowed for the 
 occasion), some of whom with drums and trumpets are 
 playing martial airs. 
 
 At one of these " military " weddings, the other 
 day, a large and uncomfortable goose occupied with 
 much trepidation the seat of honour in the " Flowery 
 Chair." An unusual sight, in spite of the fact that 
 a goose and a gander are held in China to be sym- 
 bolic of conjugal affection and fidelity, and on the day 
 of a wedding a punctilious bridegroom will sometimes 
 present his father-in-law with one of these faithful 
 birds in token of the fact that he will never marry 
 again ! 
 
 Some Shanghai brides foregoing the " Phoenix crown 
 and crimson robes " and the silk cloth over the face as 
 dowdy and old-fashioned, effect a compromise as regards 
 the veil by wearing a fair of blue goggles during the wed- 
 ding ceremony, and the white drapery of Western brides. 
 Thereby (by means of the goggles) is kept up a semblance 
 at least of the old custom which prescribed that the bride 
 and the bridegroom must not see each other face to face 
 until the wedding is over, a custom that needless, to say, 
 is more and more on the wane, and which even in the old 
 days, the bridegroom often succeeded in circumventing 
 on the sly. 
 
 Still, however, in country districts, things remain much 
 as they were, and few have the temerity to neglect a 
 
64 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 comparison of the birthday card * and therefore run the 
 risk of marrying a man born under the tiger to a woman 
 born under the goat or vice versd, as this would mean 
 certain disaster to the goat. At a betrothal ceremony, 
 at which I happened to be present, the price of the pro- 
 spective bride, a schoolgirl, had already been decided, 
 and half the sum handed over in advance. A goodly 
 array of silver dollars, and some handsome silk garments, 
 and a pair of bracelets tied by a scarlet thread (sym- 
 bolising the conjugal bond) for the bride were piled upon 
 a large tray for all to see. Upon each dollar a strip of 
 scarlet paper had been neatly pasted bearing the charac- 
 ter of " Hsi " (happiness). The girl herself, of course, 
 was not present, and the party consisted almost entirely 
 of the male relatives of the respective families. " The 
 choice that you deign to make of my coarse and stupid 
 daughter to become the wife of your son," says the father 
 of the future bride, " shows me that you esteem my poor 
 and cold family more than it deserves " — and so forth. 
 Rumours have reached them of the strange ways of 
 the new woman in China in these days of the People's 
 Kingdom. They shake their heads in horror. Did not 
 the ancients say, that if we dispense with the decree of 
 parents and the intervention of a go-between, and arrange 
 marriages for ourselves we shall all be thieves. Does not 
 the proverb maintain that " A go-between is as necessary 
 as an axe to cut wood." 
 
 • The hour, the day, the year of the child's birth, and the animal presiding 
 over the year are registered on the card. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 " A White Affair " * 
 
 The life of old Ah-Ba-La-Han the farmer in the village 
 of " River Sand " had long been like a candle in the wind. 
 His springs and autumns were many. Therefore, it was 
 no surprise to hear that he had " passed out of this 
 generation." 
 
 For some years now the old man had been a Christian, 
 and this morning his son appeared to borrow some 
 funeral clothes and to invite the " teacher sister " to 
 come to the funeral, which to suit our convenience should 
 be put off till after breakfast instead of taking place at 
 daybreak according to local custom. 
 
 It was a bitterly cold morning, and the road was as 
 the Chinese say, " like a sheet of jade," ice in the puddles 
 and frost on the leaves of the vegetables in the fields, and 
 overhead a leaden snow- weighted sky. 
 
 There was no one about, only an old man wearing a 
 crimson bonnet and a purple gown, hurrying along ahead 
 of us by the path across the fields which, with its twists 
 and turns, baffles the proclivities of evil spirits. 
 
 At the house of the dead man a cheerful not to say 
 hilarious party had assembled. 
 
 As privileged guests we were invited into an inner 
 chamber, presented with hard-boiled eggs and tea, and 
 assigned seats close beside the coffin. The " golden 
 
 • A funeral. 
 
66 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 peck " (coffin) was covered by a crimson pall, and rested 
 on a bed of straw. 
 
 Meanwhile, first one and then another completed his 
 or her funeral costume in our presence. The eldest son, 
 being the chief mourner, and his wife wrapped themselves 
 in shapeless garments of hempen sackcloth with a head- 
 dress, akin to a biretta in shape, made of a coarse hemp 
 gauze, and adorned by pompoms of cotton wool suspended 
 on wires, projected to a point below the eyes for the pur- 
 pose of catching the tears. 
 
 In these days, in true accordance with Chinese ways, 
 the pompoms serve to represent the tears themselves. 
 Mourning caps of unbleached calico were handed round 
 to the men and boys, and all the other guests, ourselves 
 included, were given " cloths to cry with," in other words 
 a strip of unbleached calico, which when worn around the 
 head provides the " complimentary " mourning necessary 
 for the occasion. 
 
 The more noise the better, apparently, at a Chinese 
 funeral. A hubbub of voices arose around the coffin, as 
 the bearers gathered together to carry it from the house. 
 What with the levity of some, the garrulity of others, the 
 scene was anything but peaceful. 
 
 " Would the ' teacher sisters ' condescend to sit slowly 
 for a while — all things are not yet ready ! " 
 
 We waited, therefore, in the now deserted coffin 
 chamber, till the beating of gongs, and the nasal squeak- 
 ing of wind instruments suggested that proceedings had 
 commenced, and then passed through the outer apartment 
 where women were busy preparing the funeral feast. A 
 black cow stood close beside the stove looking at the 
 culinary operations with plaintive eyes, almost as though 
 
"A WHITE AFFAIR" 67 
 
 its bovine mind appreciated that which the human beings 
 had failed to grasp, namely, the solemnity of the occasion. 
 Not that the outward jubilation of some of the mourners 
 could be taken seriously, for as aU men know that " to 
 smile when speaking of the dead " is merely a matter of 
 form demanded by time-honoured etiquette, and there 
 are certain times when the loud cries of the " death howl " 
 are prescribed. 
 
 The appearance of the " teacher sisters " on the scene 
 at this inopportune moment had taken our hosts by sur- 
 prise. Old Ah-Ba-La-Han had particularly desired a 
 Christian funeral, but Ah-Ba-La-Han's widow felt ill at 
 ease in the matter, and insisted on observing one at least 
 of the old rites. A few feet away from the coffin, a 
 sacrifice to the dead was in progress, a volume of smoke 
 and tongues of flame issued from a heap of burning straw, 
 the same straw that had been in the dead man's room, and 
 which was associated in the minds of the worshippers with 
 one of the three souls, two at least of which were now 
 disembodied. The mourners in their sackcloth wrappings 
 knelt in a circle round the fire, their heads bowed upon 
 the ground, to the sound of the wailing music, and the 
 howling of mourners. In an instant, however, at a 
 whisper that the " foreign teachers " had emerged from 
 the house, the whole scene changed. Those kneeling 
 sprang to their feet and even kicked apart the smoulder- 
 ing straw with an air of contempt, and the loud wailing 
 came to an abrupt end. 
 
 Villagers, curious and talkative, gathered round as the 
 burial service was read. Even some of the mourners 
 allowed their attention to stray and discussed other 
 matters in loud tones. Too much solemnity would 
 
68 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 evidently be looked upon as a bad omen. In the books 
 of the ancients it is written that " in an affair of mourning 
 there should be urgency." 
 
 The procession started on its way at last, a disorderly 
 troop, led by a motley company of ragged urchins bearing 
 banners and gaily coloured flags, followed by a straggling 
 stream of musicians beating gongs and clashing cymbals, 
 and blowing on wind instruments which emitted a nasal 
 sound like that of bagpipes played out of tune. Etiquette 
 demands that all shall move forward at a quick pace. 
 The coffin with its red pall, the crimson umbrella with 
 floating streamers without which no funeral is complete, 
 the mourners in their creamy sackcloth, the flags and 
 banners, red and blue, formed a picturesque line of colour 
 as the procession made its way by the tiny serpentine 
 paths across the open fields. We found ourselves at last 
 on the top of a high bank beside a heap of up-turned 
 earth and steaming lime. A niche, just large enough to 
 take the head of the coffin, had been scooped out in the 
 hollow of the bank, and thickly sprinkled with lime and 
 ashes. Eventually the earth would be built up in the 
 form of a mound. Had Ah-Ba-La-Han not " eaten " the 
 doctrine of the Christians it was now the moment for the 
 ceremony connected with the ancestral tablet. The son 
 or the sons would have knelt down crying forth " Father 
 rise " — ^whereupon the soul of the dead man without 
 more ado would have entered the wooden tablet placed 
 for that purpose on the lid of the coffin. The " dotting 
 of the tablet " performed by some person of note with a 
 vermilion pencil later on would, so to speak, have ratified 
 the first ceremony and made assurance doubly sure. In 
 Ah-Ba-La-Han's case little more remained to be done. 
 
" A WHITE AFFAIR " 69 
 
 The near relatives had brought with them mourning 
 staves, bamboo sticks bound round with strips of paper, 
 these they cast into the grave, with the straw ropes which 
 they had worn round their waists. The eldest son and 
 the widow flung off their sackcloth garments and the 
 head-dress with the tear catching blobs just as an actor 
 might hastily divest himself of his stage costume on the 
 fall of the curtain. 
 
 Were these things too to be buried with the cofEn ? 
 Hardly, for as this sackcloth mourning is often either 
 borrowed or hired such a proceeding would have accorded 
 ill with Chinese economy. 
 
 Leaving our hosts to enjoy the funeral feast we started 
 on our homeward way, followed by the loud entreaties of 
 the widow to remain. 
 
 Poor old Ah-Ba-La-Han, though still surrounded 
 by kith and kin, had expressed himself more than 
 once conscious of the fact that he had outstayed his 
 welcome. 
 
 Alas, for the filial piety of these modern days. It 
 appears chiefly to take the form of ceremonious attention 
 to graves and tablets, more as a safeguard than anything 
 else, to prevent possible retaliation on the part of neglected 
 spirits, or as propitiation to the dwellers in " the peaceful 
 sunHght of the nine springs " (Hades) in the hope of 
 favours to come. 
 
 Not far from here Hves a garrulous old lady, exceedingly 
 unpopular in her own family. Not long ago her sons, 
 driven to desperation by her long tongue and her large 
 appetite, attempted to drown her in a pond, but the old 
 lady, to the surprise of those concerned, reappeared on 
 the scenes and since then, not unnaturally, the relation- 
 
^o CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 ship between her and the rest of the household has been 
 more than usually strained. 
 
 Had the crime been proved, the delinquents would 
 have paid the penalty of death by the " shameful and 
 slow " process, but as it was, the whole affair passed 
 unnoticed. 
 
 In another case a poor old woman who had suffered 
 terribly at the hands of her daughter-in-law put an end to 
 her troubles by drowning herself in a pond at the back of 
 the house. The officials came in state according to 
 Chinese law, and held an inquest close to the spot where 
 the death had taken place. Had the daughter-in-law's 
 guilt been established not only would she herself have for- 
 feited her life, but the tongues of the neighbours on either 
 side would have been slit in two ! No wonder then that 
 the case remained unproved and that the culprit escaped. 
 
 Soon after Ah-Ba-La-Han's death, a near neighbour 
 of ours passed over to the " happy vale of ancestral 
 longevity " (died). Water for washing the corpse was 
 purchased in the approved style from the dragon, to do 
 which, a tea-cup was carried to the river side, and two 
 copper cash thrown into the water whilst the little vessel 
 was filled to the brim. 
 
 Ablutions depending on the contents of a tea-cup sound 
 somewhat superficial. In the land of the Celestials, how- 
 ever, where the little so often stands for the much, and 
 the symbol for the real thing, it is more than Hkely that, 
 thanks to the tea-cup and the two cash, all the water 
 used on this occasion was held to have been purchased 
 from the dragon. Should it, for some reason, be impos- 
 sible to avoid one of the ill-omened days, called in the 
 
"A WHITE AFFAIR'* 71 
 
 almanac days of " reduplication of death," there are 
 several ways out of the difficulty, one being to catch a 
 cockroach or bed bug or some other even more loathsome 
 insect, to imprison it in a little box which is placed under 
 the coffin and to call it a " substituting body." 
 
 On the evening of the day, an uneven date for luck, on 
 which the remains of the " Venerable one," handsomely 
 attired in several new suits of " longevity garments," 
 were placed in the coffin, any one passing by might have 
 heard the loud voices of those who were busily engaged 
 packing the luggage for the long journey to the " Great 
 Beyond " — the " spirit clothes." 
 
 " Look, then ! Here are your wedded gowns for the 
 winter," one shouted at the top of his voice as though 
 to a deaf person, and the bundle was plumped down 
 inside the coffin with a thud. " There is no need to feel 
 cold." " And here are your summer things ! Your fan, 
 your ink slab and pencil, and look you — ^here in this 
 corner is the money " — and long strings of silver ingots 
 made of bright and shining tin foil were stowed inside the 
 coffin, whilst still the high-pitched tones continued, ex- 
 plaining this, that and the other to the spirit of the dead 
 man, which though apparently afflicted with deafness 
 had preserved, in some mysterious way, the power of 
 sight. 
 
 It was late in the evening and dark, but that of course 
 was all in favour of the spirits whose day is our night. 
 
 A speedy burial being considered a great mark of dis- 
 respect, some months elapsed before the coffin was borne 
 forth to the " city of old age." The lime and the charcoal 
 plentifully strewn within, and in some cases an extra 
 precaution in the form of a cement made of rice, vinegar 
 
72 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 and flour, make the occupied coffins, so often met with 
 in a Chinese house, far less insanitary than one would 
 suppose. 
 
 It was a cold spring morning ; the " sun had not yet 
 opened," as the serving-woman expressed it, when the 
 wailing of mourners, and the squeaking of musical instru- 
 ments announced that our friend's funeral was about to 
 take place. On and off through the night, the Taoist 
 priests had been hard at work keeping at bay the evil 
 spirits by the beating of gongs and the chanting of 
 prayers. In the road, between the low white houses and 
 the grey river, the coffin was lowered to the ground, 
 whilst the mourners in their sackcloth garments fell on 
 their knees in worship, making " libation of spirits " in 
 honour of the dead, and reading aloud to the soul in 
 attendance, an address, explaining the arrangements 
 that had been made — the position of the tomb, etc. — 
 " like a white cloud. Thou hast passed. away to go to the 
 West, and it is in vain we look up to Thee ... so we 
 have founded a nice city (i.e., grave) of which we venture 
 to tell Thee some particulars," etc., etc., and the blue 
 smoke from the burning incense, and the bonfire of paper 
 in their midst, rose slowly upwards. On the top of the 
 coffin a white cock, with tied feet, crouched miserably. 
 To him, the " emblem of the sun," who by crowing at 
 dawn frightens away the spirits of darkness, was entrusted 
 the carrying of the soul to the grave, and with the sure 
 instinct of the lower creatures, the bird seemed to know 
 that, only by the shedding of its own life's blood could 
 deliverance from this hypothetical burden be achieved, 
 or possibly it may have been rendered drowsy by a dose of 
 
"A WHITE AFFAIR" 73 
 
 spirits poured down its throat. A handful of grass lay 
 beside the cock. A sod of turf would have signified that 
 for a time at least the coffin must still remain above 
 ground, but this was merely a handful of grass placed 
 there for good luck. 
 
 Later in the day a miniature paper mansion six feet 
 by six for the dead man to inhabit in the next world 
 stood by the front door of his former humble dweUing. 
 
 To the smallest detail, all was complete, from the hand- 
 somely carved bedsteads, the chairs and tables to a 
 grand guest hall furnished in the approved style and the 
 walls adorned by sayings from the classics on coloured 
 scrolls. Over the floor " silver " and " gold " paper 
 money had been scattered lavishly, and pot plants 
 decorated the courts. Above the kitchen stove hung the 
 shrine of the kitchen god, as important a functionary 
 evidently in the land of the dead as in the land of the 
 living. 
 
 The whole consignment would be sent down to Hades 
 that night by the fire messengers. 
 
 Some cautious souls apparently make preparations 
 beforehand, and a rich old lady, in this same province 
 fearing that her relatives, after her death might seek 
 to avoid expense, took the precaution of sending on 
 ahead her servants, her sedan chairs, her chair bearers, 
 her house and her furniture. The priests attended to the 
 burning of these things which were one and all fearfully 
 and wonderfully made of coloured paper, and saw that 
 all was in order. The far-seeing old lady, however, 
 bethought herself that when in course of time she, too, 
 " returned to the excellent city " (died) she might per- 
 chance find that her goods and chattels and even her 
 
74 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 tin-foil money had all been appropriated by some one 
 else. To prevent, therefore, a catastrophy of the kind 
 she had a life-sized effigy made to represent herself 
 and sent it off post-haste to look after her netherworld 
 property. 
 
 Mr. Tang's aged mother " passed over " not long ago. 
 She still lived in the family mansion at the other end of 
 the city, a house of some pretensions with its lofty rooms 
 dark with handsome woodwork richly carved, and cool 
 paved courts one beyond the other. Ba Giao Si had been 
 to see the old lady, but there was nothing to be done. 
 She lay Hke a shrunken mummy hardly visible in the 
 windowless bedroom behind the heavy hangings of the 
 bed. To the numerous expectant relatives, full of talk 
 and interest, who gathered round, she seemed a Httle slow 
 in dying. When the elderly son arrived, he offered a piece 
 of timely advice : " Come now " he said ! " You have 
 lived your Hfe with credit, and had better not try and 
 stay any longer, but go quietly away ! " (" hao hao tib chu 
 ba "), and not long after that she went. 
 
 The seventh day after the event, Mr. Tang salhed 
 forth to a feast of " ten tables of wine " to meet all the 
 near relatives, and to shave his head and put on his sack- 
 cloth mourning for the first time. " When old folks die, 
 the rest feed high," goes the adage. Every seventh day 
 for forty-nine days there will be still another feast, 
 attended by the chief mourners, who will all be wearing 
 sackcloth garments over their ordinary clothes. 
 
 The family is well off, and it may be months, possibly 
 longer, before the funeral takes place out of respect for 
 the departed. 
 
 It transpired later on, however (Mr. Tang proffered the 
 
" A WHITE AFFAIR " 75 
 
 information himself without any feeling of shame) that 
 when the thirtieth day had passed, and the fourth feast 
 was over, they decided to hasten the festivities by 
 deceiving the old mother as to the correct date. They 
 informed " her " officially that she had been dead six 
 weeks instead of five. Spirits, luckily, are easily hood- 
 winked ! 
 
 In those cities which have come into contact with 
 Western civilisation, foreignised funeral customs are being 
 adopted, with, however, sundry alterations to suit the 
 Oriental idea of the fitness of things. Thus, a brass band, 
 instead of discoursing appropriate funeral airs, keeps up a 
 lively atmosphere by playing with gusto " Yankee Doodle 
 went to Town " just in front of the coffin. 
 
 Carriages and funeral wreaths in profusion are the 
 correct thing nowadays in those few favoured places 
 where such luxuries as carriage roads and florists exist. 
 Dispensing with the white cock, the new idea is to reserve 
 the whole of the first mourning carriage for the use of a 
 large-sized photo of the deceased, which occupies the 
 seat of honour banked up by flowers and wreaths, and 
 as a concession to foreign prejudice the chief mourners 
 when on foot, are protected from the public gaze by a 
 four-sided portable screen made of sheeting. 
 
 A Chinese family of high rank, and so much in advance 
 of the times as to wear black instead of white at the 
 funeral, invited us some weeks ago to the funeral feast. 
 It was held at one of the most fashionable restaurants of 
 the city and was in all points a festive event. The 
 excellent dinner, of some eleven courses served in Western 
 style, had been superbly cooked. One found it difficult 
 to realise that, in accordance with funeral customs, it 
 
76 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 was a vegetable dinner. The fried soles, the pigeons, the 
 fowl, and so on, might almost have passed for the genuine 
 article, even the bones of the latter had been manu- 
 factured. 
 
 In the " City of the River Orchid," as in most Chinese 
 cities, suicides are common occurrences. Every few days 
 of late an urgent request has come for some of the foreign 
 teachers' life-saving medicines, for invariably the case is 
 one of poisoning. As often as not the means used is 
 some familiar domestic article within the reach of all. 
 Constantly the cause of the disaster is merely a sudden 
 quarrel between two members of the family, and the 
 fatal act has been committed in the blind rage of the 
 moment or in a spirit of revenge, for as a disembodied 
 spirit one will, so it is thought, be able to pay back old 
 scores with a vengeance. 
 
 Whether purposely or by accident the would-be suicide 
 often takes enough to frighten the whole household but 
 not enough to accomplish the desired end. Amongst the 
 " contemptible ones of the inner apartments " the 
 household salt sometimes provides the poison used. In 
 most Chinese homes the store of salt is preserved in a 
 suspended jar, the bottom of which is perforated with 
 holes. In course of time the moisture oozes through the 
 holes and drips into a vessel placed there for the purpose, 
 forming a strong solution of spirits of salt. Face powder, 
 in which one ingredient is lead, is said to be quite as 
 efficacious. Sometimes a gold ring answers the purpose, 
 occasionally a mixture of gamboge, and most frequently 
 perhaps, the deed is done with an overdose of opium. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 Presents Wet and Dry 
 
 Just now feasting is the order of the day, for this is 
 the winter solstice, a week before Christmas, one of the 
 chief festivals in the ancestral halls all over the country. 
 Though by law the number of these clan buildings is 
 hmited according to social position, many a humble 
 family by right of connection with either a scholar or an 
 official, can claim some part or lot with one or another 
 of these ancestral temples. On the register, preserved 
 within the walls, are enrolled the names of the living and 
 the dead, and various particulars with regard to the 
 latter, such as, for instance, the amount of money spent 
 on their funerals, the number and quality of their 
 " longevity clothes," and the description of property 
 left by them for the benefit of the ancestral hall. 
 
 All those on the register can claim a share of some 
 kind — the head of the family, the near relations have 
 very naturally a larger share than the rest. To all, 
 however, in course of time comes the privilege, though 
 possibly only once in fifty or sixty years, of " sowing the 
 ancestral fields," which means that though for that 
 year the rent for the same is their 's to pay, this is but 
 an insignificant item compared to the value of the 
 harvest. It is seldom indeed that a name is erased from 
 the register, though on occasions when, for instance, a 
 member of the clan arouses the ire of his fellows by 
 
78 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 becoming a Christian, or for some other reason, his rights 
 to ancestral property are bitterly opposed. Custom 
 ordains, however, in many parts of the country that a 
 man's name cannot be taken off the books without that 
 of his father or of some other near relative, which arrange- 
 ment adding, as it does, untold complications usually 
 prevents any interference in the matter. 
 
 As regards the Christians, there is certainly something 
 to be said for the rest of the family. They argue that as 
 the deserter from their ranks declines henceforth to 
 subscribe to the feast provided for the spirits of the 
 ancestors, or to join in the worship of the departed, he 
 should be ready to forgo his share of the good things, 
 and this many of them are perfectly willing to do. 
 
 The " Ancestral Hall " belonging to the family of one 
 of my pupils lies half-hidden amongst the trees in a 
 sheltered nook at the foot of the hills. As we passed that 
 way one afternoon during the days of the winter feasting 
 we looked in hoping to see something of the festivities. 
 
 The pavilion-like building, an especially handsome one, 
 stands at the far end of a spacious court planted with 
 Cyprus trees and ornamented with carved stonework. 
 Around the court small ante-rooms and a gatehouse shut 
 in the sacred precincts. 
 
 In the hall itself the ceremony for the day was over, but 
 some stately gentlemen in brocaded silk courteously 
 invited us to enter and " look see." 
 
 Many dainty dishes of fruits and sweetmeats and food 
 of a more soHd nature were spread in symmetrical array 
 on the altar-Hke table before the central tablets. The 
 weird silence that hung over the scene added to the feeling 
 that an interruption had taken place in the proceedings. 
 
PRESENTS WET AND DRY 79 
 
 As we surveyed the still un tasted eatables, and glanced 
 round inquiringly at the long rows of tablets starred with 
 gilded characters that stood upon their shelves around 
 the walls, we could almost have imagined that they were 
 indeed inhabited by spirits, and that, at the sight of 
 these intruders on their privacy, they had hastily climbed 
 back to their places and were staring down upon us. 
 
 " Now ye front us, O spirits, now ye pass us by, 
 ascending and descending unrestricted by conditions of 
 space " — so runs one of the prayers used on these occa- 
 sions. " Your souls are in heaven, your tablets are in the 
 rear apartment. For myriads of years will your descen- 
 dants think of you with filial thoughts unwearied." * 
 
 At the end of the feasting which continues for several 
 days the food is divided " by order of teeth " (by 
 seniority) and according to the respective rights of all 
 the members of the clan. One wondered if any one would 
 have the temerity to partake of the fish (five days old at 
 the lowest computation), a handsome dish of which had 
 formed a piece de resistance on the altar table. 
 
 Much, however, might be said in favour of the ancestral 
 hall system, apart from the idolatrous rites. Many an 
 unlucky family has been saved from penury by those at 
 the head of the clan who were able to divert in their 
 favour financial help for the ancestral property. 
 
 There are people in the " City of the River Orchid " 
 who expect great things of the Republic. As one worthy 
 farmer maintained in the early days of the new era, five 
 evils would without doubt be aboHshed — ^the binding of 
 the feet — the consumption of the black smoke (opium)— 
 sticking in silver and carrying gold, x.^., the wearing of 
 
 * Prayer used on certain occationi of ancestral worship. 
 
8o CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 jewellery — the smoking of foreign tobacco (cigarettes), 
 and, lastly, the worship of idols. 
 
 As regards the binding of the feet, however, there still 
 remains a strong feeling, at all events in the lower and 
 the middle classes, that in order to compete successfully 
 in the matrimonial market, bound feet are as necessary 
 as ever unless a greater attraction can be offered in the 
 shape of a modern education. For some years now girls 
 with bound feet have been excluded from all Government 
 schools, and in mission schools, where the educational 
 advantages offered are often of a higher cahbre than 
 those in Government institutions, bound feet have 
 always been condemned, though not in all cases absolutely 
 forbidden. 
 
 Thus it comes about that in some famihes one girl 
 " reads books " (goes to school) and keeps her natural 
 feet, whereas the sister, or embryo sister-in-law as the 
 case may be, stays at home to be fitted for matrimony in 
 the other and cheaper way. 
 
 One could not but wonder how the idea arose that the 
 wearing of jewellery and smoking of cigarettes would 
 cease after the birth of the " People's Kingdom." As a 
 " maid looks to the hand of her mistress " so new China 
 looks at the ways of America and would gladly adopt 
 them as her own. 
 
 Therefore, gilded youths, like my " brocaded " pupil, 
 Mr. Wang, and others of his ilk are wearing rings of 
 accentuated foreign pattern, and, despite the fact that 
 they are the happy possessors of absolutely undecayed 
 teeth, white and even, they have been so attracted by 
 the beauty (?) of the gold crowns in a well-preserved 
 American mouth that they have purchased from the 
 
PRESENTS WET AND DRY 8i 
 
 local dentist, a man trained in an American school, gold 
 sheaths which on gala occasions are worn as movable 
 ornaments on the most prominent of their front teeth ! 
 Such, alas, is the blind imitation of Western ways in 
 these days of transition. As to cigarettes, have they not 
 come in the first place from America itself ? They have 
 spread from town to town, from province to province, 
 like a plague of locusts. In distant inland cities, on 
 picturesque pagodas and city walls one comes across the 
 crudely coloured picture advertisements of the Cigarette 
 Company, the one jarring touch in a scene that would 
 gladden the soul of an artist. 
 
 So great is the sale of this " rolled up tobacco grass " 
 that fabulous wealth is ascribed to the promoters of the 
 company, and slowly but surely the old water pipe, said 
 to be the least injurious form of smoking in existence, is 
 being superseded. 
 
 As to the idols — many have had to go to the wall to 
 make way either for soldiers or for scholars. Here and 
 there temples have been turned into barracks or into 
 schools. One sign of the times, more significant than the 
 destruction of idols, lies in the fact that temple buildings, 
 transformed into educational establishments have been 
 opened out and lit up on every side by large " foreign " 
 windows in happy disregard of the evil influences which, 
 up till now, it has been considered necessary to exclude 
 by thick walls on all sides, except that of the lucky south. 
 
 In some of the temporary barracks, soldiers and idols 
 have occupied the floor space together ; in others, a clean 
 sweep has been made of the whole gilded assembly, but 
 this by no means argued that the people have ceased 
 to believe in their efficacy. Many, acknowledging the 
 
82 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 necessity of both schools and barracks would probably 
 have answered in the words of an Emperor of the tenth 
 century who, at a critical period when copper money had 
 become exceedingly scarce, gave orders that all copper 
 idols should be melted down for use in the mint, for, 
 " the gods " said His Majesty, " have the good of man- 
 kind at heart, and will be quite willing to sacrifice their 
 images in the service of the people 1 " 
 
 One change, however, inaugurated by the Republic, 
 has found little favour in the eyes of the residents of 
 inland cities. The old calendar, by which all things have 
 been regulated from time immemorial, has been officially 
 abolished, and the Western calendar introduced in its 
 place. 
 
 The farmers and the country people set their faces 
 against the alteration from the first. " We should have 
 only ten months in which to plough our fields," said one. 
 
 " And how," asked another, " should we be able to tell 
 the date of the tidal wave." * 
 
 " Besides," they argued, " if we adopt the ' Yang Li ' 
 (the sun calendar) New Year's Day will be on the twenty- 
 third of the eleventh moon — ^we shall lose more than two 
 months' interest on the money that has been lent. Thus 
 the tradesmen agreed, that to make up the year's 
 accounts in the eleventh moon, would be a most irregular 
 proceeding, fraught with financial loss. In the " City of 
 the River Orchid," however, they were perfectly willing 
 to fall in with the suggestions, in theory at all events, 
 that the day should be observed as a public holiday. In 
 any case, all Government offices, schools, post offices, 
 
 • The famous Hangchow " Bore," which, however, subsides long before the 
 " City of the River Orchid " is reached. 
 
PRESENTS WET AND DRY 83 
 
 etc., were closed, and here and there some son of new 
 China donned his " ceremony clothes," and went round 
 to call on his friends in honour of the event, though, when 
 it came to the point, all the shops remained open, being 
 reluctant to lose a chance of trade with the one holiday 
 of the year not much more than a month ahead. 
 
 It was without doubt a curious fact, as one remarked 
 to the other, that this change to the " sun calendar " had 
 considerably affected the weather. A snowstorm which 
 was a not infrequent event on the eve of the Chinese New 
 Year, according to the old reckoning, had arrived con- 
 trary to all precedent nearly six weeks too soon on the 
 eve of the " foreign " New Year. No wonder the farmers 
 shook their heads, and complained that if they were 
 foolhardy enough to adopt the " sun calendar " they 
 would never know when to sow their crops. It was to be 
 hoped that the fortnightly periods known as " grain 
 rains," " excited insects," and so forth, would not arrive 
 prematurely even as the snow had done. 
 
 New Year's Day (moon calendar) would fall this year 
 on February 6th, and the citizens and country people set 
 themselves with greater fervour than ever to prepare for 
 the time-honoured festivity. Along the already crowded 
 streets, new stalls, Hke monster fungi, cropped up in 
 profusion, selling for the most part, scrolls of thin and 
 brightly-coloured paper, inscribed with classical sayings, 
 to be pasted anon on the doors of houses, and on the 
 wooden pillars of guest halls. There are white ones, and 
 blue ones for families in mourning, brick-dust red and 
 crimson ones for those who are not. The orange stalls are 
 offering grotesque masks for sale, and queer erections, like 
 small carpet looms, are put up on waste bits of ground, the 
 
84 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 white threads, some eight feet or so in length, are not 
 woollen threads after all but strips of mien^ a kind of maca- 
 roni, which being symbolic of long life, are made in especi- 
 ally long lengths for the auspicious occasion. The caterers 
 for the dead are doing a thriving trade. The coffin 
 makers seem perpetually at work, and the shops in which 
 are displayed the paper houses and furniture for the next 
 world have a goodly store of articles on view. For days 
 beforehand one meets rich and poor coming back across 
 the fields from their marketing in the city. The poor man's 
 basket is a pathetic sight — the small sum has been so 
 carefully laid out to the best advantage in a packet or two 
 of " little heart " (confectionery), a tiny jar of oil, a small 
 pot of wine, a few red candles, a string or two of tinfoil 
 money for the ancestors, and lastly, a very minute piece 
 of pork (which is extremely dear just now, as all the pigs 
 were killed in a hurry during the Revolution). As to the 
 " spirit money " it cost but a few copper cash to buy, 
 but in the next world will be worth to the dear departed, 
 at least twenty dollars. 
 
 The twelfth moon — in other words the month of 
 January — brings with it this year a new distraction. 
 Every day through one busy week fresh relays of the 
 learned and the wealthy, from other parts of the province, 
 appear on the scenes, and as the newspapers phrase it — 
 " For the first time 400,000,000 people in China are 
 interested in the same thing," but they are mistaken. 
 In the " City of the River Orchid," as in many other 
 places, the new parliamentary elections arouse so little 
 enthusiasm that the man in the street, when asked why 
 so many well-to-do strangers are staying in the city, can 
 suggest no reason. The payment of two dollars a year 
 
PRESENTS WET AND DRY 85 
 
 in taxes gives the right to a vote, and the liberty, 
 apparently, to sell one's vote to the highest bidder. Too 
 much buying and selling is dangerous, for in a record 
 given of a district up north the head man of a township 
 persuaded his friends, not only to vote four or five times 
 over in his favour, but to purchase some ten or fifteen 
 votes apiece for his benefit. This was somewhat too bold 
 a step, and the judge called in the police. An elderly 
 politician, a well-read man, who took a more intelligent 
 interest in the affairs of the world than most of his ilk, 
 was asked if a member of the provincial assembly could 
 also be elected to the Peking Parliament. The reply was 
 characteristic of his race : — " Can a monkey," he asked, 
 " wear two hats ? " 
 
 My pupils, Wang and his cousin, had had no time this 
 month for the Enghsh lessons, being busy " collecting 
 their debts." Almost every Chinese is, to a greater or less 
 degree, both a borrower and a money-lender. 
 
 " A good borrower will have much wealth, while the 
 self-user will be reduced," say the Chinese, and they also 
 maintain that " If the pence do not go, the pounds will 
 not come," and that " Money (not charity) covers a 
 multitude of sins." 
 
 The trading instinct is so strong, even amongst small 
 boys, that they will lend out their cash at interest and, 
 failing cash, any extra food that can be spared. 
 
 The " Third Precious," an adopted waif who lives on 
 the premises, a phlegmatic morsel of some five summers, 
 little more than a baby, whose cheeks grow fatter every 
 day to the impoverishment of his eyes and, who seldom 
 speaks above a whisper, and that only under persuasion, 
 
86 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 was discovered the other day to have bartered a portion 
 of his Christmas presents, the first he had ever been 
 known to possess, for the fortieth part of a penny per 
 piece. Doubtless he has inherited the trading instinct 
 from his mother who, owing to the death of her husband, 
 was glad not only to hand over the " Third Precious " to 
 the teacher sisters, but to make money by the sale of her 
 last baby. She had, moreover, adroitly persuaded the 
 purchaser thereof to loan the child back to her at so 
 much a month for its keep. 
 
 At the New Year, sticky rice dumplings are in vogue — 
 called Nien Gao. By a play on the Chinese words, the 
 name is held to mean that he who partakes of this appe- 
 tising dish will be " annually elevated " (rise in the 
 world). 
 
 Another New Year's speciality are miniature " wedding 
 cakes " sprinkled with red powder and black dates. As 
 the Chinese say — " The stomach loves surprises " — and 
 on inspection the dainty cake turns out to be a weird 
 mixture of fat pork and sugar plums. The same red 
 paper, something like blotting paper in consistency, used 
 by cooks for colouring confectionery, is also much in 
 request by the ladies of the inner apartments as a 
 cosmetic. 
 
 Long before the actual day, New Year's gifts are 
 exchanged or refused. Ba Giao Si, being a person of some 
 importance in the city, and filling, moreover, the position 
 of the head of the household, is the recipient of a constant 
 stream of presents. Morning, noon and eve bring their 
 share — packets of sugar, packets of sweetmeats all 
 wrapped in the orthodox red striped paper, baskets of 
 fruit and nuts, baskets of chickens, baskets of eggs. In 
 
PRESENTS WET AND DRY ' 87 
 
 the end over a thousand eggs were received, and as to 
 the chickens, the Httle poultry yard was nearly as tightly 
 packed with victims as a Chinese prison. But in China 
 things are not what they seem, not that one would suggest 
 anything fraudulent about the chickens, or even about the 
 eggs, but custom ordains that to him who gives shall be 
 given, and a basket must never be returned empty. A 
 convenient plan therefore obtains of taking A.'s present 
 or part of it and handing it, unknown of course to A., to 
 E. or F., and of using the gifts presented by E. and F. for 
 B. and C. Fortunately eggs and sugar tell no tales. 
 When all exchanges have been made, and one reckons up 
 one's financial position, it stands probably very much as 
 it did, but it is more than likely that one has increased 
 somewhat in wisdom, and one realises now that F. 
 wishes to be friendly again after the estrangement of a 
 few years ago, that Mrs. W. would like you to do her a 
 favour, and that G.'s second wife's niece's husband 
 wishes you well, whereas you had fancied that he was on 
 the side of the opposition. As to the Mrs. W. who is 
 currying favour, her case is usually weighed and found 
 wanting. A message is sent down, therefore, saying that 
 Chinese sweetmeats are very good, but we are not eating 
 them to-day. She will understand perfectly and take 
 back her rejected present with smiles. Cakes, sweet- 
 meats, etc., are all wet gifts. There are the dry gifts to be 
 considered as well, which take the form of " hard cash " 
 — a hundred copper coins strung on a red cord is pre- 
 sented to every child in Ba Giao Si's household. A dry 
 gift in return is necessary, and this should exceed the 
 first in value on the Chinese principle that " One presents 
 a quince in the hope of receiving a gem." 
 
88 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 My pupils, Wang and his cousin, sent a more dainty- 
 gift of orange trees and flowering shrubs in pots. This 
 meant, of course, " golden sand " (a tip) to the servant in 
 charge, and a return offering later in the day, which with 
 some diffidence on my part, took the form of silk pocket 
 handkerchiefs, and the unexpressed hope that I might 
 see them again some day, not as a rejected gift, but in the 
 ordinary course of events. Alas, however, at the end of 
 the New Year's holiday when Wang reappeared with a 
 smile and a piece of cotton wool as a nasal appendix, I 
 was forced to conclude that my well-intentioned present 
 had not fulfilled its destiny. 
 
 Some days before the first of the New Year (old style) 
 the neighbours, up and down the street, were busy speed- 
 ing the kitchen god upon his heavenly way. Before our 
 gates a bonfire was burning brightly, poked atten- 
 tively from time to time by the master of the house and 
 his little wife. The god, flying upwards in the sparks, 
 had already " gone to heaven," they said (** shang tien "), 
 and we were just too late to see him start. In the next 
 house, however, we had better luck, " the venerable one of 
 the stove " had not yet left, and they promised to send 
 word so that we might speed the parting guest. Half an 
 hour later, the good lady of the house arrived with her 
 red and yellow lantern bobbing at the end of a stick, to 
 escort us in person. Hers was a house of some wealth, 
 and a goodly feast of dainty dishes, preserved fruits and 
 sugar plums, was spread upon the kitchen table under the 
 shrine, so that the god might take his fill of sweetmeats 
 before ascending to the skies, and carry with him 
 pleasant memories, which it was hoped would induce him 
 to give a good report of the family to the powers that be. 
 
PRESENTS WET AND DRY 89 
 
 Three tiny cups of tea stood side by side — one for himself, 
 one for his father, one for his wife, and a bamboo lamp- 
 stand, something like a miniature chair, was draped with 
 mottoes on red paper for the " venerable one " to sit on 
 when starting on his journey. 
 
 " He goes to Heaven to report favourable things ! 
 He comes down to earth to protect and give peace ! " 
 
 so ran the words of the mottoes. We sat in the guest hall 
 to see him pass. The master of the house bore the hero of 
 the evening rapidly through the room, bore him some- 
 what shamefacedly we fancied, and seemed reluctant to 
 let us see his treasure at close quarters, a poor thing 
 enough as regarded his outward appearance, merely a 
 bit of painted paper about a foot long cut in the 
 shape of a manikin, and " seated " on the bamboo 
 erection. 
 
 A bundle of shavings, set on fire outside the front 
 entrance, soon accelerated his departure, while the master 
 of the house bowed low to his fleeting spirit, bowed to 
 heaven and to earth, and again, and yet again to the 
 yellow flames, whilst a volley of fire crackers announced 
 the departure of the god. There is a quaintly worded 
 prayer used on these occasions in which the petitioners 
 confess that " it is possible that both old and young have 
 transgressed in innumerable ways as we have passed in 
 and out of this kitchen ; through lack of proper attention 
 and dress we, too, may have given offence to you, or 
 insulted the spirits of heaven and earth " — and so 
 forth. 
 
 Five days later the shrine will again be occupied, and 
 in the words of the prayer, by the god's " endless goodness 
 
90 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 and exhaustless favour," the family will, they hope, " be 
 enabled to continue " through the year. 
 
 On " New Year's Day " hard-boiled eggs in generous 
 quantities, unlimited tea, melon seeds, monkey nuts and 
 all kinds of confectionery were spread out on the guest- 
 hall table in tempting array, to be replenished throughout 
 the day as fresh relays of visitors arrived. One or two 
 had paid their duty calls already on January ist. Others 
 had decided that the custom was now obsolete and might 
 be discarded together with the queue and the classics, 
 and a select few, amongst those who came, showed that 
 they, too, had been influenced by the new era by bringing 
 their wives with them and sitting down side by side to the 
 hard-boiled eggs and the tea. The duty of a wife, says an 
 old Chinese writer, " is to serve at table and stand by in 
 silence to fill and hght her husband's pipe " — she herself 
 must eat alone in a corner. But times have changed ! 
 
 On New Year's Eve one could almost have imagined 
 oneself to be in the midst of a raging battle, so incessant 
 and so deafening was the explosion of fire crackers all 
 round our walls, but on the morning of the eventful day 
 a silence as of death reigned throughout the busiest streets 
 of that busy town. On each threshold tiny red spots 
 flecked the ground, reminding one of an historical scene 
 years ago in the land of the Egyptians, but no avenging 
 angel had passed that way — the red stains were but the 
 remains of the fire crackers — bits of red paper and 
 crumpled incense sticks of last night's fiery salutation to 
 the gods. 
 
 Last night, and well through the night, much feasting 
 had taken place and now, for the most part, the revellers 
 were slumbering heavily. Here and there the " very 
 
PRESENTS WET AND DRY 91 
 
 houses seemed asleep." For the only occasion throughout 
 the year the street pavement was dry and comparatively 
 clean, for this is the one and only day in which the water 
 carriers carry no water, the sewage carriers, no sewage, 
 when, in fact, no work is done of any sort or description. 
 There is moreover a general belief, even in these modern 
 times, that whatever one happens to do on New Year's 
 Day, one will continue to do throughout the coming year. 
 Small wonder then that the performers of menial duties, 
 anxious for a rise in the world should especially seek to 
 escape from the " trivial round and common task." 
 Care must be exercised in other directions as well, and 
 many a respectable citizen believes that it will assuredly 
 be a sign of ill luck if the first person he happens to meet 
 that morning be a woman. He is well aware also that 
 unpropitious words such as " death " or " devil " must 
 be avoided. 
 
 The narrow alley ways, usually crowded with Hfe and 
 colour, are swept and garnished — ^garnished with wooden 
 shutters, a long double row of them, shutting one in on 
 either side like an interminable series of coach-house 
 doors, and decorated by the red paper scrolls with appro- 
 priate mottoes. As the day drew on, people in hoHday 
 attire, men and boys for the most part, emerged for a 
 gentle stroll along the empty streets. There were signs 
 of an awakening populace and sounds of mirth issued 
 from behind closed doors — discordant sounds, the wild 
 beating of gongs, the banging of tea trays, the clash of 
 symbols and twanging of wheezy-stringed instruments, so 
 deafening and uproarious was the so-called music that 
 one could almost imagine that every member of the 
 family had seized on the culinary utensils of the house 
 
92 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 and turned them pro tern into " musical " instruments. 
 " For improving manners and customs there is nothing 
 like music," said the ancients, and we hear of a disciple 
 of Confucius who " ruled his district in peace by playing 
 the guitar." Surely things have changed since those 
 good old days ! 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Flower Lamps and Learning Halls. 
 
 The 15th of the first moon, the last day of the New 
 Year's holidays, is to be celebrated as usual by the 
 Festival of Lanterns. This, in spite of the fact that " New 
 China " condemns these foolish customs. There has been 
 no official procession to the fields this spring to bless the 
 future crops, no painted cow of clay to show by the colours 
 with which it is adorned, what the weather will be like 
 during the coming year. Twelve months ago in the first 
 flush of enthusiasm at the birth of the " People's King- 
 dom " the gods were forgotten, and no one heeded the 
 musty, tarnished idols which were associated half-uncon- 
 sciously perhaps with the " Manchu Usurpers." A 
 '' People's Kingdom " would be an Elysium in which all 
 men would be equal and each a little king on his own 
 account. Henceforth, traders would pay no '' lekin/' 
 farmers would *pay no land tax, " Worms of the King- 
 dom " (rapacious officials) would no longer exist, peace 
 and prosperity would reign throughout the land ! In Sun 
 Yat Sen's own words — " Inglorious bondage had been 
 transformed to an inspiring freedom, splendid with the 
 illustrious light of opportunity." But this year, the 
 second year of the New Republic, there were not a few 
 who sighed for the old regime. In these days, they said, 
 one never knew what was going to happen next. These 
 young officials with Western education, " imitation 
 
94 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 foreigners " as they were called, were an uncertain 
 quantity, and though they had studied Western science, 
 they had forgotten the " book of rites," and manners, 
 which, after all, are " the shadows of virtues," were con- 
 spicuously lacking. As to some of the new military 
 officials, the great " Tiger Hsu " and others, it was said 
 that they could neither read nor write. Property had 
 become less secure, living more expensive, and some of 
 these new-fangled ideas were ridiculous. As to those 
 queer foreign clothes, they lacked comfort, being cold in 
 winter, hot in summer, and too tight altogether to enable 
 one to " catch the fleas." 
 
 Thus in the "City of the River Orchid," as in many 
 other places, the dragon came to his own again, and on 
 the 15 th of the first moon great were the celebrations in 
 his honour. From the upper windows of the house 
 behind the banana trees we sat, as it were, in the dress 
 circle in full view of the stage, or more correctly speak- 
 ing, of the open country on the opposite shore. From 
 across the water came the hum of many thousands of 
 voices like the distant whirr of machinery — the orange 
 and crimson-coloured lanterns — flower lamps as the 
 Chinese call them, of the people coming and going, rose 
 and sank like monster fireflies, and here and there, 
 reflected in the black water, they shone like ladders 
 of golden steps. Rockets swished overhead, crackers 
 snapped and banged announcing the approach of the 
 dragon. It came at last, a fiery serpent nearly the third of 
 a mile in length ! Head, body and tail of lighted lanterns, 
 curling round the hillside, it " crawled " swiftly along 
 the shore, its image reflected in the water in a wriggling 
 stream of gold. The beating of gongs, the firing of 
 crackers, the shouting of many voices filled the air. 
 
FLOWER LAMPS AND LEARNING HALLS 95 
 
 Truly the gods were pleased ! There was no burst of 
 rain to extinguish the lights and mar the beauty of the 
 lanterns, as had been the case so often of late years. The 
 fire-dragon swept along the shore in undisturbed splen- 
 dour, when suddenly it swayed, hesitating in its triumphal 
 progress. The whole river side was a blaze of light, and 
 white flames sprang up from the red glow of the paper 
 lanterns. Was the monster being consumed by its own 
 fire ? Not so, for in another moment it swept back, tail 
 first this time, and swinging forward whirled in a circle of 
 light round and round in a weird dance of ecstasy — a fire 
 dragon nearly the third of a mile in length ! Till at last, 
 all energy spent, it slowly uncoiled and slipped round the 
 hillside out of sight. " The gods were pleased ! " And 
 a few days later, on an evening approved of by the 
 astrologers, a rival dragon appeared before the city walls. 
 It went on its way with many halts in compliance with 
 the unwritten law that wherever crackers are fired off 
 in its honour, the dragon shall pause in acknowledgment. 
 The " creature " being this time within arm's length, we 
 were able to observe its anatomy and the ingenious 
 method by which the green and scaly paper body, lit 
 from within by candles, was supported on slender planks, 
 connected one with the other by a rough hinge which 
 gives elasticity to the whole, and borne on the shoulders 
 of men who, walking in the shadow under the planks, 
 were fairly inconspicuous except at close quarters. On 
 the head of the dragon a paper boat, in itself a 
 monster lantern, was occupied by a crew of manikins, 
 each made of coloured paper lit from within. Clocks, 
 books, fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, all in the form of 
 elegant lanterns^ varied the monotony. 
 
96 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 A night or two ago an encounter with another kind 
 of dragon — the " fire dragon " caused great commotion 
 along the river front. We saw the weird light in the sky, 
 and people running. " It is within the city walls," they 
 cried. So closely packed were the houses, and so inflam- 
 mable was much of the material with which they were 
 built that a fire inside the city walls was likely to assume 
 dangerous proportions. We joined the hurrying throng 
 as with loud shouts and yells, the custodians of the peace, 
 or rather the disturbers of the peace, ran past. Their 
 lanterns, red and yellow, bobbed up and down above 
 the heads of the crowd as they rushed by, and behind 
 them, men carrying buckets pushed their way through, 
 but water from half a dozen buckets or so would be mere 
 thimblefuls in the midst of the column of flames bursting 
 through the roof of a substantial white building ahead 
 of us. Every minute or so a thud of some heavy weight 
 falling, sounded ominous, but it was nothing, nothing but 
 enormous bundles of cotton wool, some six feet in length, 
 which the frightened owners were flinging over the city 
 wall for safety. Whether owing to the presence of the 
 buckets or the absence of the cotton wool there was no 
 telling, but by the time the " water dragon " (fire engine) 
 had been brought from the city temple with much beating 
 of gongs and clamour of voices, the fire had practically 
 subsided. Only the one house was destroyed, whilst the 
 buildings wedged tightly in on either side had strangely 
 enough escaped, but those who knew the circumstances 
 declared that this was not strange at all. A revengeful 
 mother-in-law was to blame in the matter. Being wildly 
 indignant with her son for bestowing too much affection 
 on the " inner person " (his wife) she had constructed a 
 
FLOWER LAMPS AND LEARNING HALLS 97 
 
 straw man — a god of revenge — and day by day had 
 worshipped before it, burning candles and incense, and 
 praying that by his help, evil might overtake her unfilial 
 offspring. Her prayers had been answered with undoubted 
 vigour, but in a way she had not anticipated. The son 
 and his wife happened to be in the country paying a New 
 Year's visit to relations. It was considered a significant 
 fact that the brunt of the misfortune fell on the old lady 
 herself. She was at the other end of the city looking on 
 at a " flower lamp procession " when the fire broke out, 
 started, so it was said, by a candle that had been left 
 alight in front of the " god of revenge," and when she 
 finally returned home it was to find the house in ashes 
 and all her possessions gone. Moreover, the neighbours' 
 doors were inhospitably closed against her in self-defence, 
 it being considered a sure invitation to disaster to invite 
 people into your house who have been burnt out of, 
 their own. 
 
 At this festive season, acrobatic mice, conjurers and 
 Punch and Judy shows appear on the scenes. In China, 
 Punch and Judy shows are on their native soil. Since 
 the days of the ancients, some 800 years or more b.c, 
 marionettes have been in existence in the land of the 
 Celestials, and according to the annals of history, they 
 have sometimes been put to strange uses. 
 
 The story goes that the Huns, under a certain famous 
 general, were advancing on the imperial city (200 B.C.) 
 when a bright idea occurred to one of the palace officials. 
 Before long he had lined the city walls with Hfe-sized 
 marionnettes skilfully constructed to represent maidens 
 of great beauty. The strategy proved successful, for the 
 Hun chieftain had with him, as probably the astute 
 
98 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 official was well aware, an exceedingly jealous wife, who 
 seeing, as she fancied, so many beautiful young ladies 
 looking down upon them from the walls, persuaded her 
 lord and master to leave the city in peace ! 
 
 Chen Ping, though now promoted to be the Punch and 
 Judy god, began life, say some, as this same wily official, 
 who, by his wooden figures, preserved the imperial city 
 from attack. 
 
 In the Chinese Punch and Judy show there is a motley 
 company of dramatis persona, including an enormous 
 goose, a miniature donkey, a large tortoise, a tiny monkey, 
 a black devil, a Buddhist priest, and half a dozen 
 policemen. The sleight of hand by which the puppets 
 are worked is exceedingly clever. The Judies, of whom 
 there are two, appear as interested spectators, by the 
 side wings of the tiny stage, watching the entries of their 
 weird companions, whose tendencies, like those of their 
 Western descendants, are of a distinctly pugilistic nature. 
 At the end of the performance they, the tiny Judies, 
 waltz round in placid satisfaction, and as they dance their 
 eyelids blink up and down winking familiarly at the 
 audience. The little stage and stand are in all essentials 
 counterparts of those in Western lands, but with true 
 Oriental inconsistency little or no attempt is made to 
 hide the legs of the manipulator. Such irrelevant details 
 are '' buh yao gin" (of no importance). On a Chinese 
 stage no one objects to the presence of street urchins, who 
 climb up in front so as to get a better view. 
 
 The Chinese, as a race, have great histrionic talents, 
 fostered doubtless by the exigencies of their daily life, 
 which so often lead them to pretend to be what they are 
 not. For nearly two hundred years women have been 
 
FLOWER LAMPS ANt LEARNING HALLS 99 
 
 debarred from the stage by law, but in the " People's 
 Kingdom " the old prohibition no longer holds good, and 
 in the early days of the Republic some Cantonese ladies 
 took part in public theatricals in order to collect funds for 
 the Chinese army in MongoHa ! To buy girls in order 
 to train them as actresses is becoming a new source of 
 income for the unscrupulous. 
 
 " If a girl does no harm, it is enough, you cannot 
 expect her to be either good or useful," so said a Chinese 
 writer of bygone days. 
 
 " Can you teach an intelligent horse to read and write, 
 well then, if you cannot teach an inteUigent horse, what 
 can you expect to do with a woman," said another of these 
 ancient pessimists. 
 
 In their hearts they knew better, but the policy of 
 inaction commended itself to all. It was, no doubt, the 
 safer course to pursue. As the Chinese proverb runs — 
 " A man knows, but a woman knows better." There was 
 no telling what might happen if girls were allowed the 
 same educational advantages as their brothers, and it was 
 shrewdly suspected that they might, if given the chance, 
 prove the apter scholars of the two and become in- 
 subordinate in the home. Was there not a warning in 
 the classics to the effect that " daughters who are per- 
 mitted to please themselves will grow proud and lazy nnd 
 able to speak sharply," and girls in these days are exc< ed- 
 ingly anxious to go to the " Hall of Instruction " ^nd 
 " read books." 
 
 It is more than half a century now since the first girls' 
 school was opened in China, but in spite of the fact that 
 pupils were paid to attend, the school was not poplilar, 
 
100 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 and the only children obtainable were either those of the 
 very poor, or unwanted waifs. 
 
 By slow degrees, however, educational establishments 
 for girls increased in quantity and quality, yet, even so, an 
 authority in these matters maintained that a very few 
 years ago but one woman in three thousand was able to 
 read. Until 1898 the schools were invariably connected 
 with Missions, but in that year some Chinese officials and 
 merchants started one on their own account in Shanghai, 
 for, they maintained, " to open up the intelligence of the 
 country, we must certainly make the women free." 
 Before long the school was suppressed by order of the 
 Dowager Empress who, however, a few years later 
 changed front, and became, nominally at least, a " warm 
 patron of woman's education." In these days Govern- 
 ment schools for girls are to be found in nearly all the big 
 cities. " The most important thing in China just now is 
 that women be educated," said Yuan Shi Kai shortly 
 before his retirement after the " Old Buddha's " death, 
 and in many places there are spacious school buildings 
 with the gilded characters over the door : " Female 
 Learning Hall " even if there be no actual school within 
 its walls. 
 
 The buildings are significant of the new era, with their 
 large glass windows (letting in plenty of light and air, 
 regardless of demons), their seats and desks, their maps, 
 their anatomical plates, and natural history pictures 
 upon the walls, and finally the " wind lute " (harmonium), 
 without which no well-regulated modern school in China 
 is complete. But, alas ! Only a few hold their heads well 
 above water ; some are closed for lack of teachers, some 
 for lack of funds, and others are sinking so rapidly in the 
 
FLOWER LAMPS AND LEARNING HACL^ i k^'i 
 
 estimation of the people that before long th-^y;*wilI''gO' 
 under altogether. 
 
 A little knowledge — ^Western knowledge — may be a 
 " dangerous thing," but in China in these days of tran- 
 sition, it is a certain source of income. A few lessons in 
 English, a smattering of arithmetic and geography will 
 help to secure a lucrative berth, and the other day a girl, 
 whose sole qualification for the post was that she had 
 sung in the choir at a mission church, was engaged as 
 music teacher in the Government school ! 
 
 The Chinese girl, however, who is considered thoroughly 
 well educated, graduates at one of the Chinese- American 
 seminaries which, thanks to American missions, have 
 been established in some of the most important cities. 
 If a promising pupil, she will probably join the select few 
 who cross the seas to continue their education in 
 American colleges, and who, before now, although 
 handicapped by a language that is not their own, have 
 astonished their fellow graduates by winning the prizes 
 and taking the honours to which they themselves have 
 aspired. Here and there the mission schools have pro- 
 duced still another type of woman of whom any country 
 might be proud : 
 
 " The reason firm, the temperate will, 
 Endurance, foresight, strength and skill,** 
 
 and while a modern education, hand in hand with 
 Christianity, has aroused her slumbering imagination, 
 and fostered in her the power of sympathy, she has not 
 lost the gentle caressing manner and quiet dignity of 
 other days. 
 
 Some, however, who prefer quick methods and showy 
 
iQ^:;/qHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 '.^iccpp^plisl^ments soon leave the mission school to be 
 " finished " in Japan, where complete courses of educa- 
 tional treatment, cheap and otherwise, long or short, are 
 " in the market " to suit the time and the purse of all who 
 come. 
 
 This quick-witted, superficially educated young woman 
 becomes, as a rule, a very self-confident member of 
 society on her return home, proud of her accomplish- 
 ments, her superior knowledge, and full of destructive 
 ideas. 
 
 The " Kingdom of the Home " savours too much, she 
 fancies, of the limitations of other days. She not only 
 sighs for, but seeks and finds " fresh fields and pastures 
 new." 
 
 One has met her in male uniform with her hair cut 
 short, enhsting in the Amazon corps to fight for her 
 country. One has come across her as a Red Cross nurse, 
 all alone, except for a girl companion, in a house full of 
 soldiers ; one has heard of her attacking the assembly 
 hall in Nanking as a suffragette, or figuring as a member of 
 a band of girl detectives lately enrolled by the Govern- 
 ment. When she marries she tries to adopt the " Ameri- 
 can " style as she calls it, and makes the first advances, 
 or she resorts to matrimonial advertisements like a girl 
 student of Wuchang, who the other day solicited offers of 
 marriage in a local paper : " My unhappy destiny," she 
 wrote, " has led me to incite my parents' displeasure, 
 and to travel far to another place, for my life must be 
 one of liberty. Should any gentleman desire to marry 
 me it is necessary that he should accompany his offer 
 with his photo and visiting card, stating his business and 
 place of residence. Next Sunday I shall examine the 
 
FLOWER LAMPS AND LEARNING HALLS 103 
 
 scholarships of all who apply, and when the engagement 
 has been settled I shall, in order to authenticate the 
 matter, publish the name and business and address of 
 the gentleman in the newspaper. . . ." As an after- 
 thought she added : " Any one over twenty years of 
 age whose social rank is unsuitable will kindly refrain 
 from calling ! " 
 
 If reports be true this is by no means an isolated 
 instance, but as goes without saying, this unrestrained 
 spirit of liberty has made sad havoc of these unconven- 
 tional marriages before many months were over. O ye 
 shades of Confucius where are now the four virtues and 
 the three obediences of your " mindless, soulless creature," 
 the modesty, docility, careful speech, and submissive 
 demeanour which were once considered the whole duty 
 of woman ? 
 
 Occasionally, the modern young lady finds herself 
 bound according to law by an engagement made for her 
 when she was not long out of the cradle. In these days 
 of freedom (judging by a case which was tried in the local 
 courts a few months back), escape is easy. 
 
 The girl appeared on the scenes with the man whom she 
 wished to marry, and the man who wished to marry her, 
 and to whom, moreover, she was legally bound. 
 
 " I want liberty," she said. 
 
 " Do you desire this woman ? " asked the judge of the 
 would-be bridegroom. He assented. 
 
 " But does she not belong to the other man ? " 
 
 " China is now a Republic," came the answer, " and 
 we are free to act as we will ! " 
 
 " What have you to say ? " the judge continued, 
 addressing the rival. 
 
104 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 " The girl belongs to our family. We have given money 
 for her ! " he replied. 
 
 " I will soon settle that question," replied the judge, 
 and turning to the girl's lover he said, " Give this man 
 some money and the girl is yours ! " 
 
 A few dollars were handed over, and the case closed 
 amidst general satisfaction ! 
 
 If there is ground for the complaint in Western lands 
 that the schoolmaster teaches for school rather than for 
 life, how much more might this be said in China. The 
 marvel is that Chinese boys turn out as well as they do. 
 One realises that with such good material to work upon 
 what splendid results might be achieved with proper 
 training and advantages. In a Chinese home, as a general 
 rule, the boys follow their own inclinations. One inquires 
 why a sick child does not take his medicine, why a lazy 
 child does not learn his lessons, why a tired child does not 
 go to bed, and the answer is always the same — *' Ta buh 
 ken " (he is not willing), and there is an end of it. The 
 elders sigh or smile according to their temperament. 
 They ignore their own responsibility, and the fact that 
 they might, if they wished, alter things to suit their own 
 convenience. 
 
 Later on, when it becomes a question of school, the 
 little sons conform to custom with surprising adapta- 
 bility, and the time-honoured saying — " Secure an educa- 
 tion and become an official " throws a glamour over the 
 " Hall of Instruction." 
 
 Who in China would " plough with a pen," or in other 
 words, be a schoolmaster ? 
 
 Across the lane at the back of our house old Li Sien 
 Seng sits through the day in the midst of a chorus of some 
 
FLOWER LAMPS AND LEARNING HALLS 105 
 
 thirty voices mumbling, chanting, and yelling from a 
 varied assortment of lesson books. The great point to 
 be observed is noise. Concentration of thought is not 
 required or indeed expected. On occasions each pupil 
 tries to chant louder than his neighbour, or to shriek in a 
 high treble whilst others take the bass. 
 
 Unless they learn aloud, they cannot learn at all, they 
 tell us. Besides which, the teacher maintains that there 
 is no middle course, and unless his pupils " give tongue," 
 so to speak, they will either sit in idleness or " play the 
 monkey." 
 
 Small wonder that so many adults, who profess to 
 " recognise character " (read), can sing through one page 
 of literature after another with only the most rudi- 
 mentary conception of its meaning. " If you do not 
 repeat your task for three days, brambles will grow in 
 your mouth," goes the saying. Surely the empty forms 
 and symbols, which play so large a part in the lives of 
 the. Sons of Han, are fostered by these parrot-Hke recita- 
 tions which, in many cases, have constituted the only 
 education of their early days. 
 
 A new word signifying to " educate " rather than to 
 " instruct " has been coined with many others to supply 
 the modern requirements of these enlightened days. 
 Western pedagogic methods are gaining ground, and 
 most of the new books deal with Western subjects. 
 Arithmetic, geography, elementary science, and so forth 
 are (in Chinese phraseology) stored away in the pupil's 
 abdomen, and the pendulum has swung so far in the other 
 direction that the old classics, the Confucian analects, 
 the Doctrine of the Mean, the works of Mencius are ignored 
 by all but the few. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 Fragrant Dust and the Precious Ones 
 
 As young Wang with his pearl rings and his satchel 
 came to the English class this morning, he was accosted 
 by the somewhat discouraging remark : " You are look- 
 ing very ugly to-day " (viz., you are not looking at all 
 well, but in Chinese the one word contains both mean- 
 ings). His appearance is certainly somewhat sickly, 
 especially when combined with this habit of his of emit- 
 ting a prolonged yawn every few minutes. He goes to 
 bed early, he tells us, and gets up late. The Chinese have 
 a saying that " too much sleep brings sickness." Young 
 Wang's life, as indeed the lives of so many " gilded 
 youths " in China, is singularly sedentary. 
 
 Few take any exercise of any kind, except, perhaps, a 
 dilatory stroll through the streets. There seems indeed 
 to be no attractive form of exercise to take. By old- 
 fashioned folk, games are not encouraged. " There 
 is no profit in play," goes the approved saying. They 
 have indeed heard of tennis and cricket. Lu has even 
 seen them played in " the hub of the universe," Shanghai, 
 and describes them to the others, who smile pityingly. 
 They know that these fatiguing occupations are in vogue in 
 some of the Western schools and colleges, but they can see 
 no amusement in either except possibly to the spectators. 
 
 In the books of the ancients it is recorded that football 
 was once played in China, first of all with a ball stuffed 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 107 
 
 with hair, later on with an inflated bladder covered with 
 leather ; the goal resembled a triumphal arch in shape, 
 but the game could hardly have been a matter of pure 
 recreation, as it is written that though the victors were 
 rewarded with flowers and fruit, and sometimes silver 
 bowls and brocades, " the captain of the losing team was 
 flogged." * 
 
 In those " good old days " one hears of polo as a game 
 played before the Emperor, in which even women were 
 sometimes allowed to take part, but only at a distinct 
 disadvantage, being mounted, so it is said, on donkeys. 
 
 " What do you do all day ? " I inquired of Lu and Wang 
 on one of the many occasions, when they professed to 
 have had no time to prepare their translation work. 
 
 Lu proffered the explanation in English that they were 
 busy because " their friends were too many," and Wang 
 handed me a slip of paper on which were inscribed four 
 Chinese characters : " books, drawing, music, chess," 
 but a direct answer as to whether he himself dabbled in 
 the four polite arts was not forthcoming. At the end of 
 my inquiries, I was as much in the dark as ever as to my 
 pupils' means of recreation. Direct answers, whether in 
 matters trivial or otherwise, are contrary to the custom of 
 the country. Thus one small boy of the household when 
 asked why he is beginning to undress so early explains 
 that he " is trying not to sleep slowly," in other words 
 " get to bed quickly," and the servant who has hastily 
 removed a pan of hot charcoal says in answer to inquiries, 
 not that the woodwork was catching fire as this would be 
 the surest way to bring about disaster, but that " he 
 feared there might be some affair." 
 
 • " Civilisation of China," H. A. Giles. 
 
io8 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 At certain holiday seasons theatricals in the court- 
 yards of the temples, and at various stately buildings 
 belonging to provincial guilds, form a diversion to the 
 daily monotony of the life of the pleasure-seeker. To one 
 of those jollifications two miles from the city, Wang and 
 Lu were carried in their sedan chairs. To ride on horse- 
 back would have been too much trouble, and to walk, an 
 unnecessary exertion, when coolies could be hired to 
 carry one. It would have done young Wang good to 
 have adopted the ingenious plan of a famous Chinese 
 statesman in the fourth century who, wishing to inure 
 himself to hardness, and to exercise his muscles without 
 losing a moment of his valuable time, carried with him a 
 hundred bricks on his daily walk to and from his private 
 apartments to the Courts of Justice. 
 
 Amongst the fashionable youth of the city, printed 
 cards in foreign style are gradually superseding the red 
 sheets of paper used as visiting cards in former days. 
 Lu and Wang and their friends, following the craze of 
 the moment, desire not only foreign cards but foreign 
 names. A certain Mr. Uin Fan applied to us through a 
 mutual acquaintance for assistance in the matter. Why 
 not keep his own name we suggested, following the 
 example of Yuan Shi Kai and other great men, but no, 
 though unable to speak a word of the language, he desired 
 an English name. Would a translation of his Chinese 
 name suit his fancy ? Mr. Flowery Cloud, for instance. 
 No, nothing would content him but the real thing, so 
 finally Uin Fan became " Ian Fane " and all was peace. 
 
 Lu and Wang, I am glad to say, remained Lu and 
 Wang till the end of the chapter, and satisfied their idea 
 of the fitness of things by letting their first names be 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 109 
 
 represented by initials, whilst Lu, as a finishing touch, 
 had his photo printed on the back of his card ! Other 
 Western customs are gaining ground, and Lu and Wang 
 have discarded their rag and cloth shoes for creaking 
 leather boots. The creak, alas ! is by no means a point 
 of objection, for does it not proclaim to the world at large 
 the interesting fact that the boots are not only foreign 
 but new ? 
 
 Now and again Wang, who is, I am told, the owner of 
 beautiful terraced gardens, brings me an offering of 
 flowers. " We are so fond of flowers," say the Chinese, 
 " that a single spray is considered sufficient for a bouquet, 
 and a bouquet is thought to be vulgar." 
 
 In the winter the offering would take the form of a tiny 
 branch of the Lah mei Hwa, with blossoms like yellow 
 stars on a leafless bough which blooms in mid-winter and 
 is of rare fragrance. 
 
 In the early spring and later on, magenta-coloured 
 peonies were the usual gift. Peonies are, of all flowers, one 
 of the most prized in a Chinese garden ; it is said that 
 there are 240 different species of them in the land. The 
 " king of flowers," it is called, and is said to be the emblem 
 of wealth, and much care is taken over the cultivation of 
 the plant. All who can do so, feed it with fishbones and 
 sprinkle the soil with fish-water. Just before the flowers 
 come into bloom those, who are punctilious in these 
 matters, will even go so far as to worship this symbol of 
 wealth by the burning of sticks of incense placed around 
 the sacred roots. 
 
 A famous Chinese gardener of past days, when asked 
 the secret of his success, said that all he did was to " study 
 the individual character of the plant and treat it accord- 
 
no CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 ingly." One wondered if the inquirer felt much en- 
 lightened. The Chinese love of flowers and skill in their 
 management is well-known ; and the little secluded 
 garden shut in by high walls, is a spot much beloved of 
 its owner, who, however, would be horrified at the 
 thought of working in it himself. 
 
 " If a home has not a garden and an old tree, I see not 
 whence the everyday joys of life are to come," said Chen, 
 the " Flower Hermit," who wrote a book on gardening 
 more than a hundred years ago. 
 
 Judging by the incidents recorded in the pages of 
 Chinese history, much has been expected sometimes of 
 Chinese gardeners. When the extravagant ruler, Yang 
 Di, sat on the throne, immense gardens were laid out 
 around the palace, and orders given that the flowering 
 trees were never to be without blossoms. So skilful were 
 those who attended to these matters that the artificial 
 flowers by which the real ones were replaced when 
 necessity arose, were so beautifully made as to escape 
 detection ! 
 
 To a thrifty Chinese in these utilitarian days " a prim- 
 rose a primrose is to him and something moreP Sunflower 
 seeds and lotus seeds are prized as sweetmeats, chrysan- 
 themums and fish make a delicious stew, lily bulbs in 
 syrup, an excellent dessert, water-lily seeds are con- 
 sidered a specific against infectious diseases. Camelia 
 seeds produce valued lotion for the hair. The petals of 
 orange lilies can be made into a most palatable vegetable, 
 and probably to the " Mandarins of the kettle " (the 
 cooks) there are few items in a florist's catalogue which 
 could not be turned to double advantage. 
 
 My pupil Wang has invited us one day to go and see his 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 1 1 1 
 
 garden. The " many coloured spring is here," as Po Djii 
 the poet said. 
 
 "The secrets of the scented hearts of flowers, 
 Are whispered through the air." 
 
 The hot sunshine, bleaching the stones in the courtyard, 
 brings out the heavy scent of the blossoms of the pumelo 
 tree pressed up against the corner of the house, and 
 accentuates the fragrance of the green orchids in the 
 pots by the doorway. The red roses climbing the walls 
 in eager haste to get away from the sunny court, and 
 tumbling back branch over branch in their confusion, 
 are purpling with the heat and growing limp. There was 
 no shade in the courtyard, and the gardens of young 
 Wang sounded more attractive, but we were doomed to 
 disappointment. Young Wang came to meet us, and 
 escorted us across the large and dimly-lit guest hall, 
 which at a first casual glance resembled some public place 
 of business. Furriers were turning over the winter furs of 
 the family at a long table preparatory, probably, to storing 
 them for the summer. Some tailors not far off were busy 
 cutting out new garments, several ladies of the household 
 looked on from the background, presumably superin- 
 tending matters with the help and advice of sundry 
 serving-women, who acted as spokeswomen. Two or 
 three children, or probably slave girls, an elderly man- 
 servant or so, who may possibly have been " poor rela- 
 tions," helped to make up the party. 
 
 Young Wang's mother, who had by now appeared on 
 the scenes, conducted us by a dark and musty passage 
 round corners and up steps past untidy store-rooms, and 
 dim visions of hams and herbs and mouldy lanterns 
 
112 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 hanging from dusty beams, to the upper guest room, a 
 modern apartment redolent of the new era. Plate glass 
 doors, and plenty of them, had taken the place of the 
 carved lattice work and paper panes of other days. Blue 
 landscapes in woven velvet, " made in Japan," graced 
 the walls, and an octagonal centre table was carefully 
 shrouded in a dust sheet — the last new thing in foreign 
 tablecloths ! For the rest — tiny tea tables alternating 
 with substantial chairs, and flanked by spittoons, were 
 placed opposite to each other in two long rows down the 
 centre of the room and still savoured of the old style of 
 things. A couple of exquisite old porcelain jars, " blue 
 as the sky after rain when seen between the clouds," 
 stood in front of the inevitable foreign mirror. 
 
 The glass doors opened on to the first of the gardens, 
 but, alas ! it possessed none of the glories of a garden. 
 There were no flower beds, no lawns, no trees, and no 
 stone bridges, spanning Liliputian lakes by the side of 
 fantastic rocks, made to represent miniature mountains, 
 so dear to the Chinese garden lover. 
 
 There was nothing to be seen but tiers of shelves lined 
 with pot plants in a paved enclosure surrounded by 
 " open work " walls of ornamental stone and tile — in 
 short, the place might have passed for a mammoth green- 
 house, minus the glass. True, many of the roses and other 
 plants were the choicest of their kind, and some of the 
 elaborate pots might have graced the shelves of a 
 porcelain cabinet. We passed through into the garden 
 beyond, but it was a second edition of the first, a trifle 
 less formal perhaps and considerably less tidy, and here 
 dwarfed pine trees and maples were shown us with pride. 
 
 An interesting account is given in a book more than a 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 113 
 
 hundred years old of the methods by which these dwarf 
 trees, so dear to the hearts of both Chinese and Japanese, 
 are cultivated. 
 
 ** From a bough which bears fruit they (the Chinese 
 gardeners) remove a circular band of the bark, about an 
 inch wide, covering the bare part with mould that is kept 
 in place by a piece of matting. Above it is suspended 
 either a pot or a horn with small holes at the bottom 
 through which the water, falHng drop by drop, keeps 
 up the humidity of the soil. The branch pushes out 
 roots above the place from which the bark has been 
 peeled. . . 
 
 " This operation is performed in spring. In the autumn, 
 the branch is cut off from the parent tree and trans- 
 planted either into a jar or into the open ground, and it 
 produces fruit the following year. 
 
 ** If they wish the tree to appear small and decayed, it is 
 coated at different times with successive layers of molasses 
 or treacle which attracts miUions of ants. These attack 
 the bark of the tree and give to it a look of age." 
 
 In a garden on a still higher level, bushes of the Lah 
 met Hwa and other flowering shrubs had been allowed 
 to grow beyond the pot stage. There was, as goes without 
 saying, a white azalea, which preserves a house from 
 fire ! By this time the lack of order, inevitable in all 
 things Chinese, was sorely apparent, and accumulations of 
 necessary but unsightly oddments, usually connected 
 with a gardener's tool-house or potting-shed, cropped up 
 here and there. But the best bit of the garden lay still 
 before us — the bit which did not count and into which 
 apparently nobody but eccentric outside kingdom folk 
 would ever care to go. We espied it from below and 
 
114 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 climbed up a flight of disused steps to get there. Rank 
 grass, weeds, remnants of an overgrown vegetable patch 
 covered the ground, but overhead a bower of peach trees 
 and of loquats, a tangle of grape vines, bamboos and 
 orange trees shaded us from the blaze of the sun, and 
 the faint fragrance of the white pumelo blossoms filled 
 the air. 
 
 For a cool spot, however, on a hot day, young Wang 
 had a better suggestion. Behind the guest room, with 
 the plate glass windows, there was a shaded court into 
 which little sunlight ever crept. A great stone tank, 
 full of cold clear water and darting goldfish, occupied 
 the centre in a setting of palms and ferns of stately 
 growth. Cold stone and dripping water and the shadow 
 of green leaves — ^what could be more pleasant on a day 
 of summer heat ? 
 
 My pupils, Lu and Wang, and a later addition to the 
 class in a youth called Chang, who, having graduated at 
 the Government school in Western subjects, was con- 
 sidered quite a scholar, have presented me with their 
 photographs. 
 
 The " shower forth of likenesses " does a thriving 
 trade here as elsewhere in China, and in these days of 
 foreign fashions, the photographer is looked up to as one 
 who is well versed in these intricate matters. 
 
 Inside his studio efforts have been made to create a 
 Western atmosphere. A long tea table, resembling the 
 one at the " mad hatter's tea party," occupies the end 
 of the room. A marcella counterpane does duty as a 
 tablecloth, for, according to oriental taste, marcella 
 counterpanes are especially adapted for this purpose ; 
 cups and saucers, not of dainty native porcelain, but of 
 
MY PUPILS LU, WANG AND CHA\(,. I'KKSKNTED ME Willi 1 1 1 1. 1 1 
 PHOTOGRAPHS. 
 
 'iji^^mA'Am 
 
 
 JN TJiE CENTRE SITS TH^ DESCENDANT OF CONFUCIUS, 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 1 1 s 
 
 cheap German ware, are placed up and down the table 
 in long rows as for a school treat tea. Samples of the 
 photographer's work in foreign frames are hung in untidy 
 profusion on the walls, and amongst them various gar- 
 ments of ready-made costumes (for the benefit of custo- 
 mers who prefer to be photographed in other people's 
 clothes) are dangling from hooks and nails. Two foreign 
 suits are in great request, so much so that the collars and 
 shirt fronts belonging to them are greasy and grey with 
 use. The foreign suit is a bait by which both soldiers 
 and civilians are attracted into the photographer's web. 
 It has never occurred to him to add the luxury of a 
 dressing room, so the changes of costume go on in public. 
 A " vulgar " bouquet in a foreign glass vase, some walk- 
 ing sticks and English books complete the mise en scene. 
 On my arrival on the scenes the other day, I hesitated, 
 seeing a soldier's uniform scattered on the floor, whilst its 
 owner was struggling with strange European garments in 
 the background. 
 
 " It is of no consequence," the photographer's mother 
 assured me, " please enter." 
 
 Strange ! that one of these outside kingdom folk, who 
 must be so accustomed to the peculiarities of photo- 
 grapher's studios should show surprise or hesitancy ! 
 That was evidently her thought as I politely insisted on 
 lingering in the outer room till the soldiers were once 
 again in their ordinary attire. 
 
 My pupil Chang, the graduate, took us round the two 
 Government schools of the city the other day. The large 
 airy rooms with more windows than wall space were 
 characteristic of the new order of things. The black- 
 boards, the modern maps and charts, clean and new, 
 
it6 chance and change IN CHINA 
 
 stood out in bold contrast to the dusty Confucian tablets, 
 before which sticks of incense were smouldering sulkily 
 as though conscious that they had fallen on evil days. 
 Along the corridor were other significant signs of the 
 times in the rows of rifles, sham rifles certainly, to be used 
 in drill, but drill is one of the important features of the 
 curriculum, and some schools for small boys in the pro- 
 vince have practically given up most other subjects in its 
 favour. The delighted pupils in their German caps and 
 miniature uniforms fancy themselves but one step 
 removed from the genuine article. 
 
 Chang, anxious to show us all the modern improve- 
 ments in his own school invited us to see the bathrooms, 
 truly an innovation, but distinctly disappointing at close 
 quarters. In a room with a mud floor, not unhke a large 
 fowl-house, stood a solitary wooden tub of the kind which, 
 when occupied, allows of no margin. Evidently it was 
 considered a work of supererogation to provide a clean 
 apartment for people needing baths. 
 
 The pupils, nearly 400 in all, varying in age from ten 
 years to twenty and over, the sons, many of them, of well- 
 to-do parents, get their schooHng for nothing. The 
 boarders, however, are required to pay about a pound a 
 year for their " rice." 
 
 Instruction is given in most Western subjects from 
 EngHsh to singing. The EngHsh master, however, could 
 hardly be called proficient. He had acquired his vocabu- 
 lary from a Japanese, the Japanese, in his turn, had 
 " picked it up " from a fellow countryman, who, so it was 
 said, had actually studied the language at its source, viz., 
 in America, and could moreover speak the dialect used 
 in England ! By going through so many processes 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 117 
 
 English as taught in the " City of the River Orchid " had 
 become almost a new tongue. 
 
 To a son of Han, accustomed to a language in which all 
 parts of speech are interchangeable, the English idiom 
 presents many difficulties. Therefore, a pupil, who pro- 
 mises to exert himself in order to make progress with his 
 studies, writes as follows : — 
 
 " I is must will use work to exhaust one's strength to 
 investigate may to beg advancement." He mentions that 
 the weather is hot. " So are warm I could not any to do 
 matter," but he allows that he is well. " I am both fresh 
 and sound," and hopes his teacher " will not doubt that 
 he is lazy " — meaning, of course, the exact opposite. 
 
 " The spring-time has feet," say the Chinese, and the 
 hills, which a week or so ago were innocent of flowers, save 
 for a few sprigs of wild and scentless lilac sticking out of 
 the ground like spikes, are now in the words of a Chinese 
 poet : — 
 
 " Girdled with ivy, 
 And robed with wisteria, 
 Cloaked with the orchid, 
 And crowned with azalea." 
 
 The azaleas, or the " red sunset flower," as the people 
 call them, turn the sunny slopes of the hillsides into a 
 gorgeous blaze of rose-pink blossoms, shadowed here and 
 there by a slender pine in a bower of white wisteria. At 
 the foot of one of those " sunset " hills stands the Httle 
 temple for sick horses. Two prancing steeds, evidently 
 in the best of health, are painted on the outer walls to 
 encourage, no doubt, the poor diseased creatures which 
 are brought there to be cured by the gods. A horse, so 
 runs the superstition, has the power of seeing demons and 
 
ii8 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 at the sight of them he stands petrified with fear, whereas 
 the donkey is supposed to be afraid of nothing. 
 
 Foxes abound on the " red sunset " hill and make raids 
 on the farmers' homesteads with impunity, for there are 
 not many who care to meddle with these weird mysterious 
 " beings," whose power in the land is so great. Many cases 
 here, as elsewhere in China, have been known of fox pos- 
 session and of cruel deaths brought about by the malady. 
 
 All foxes are said to be sagacious — and an official who 
 has a difficult law case to solve will often seek wisdom of 
 the fox. In some of the Yamens there is a small building 
 set apart for the worship of this strange creature, an 
 empty building save for the incense table, and, pre- 
 sumably, the invisible spirit of the animal, in whose 
 honour the candles are lit and the wine presented. 
 
 The azaleas on the hillsides are seldom allowed to grow 
 into tall bushes, for firewood is expensive, and even 
 azalea boughs can be turned into fuel. One meets peasant 
 after peasant carrying his bundles of azalea branches 
 starred with rose-pink buds, not for the adornment of 
 his house, but for the cooking of the evening rice ! 
 
 All things in China must be turned to a practical use, 
 if not for fuel, then for food or for medicine, and on those 
 warm spring days the village children set to work to 
 gather the wild vegetables growing by the wayside, chief 
 among which are the tiny wild onions, and in the shops 
 the young twigs of the cedrela Chinensis are being sold 
 as some of the delicacies of the season. This " scent of 
 spring " tree as they call it, has a flavour, when cooked, 
 of the most delicate kind of leek. Later on, the petals of 
 the orange Hlies and the stalks of balsams will make other 
 vegetable dishes equally delicious. 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 119 
 
 Just now, the cooks at the food stalls in the crowded 
 city streets, are busy boiling snails, and on the rubbish 
 heaps outside the doors of wealthy mansions, snail shells, 
 by the score, give evidence of late festivities. 
 
 Last autumn the coohes jogging along the winding 
 paths across the fields were, many of them, carrying that 
 which at first sight looked Hke white band boxes slung 
 on either end of their bamboo poles. Then it turned out 
 to be the tallow from the tallow trees. Now in these first 
 warm days of spring, soft downy chickens just hatched, 
 huddled in open baskets, have taken the place of the 
 tallow. They are cheap — three eggs a piece and their 
 number seems to be legion. By hundreds and by 
 thousands, day after day, they are brought along the 
 country roads and sold to the country people and the 
 townsfolk. 
 
 I looked at them with interest, having been with them 
 all on the eve of their birthday, some ten miles off in a 
 little village, hiding in a dip at the foot of the wooded 
 hills, divided by the fields of wheat and golden rape from 
 the river. 
 
 For weeks at a time " Dai Giao Si " the teacher sister, 
 lives and works amongst the people of the village, 
 occupying the tiny upper storey of one of the small bare 
 houses — beautiful on the day of our visit with boughs 
 of geranium-pink azaleas. 
 
 The incubators, of primitive design, which had been in 
 existence probably scores, if not hundreds, of years before 
 such things were known in Western lands, occupied a 
 large barn-like building at the end of the village street. 
 
 As we stepped through the door, which was hastily 
 closed to behind us, the heat of invisible fires on every 
 
120 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 side turned the atmosphere into that of an oven. Stokers, 
 bare to the waist and streaming with moisture, gathered 
 round us inquiringly. Ah ! we were twelve hours too 
 soon, they said. We should have come early the next 
 morning and nearer the time at which the chickens were 
 due to arrive. We could see, however, what there was to 
 see ! 
 
 Down the length of the long barn, the greater part of 
 the floor space was occupied by three wooden platforms, 
 one a few feet above the other, each one covered with a 
 thick layer of eggs, 60,000 in all. Here and there a pre- 
 mature arrival was breaking through its shell and in a 
 few hours the whole of the 60,000 would follow suit, and 
 the men described to us, how at this juncture they were 
 kept busy, throwing the newly-hatched chickens, four at a 
 time, into the coolies' baskets to be carried post haste 
 through the country for sale. For two days, fortunately 
 for those concerned, no food would be necessary. 
 
 On the floor at either end of the building, erections, 
 akin to old-fashioned thatched bee-hives in outward 
 shape, but twice as large, were packed with eggs still in 
 the early stages — 200 eggs in a hive and these were kept 
 heated night and day by charcoal fires. In all there were 
 over 125,000 eggs in the building at that moment. 
 
 We were shown a hole, the size of an egg, tunnelled in 
 the wall, and letting in a tiny shaft of daylight. Each 
 egg is held there for inspection and the concentrated 
 light shining through gives evidence of its quality. 
 
 No one could oifer any suggestion with regard to the 
 date of the first incubator. The industry, as far as they 
 knew, had always been in existence. When a small 
 chicken can be bought for one halfpenny or less, one is 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 121 
 
 hardly surprised at the numerous cocks and hens to be 
 met with in the city. Many of them eke out the scanty 
 Hving provided by penurious owners, by sallying forth 
 in less frequented streets to gather crumbs from the rich 
 man's table. The risk of losing them is considerably 
 minimised by the ingenious plan by which each bird 
 wears, so to speak, his " house colours." Thus Mr. Bas' 
 poultry are painted from neck to tail a bright magenta. 
 Mrs. Li's, on the contrary, are green, and those belonging 
 to the old man at the end of the lane, are daubed with 
 scarlet, whereas our friends' poultry just round the 
 corner are streaked with pale blue. 
 
 The hatching of chickens, however, is but a small and 
 unimportant industry compared to that of the rearing of 
 silkworms. 
 
 The other day when sitting in the guest hall of the 
 house of Djao-Djoh, one of the school girls, partaking of 
 tea and hard-boiled eggs, our hostess, a dapper little 
 woman in trim " gwadz " of dark blue silk, was requested 
 to show the foreign guest a few of the young worms of the 
 season. She agreed with alacrity, and produced them 
 forthwith from the inner recesses of her upper garment, 
 where they were kept for warmth. For some days she 
 had " worn " the sheets of rough paper sprinkled with 
 eggs, but the eggs were hatched now, and she displayed 
 to view a flat box half-filled with faded mulberry leaf 
 crumbled almost to a powder. On further inspection one 
 perceived that only some of the crumbled particles were 
 inanimate and that these were being rapidly devoured 
 by the rest. " In about six weeks' time," she said, 
 "they will climb the hill." 
 
 " And how many have you this year ? " 
 
122 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 '' How many ! " She was not sure. " Some tens of 
 thousands. The teacher mother must come and see 
 them when they are bigger." 
 
 The next day a man with silkworms for sale appeared 
 on the scenes. He unwrapped a cloth, and produced some 
 sheets of rough brown paper, so thickly speckled with 
 tiny dark brown moving clots that the paler brown of the 
 paper was hardly visible. " The eggs are just hatched," 
 he said. As long as the baby-worms were left in the 
 condition in which they had emerged from the eggs, 
 that is to say, with a tiny bit of white substance attached 
 to the tail end of the microscopic body, it was not 
 necessary to provide them with food, for they remained 
 presumably in a state of " arrested development." Our 
 friend sold his young worms by the ounce ; the tenth 
 part of an ounce cost 24 cash — about one halfpenny — 
 and one ounce of grubs, if carefully reared should produce 
 from 150 to 160 ounces of silk. 
 
 The daily meals, however, for these tiny morsels, 
 especially where their numbers run into tens of thousands, 
 is no light matter. In early days their digestion is quickly 
 upset, and from every mulberry leaf the sinews must be 
 removed, and the remainder carefully chopped and re- 
 chopped until a mulberry leaf mince, neither too wet nor 
 too dry, has been provided for their delectation. Those 
 who are rearing worms for profit, observe rules of this 
 kind most punctiliously. Later on, as the worms increase 
 in stature, their appetite becomes prodigious. Fortu- 
 nately, however, their digestive powers also improve and 
 mulberry leaves can be served au naturel^ provided they 
 are freshly gathered and not weU Meals at constant 
 intervals throughout the day do not suffice, and their 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 123 
 
 owners have to sit up at night or provide them with 
 night attendants in order to supply these omnivorous 
 feeders with continual nourishment. 
 
 Those who have studied the habits of the creatures 
 for hundreds of years (according to historical records 
 since the time of the " Yellow Emperor " more than 
 2000 B.C.) assure one that silkworms observe one day in 
 seven as a day of rest, and sleep steadily through the 
 twenty-four hours. Some, however, keep one day and 
 some another, which is unfortunate for the caterers who 
 are therefore never off duty. 
 
 Towards the end of the sixth week Djao-Djoh an- 
 nounced that the ceremony of " climbing the hill " had 
 commenced and we were invited to come and see. She 
 added mysteriously that no noise must be made and no 
 words used which were not good to hear (*' buh hao ting "), 
 a somewhat surprising piece of advice to be offered by a 
 hobbledehoy school girl to a teacher mother of dignified 
 demeanour. 
 
 We soon perceived, however, that this was no ordinary 
 occasion. A subdued atmosphere reigned in the house, 
 as we silently followed Djao-Djoh's mother up the dimly- 
 lit stairs and entered the darkened rooms on the first 
 floor, one room leading into another, large empty rooms, 
 save for the humble spinners of silk. 
 
 Here and there sheaves of rice straw erected in tubs 
 and pails or propped against the walls made " hills " or 
 bushes for the benefit of the climbers. Clinging to the 
 straw near the top of the sheaves, or halfway up, or even 
 nearer to the ground, one and another had come to a 
 standstill to " vomit " the precious silk. Tucked away 
 inside the fluffy balls of white or golden yellow the worms 
 
124 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 themselves were no longer visible. In each room stood 
 a small pan of glowing charcoal, as warmth at this stage 
 is of all things necessary — warmth and quiet and a " dim 
 religious " Hght. 
 
 " Here are the precious ones," said our guide. " Can 
 you not see the precious ones ? I will open the shutters 
 just a very, very little so that you may see the precious 
 ones more clearly." 
 
 In every other sentence she made use of the words 
 " precious ones," laying stress on the term of endearment. 
 It was all part of the performance, for silkworms, we dis- 
 covered, are peculiarly sensitive at this critical moment 
 of their lives, and will take umbrage at any discourteous 
 language, whereas polite phrases will work wonders, and 
 induce them to spin with a will. 
 
 Here and there real flowers, and bits of red silk, and 
 strips of red paper are placed in conspicuous positions 
 in token of good luck, and also, presumably, by way of 
 encouragement to the tiny workers. 
 
 By refusing nourishment they give the first sign of 
 their desire to " climb the hill " and set to work. 
 
 " And when they have finished spinning ? " we asked, 
 " what happens then ? " 
 
 Whereupon Djao-Djoh's mother dropped her voice to 
 so low a whisper that we could not hear what she said. 
 It was explained afterwards, when there were no " listen- 
 ing " silkworms to be offended by the words, or frightened 
 into inaction by the dread prospect which awaited them, 
 that a death by slow torture in a cauldron of boiling water 
 would be their final end. 
 
 My next sight of silkworms was in this piteous condi- 
 tion. A countrywoman sat at her wheel briskly winding 
 
FRAGRANT DUST AND THE PRECIOUS ONES 125 
 
 off the silken threads from a seething mass of once fluffy 
 balls which bobbed up and down in great iron pots of 
 boiling water over a fierce charcoal fire. 
 
 ♦ When the silk was all removed, the poor dead remains 
 would form a palatable dish, and the woman at the wheel 
 scrunched one or two between her teeth with evident 
 relish. 
 
 "They are best when served in oil," some one suggested, 
 but to those engaged in the trade this is considered 
 unlucky, so much so that the next generation of silk- 
 worms, incensed at such treatment of their ancestors, will 
 decline to make any silk that is worth having. 
 
 Why they should draw the line at oil and " wink at " 
 being eaten, does not appear, but according to the books 
 of the ancients the scent of oil is one of the seven things 
 held in abhorence by these fastidious creatures. They 
 dislike smoke ; they object to wine and vinegar, and can- 
 not stand the scent of musk or oil. They abominate 
 damp leaves or hot leaves, and have a peculiar aversion 
 from any one pounding in a mortar, and (though this 
 seems unnecessarily faddy) from seeing people clad in 
 mourning. 
 
 In India, where the maxim " Take not the life you 
 have no power to give " is held sacred by many, tepid 
 water is used instead of boiling water and the creatures 
 allowed to escape. The Chinese, however, aver that the 
 silk comes off in better condition, and also more easily, 
 when the cocoons are boiled* 
 
CHAPTER X 
 The Dragon House * 
 
 The proclamation ordaining that all who, after three 
 weeks' grace, steadfastly persist in smoking opium will be 
 shot, still hangs on the city walls, but Hke a tin cat in a 
 cornfield, it no longer alarms. 
 
 It is some weeks ago now since whispered words at 
 the Yamen announced the fact (in confidence) that 
 authorities at headquarters, fearing the result of such 
 drastic legislation in these unsettled days, had cancelled 
 the first order. This prudent measure was not proclaimed 
 publicly, however, and the scarecrow remained intact. 
 
 Stricter methods were in vogue at the Yamen. Num- 
 bers had increased in the Marshalsea, but some had left 
 on tteir own initiative. No wonder ! for escape was easy 
 enough under the circumstances, as no locked doors 
 barred the way except at night-time. 
 
 A good part of the ramshackle building was to be 
 rebuilt, and already housebreakers were at work demoHsh- 
 ing some of the outer rooms which had given promise for 
 some time past of tumbling to pieces of their own accord, 
 and seemed to be merely kept in place by clinging cob- 
 webs and glutinous grime. The two characters " Djiah- 
 Ma " the name of a mihtary general of olden times, 
 famous for his power over demons, were inscribed on slips 
 of red paper and pasted near the base of the walls in 
 order to keep at bay the earth gods, who might otherwise 
 take offence at this disturbance of the soil. 
 
 • Gaol in Yamen. 
 
THE DRAGON HOUSE 127 
 
 Meanwhile the unfortunate opium prisoners had been 
 gathered into one room, and, for the sake of security, and 
 also no doubt with a view to economy of space, had been 
 compressed into two wooden cages. 
 
 True, they were large cages, some twenty feet by 
 twelve, small enough, however, when apportioned out to 
 seventy or eighty grown men. 
 
 The bearded idol in his shrine had been taken down to 
 make room for them, and, with the exception of a narrow 
 aisle down the centre occupied by the jailer's family and 
 the visitors, the greater part of the floor space was taken 
 up by the new erections. They might almost have been 
 cattle pens, but for the fact that they were roofed in 
 overhead by heavy wooden rails. 
 
 With the exception of the empty rice basins slung on 
 ropes attached to the bars, and a couple of necessary 
 buckets, there were no accessories of any kind. Men of a 
 respectable class were herded together with coolies of a 
 low stamp, and amongst them stood the king of the 
 beggars — a sorry-looking individual whose profession in 
 life made filthy rags and matted locks a necessary part 
 of his costume, though he was popularly supposed to be a 
 man of considerable private means. 
 
 The prisoners peering out at us between the bars 
 seemed, strangely enough, by no means discouraged by 
 the situation, and some of them were even disposed to 
 look on Hfe with merriment. 
 
 A few had already broken off the opium habit, and were 
 merely waiting until their friends or relations should 
 come forward with money for the fine, and for other 
 prison expenses. 
 
 As the weather grew warmer, and numbers increased, 
 
128 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 the condition of the cages became more and more in- 
 sanitary and repulsive, so much so, that the cheerfulness, 
 not to say the levity of some of the poor unfortunates, 
 became irritating rather than commendable. There 
 was something almost inhuman in the callousness dis- 
 played. 
 
 Some few, however, callous no longer, were huddled 
 on the floor behind the bars, sick with fever, and more 
 than one complained bitterly of the vermin. One stal- 
 wart fellow, following a custom not unusual amongst a 
 certain non-fastidious class, was busily engaged in " weed- 
 ing " one of his exceedingly ragged garments, and at each 
 successful find popped the results of his labours into his 
 mouth ! 
 
 The elegant young official, in his immaculate gown of 
 pale blue silk, who, with his immobile face and eye- 
 brows permanently raised, condescended to be present 
 during the medical examination of doubtful cases, was 
 careful to keep clear of the cages, and objected to hearing 
 complaints on the subject. The prisoners, he assured us, 
 could, if they liked, gain their release any day by the 
 payment of the fine. If they preferred to plead poverty, 
 and remain where they were, that was their own business. 
 It was easy to recognise a really wealthy individual on 
 the occasion of these medical inspections, not indeed by 
 the quality of his clothes or the length of his nails, but by 
 the attitude of the onlookers, from the young man of the 
 raised eyebrows to a certain Yamen underling, a gentle- 
 man with " rat eyes," whose manner varied from moment 
 to moment from an engaging suavity when face to face 
 with Ba Giao Si, to a ferret-Hke sharpness when turned 
 the other way. The test, a drop or so of blood in 
 
THE DRAGON HOUSE 129 
 
 a solution of alcohol and apomorphine was almost 
 " infallible " and many anxious eyes peered into the tiny 
 cup to see for themselves the result, for the rich man was 
 worth many thousands of dollars, and his conviction 
 would mean possible pickings and certain perquisites 
 for those in charge of the case. 
 
 The countryside in these days is constantly scoured by 
 parties of soldiers in search of opium crops, and a sub- 
 stantial fine is levied on the owner at the rate of so much 
 a mow * or a part of a mow. The soldiers go about their 
 work, it is whispered rather too zealously, and an unfortu- 
 nate tea-grower, not many miles away from this city, 
 complained somewhat bitterly of his treatment at their 
 hands. On the top of a hill in the midst of his tea planta- 
 tion the emissaries of the law beheld an unmistakable 
 opium plant. They measured off without more ado a 
 mow of the land with the solitary opium poppy flaunting 
 gaily in the centre. Naturally enough the owner of the 
 property denied being even accessory to the act. A bird, 
 it was suggested, had deposited the forbidden seed, but as 
 somebody must be fined, and the bird was out of the 
 question, the tea-planter would have to bear the responsi- 
 bility. In the end, after much discussion on the subject 
 at the Yamen, a slight reduction of the fine was agreed to ! 
 
 Young Wang, with a smile, told me this morning of the 
 shooting of a prisoner on the grass-strewn hill outside the 
 city wall — not a grower of opium, f but a robber The 
 executioner happened to be a bad shot, and had wounded 
 his victim four times over before killing him. As I 
 expressed my horror Wang continued to smile, probably 
 
 • One mow = sixth part of an acre. 
 
 t Opium growers are liable to the death penalty. 
 
130 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 more out of conformity to custom than from lack of 
 sympathy. Although one never knows, for a Chinese 
 seldom puts himself " in his neighbour's shoes," and 
 often sheer inabiHty to do so makes him curiously in- 
 different to the sufferings of others. Only a few weeks ago, 
 in a neighbouring city, two criminals, heavily fettered 
 were ordered out to the execution ground to be strangled. 
 More than a hundred soldiers followed, goading the poor 
 miserable prisoners into a run, but with the ponderous 
 chains around their ankles it was an impossibility to go 
 at a quick pace. Forced on by their merciless guards 
 they jerked along with painful hops and jumps, falling 
 every now and again and struggling back to their 
 feet. 
 
 The crowd looked on with amusement^ and two minor 
 officials borne in their sedan chairs at the back of the 
 procession laughed at the " comical " sight. 
 
 It is only fair to add, however, that the Governor of the 
 city when hearing of the proceeding, expressed regret, 
 and thenceforward convicted prisoners were conveyed to 
 the execution ground in sedan chairs. 
 
 On the grass land outside the walls of the " City of the 
 River Orchid," several robbers' coffins are lying in the 
 open, worn and weather stained. We recognised them 
 by the one chipped corner. The slips of wood lopped off 
 are kept at the Yamen as a proof that the execution in 
 question has indeed taken place, and the body of the 
 criminal encoffined. 
 
 Many a tragic story could be told of that " Terrace of 
 Night. " outside the city walls. The other day we passed 
 the burial-place of a young and exceedingly gifted 
 student, who, some years ago, had professed great interest 
 
THE DRAGON HOUSE 131 
 
 in the " foreign religion," coming Sunday after Sunday 
 to the services, and expounding to others with much 
 apparent sincerity the doctrine of the Truth. 
 
 But the day came when whispered reports reached 
 the ears of the " teacher sister " denouncing the 
 " earnest " student as an opium smoker and an evil 
 Hver. 
 
 When faced with the matter, he indignantly denied 
 the accusation and, seizing a knife, said he would 
 prove nis innocence with his blood. Laying his hand 
 on the table he chopped off a finger which fell bleeding 
 to the floor. Yelling in a frenzy he flung himself down 
 beside it. 
 
 The " foreign teacher," seeing the uncontrolled state 
 of mind in which he was in, left him to the care of his own 
 relations, sending back, however, a couple of splints and 
 some permanganate of potash, with which the old mother 
 deftly put the finger back again in its place. But its 
 owner, alas ! was not destined to need its use for many 
 more years. Abandoning himself to his profligate life he 
 drifted from bad to worse, and before very long brought 
 himself under suspicion of the authorities by the foul 
 murder of a man. A gruesome tale was noised abroad of 
 the victim's corpse, tied in a sack and borne by the 
 assassins to the top of a lonely hill for burial, when the 
 sack with its heavy burden overbalanced at the top of a 
 ridge and bounded down the slope to the valley below. 
 Thither the would-be grave diggers pursued it and 
 tumbled it with nervous haste into a hole hurriedly 
 excavated. 
 
 But " eyes and ears " (spies) were not wanting. Soon 
 after that the murderer and his accomplice were tracked 
 
132 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 down, tried and condemned. Without further delay 
 they were shot on the grave-strewn hill outside the 
 walls. 
 
 That night the bodies lay out on the grass unburied, 
 and those who passed that way the following morning 
 shook their heads approvingly over the sight that met 
 their gaze, and murmured that verily indeed this was the 
 judgment of heaven, for one of the two men had been 
 more than half-devoured by the dogs, and that one was the 
 murderer^ despite the fact that he was little more than skin 
 and hone^ whereas the body of the other who had merely 
 given a hand in the burial on the hillside, had been left 
 untouched by the scavengers, albeit he was large and 
 fleshy. 
 
 " Truly the gods are just," said one to the other, for 
 to arrive in the nether world physically incomplete is 
 (in China) the worst fate imaginable. 
 
 Soldiers in these days enjoy the reflected glory of the 
 " patriots " of the Revolution. They represent the new 
 order of things and have acquired, through no merit of 
 their own, a position of power which, alas ! many of them 
 abuse. 
 
 The high rate of pay (ten dollars a month) has attracted 
 many men into their ranks, men — ^who, in the old days 
 would have looked down on the profession with contempt. 
 It is said that in very many instances the wages are actually 
 paid in full, another great innovation, but one wily 
 official in a place that shall be nameless has hit on a plan 
 which is regarded as eminently satisfactory to all con- 
 cerned. He has recently enlisted a large number of 
 elderly men who fully concurred with his proposal that 
 as they were getting old and past work they must be 
 
THE DRAGON HOUSE 133 
 
 content with six dollars instead of ten. It was most 
 reasonable, as every one agreed, and the official, as goes 
 without saying, pocketed the extra $4 a man. 
 
 The Army, even in these days of peace, is a goose that 
 lays many golden eggs. The other day an enterprising 
 servant desiring to " better himself," took a situation as 
 cook to the captain of a company of ten. Roused one 
 night by his master to get him something to eat, he 
 seized the first thing that offered, viz., a loaded rifle, with 
 which he poked the fire. Not unnaturally the gun went 
 off, causing the instant death of the cook. Now the 
 Government allowance to the family of a soldier killed on 
 duty is 300 dollars. True, the man was only a cook, but 
 under the circumstances he could easily be reported as a 
 soldier. The official himself would see to the matter. He 
 did so and finally divided the spoils with the man's 
 mother who was thankful to get any compensation 
 at all. 
 
 There has been much consternation lately amongst the 
 people of the countryside over the new " men-pai " 
 (literally door hoard, giving number of inhabitants in 
 each house). It is an order from headquarters. All who 
 are not natives of the place must be guaranteed as 
 respectable by those who are. Unfortunately, however, 
 doubt exists as to the quahfications of a resident. To 
 have lived seventeen years in the same town, or even 
 seventy, does not count, if it is known that the family 
 came originally from some other part of the country. 
 
 A census has been taken in China from time imme- 
 morial. No wonder, however, that people look upon the 
 old records with some suspicion. At one period only 
 " taxable people " were included, and officials, slaves, 
 
134 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 persons over sixty, the weak and the sick, etc., etc., 
 were omitted ! 
 
 In the thirteenth century, however, details were gone 
 into more fully, and the head of a household was required 
 to state on his " door board " not only his own name, and 
 that of his wife, and his children, his slaves and other 
 inmates of his house, but also the number of his animals I 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 The Gem-Hill City 
 
 Deborah, my travelling companion of other days, has 
 arrived on the scenes in order to join me on a little journey 
 from this province of Chekiang to the Po Yang lake in 
 Kiangsi. 
 
 On the eve of our departure in one of the brown-hooded 
 boats, the dark waters of the river were studded with 
 fairy lights from shore to shore — monster stars of red and 
 gold floating down with the current, like Liliputian boats 
 of fire. It was not, however, an illumination in honour 
 of the foreign guests, but a deed of merit performed by a 
 wealthy citizen for the benefit of the wandering spirits 
 of the drowned. 
 
 Only a few days before we had seen other well-inten- 
 tioned philanthropists going from grave to grave in the 
 " city of old age," dabbing a few handfuls of lime on the 
 top of each grass mound, from which apparently senseless 
 act, benefit will be derived, not only by those dead souls 
 who have no kith and kin to worship at their tombs, but 
 by their benefactors themselves who will thereby store 
 up merit in the next world. 
 
 Along the lonely country roads, these doers of good 
 deeds have erected here and there signposts without sign- 
 boards, but furnished instead with a wooden framework, 
 the size of a bird cage, in which those who would earn 
 rewards hereafter place a candle for the use of wayfarers. 
 
136 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The benighted traveller may, if he please, appropriate the 
 light to help him on his way. 
 
 The " clear bright " festival, when all respectable Con- 
 fucianists worship at their family graves, took place some 
 weeks ago, and on that most propitious of days, the farmers 
 sowed the summer rice in the tiny seed beds prepared for 
 the purpose, beds filled with wet mud so smooth and soft 
 and slimy as to look like the glossiest and heaviest of 
 brown-hued satin. 
 
 Later on, as the thick crop grew and flourished, the 
 seedlings were planted out in straight rows, a bunch at a 
 time, in the " water fields." At the " clear bright " 
 festival light green cakes, of which one ingredient is grass, 
 are eaten with satisfaction by both young and old, for 
 doubtless they will bring good luck. 
 
 Once again the gods had manifested their pleasure, and 
 the rice crops, of which we should see so many on our 
 journey through Kiangsi, bid fair to be even more 
 plentiful than the year before. 
 
 From the " City of Eternal Hills " nestling amongst 
 the wooded mountains on the borders of Chekiang, we 
 started one fresh morning in May on our thirty miles 
 road journey into the province of Kiangsi. 
 
 The matter of transport had offered difficulty. Firms 
 supplying sedan chairs existed in plenty, but chair- 
 bearers at this time of year, when the crops required 
 attention, were hard to obtain. The old chairmen, 
 moreover, were rapidly dying off in these days of scarce 
 and expensive opium. All their lives long they had 
 derived fictitious strength from the now forbidden drug, 
 and when deprived thereof, with constitutions under- 
 mined, soon lost their hold on Hfe. 
 
THE GEM-HILL CITY 137 
 
 Were there no horses to be obtained ? No. The place 
 hardly possessed such a thing. Could we not hire a wheel- 
 barrow ? Assuredly not, for the barrowmen were paid by 
 weight, and preferred a 700 lb. load to human freight. 
 
 In another year or so we might possibly go by rail, so 
 said the optimists. True the railway was not yet built, 
 and the nearest line was 500 or 600 miles away, but there 
 had been an attempt made, some little time ago, towards 
 constructing a thirty-mile railway from the " City of 
 Eternal Hills " to the " Gem- Hill City " across the 
 border, and had it not been for a quarrel between the 
 European engineer and his Chinese colleagues, no doubt 
 the matter would have prospered. As things stood, the 
 foreigner, stoned and buffeted, had not unnaturally 
 thrown up his appointment, and the rails were rusting 
 on the river bank. 
 
 At last, after much " talking of price," chair-bearers 
 were forthcoming, and bidding farewell to our kind 
 hostesses, the two Swiss ladies at the Mission Station who 
 had royally entertained us with food for mind and body 
 during three days of incessant rain, we were borne away 
 up the narrow street of flagstones between the grey- 
 walled houses, and into the open country along a paved 
 road some six feet wide in the midst of rice fields, so 
 lately planted that the tufts of rice blades, sprouting 
 above the water, looked like stiff bunches of grass poised 
 on gigantic mirrors. 
 
 Now and again we passed a village of low-roofed 
 houses with yellow mud walls, snuggling under the grate- 
 ful shade of gigantic camphor trees — trees held sacred by 
 the country people, as the tiny shrines, against the broad 
 trunks, gave evidence. 
 
138 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 Here and there ripe wheat, golden in the sunlight — 
 " fields of yellow clouds," as the Chinese say — ^broke the 
 monotony of the rice crops. Women and children, with 
 primitive reaping hooks, were hard at work, and sheaves 
 of garnered grain hung from the branches of trees to dry, 
 or stood in rows round the mud walls of the homestead. 
 
 The road must, we fancied, be of ancient date, for over 
 and over again a general upheaval had taken place 
 amongst the paving stones, leaving mud holes and deep 
 clefts. This mutilated condition of the highway must 
 have mattered considerably to the wheel- barrow men who, 
 year in and year out, pass in their thousands and scores 
 of thousands along that road with their heavy loads. 
 Never for one moment during that thirty- mile journey 
 were we out of sight of one or many of the great army of 
 burden bearers. Carriers of bamboo chairs with matting 
 awnings, like those in which we ourselves were riding ; 
 coolies with heavily weighted baskets dangling from 
 bamboo poles slung across their shoulders, and last, but 
 not least, the men with their wheel- barrows. Their loads, 
 weighing anything from 300 to 800 lbs. and bulging out on 
 either side of the clumsy one-wheeled vehicle, extended 
 over the greater part of the roadway, so far dwarfing the 
 barrow man that he looked a mere pigmy struggling with 
 a giant's burden. Time and time again did we pass one 
 in difficulties, straining every muscle to move the wheel 
 an inch further on the way across a stony chasm, and 
 often upsetting it altogether, to be finally helped back 
 to level ground by a colleague in like distress. So far are 
 appearances deceptive, especially in China, that the road 
 which had seemingly been neglected for scores of years 
 is, on the contrary, repaired every twelve months — one 
 
THE GEM-HILL CITY 139 
 
 half at a time — and the signs of decay are caused by the 
 very people who suffer from it most. A continued 
 stream of barrows will spoil any road, they say, in an 
 incredibly short space of time. 
 
 The " Gem- Hill City," our first halt in the province of 
 Kiangsi, lies on the banks of the river of " Broad Sin- 
 cerity," in a green valley of rice fields, guarded from afar 
 by a tangled chain of mountains of amethyst hues, blue- 
 shrouded in the distance. 
 
 The city with its " mash " of brown- roofed houses lies 
 like a gigantic and badly written " P " facing the river. 
 The yellow waters, swollen by recent rains, race past the 
 city walls, and the bridges of brown boats creak and sway. 
 
 The "Hill of Virtue," crowned by temple buildings, 
 half-hidden amongst the trees, stands across the water, 
 imparting lucky influences, and preserving untouched 
 that which would mean wealth and comfort to many a 
 poor citizen, in other words, a rich store of precious coal. 
 The people, still fettered by the " wind and water " super- 
 stition, are unwiUing to disturb the soil in search of it for 
 fear of disturbing the luck of the city. 
 
 Many years ago, when the first Protestant missionaries 
 arrived in the place, they were, so it was rumoured, 
 within an ace of purchasing the site for their own build- 
 ings. The leading men of the place arose in haste to 
 prevent such a catastrophe. The evil influences of out- 
 side barbarians would assuredly counteract the harmony 
 of the " White Tiger " and the " Blue Dragon." Without 
 more delay they subscribed the necessary funds for the 
 rebuilding of the temple on the wooded summit, which 
 long had lain in ruins, and the gods pleased and pro- 
 pitiated, thenceforth reigned supreme. True in the early 
 
I40 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 days of the Republic there had been a reaction, and large 
 numbers, like Fuhi in the seventh century, had desired to 
 abolish the idols, but those in authority were cautious. 
 There should be no destroying in haste to repent at 
 leisure. To satisfy the reformers, however, the great idol 
 in the City Temple should, for a time, be enclosed in a 
 case and locked up. 
 
 Since the old days, when the possible annexation of the 
 " Hill of Virtue " by the outside kingdom folk had caused 
 such perturbation amongst the big men of the city, 
 feelings had considerably changed towards them. The 
 " Venerable Great Man Li," one of the wealthiest and 
 most influential of residents had, with others of his ilk, 
 changed from foe to friend, and still the story is told of 
 the night when a rebel army was marching towards the 
 gates, and the outside kingdom folk saved the city from 
 destruction. 
 
 They at least had shown no fear, and those who listened 
 to the preaching of the doctrine that evening, repeated 
 the strange words that they had heard : " Except the 
 Lord keep the city the watchman watcheth but in vain," 
 and the Lord to whom they prayed was One who neither 
 " slumbered nor slept." When the morning dawned 
 behold the army of the enemy was nowhere to be seen. 
 The rebel soldiers had agreed to concentrate their forces 
 on the " Hill of Virtue " outside the gates, but the prayer 
 of the outside kingdom folk had evidently wrought con- 
 fusion in their midst. The main body of the troops had 
 mistaken the order and had marched to another " Hill of 
 Virtue " some miles further off, whilst their comrades, 
 arriving at the gates of the " Gem- Hill City," and sup- 
 posing themselves deserted, had turned and fled. 
 
THE GEM-HILL CITY 141 
 
 In these days the houses of the foreign teachers stands 
 for all that is of good report. To pass from the sHmy 
 pavements between the disgorging shops, the putrid 
 smells of burning oil and mouldy bean-curd, of rotting 
 fruit, black- speckled with the flies, of offal nosed by the 
 pigs, and sniffed at by the mangy dogs — to get away from 
 the moving crowd of burden bearers, the insistent shout- 
 ing of those who want to pass, the strident tones of 
 unrestrained wrath, the crying and the waiHng and the 
 cursing. To turn from these demon-ridden haunts where 
 paths must be crooked, and incense sticks burnt at 
 twiHght, and fire crackers exploded, and children hung 
 with padlocks, and gongs beaten and windows closed, 
 except on the lucky side, for fear of devils ; to turn from 
 these things into the one Httle foreign compound, that the 
 place possesses, is to pass from the twilight into the sun- 
 shine, from dirt to cleanliness, from crooked paths to 
 straight ones, from tumult to peace. 
 
 The widowed daughter-in-law of the " Venerable Great 
 Man Li " has invited " our jade toes to benignly approach 
 her snail- shell of a house " not that the invitation was 
 couched in such formal words, which in these days of a 
 " People's Kingdom " are considered old-fashioned, and 
 possibly a trifle ridiculous. In accordance with old 
 custom, however, she sent sedan chairs to bring us to the 
 house. It was raining, but the blue and yellow hangings 
 of the chairs provided ample shelter, and as for our chair- 
 bearers, their bamboo hats, the size of tea trays, were on 
 account of their central position, more efficacious than 
 umbrellas. 
 
 The "Li Gia" (home of the Li family) grows larger 
 year by year, till by now the massive grey stone walls 
 
142 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 enclosing many courtyards, and the surrounding build- 
 ings extend half-way down one street and half-way up 
 another. The house is typical of many another wealthy 
 home in this part of the country. We were ushered 
 through an untidy entrance court, which obhvious gar- 
 deners seemed to have littered with the contents of the 
 potting-shed, and were conducted into that part of the vast 
 domain occupied by our hostess. The inner court, roofed 
 over save for the sky well in the centre, was one of those 
 singularly public places of audience, to which one grows 
 accustomed in Chinese houses. The guest hall, occupied 
 by the dining table, set in readiness with eight pairs of 
 chopsticks, was indeed little more than a gigantic alcove 
 with walls on three sides only. In the shadowy back- 
 ground, doorways hung with curtains led to more secluded 
 apartments. The conversation was, as it were, conducted 
 in public. Well-dressed little women, some to whom we 
 were introduced, others who bowed politely but to whom 
 we were not introduced, girls, children, servants gathered 
 round. It was difficult to tell who were relatives, who 
 were dependants. Our hostess, however, was of a 
 different calibre. She had seen something of the great 
 world beyond the gates of the " Gem- Hill City." In her 
 dress and in her manners one recognised the influence of 
 New China. Instead of the formal salutation, still custo- 
 mary in these parts, which ordains that one should draw 
 up " broadside on " to the acquaintance whom one 
 desires to greet, and then with folded arms bend forward 
 with great deliberation, Li Tai Tai greeted us with a simple 
 Western bow. 
 
 Being in mourning for her husband she must wear no 
 silk for two years, but her simple well-cut '*gwadz" of 
 
THE GEM-HILL CITY 143 
 
 dark blue material showed the dainty undersleeves 
 and collar of white lace adopted from the dress of the 
 once despised outside kingdom folk. A half- circlet of 
 pearls adorned her glossy black hair. She was an 
 attractive looking woman with her delicately featured 
 oval face and ivory complexion — a face which her own 
 countrymen might eulogistically describe as " beautiful 
 even as a hen's eggy^^ with " apricot eyes, good to look 
 upon," a complexion like " congealed ointment " and 
 " willow leaf eyebrows." 
 
 The " book of rites " ordains that " a lady visitor 
 should think long before opening her Hps " — a most 
 convenient rule for a stranger in a strange land with a 
 hmited vocabulary, though, alas ! the advice suggests 
 that the words, when finally uttered should be words of 
 weight, an embarrassing thought under the circum- 
 stances. By seeking to cover silence with appreciative 
 smiles, I bethought me of still another rule of etiquette : 
 " Lady visitors must on no account show their teeth when 
 they smile." I consoled myself by the reflection that 
 our hostess must be too accustomed to barbaric foreign 
 ways to take offence. 
 
 It is a happy circumstance that long pauses in con- 
 versation never appear to disconcert a Chinese hostess. 
 The precept famiHar to her from childhood that " if a 
 woman's mouth is Hke a closed door, her words will 
 become proverbial, but if like a running tap no heed will 
 be paid to what she says," has no doubt been a restraining 
 influence. It is evident that Li Tai Tai no longer " sits 
 in a well and looks at the sky " (has a Hmited outlook). 
 When deftly drawn into conversation by the sinologue of 
 the party she avoids the usual commonplace topics. 
 
144 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The year of one's birth the number of one's sons, the 
 price of one's clothes, the signification of gloves have no 
 interest for her. She discusses rather the Presidential 
 election, now postponed for the fourth or fifth time, the 
 critical state of affairs in the country, the mineral wealth 
 of China, and the ignorance and superstition of the people 
 who refuse to let a coal shaft be sunk in the " Hill of 
 Virtue " outside the city gates. 
 
 A buxom and lively cousin, preferring matters of more 
 domestic interest, confided to us that she had seen 
 outside kingdom folk in Shanghai with rings in their 
 noses. " Was this painful ? " she asked. 
 
 Li Tai Tai is said to be a leading spirit in that vast 
 household. The " Li Gia " profits much by the natural 
 ability and dignity of character of this quiet Httle widow 
 with the passive dark eyes under the shghtly raised 
 eyebrows, eyes which see so much, yet apparently look 
 out so calmly and indifferently on all things. 
 
 It is well that modern requirements no longer exact a 
 bhnd submission to Confucian etiquette. The great 
 master ordained that " no woman can be permitted to 
 direct affairs or presume to follow her own judgment." 
 
 Li Tai Tai's only child is a girl. By legal right, how- 
 ever, the children of her husband's second wife are hers to 
 all intents and purposes. The second wife was intro- 
 duced to us but seemed disinclined to talk. Indeed her 
 one and only contribution to the conversation at the 
 table was an occasional eructation of painful intensity 
 which, with true politeness (according to the old regime), 
 should have been echoed by the guests. 
 
 As newly- arrived visitors we were, alas, obliged to 
 accept the seats of honour, and to announce that we had 
 
THE GEM-HILL CITY 145 
 
 unwillingly appropriated them. The position is fraught 
 with difficulty to Western barbarians, unused to the 
 intricacies of Chinese etiquette. True ! our deficiencies 
 would be more easily pardoned in these days of change — 
 when the over- elaborate manners of former times show 
 dangerous signs of degenerating into no manners at all. 
 There was small risk of this, however, in the " Li Gia," 
 as long as Li Tai Tai held the reins of government. 
 
 The round table set for eight — the orthodox number — 
 showed a quaint touch of foreign influence in the white 
 tablecloth. It was only made of caHco, but a cloth of any 
 kind was a concession to foreign taste and not the only 
 one. Usually a pair of chopsticks, a porcelain spoon, and 
 possibly a miniature saucer, the size of a doll's plate, are 
 all the implements provided for one's personal use during 
 a dinner of many courses, with the result that as the meal 
 progresses, a mangled heap of discarded sharks' fins, 
 rejected sea slugs, lumps of sugared pork, and shavings 
 of pig's stomachs, of bones and grizzle and green eggs 
 repose before one in unappetising array — absorbing both 
 spoon and saucer, and overflowing on to floor or table. 
 Much to our silent approval our hostess at the end of each 
 course — possibly out of respect for the white calico table- 
 cloth — quickly handed our microscopic saucers to a 
 serving-woman to be washed and returned. 
 
 In the long space of time which elapsed before dinner 
 was served, we sat in an inner sanctum furnished in the 
 so-called foreign style, with wicker chairs and harmonium, 
 cheap photos and picture advertisements and the 
 inevitable looking-glasses, which varied from a full-length 
 mirror to a shaving glass. The empty tables, the cur- 
 tainless windows looking out on a wall, the lack of rugs. 
 
146 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 of cushions, and of books, deprived the room of any look 
 of comfort. Some attempt had evidently been made to 
 achieve the appearance of disorder, which in Oriental eyes 
 a genuine foreign room always displays. 
 
 " How shall I arrange the furniture ? " a new servant 
 in a foreigner's house was overheard to ask. " Oh, that 
 is of no importance," came the answer, " those outside 
 kingdom folk like their things all in a muddle." 
 
 Conversation plays a very unimportant part at a 
 Chinese feast. Too much talk on the side of the guests 
 might be taken to imply dissatisfaction with the menu. 
 Out of compliment to their hostess, their chief interest 
 should be centred in the good things provided. The 
 hostess meanwhile will probably observe the Con- 
 fucian maxim, not to talk whilst eating except when 
 addressed, and will busy herself in attending to her 
 visitors' wants. 
 
 There are, however, sundry polite phrases on the part 
 of the chief guests which should be uttered at various 
 stages during the meal. The sumptuous fare being some- 
 what repellent to our Western taste was at times singu- 
 larly difficult of disposal. In our eagerness to feign 
 appreciation, we often omitted, alas, to place our chop- 
 sticks on the table as a signal that the rest of the party 
 might dp the same. According to rules, the other guests 
 are not guests at all, but only " companions " to number 
 one and two, and are, therefore, supposed to follow the 
 lead of their so-called superiors. 
 
 When wet towels, hot and fragrantly scented, were 
 brought round, the guests of honour, before proceeding 
 with their ablutions, should admonish their fellow-diners 
 to " slowly eat," whereupon they will courteously reply 
 
THE GEM-HILL CITY 147 
 
 " slowly sit." There was no doubt as to the " sitting 
 slowly." The sedan chairs had brought us at 12 o'clock, 
 it was past five before we made our farewells. 
 
 " Do sie, do sie" (many thanks). "We have wasted 
 your heart," we say. 
 
 " ' Keh chi ' (you are too polite), I have treated 
 you rudely ? " replied our hostess, at which we again 
 expressed our gratitude and departed, two or three paces 
 at a time with intervals of bows. 
 
 Though to casual observers life seemed to be going on 
 as usual in the " Gem- Hill City," and the streets appeared 
 as noisy and as crowded as though a flourishing country 
 fair were in progress, our friend of the willow-leaf eye- 
 brows informed us that all was " ding buh ping-an " (truly 
 not at peace), and she and her children, accompanied 
 by other members of that large household, and bearing 
 with them their pearls and their valuables, were contem- 
 plating flight. In a few days' time they would be starting 
 on their way to the coast, and had already taken a house 
 within the safe precincts of the foreign settlement in 
 Shanghai, where they would wait till the trouble was 
 over. " What trouble ? " we asked, and she explained 
 to us that most of the soldiers from the city and from 
 many other towns in the province had been ordered to 
 the provincial capital by the military governor, and would 
 take up arms, if need arose, against the troops from the 
 north, who were, though no one knew why, collecting in 
 large numbers on the shores of the " Great River " 
 (Yangste). With no one left to keep order, the robber 
 bands, the hawks and the dogs (ruffians), infesting the 
 countryside would soon fall upon the city demanding toll 
 of the wealthy citizens. The " Venerable Great One " 
 
148 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 would stay, but the ladies of the household, with their 
 jewels, would be better away. 
 
 The day before our dinner at the " Li Gia " we had visited 
 a Mandarin some hundreds of years old. The " Living 
 Idol," the people called him, as they led us through the 
 temple building, hidden amongst the trees at the foot of 
 the " Hill of Virtue," into the inner sanctum. He had 
 been famed during his life for his good works, and when, 
 therefore, the day came for him to " descend to the sun- 
 light of the nine springs " (Hades), it was agreed by com- 
 mon consent that his saintly body should be preserved in 
 the most sacred precincts of the temple for all men to see 
 and worship. Seated in a shrine somewhat raised from 
 the ground, the withered form in faded robes sits as it 
 were in contemplation like a follower of Buddha. By 
 what chemical process the preservation of the body has 
 been achieved, no one knows. Though the face is much 
 shrivelled and the colour of the flesh resembles the colour 
 of mud, there is something strangely human and almost 
 beautiful in the expression of the features, so much so, 
 that one's first scepticism as to the genuineness of the 
 " living idol '' began to waver. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 The Serpent Month 
 
 Thirty-six miles lay before us through the valley of 
 rice fields, and across the low-lying hills to the river at 
 " Yang Keo." In China a mile is not always a mile. 
 Much depends on whether the road goes up hill or down, 
 and in the province that we have just left behind a road 
 exists which is a full eight miles in extent. Every one will 
 tell you, however, that the distance is only six miles, and 
 it is officially recognised as such. An autocratic mandarin 
 of past days made the alteration to " gain his private 
 ends." He had announced, namely, in pubHc, that his 
 daughter should not marry a man who lived more than 
 six miles from her home. It so happened that a very 
 desirable suitor appeared soon after, who resided, alas, at 
 a place eight miles off. The mandarin, nothing abashed, 
 soon settled the matter by changing eight into six in the 
 official records, and the alteration has remained in force 
 ever since. 
 
 The thirty-six miles, whether rightly reckoned or not, 
 took more than eleven hours to accomplish, for soldiers 
 were roaming the countryside in search of opium, and 
 small shopkeepers who were wont to sell the smuggled 
 drug to trustworthy customers, prudently professed to 
 have run out of stock. The chair-bearers, deprived of 
 their usual stimulant, had hard work to get along, and 
 at last one poor wreck of humanity fell ill on the roadside. 
 
ISO CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 There was nothing to be done but to get out of the chair 
 and walk. Darkness was closing in as we stumbled along 
 a narrow pathway, to the left of us a swamp of a rice 
 field, and to the right a rushing river, gushing and foam- 
 ing in the dark shadows below the fringe of bushes. The 
 chair-bearers had forgotten the lanterns, had forgotten 
 them on purpose, as we afterwards divined, so as not to 
 drawdown upon us undue attention from highway robbers. 
 There were many gangs of them at work, and only three 
 days before, they had attacked the sellers of rice in the 
 market town, through which we had just passed. The 
 soldiers, applied to for protection, had fired on the crowd, 
 missing the robbers and killing some of the country 
 people. 
 
 Nothing could seem more peaceful than the grassy 
 sward under the spreading trees by the riverside at Yang 
 Keo. It was as though we were walking over the springy 
 turf of some garden lawn and, behind the trees, Dai Giao Si 
 in the little mission house was waiting to welcome us. 
 Not long, however, had we been safely inside the stone 
 walls when the hubbub of excited voices broke the still- 
 ness of the night. A great mob had arisen, as it were, out 
 of the ground and voices were clamouring either in fear 
 or in anger. Shots rang out clear and sharp above the 
 roar. From the upper windows we could see the green 
 sward alive with hurrying people, currying flaming 
 torches and sweeping onwards. They had passed us by — 
 so much was certain — and were moving along the river 
 bank. We watched the lights dwindling and disappear- 
 ing one by one. 
 
 " It was indeed well," said a poHce sergeant the next 
 morning, " that the * keh-ren ' (guests) had got inside the 
 
THE SERPENT MONTH 151 
 
 gates just in time." A gang of robbers, it seemed, had 
 been the cause of the disturbance. They had made away 
 with a neat Httle haul of several hundred ounces of silver 
 stored in a boat near by, which was to have started that 
 night down river. In spite of their pursuers, they had 
 escaped unhurt. No one had been injured, except a 
 soldier who had shot himself through the hand by mis- 
 take ! The countryside was being terrorised by these 
 bands of outlaws. Rice was scarce, and, indeed, there 
 was hardly any to be bought except that sold by the 
 Government authorities in limited quantities. Farmers 
 in lonely country districts had still a certain quantity in 
 store, but were afraid to bring it to market, knowing that 
 it was more than likely to be commandeered on the way. 
 
 As to the police, we saw no more of them. Though 
 their sentry-boxes remained at the corners of the streets, 
 they themselves, having incurred the wrath of the resi- 
 dents, had sought sanctuary in a neighbouring temple. 
 
 This is the " Serpent Month," the fifth moon, according 
 to old time reckoning, and on the fifth of the fifth moon 
 China, young and old, turns out in force to look for the 
 body of Ch'u Yuan, the patriot — in other words to enjoy 
 the amusement of the dragon- boat race, and to fling 
 offerings of rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, and cakes and 
 sweetmeats into the water. 
 
 It is more than 2,000 years now since Ch'u Yuan, sick at 
 heart over the ingratitude of his royal master, drowned 
 himself in the Lo river. He left behind him an imaginary 
 dialogue between himself and a fisherman. " Good people 
 are scarce," he said as he stood by the water's edge, 
 " the world is foul and I alone am clean. They are all 
 drunk, and I alone am sober, and so I am dismissed." 
 
152 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 " Ah ! " said the fisherman, " the true sage docs not 
 quarrel with his environment, but adapts himself to it. 
 If, as you say, the world is foul, why not leap into the tide 
 and make it clean." 
 
 But Ch'u Yuan had chosen otherwise, and so, on the 
 fifth of the fifth moon, since the year 450 B.C., the dragon- 
 boats have been rowed up and down the river in search 
 of his body, and the people have gathered on the banks to 
 enjoy the fun of a hoHday. 
 
 The fifth of the fifth moon has other associations be- 
 sides those connected with the dead patriot. On this 
 day, and not before, spring clothes may be exchanged 
 for summer clothes, and the rule is strictly observed in 
 many parts of the country. There are still more impor- 
 tant matters to attend to on this particular date for is this 
 not the " poison month " — the " Serpent Month " — and 
 at the hour of noon on the fifth day, all reptiles will creep 
 below the ground in a state of paralysed terror, and those, 
 who are prudent, will smear a Httle yellow powder (con- 
 sisting chiefly of brimstone) on their heads and faces 
 in order to secure immunity from all poisonous bites 
 throughout the summer. 
 
 Nor is that aU, every careful housewife will sprinkle a 
 goodly supply of lime on the doorstep, and in every corner 
 of every room, by way of a precautionary measure. Was it 
 not said that even the old Dowager Empress, she who 
 now occupied the Dragon Throne on high, had always 
 made a practice on the fifth of the fifth moon, at the fatal 
 hour of noon, of dabbing this same yellow powder under 
 her ears and nostrils. 
 
 The " rush sword " was even more important than the 
 yellow powder. As we glanced through the open doors of 
 
THE SERPENT MONTH 153 
 
 the houses by the riverside, we could see for ourselves 
 that no one had omitted to hang up this strange green 
 emblem. Here and there we stayed awhile, accepting 
 the ever ready invitation to " please sit," and endeavoured 
 to find out from the good woman of the house the hidden 
 meaning of this unusual form of decoration. Dai 
 Giao Si's dark eyes and ever ready smile won us much 
 information, which otherwise would not have fallen 
 readily to the strangers with the " devil's eyes " in the 
 queer " devil's clothes." 
 
 Dai Giao Si's month was full of spring breezes, as they 
 said, and she smiled like a bursting pomegranate. Her 
 dark colouring won admiration denied to many of her 
 countrywomen. 
 
 " Yes, I live in Yang Keo," she replied to one who was 
 inquiring where her " honourable home might be." 
 
 " Can this be true ? Why, I quite thought that you 
 were a foreign devil." 
 
 " If you mean that I am one of the outside kingdom 
 people, you are right," she answered, " but is it not 
 written in your books Li do ren buh gwai ? ' " (nobody 
 blames you for being too polite !). Whereupon there 
 followed profuse apologies, for it was clear that this 
 stranger from the West knew manners and customs and 
 had " studied books " even as one of themselves ; there- 
 fore, she must be treated with respect. 
 
 They were not luxurious, the houses in the market town 
 of " Yang Keo," and many of them bore a strong likeness 
 the one to the other, from the floors of uneven mud to the 
 walls of even mud, which once in some remote past had 
 been whitewashed. Narrow forms, a heavy-limbed chair 
 or so, a table or two, and sundry oddments more appro- 
 
154 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 priate to a lumber room than a sitting room represented 
 the furniture. In the centre of the wall, facing the door, 
 above an altar-like table, supplied with incense burners, 
 hung almost invariably a full-length portrait of the 
 heavenly mandarin. 
 
 " What were the rush swords made of ? " we asked. 
 Sweet flags chiefly and mugwort and garlic. " If you do 
 not hang up mugwort on the fifth of the fifth moon you 
 will not eat any new wheat this year," so goes the saying, 
 but our friends in fear, possibly, of " eating a laugh," 
 would not admit any superstition of this kind. True, it 
 was thought that mugwort brought good luck. Besides 
 which, it was a useful thing to have in the house, and 
 made an excellent tea for the curing of indigestion. 
 
 " Chang-pu" (sweet flags) could be also turned to good 
 account in the form of a lotion used for abscesses or sores. 
 As to garlic, its virtues are many. One might almost 
 write it up like a Western advertisement as efficacious 
 in cases of sunstroke — invaluable in the laundry and 
 finally excellent as a demon-preventative — a quality not 
 to be despised in a demon-haunted land. Evil spirits are 
 said to loathe the smell of garlic, and their taste in this 
 matter, the inhabitants of certain islands of the sea 
 would heartily endorse. 
 
 There were " floating words " that the dragon-boat 
 race would not take place after all, though such a viola- 
 tion of approved custom had never been heard of before 
 in the little town of Yang Keo, even during the first year 
 of the new Republic, when all that savoured of idolatry 
 had suffered a momentary rebuff. Those who marched 
 with the times in the big cities of the coast were still 
 inclined to look askance on those foolish festivities of 
 
THE SERPENT MONTH 155 
 
 olden days, as being altogether out of place in an en- 
 lightened " People's Kingdom," but the influence of 
 these advanced members of society was too slight a thing 
 to penetrate far inland, and even in its own preserves was 
 not always effective. Yang Keo had continued happily 
 in the time-worn-ruts up till now. " It may be just 
 shadow and echo talk ! " said one. " Certain it is, how- 
 ever, that just now these ' tu fei ' (brigands) are about the 
 country, people fear to go out of the door." 
 
 " The rice, too, is scarce, and it is still three weeks 
 before the harvest, and already," said one, " my house 
 is like an empty jar hung up." 
 
 No, it seemed certain for one reason and another there 
 would be no hunt that year for the body of Ch'u Yuan. 
 One of the dragon-boats, long, painted, and narrow, lay 
 at peace in its shed on the river bank, where it had lain 
 for the last twelve months, and the water buffaloes grazed 
 at ease on the grassy sward beneath the trees, unconscious 
 of their good luck in being left undisturbed. But before 
 long the silence was broken and an eager crowd of 
 excited spectators gathered along the water's edge, yet 
 there was hardly a boat to be seen, the broad expanse 
 of water was practically empty, but the people were 
 flocking across the narrow bridge and coming slowly 
 towards us. 
 
 Behind them, on the opposite shore, dense clouds of 
 smoke rose like a wall, blotting out trees and houses. 
 Soldiers, slouching undrilled soldiers in bulging khaki 
 uniforms, formed the nucleus of the crowd. They 
 tramped past, looking good humoured enough, and 
 those who tramped beside them showed nought but 
 approval. 
 
iS6 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 These military heroes, had, it seemed, just set fire to 
 the entire village across the river. They were on their 
 way from the city five miles distant to the provincial 
 capital, and had received orders to execute this " deed of 
 justice " on their journey through. True, many of the 
 inhabitants of the village were innocent of crime, but 
 amongst them dwelt families connected with the band 
 of *^ tu fei," who had been making so much havoc 
 throughout the countryside. There was nothing to be 
 done but to " burn a mulberry tree in order to fry a 
 tortoise " (make the innocent suffer for the guilty). A 
 weird mediaeval form of punishment for a republican 
 government ! But in China where " nothing is but think- 
 ing makes it so " far less drastic in reality than in appear- 
 ance, for as the soldiers sailed down river in their com- 
 mandeered boats, the smoke died down with curious 
 rapidity, and behold the village, though somewhat 
 charred and injured, was still in existence ! 
 
 In spite of the unrest in the neighbourhood, the dis- 
 appearance of the police, and the scarcity of food, the 
 daily round and common task in the little town of Yang 
 Keo, seemed to go on much as usual. 
 
 One of the great industries of the place is the manu- 
 facture of " bitter cakes." All day long one might meet 
 coolies with a goodly burden of this unattractive mer- 
 chandise, slung at either end of his bamboo pole, bearing 
 it forth for export. In the crowded precincts of the town 
 where the open-fronted, open-mouthed shops seem to be 
 yawning in each other's faces across the narrow strip of 
 black and greasy cobble-stones, called by courtesy the 
 pavement, the bitter cake stores are some of the most 
 prosperous. They are round, plump and solid, these 
 
THE SERPENT MONTH 
 
 157 
 
 cakes, the size of big scones, and are made, not of flour, 
 but of manure. 
 
 Yang Keo also possesses a duckery, where just now 
 40,000 ducks' eggs are being hatched by artificial heat. 
 The methods are even more primitive than in the chicken 
 establishment at Shangteo. 
 
 To begin with, the eggs are kept in tubs filled with hot 
 wheat, and the wheat itself is heated twice a day in 
 cauldrons over a charcoal fire. Later on, they are spread 
 out on wide shelves in the same shed-like building in which 
 the tubs of hot wheat are kept, and in twenty-eight days, 
 with no further attention whatever, the eggs are hatched. 
 A small hungry-looking cat had been impressed into the 
 service, and tied to a basket occupied by a newly-arrived 
 party of downy ducklings, in order — they told us — to 
 guard them from possible inroads of rats, and the cat 
 apparently could be thoroughly relied on not to betray 
 her trust ! 
 
 On our return to the riverside, we stumbled unex- 
 pectedly upon a religious service. An elegant youth was 
 busy firing off crackers, lighting candles, and pouring 
 forth libations of wine on the gnarled roots of one of the 
 old camphor trees near our gates. He had lost some- 
 thing, so much was clear, and was worried and distressed, 
 but not averse from confiding in the " teacher sister " 
 who spoke his own words even as one of themselves. 
 Bit by bit the whole story leaked out. It was a soul that 
 had strayed away, one of the three souls belonging to his 
 brother, who, deprived of its presence, was now lying on 
 a bed of sickness and would most assuredly pass away, 
 unless the missing soul could^be induced to return to its 
 former habitation. 
 
IS8 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 It was known that the last place in which the brother 
 had been seen to linger before his final collapse, was here 
 by these very trees. In any case, the sorrowing family 
 had arranged to offer sacrifices at all the likely spots, 
 with a polite request to the spirit to come back to its old 
 home. 
 
 To cut a long story short, the elegant youth returned 
 to his invalid, bearing with him not, indeed, the missing 
 soul, but a generous supply of castor oil, which, as it 
 happened, came to the same thing in the long run ! 
 
 In some parts of China, by the way, though castor oil 
 is frequently used for culinary purposes, no one realises 
 its medicinal properties, the fact being that castor oil 
 when taken hot may be enjoyed with impunity ! 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 On the ''River of Broad Sincerity" 
 
 It is often said that Japan owes most of her civilisation 
 to China. From China came the written language, the 
 classics, the artists, the kimonos and the umbrellas, but 
 in one matter, that of her love of hot baths and personal 
 cleanliness, I used to think, until I strayed into this 
 province of Kiangsi, that the " East Sea Kingdom " had 
 learnt nothing from the Sons of Han. 
 
 But here there is one district in which the common 
 daily greeting is no longer " Have you had your rice ? " 
 but " Have you had your bath ? " 
 
 True, there are writers who aver, in spite of much 
 evidence to the contrary, that the Chinese have a high 
 regard for cleanliness. Possibly this was true in the 
 golden age of long ago, for history relates that in the 
 Tang dynasty, more than a thousand years back, the 
 salary of certain court officials went by the name of 
 " bathing money " and was paid to them every ten days. 
 There is also a record of a king (1766 B.C.) who has this 
 suggestive motto inscribed on his bath-tub : " If you 
 can renovate yourself one day, do so every day and for 
 ever." 
 
 It seems typical, however, of things Chinese that one 
 time black was considered emblematic of purity because, 
 forsooth, it did not show the dirt. 
 
 In many of these Kiangsi towns, however, it is not 
 
i6o CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 merely a matter of a motto on a bath-tub, but of hot 
 water and plenty of it in daily requisition. 
 
 The dwellers on the banks of the " River of Broad 
 Sincerity " have much to be thankful for. 
 
 They need not wash their babies with mud for want of a 
 more suitable medium, as some of their countrymen in 
 the north are said to do. Neither are they reduced to 
 drinking hot water and calling it tea. Rice, fruit, vege- 
 tables, grow luxuriantly at their doors, and three meals a 
 day is a common allowance, whereas in some of the less 
 favoured provinces the poor man considers himself lucky 
 if he gets two. Coal, which in Shensi costs 2s, 6d. a cwt., 
 can be purchased here for 6d. or yd., and could, of course, 
 be cheaper still if scientifically mined. As things are, 
 it is scratched out of holes in the hillsides, and when the 
 hole fills with water, the miner yields his claim without a 
 protest and seeks another. Moreover, for the little clay 
 " wind stoves " of the natives, coal dust is more in 
 demand than coal lumps, as the former, mixed with 
 earth, is found to supply all the heat required at an almost 
 nominal cost. 
 
 On one of our walks abroad at Yang Keo, we came 
 across a gigantic rubbish heap. The rubbish consisted 
 chiefly of knobs of coal discharged from the baskets 
 of coal dust which were being carried to market. 
 
 Thirty miles or so from Yang Keo, lies the large and 
 important " City of Broad Sincerity," on the banks of its 
 namesake river. The trade in " bitter cakes " is now no 
 more, and the people busy themselves with the tea trade 
 and with the manufacture of paper. 
 
 Much of the tea most highly prized by the Chinese 
 
ON THE "RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY" i6i 
 
 comes from this Kiangsi province, possibly the " Dragon 
 weU tea,"' and " Lao Tzu's eyebrows tea," and other 
 blends, the poetical names of which I have forgotten, and 
 few outside kingdom folk can appreciate to a nicety the 
 differences of flavour which to a Chinese mean so much. 
 
 The old Dowager Empress always kept a supply of 
 honeysuckle blossoms and rose petals with which to 
 season the national beverage. 
 
 " Tea makes the mind more lucid," goes the saying, 
 and pillows stuffed with tea leaves are good for the eyes. 
 
 The " City of Broad Sincerity " prides itself on being a 
 literary city of renown. The college, the finest in the 
 province, lies amongst its wooded gardens, looking down 
 from a superior height on to the brown-roofed houses 
 with spreading eaves which, crowding along the river 
 banks, seem to be pressing forward in order to get as near 
 to the water's edge as possible. The suburb outside the 
 city walls is as large and important as the city itself. A 
 bit of a moat remains, thickly covered with lotus leaves, 
 fishes' umbrellas, as the people sometimes call them. 
 The " arrow root " made from the lotus is the best in the 
 land, so excellent is it indeed, that, as long as the " Son 
 of Heaven " occupied the Dragon Throne, a certain 
 quantity of it had to be sent to the palace, year after 
 year, for his consumption. 
 
 The only mission house in this big city was, until a 
 short time ago, one of the brown- roofed, low- walled 
 buildings standing in a crowded street jambed against 
 the city wall. But the old residence, with its darkness 
 and malarial germs, has been given up now for a new 
 
i62 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 foreign house, bright, Hght and spacious with deep 
 balconies and a non-malarial upper storey. Money goes 
 a long way still in China, and comfortable family resi- 
 dences, with wide verandahs, glass windows and polished 
 floors, can be built for something under ;£400. 
 
 Our hospitable friends, who lived within its walls, still 
 kept to the Chinese dress, so necessary from all points of 
 view in the early days of pioneer work. Many amongst 
 their people had never seen foreign clothes as worn by 
 outside kingdom women. They surveyed us with 
 interest, but not with admiration. With true Chinese 
 courtesy, however, they kept their disapproval to them- 
 selves till afterwards, and one or two even essayed a 
 compliment. 
 
 " The foreign dress (made of muslin by the way) must 
 be * ding hao ' (very nice) in the winter time," they sug- 
 gested, " for did not the belt round the waist keep one 
 warm ? " They could understand the same reason for 
 the wearing of gloves, but that any person in their senses 
 should wish for gloves in the summer wholly surpassed 
 their comprehension. 
 
 Curiously unattractive many of us must seem to them. 
 
 Our bold ungainly walk is of all things repulsive to a 
 people brought up to consider a mincing gait as a mark 
 of breeding and respectability ! 
 
 Their criticism of one pretty golden-haired English 
 girl showed the difference of taste. She is not bad, they 
 allowed, but her blue eyes are enough to give one a fright, 
 and her yellow hair reminds one of the straw mats we 
 kneel on in the church ! 
 
 " No one is a saint in the dog days," goes the Chinese 
 
ON THE * RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY" 163 
 
 saying. An unusually hot spell has come upon us pre- 
 maturely, and even the chairs and tables, the books and 
 papers, are hot, damp and sticky, and the mosquito, 
 " playing on his silken strings " in picturesque Chinese 
 phraseology, hovers around us by day and by night 
 digging in a dart whenever opportunity offers. Experts 
 can tell Mrs. Anopheles with her malarial baciUi from the 
 others, but to the ordinary mortal all are equally un- 
 pleasant, and one marvels at the philosophy of the 
 Chinese poet who pleaded for mercy on their behalf : — 
 
 " Oh, spare the busy morning fly, 
 Spare the mosquito of the night, 
 And if their wicked trade they ply 
 Let a partition stop their flight. 
 
 " Their span is brief from birth to death, 
 Like you, they bite their little day. 
 And then with Autumn's earliest breath 
 Like you they too are swept away." 
 
 Fortunately the boats on the " River of Broad 
 Sincerity " are of a far more comfortable type than those 
 on the Tsien Tang. No longer is it a case of sleeping in a 
 species of small tunnel, the common property of passen- 
 gers and crew. We have now a kind of upper deck 
 all to ourselves, raised some two feet above the bottom 
 of the boat and, thanks to curtains, it is invisible to the 
 boatmen. Here the mats, forming the roof and walls, 
 can be pushed back and larger air spaces opened out. 
 The steersman at the stern stands on a sufficiently high 
 level to look ovety instead of being obhged to look throughy 
 as in the Tsien Tang river boats. As our craft slips 
 rapidly down the swollen current to the next halting-place, 
 the landscape changes in character. The rice fields are 
 
i64 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 scarcer and terra cotta hills, like inverted sugar basins 
 of monster size, form the leading features. This red 
 " Devonshire " earth, which is much used in the world- 
 famed potteries near the Po Yang lake, is now to be a 
 famiHar sight. Round about the " City of River Mouth " 
 there is a lonely bit of breezy moorland, called Scotland 
 in jest, and some scraps of green bog amongst rocky hills, 
 dark and gloomy, nicknamed Ireland, which make one 
 forget for the moment that one is in China, till, descend- 
 ing once more to the level rice fields on the land side of the 
 city, one catches sight of the red ochre walls of a temple, 
 and the oil-cake seller in his cotton cloth garments of corn- 
 flower blue drowsing on the temple steps. The beating 
 of gongs and the loud wailing of mourners' voices in the 
 background remind one of the haunting horrors of the 
 crowded streets so near at hand, where death counts for 
 more than life, and where one old woman, who mattered 
 little to anybody while she was living, appears now to have 
 been well enough off to leave a substantial sum of money 
 to the Taoist priests, so that all things may be done 
 decently and in order to facilitate her journey into the 
 land of shades. She has been dead now for three weeks, 
 and on and off the priests have beaten their gongs and 
 chanted their prayers, and have kept the candles burning, 
 in order to light the soul upon its way, for in the region 
 to be traversed all is darkness. 
 
 How long the " golden peck " (coffin with a corpse in 
 it) will be kept above ground only the priests and the 
 geomancers can tell — they who must " seek the dragon and 
 mark his lair " (find a lucky spot for the grave). " The 
 happy man," say they, " finds a happy burial place." 
 ^he wealthy man would be nearer the truth. 
 
ON THE "RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY" 165 
 
 Occasionally people find it convenient to forget the 
 presence of the dead in their homes. Only the other day 
 an old man who " saluted the age " (died) thirty years 
 ago, was borne forth at last to his grave on the hillside. 
 
 Coffins and funerals are expensive items, and some- 
 times, but rarely, these things can be dispensed with. 
 Not very long ago, in this same province of Kiangsi, a 
 family took counsel together as to the most expedient way 
 of checking the dissolute career of the younger brother 
 who, by his evil deeds, was bringing disgrace and ruin on 
 the household. No blood should be shed. They desired 
 no vulgar brawl, but justice should be meted out quietly 
 and swiftly, and before long the offending youth had been 
 buried — buried alive under the kitchen floor ! 
 
 The cruelty practised, every now and again, between 
 those who are nearest akin, is almost incredible to a 
 Western mind. In the " City of the River Orchid " we 
 used sometimes to pass a young man groping his way 
 along the high-walled lane at the back of the house. In 
 his early days he had been addicted to thieving. The 
 father, in despair of effecting a reform by any other means, 
 chose the only certain remedy he could think of, and 
 throwing lime in his boy's eyes, bhnded him for life. 
 
 It was a relief to get beyond earshot of the priests' 
 gongs and the chanting, into the quiet garden behind the 
 mission house — a garden of luxurious growth, of American 
 apples and Chinese peaches, of loquat trees with their 
 bunches of golden fruit, of grapes, green and purple, 
 ripening in the sunshine (unlucky from a Chinese point 
 of view because their branches point downwards), of 
 bushes of tiny^lemons, of broad-leafed fig trees, and hairy- 
 
i66 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 stemmed palms, from the fibre of which the common folk 
 make their picturesque waterproofs. Everything seemed 
 to thrive, and one could not but deplore the fact that so 
 little is done by the sons of the soil in the way of fruit 
 cultivation. 
 
 Sweet smelling green orchids and the white gardenia 
 blossoms gave a sleepy exotic fragrance to this Chinese 
 garden. 
 
 At the *' River Mouth City," for the small sum of eleven 
 dollars (22s,) a boat, large and agreeably new and clean, 
 was hired to take us to the capital, a fortnight's journey, 
 allowing for many halts on the way (some 270 miles of 
 actual traveUing). But though it may not cost a great 
 deal of money to live in comparative comfort on the 
 shores of the " River of Broad Sincerity " those who, for 
 the sake of that which means more to them than life, 
 have made the place their home, often pay a heavy toll 
 in the matter of health and strength. 
 
 For two days, damp, hot, enervating, lifeless days, we 
 stayed in the city of lyang, one stage from our last halt 
 at " River Mouth." 
 
 The house of our hospitable entertainers, wedged in 
 between the crowded street and a high bank at the foot 
 of a steep hill, seemed to be gasping for air. Everything 
 was open that could be open, but the tiny courts down 
 below bleaching in the sunlight, and the tiny rooms 
 upstairs, squeezed in under the low roof, were almost hot 
 enough to be on fire. 
 
 The little guest hall, stowed away at the back and out 
 of reach of the sunshine, was perhaps the coolest spot in 
 the house. From it the open door led on to a damp ditch, 
 
ON THE "RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY" 167 
 
 between the house and the bank, in which the milk and 
 the butter and the pudding were reposing in a minute 
 trickle of water, in other words, a microscopic spring, 
 and a veritable godsend to the housekeeper in summer 
 weather. The commissariat department in the great 
 heat presents many difficulties, some enterprising souls 
 wearying of tinned milk and tinned butter, have attempted 
 to keep a cow, a more complicated matter in Chma than 
 at home. After generations of unmilked predecessors, 
 the creature is often singularly averse to the operation, 
 and one famous specimen in this part of the country 
 refused to yield a single drop of milk until the kitchen 
 tongs had been forced into her mouth, at which point, 
 instead of kicking and biting and otherwise protesting 
 against the proposed treatment, she chewed away at 
 the tongs and all went well. One unlucky owner who had 
 removed the calf somewhat prematurely, was obliged to 
 have an artificial one made to take its place, and used 
 for the purpose a genuine calf skin stuffed with straw. 
 
 In some of the large cities where foreigners congregate, 
 the Chinese start dairies on their own account, and have 
 many ingenious methods of increasing not the number of 
 cows but the supply of milk. Bean curd, for instance, is 
 a useful ingredient which adds richness. 
 
 One wealthy and exceedingly particular client, wishing 
 to run no risks, requested that the cow itself should be 
 brought to her house and milked on the spot. Day after 
 day the animal appeared on the scene, and the bottles of 
 milk enjoyed by the family were pronounced excellent. 
 
 One fine day the cow arrived as usual, but the man 
 whose duty it was to superintend the milking was away ill. 
 
 " Why does not some one else milk the creature ? " 
 
1 68 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 
 
 ' inquired my lady, but no one offered. The bottles of 
 milk, however, were there as usual, and then at last the true 
 story leaked out that the cow which appeared every day 
 in the foreigners' domain was but a figure head, and had no 
 direct connection with the milk consumed in the household. 
 Another customer sought, on one occasion, to verify 
 his suspicions. " Lao ban," he said, " you have been 
 putting dirty water in this milk ! " 
 
 " Indeed, that is not so, the water was well water and 
 absolutely fresh," came the naive answer. 
 
 Side by side with the humble mission premises in the 
 city of lyang stands the " cathedral," as it has been called, 
 so large and stately is the edifice in comparison to all other 
 buildings round about. A point of especial interest is 
 that practically all the funds for the erection of this 
 fine church were supplied by the Chinese Christians. 
 
 Those who in these restless days oppose woman's 
 rights, and suggest, much as Confucius suggested, that 
 " woman is subject to man and may not presume to follow 
 her own judgment " should pay a visit to the work that 
 has been organised entirely by Western women on the 
 shores of the " River of Broad Sincerity." 
 • " A woman's power," as Ruskin puts it, " is for rule, 
 her intellect is for sweet ordering, arrangement and 
 decision," and here they have ruled supreme for some 
 twenty years or more, teaching all who were willing to 
 learn, the secret of life and inculcating a new lesson that : 
 
 " In blessing we are blest. 
 In labour find our rest." 
 
 Up and down the river in every place of importance the 
 
 M^ 
 
m 
 
 ON THE "RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY" 169 
 
 " Hall of Good Tidings " is open to all who come. There 
 are schools for the children, houses for the despised old 
 women, and dispensaries, where wonderful foreign medi- 
 cines are to be got for a few copper cash, or, if needs be, 
 for nothing at all. 
 
 Even the proud Confucianists, who " walk by on the 
 other side," reluctantly admit that those who have truly 
 " eaten of the foreigners' doctrine " practise virtue, in 
 holding faithfulness and sincerity as first principles, even 
 as the " Great Master " himself has avowed. 
 
 It was a pity, thought some, that a " Good Tidings Hall" 
 could not be started amongst the west country people 
 whose wild doings were the talk of the countryside. These 
 unruly neighbours belong to a fierce tribe living but thirty 
 miles off to the west. Some of them come now and then 
 to the town and can be recognised by their fine physique, 
 and by the fact that their women, taller and bigger in every 
 way than the usual Chinese women, always wear skirts. 
 A year ago a fight had broken out amongst the different 
 factions of the tribe, and sixty or more had been killed. 
 As a judgment for their iniquities, so said their peaceful 
 neighbours, wild animals had lately appeared in their 
 midst creating much havoc. They were not tigers they 
 said, for with tigers they were famihar, but these ferocious 
 creatures possessed manes like horses,* and had carried 
 off and killed one after another, so that a great fear had 
 fallen upon the people. 
 
 Rice was very scarce just then in the city of lyang. 
 There was hardly food enough for five more days, so said 
 the authorities, and that only for those who could pay for 
 it. Some few, seeing nothing ahead but starvation, had 
 
 • It was suggested they might be lions. 
 
170 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 chosen an easier death at their own hands. The robber 
 bands, knowing that most of the soldiers had been sum- 
 moned to the capital of the province, had waxed bolder, 
 and the village people lived in a state of continual anxiety. 
 
 Thieves and robbers are recognised evils in China at the 
 best of times. There is even such a person as an " honest 
 thief," meaning one who is registered in the book of the 
 local king of the thieves, the " Ma Kwai," who up till 
 almost the present date has enjoyed a small official post 
 at the Yamen, and who, if the man wanted happened to be 
 a genuine, i,e.^ an honest thief, could generally track him 
 to earth and find some way of making good one's losses. 
 
 Thieves are silent marauders, scooping out holes in 
 mud walls, burrowing underground, and resorting to 
 other rat-like methods. Occasionally they burn some 
 strange kind of powder by the beds of their victims which 
 acts as a sure and certain, but perfectly harmless, soporific. 
 Robbers, on the contrary, follow the opposite line alto- 
 gether, and the more noise they make the better ! 
 
 Some years ago our hostess all but met her death at 
 the hands of one of these turbulent groups. 
 
 Late one evening she was alone in the house save for a 
 serving- woman. Hearing a great commotion below stairs, 
 and knowing by the sounds that robbers had broken in, 
 she hastily flung from the window into the garden some 
 packets of silver just received for the purchase of pro- 
 perty. Hastily descending the stairs she planned escape 
 by a back door, seldom used, which the serving-woman 
 had orders to unlock. The woman, however, had mis- 
 understood the command and the door remained 
 fastened. As her mistress hesitated at the entrance of 
 the guest hall a crowd of brigands, waving their long 
 
ON THE "RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY " 171 
 
 poles above their heads, swooped down upon her. By a 
 lucky chance the poles were unprovided with the sharp 
 knives usually fixed at the points. A powerful blow on 
 the head almost felled her to the ground. She swayed 
 and thought she must fall, and it flashed across her mind 
 that this would mean certain death. With a super- 
 human effort she stood her ground pressing against the 
 wall, and fighting back with her arms the blows which 
 now fell thick and fast. Blood was flowing from her 
 wounds, and she knew that she could not hold out much 
 longer, when suddenly an unexpected diversion arose, 
 and a faithful Chinese helper, hearing the hubbub in the 
 street, dashed forward to her assistance, hurling chairs 
 and forms and anything he could- lay hands on at the 
 robbers, eleven men or more, who, with one accord, turned 
 upon him striking with their sticks. He fought des- 
 perately, but the numbers were too strong and defeat 
 seemed certain. Already he was seriously hurt, his head 
 gashed open, his arms bleeding, when help of a strange 
 kind arrived from an unexpected quarter. Two citizens, 
 passing along the street, had looked in to see what all the 
 noise was about. They carried their lanterns with them 
 as do all respectable Chinese when out after dark. At 
 the sight of the lanterns, the innocent paper lanterns, the 
 robbers looked at each other in alarm, and with a hurried 
 muttering, turned precipitately and fled. It leaked out 
 afterwards that the characters inscribed on the lanterns 
 happened to be the same as those of the then resident 
 official at the Yamen. The peaceful citizens had all 
 unconsciously saved the situation and been mistaken for 
 Yamen underlings, the advance guard possibly of a band 
 of Yamen |soldiers. 
 
172 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 Land for a better and more healthy house for the 
 " teacher sisters " in lyang is difficult in these days to 
 buy. No suitable site is in the market. The purchase of 
 freehold property is often a complicated matter in this 
 country where " things are not what they seem." Should 
 one buy a field in which there happen to be some fine 
 trees, it is somewhat disconcerting to discover, after the 
 money has been paid over, and all things satisfactorily 
 settled, that the trees belong to some one* else and prob- 
 ably are not for sale. In one case I remember, some fine 
 camphor trees were held to be the joint property of all 
 the surrounding landowners, because, from their position 
 near the riverside, they were of great use in preserving 
 the banks in time of flood. 
 
 Taxes, fortunately for the individual taxpayer, though 
 not for the country at large, are incredibly low. There 
 was a time long years ago, when strenuous efforts were 
 made to increase the public revenue, and an Emperor of 
 the eleventh century hit on an ingenious method of 
 levying an income tax. Those who made a false declara- 
 tion were fined the exact amount understated, which 
 sum was divided between the Government and the 
 informers, the Government taking the lion's share. 
 Needless to add the new system lacked the approval of 
 the people, and therefore was soon rejected as unworkable. 
 
 It is said to be a fundamental law in China that the 
 land tax must never under any circumstances be increased. 
 In Yang Keo, however, I remember a case in which, 
 without injustice to any one, it might have been con- 
 siderably decreased. 
 
 In the farm in question a part of the fields had been 
 washed away into the river, and still the authorities 
 
ON THE "RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY" 173 
 
 continued to collect the tax which the farmer continued 
 to pay, choosing no doubt the easiest and cheapest 
 course, as tax gatherers, in this land ot uncertain laws, are 
 kittle kattle folk to deal with. 
 
 In the " Honourable River City," our next halt, the 
 fame of the " Good Tidings Hall " had spread through the 
 countryside, and there were few who had not heard of 
 its large schools for boys and for girls, its almshouses and 
 its dispensary. North, south, east, and west it is rare to 
 meet a well-educated Chinese girl who does not owe, at 
 all events, her early education and training to a mission 
 school. 
 
 Superstition dies hard, and even in these enlightened 
 days Chinese professors will often decline to hold their 
 classes in rooms on a lower floor to those occupied by the 
 girls' dormitories. It is deemed unseemly that a girl or a 
 woman should be placed on a higher level to a man and 
 walk over a man's head even though it be only a case of 
 upstairs and downstairs. Fortunately for old prejudices 
 most of the mission schools are one-storied buildings, 
 which simphfies matters. 
 
 During our stay in the " Honourable River City " we 
 strolled out to the open country, after the steaming heat 
 of the day had somewhat evaporated, and climbed up to 
 a bit of moorland ground somewhat higher than the rest, 
 dotted with grave mounds. Disputes had arisen lately 
 because the '* teacher sisters " had purchased a piece of 
 land to add to their little cemetery, a corner of which 
 happened to be higher up on the hillside than a grave 
 already some years in existence. The family of the dead 
 
174 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 man burled therein strongly protested, and pointed out 
 that all prestige for the dead relative would be at an end 
 if a " mere woman " were buried upon the same hill on 
 a higher level. To keep the peace no objection was made 
 to the shifting of the boundary stone, and all was now in 
 order. 
 
 Some twenty-five miles from the " Honourable River 
 City " lives the Taoist Pope, " Heaven's Teacher," as he 
 is called, a descendant of the famous Chang Tao Ling, 
 who "ascended to Heaven at the age of 123," and who 
 " had acquired power to command the wind and the 
 thunder and to quell demons." It is 1,700 years ago and 
 more since the temple was built, and ever since that time 
 the office of high priest of the Taoist Sect has been a 
 perquisite of the family of Chang. 
 
 Pope Chang LXII. still occupies the seat of honour, 
 though, during the reaction against idolatry in the first 
 year of the Republic, he was deprived of his office, and 
 the Roman Catholics, who are powerful in that particular 
 neighbourhood, helped in the work of destroying the 
 images. 
 
 Lately, however, he has been reinstated and now holds 
 court as usual amongst the pilgrims who, at certain 
 seasons of the year, come to worship at his feet in their 
 hundreds and their thousands. 
 
 The temple is situated in a beautiful spot on the 
 " Dragon Tiger Mountain," amongst magnificent trees 
 and rippling springs of cold clear water, and within the 
 temple walls thousands of covered pots in rows inspire 
 the pilgrims with awe, for does not each pot contain a 
 demon, condemned to perpetual confinement by the 
 magic powers of the " Great Wizard." On the first day 
 
ON THE *^ RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY" 175 
 
 of every month he gives audience, so the people say, to 
 an invisible host of gods and demi-gods who come to 
 present their compliments. 
 
 As the river neared the region of the fearsome Po Yang 
 lake the landscape changed in character, and one could 
 well have imagined oneself to be in the middle of Holland 
 in flood time, a Holland in which green rice fields had 
 taken the place of grass land, and the windmills had 
 turned into pagodas or were missing altogether. 
 
 We halted for the night at Shwei Hong, a mere tongue 
 of land, consisting of a muddy street wedged in between 
 the river and the lake, and here the boatmen requested a 
 meal of pork and vegetables with which to fortify their 
 courage and propitiate the gods, so that the next day's 
 journey might be accompHshed in safety. 
 
 Nanchang Fu, the capital of the province, lies just off 
 the lake on the shores of the Gan River. 
 
 For three miles or more the tangle of brown- roofed 
 houses, and brown-hooded boats, brown masts and 
 muddy water, and brown steps cHmbing the muddy river 
 bank made a somewhat sad- toned picture, as viewed from 
 the interior of our boat slipping down with the current. 
 Quaint brick towers, wide at the top and narrow at the 
 bottom, Hke small squat pyramids standing on their 
 heads, cropped up at intervals near the water's edge, and 
 were used for extracting lime from the blue stone, evi- 
 dently an extensive industry. 
 
 The drab- tinted picture was but the brown husk of a 
 city resplendent with Hfe and colour. In the haunts of 
 the wealthy merchants the streets were not wide, the 
 houses were not clean, and the pavement between them 
 
176 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 was black, but the air of prosperity was unmistakable. 
 In the ever-moving throng, consisting almost entirely of 
 men, spotless white garments were the order of the day, 
 and those who eschewed white wore for the most part 
 silk gauze or crepe of delicate and exquisite tints, soft 
 blue and silver grey, or pale saffron, and the grimy houses 
 were forgotten in the blaze of gilded shop signs and 
 lettered scrolls, rose-pink and turquoise-blue, gold and 
 purple, which formed the background to the passing 
 crowd of gaily clad pedestrians. The windowless shops 
 packed with rich stores of silk and jewellery, the sedan 
 chairs and the wheel- barrows of those who wished to ride, 
 the streets of mud, and the grime and the smells are all 
 typical of Old China, but the new order of things is break- 
 ing through here and there, and near the beautiful lotus 
 lake, not far from the college with its famous old library, 
 stands a modern building fitted recently with electric 
 plant of costly description, and close to it is the Provincial 
 Assembly Hall, bran new and substantial, but without the 
 usual concession to supposed foreign taste in the shape of a 
 large clock face, minus a clock, painted above the gates. 
 
 One wondered what weighty matters were being dis- 
 cussed within those walls or whether, like the Mother 
 Parliament in Peking, the majority of the members were 
 amusing themselves elsewhere. 
 
 These are critical times, for has not the Governor of the 
 province, after summoning most of his troops to the 
 capital, suddenly departed incognito, carrying away two 
 miUion dollars. 
 
 There are many " floating words " of coming trouble, 
 but " those who know do not speak, and those who speak 
 do not know." 
 
ON THE "RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY" 177 
 
 As to Provincial Assemblies, and for that matter the 
 Peking Parliament as well, one is reminded of the words in 
 the old song : " I won't let you play in my yard if you won't 
 be kind to me." Deadlocks are constantly arising because, 
 forsooth, one poHtical party refuses to meet another, or 
 the Nationalists in electing seven representatives, so hurt 
 the feehngs of the Democrats that they have left in a 
 body. As to the Cabinet Ministers, no one keeps his post 
 long enough to find out the extent of his duties. Like 
 children, playing a game of musical chairs, they are for 
 ever changing their seats and dropping out one at a time. 
 
 The old and the new have sat down contentedly side 
 by side in Nanchang. Beyond the crowded streets, and 
 the dirt, and the smells, and the dandies in their exquisite 
 silken garments, we are borne in our sedan chairs to a fine 
 European building standing in well-kept gardens of mown 
 lawns and trim shrubberies, and here we are greeted 
 courteously by one of the famous women of New China — 
 Dr. Kahn — a product of an American Missionary Society, 
 educated partly in the States, and a most able surgeon 
 and physician. She conducted us over the up-to-date 
 wards of her woman's hospital. The whole place was as 
 spick and span as any similar institution in the home lands, 
 particularly commendable this in China where the tendency 
 to neglect detail, to let things sHde, to ignore the stitch 
 in time, is the everlasting and not unmerited reproach. 
 
 The " cha buh do " (nearly), the " buh yao gin " (it 
 doesn't matter) are at the root of so much that hinders 
 progress. 
 
 At the other end of the city the old pagoda, built to 
 obstruct the escape of good influences, still stands. Many 
 
178 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 of the steps of the stairway within are broken, but the 
 stout old walls have long years of life before them. From 
 the weird holes near the top we could see another sign of 
 the new era out in the open country — military barracks, 
 built in foreign style, large and imposing. 
 
 Enterprising citizens have many profitable schemes on 
 foot. A few yards from a " pure dwelling " (Buddhist 
 monastery), in which priests, draped in the orthodox red 
 vestments, are chanting prayers over the coffin of a 
 wealthy client, efforts are being made within the walls of 
 an industrial institute to turn out European furniture in 
 modern style. There is a great demand in these days for 
 upholstered armchairs and writing tables and so forth, 
 but those who cater for the Chinese market have realised 
 two things, that the price must be low, and the colouring 
 bright. We are shown with pride a library chair, the 
 leather back of which is a briUiant purple, and the front 
 a vivid green, price 14^"., springs and padding included, 
 though the latter leaves much to be desired. These are 
 great days for foreign goods, either real or imitation — 
 some of them figure under patriotic names such as " Love, 
 the Kingdom Cloth," " The Patriotic Hair Clippers," etc. 
 One thinks of the time, not so very long ago, when the 
 Emperor of China in writing to the English King made 
 use of these words : " As your Ambassador sees for him- 
 self, we possess all things, and set no value on objects 
 strange and ingenious and have no use for your country's 
 manufactures ! " 
 
 In those days, and until a very few years back, a 
 traveller across the Po Yang lake journeyed by native 
 boats, and in stormy weather would often take three 
 
ON THE ** RIVER OF BROAD SINCERITY " 179 
 
 weeks in the transit. Nowadays, in a steam-launch, 
 thirty-six hours suffices, during six or seven of which the 
 little vessel lies at anchor fearing possible accidents in 
 the dark, for the lake, owing to the suddenness and terrible 
 violence of its storms, is looked upon with considerable 
 dread. Though nominally 100 miles in length and some 
 thirty broad, the mud flats through the greater part of 
 the year take up almost as much space as the water. At 
 times one might have fancied oneself to be steaming along 
 some broad yellow river with flat mud banks. Our 
 rickety Httle launch, made in Japan, had suffered con- 
 siderably from Chinese neglect. The windows were half 
 broken, the doors would not shut, and when a storm came 
 on, the roof of our cabin leaked so badly that it would 
 have been easier to have tackled the rain outside on its 
 own ground, than inside on ours. An appeal to the 
 compradore brought to the rescue a man with a duster. 
 He mopped assiduously and succeeded not in arresting the 
 progress of the drips, but in diverting their course. " If 
 seven men with seven mops mopped it for half a year," 
 our plight would have been equally pitiable as long as the 
 rain continued, but fortunately the weather cleared. 
 
 " When three men walk together, there is something to 
 learn," goes the Chinese saying. As we steamed past the 
 imposing modern fortifications at Hokeo, a place of great 
 strategical importance near the mouth of the lake at the 
 entrance of the " Great River " (Yangtse), we might have 
 gathered, if we had but possessed sufficient knowledge 
 of the language, much interesting news relating to coming 
 events from a little knot of grave-faced men, who at the 
 last stopping-place had bade farewell to a jubilant young 
 officer. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 " Fire Medicine " * 
 
 From the heights of a blue mountain between the 
 Yangtse river and the lake, we looked once again upon 
 the scene of our steam-launch journey. In the sunlit 
 haze at the foot of the hills, the Po Yang lake lay like 
 some enchanted world, remote amid the peaceful shadows 
 of soft mauve and heliotrope that hovered here and there 
 over the ridges of golden sand, in and out of which, 
 silvery streams and the wide pools of a summer sea 
 ghttered in the light. 
 
 A land of dreams and " summer afternoons," so would 
 it seem from the heights of the blue mountains, but, alas, 
 this was not so ! 
 
 Early in the water-lily moon (July) the booming of 
 cannon, only a few miles away, had given the first signal 
 that the " war to punish Yuan " had commenced. 
 
 The " missing " Governor with the two million dollars 
 was, as it turned out, one of the leaders, and there were 
 many good men and true who, though loth to resort to 
 arms at this unpropitious moment, were at heart in 
 sympathy with the cause. 
 
 They had, as it were, hatched the republican eggs 
 hiding the wee chickens under their wings, only to find 
 that their nurslings had turned into ducklings and were 
 swimming away into miry, stagnant water black with the 
 refuse of years. 
 
 • Gunpowder. 
 
"FIRE MEDICINE" i8i 
 
 " Injustice breeds injustice, curses and falsehoods do 
 verily return always home, wide as they may wander." 
 " Yuan," said his antagonists, " would never have been 
 President save for those who had brought about the 
 revolution," and now " all the birds had been shot, the 
 bow was put away in obscurity " (he was ungrateful for 
 services rendered). Small wonder that the discontent, 
 simmering so long, had boiled over. 
 
 " The Commander of all Forces demands the dismissal 
 and trial of Yuan Shi Kai and his associates for murders, 
 and illegal and unconstitutional misdeeds," so ran the 
 proud declaration of the avenging troops, but from the 
 first the " Commander of all Forces " was doomed to 
 failure. It was merely a question of the longest purse, 
 and Yuan, with his lately acquired foreign loan of 
 £25,000,000, could defy, with impunity, half the Du-Dus * 
 of China. 
 
 " We will fight for which ever side gives us most rice 
 to eat ! " said one of the soldiers. 
 
 The heavy guns roared, and the maxims rattled at the 
 foot of the mountains for the best part of three days. 
 Reports poured in of the killing of the wounded, and of 
 the non-burial of the dead; of the desertion of the 
 villages and the destruction of the crops. Sad little 
 parties of refugees, men, women and children, labouring 
 along under the heavy bundles that contained most of 
 their worldly goods, toiled up the steep path from the 
 plain below to seek refuge in the recesses of the moun- 
 tains. Three hundred or so half-famished soldiers, a 
 remnant of the defeated southern army, chose a less 
 
 • Du-Du ■« Military governor. 
 
i82 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 frequented way, and crossed over Nankang Pass and 
 down to the shores of the Po Yang lake, for rumour 
 reported that the " punish Yuan army " would make 
 another and firmer stand at the Hokeo fort. 
 
 When, however, a week or so later, as we passed down 
 the very road where much of the fighting had taken place, 
 the rice fields and the vegetable fields, green and un- 
 trampled, were smiling in the sunshine, and never a 
 trace remained of battles, great or small. 
 
 The first outward sign of the victorious northern army 
 was in the form of a meek and mild sentry standing 
 under a tree at the edge of a field, and above his head he 
 had rigged up a yellow oil-skin umbrella to protect him 
 from the sun. 
 
 True, in the little villages near by, the owners of the 
 houses and hovels had fled to the mountains, and the 
 northern soldiers were installed in their stead. 
 
 Our little party, which had consisted of three to begin 
 with, had now grown to some thirty odd, most of them 
 harmless peasants, who despite the fact that they had 
 " passes " of their own, preferred to make assur- 
 ance doubly sure, and slide by the dreaded northern 
 outposts under the shelter of privileged " outside king- 
 dom folk" who possessed a permit from the general, 
 and had a fleet of fearsome " pao chuan " (gun boats) out 
 on the river. 
 
 The sentries were more wide awake than they appeared 
 to be, and turning to see if our stragglers had got through 
 safely, we beheld one poor unfortunate seized roughly by 
 the collar and forced to the ground to open his bundles for 
 inspection. 
 
"FIRE MEDICINE" 183 
 
 In Nanking, the city had, so report said, turned with 
 scarcely a murmur to the southern side. The general in 
 command had adopted a truly Oriental mode of procedure 
 Inviting the leading officials of the city to meet him at 
 the Yamen, he courteously requested their views on the 
 situation. Most of them doubtless scented a rat, only 
 one had the temerity to admit that his sympathies were 
 on the side of Yuan Shi Kai. The interview at an end, he 
 bowed his way out and, passing through the ante-room, 
 paid for his courage with his life. 
 
 From beginning to end the story was ever the same — 
 " Great thunder and little rain " (much cry and little wool). 
 The amount of ammunition spent in Shanghai, and other 
 places made a great deal of noise and brought forth com- 
 paratively few results. Instead of breaking up the walls 
 of the Shanghai Arsenal many a shell fell harmlessly into 
 the water of the creek. Soldiers firing away steadily in 
 Chinkiang, but chiefly into the air, said that they did it to 
 " frighten the enemy " (" giao tamen hai pa "), besides 
 which, was it not the best way to keep up their own 
 courage ? And no soldier was called on to give an account 
 of the ammunition used. 
 
 No Chinese troops care much about battles out in the 
 open or in the daylight. 
 
 Other methods appeal to them more strongly. 
 Northerners, pursuing a fleeing force of the " rebels," as 
 they were called, saw ahead of them a bit of forest land, 
 the trees hung with tiny lanterns. They congratulated 
 themselves on their good fortune. Evidently it was 
 here that the enemy had encamped for the night. The 
 northern troops stole up cautiously, completely sur- 
 rounding the wood. In another moment they would be 
 
i84 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 masters of the situation, but in another moment they had 
 discovered their mistake. The wood was empty save for 
 the lighted lanterns, and the " rebels " attacking from 
 the rear caused a panic in their ranks and turned the 
 pursuers into the pursued. 
 
 Not far from that same spot the wily southerners once 
 again came off successfully. Arriving at a small country 
 town one day in full retreat, uniforms were discarded, 
 and merchants and coolies were persuaded to change 
 places with the soldiers. By the time Yuan's men 
 appeared on the scenes they found no sign of fleeing 
 warriors, but business going on as usual and the shop- 
 keepers doing a thriving trade. It was evident that the 
 " rebels " had not passed that way. A few moments 
 breathing space and " a change came o'er the spirit of 
 their dreams." The shopkeepers turned as if by magic 
 into soldiers, and fell upon their unsuspecting enemies, 
 killing and wounding. 
 
 Meanwhile, the city of Nanking held out bravely 
 against long odds. Chang Hsuan, of monkey-like 
 physique, who, by several turns of fortune's wheel, had 
 risen, so went the report, from the lowly position of 
 groom to the old Empress Dowager to the highly- 
 honoured post of Tartar General under the Ching 
 dynasty, had come back to the place from which he had 
 been ousted in the revolution, resolved, so it was said, 
 to leave not a dog or a fowl ahve, but the job was not so 
 easy. There was at least one brave regiment within the 
 walls which fought to the death, and in the end was prac- 
 tically wiped out. 
 
REPUBLICAN TROOPS ON THE PURPLE MOUNTAIN (nANKINg). 
 
" FIRE MEDICINE " 185 
 
 Chang Hsuan's men, large, loose-limbed northerners, 
 clad for the most part in coolies' blue cotton clothes and 
 still wearing the Manchu queue, could fight with knives 
 and swords better than with rifles. Besides which, they 
 had a great aversion to dynamite, and when, on one 
 occasion, the northern artillery battered down one of the 
 largest of the city gates, and a way was clear to enter, 
 they hung back, loth to run the risk of being blown to 
 pieces by the mines within. That night the plucky 
 defenders patched up the gates again, and for a while 
 the siege continued. It was a forlorn hope, however. 
 Finally Chang Hsuan agreed to talk peace, and even 
 went so far as to give a promise that when he entered the 
 gates there should be no massacre of the people, no looting 
 of their possessions. 
 
 The promise was kept in Oriental fashion. For three 
 days of terror, the exbandits and the trained soldiers of 
 the northern army plundered at will the helpless city, 
 but on the fourth day Chang Hsuan himself entered the 
 gates and the looting ceased ! 
 
 Eye witnesses describe the scenes of horror of those 
 three days of license — the band of young girls driven by 
 sword pricks to the camp outside the walls ; the fate of the 
 bedridden woman who, when ordered to get up and show 
 them where her money was kept, told them that she had 
 none, and that for years she had been unable to stand 
 upon her feet, and she cursed them for their unseemly 
 behaviour. The soldiers, laughing, cut her in pieces bit 
 by bit beginning at the feet — a slow death, but in the end 
 it was sure. 
 
 In their lust for gain, men seized the rolls of cotton 
 cloth and threw them down in the mud when they saw 
 
1 86 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 something better. Finally they grew fastidious, and 
 would only burden themselves with silks and furs. 
 
 Money and jewellery were always the first quest, and 
 they grew practised in the discovery of these, finding 
 treasures hidden in buckets of night soil and buried in 
 the gardens. They threw down pails of water in doubtful 
 places, and wherever the water disappeared quickly, 
 they shrewdly guessed that the earth or the stones in that 
 particular spot had been recently disturbed. 
 
 Chang Hsuan's soldiers were no respecters of persons. 
 
 Within the city lived a family connected with the 
 President himself, and on friendly terms with more than 
 one of the northern generals. The head of the household 
 escaped by a " layer of skin," hastily disguising herself 
 as one of the serving-women. She sat under cover of a 
 loaded rifle whilst the looters tore up the floors and 
 smashed the furniture, appropriating whatever they 
 fancied, but searching in vain for the jewels. " She is 
 only a servant," said one ; " never mind her," and the 
 loaded rifle was reserved for a bigger job. Seeking for 
 hidden treasure, they smashed open coffins, turned over 
 jars of wine and oil, drove their spears into brushwood, 
 and under beds, piercing the flesh of those who were 
 hiding there, and carried off all the warm clothing and 
 the bedding they could find, even the treasured sets of 
 burial clothes stored against the day of need by a poor 
 old dame whose tears trickled down her cheeks as she 
 told us of her loss. A loss she would never now be able to 
 repair, and which might, for all she knew, make the next 
 world a very bitter place to live in. 
 
 " I shall never forget it till I have no teeth," said a 
 younger woman, one of those who had hidden behind the 
 
"FIRE MEDICINE" 187 
 
 brushwood, but had escaped injury, on condition that 
 she and those with her stood without moving whilst the 
 soldiers took what they pleased. 
 
 Though more than a month has passed since the end of 
 the siege, the city is still like a city on strike. Most of the 
 shops are shut up, and but for the soldiers and beggars 
 there would be few people in the streets. 
 
 Here and there some humble food store has opened its 
 doors once again, but many others are afraid to follow 
 suit, for the soldiers commandeer their goods, or dog the 
 footsteps of any likely purchaser, demanding from the 
 helpless shopkeeper a share in the profits. 
 
 It is true that some thousands of smart Tientsin police 
 have been sent by Yuan Shi Kai to keep order. Along the 
 four miles of road from the station to the city they stand 
 at intervals of fifty yards, but like all Chinese police are 
 loth to interfere with other people's business. A filthy 
 beggar, chasing after my rickshaw, butts into the fifth 
 rib of one of these guardians of the peace. Surely now 
 the headlong career of my persecutor will be arrested, 
 but no, the policeman looks upon the collision as part of 
 the day's work, and the beggar, rebuffed for one short 
 moment, soon returns to his lawful prey. 
 
 " It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good," and 
 the rickshaw coolies and others of their ilk have " struck 
 oil " of late. Many of them have acted as guides to the 
 houses of the well-to-do, receiving in return for their 
 services, portions of loot, and in many a mat hovel and 
 mud cabin priceless treasures have been " warehoused " 
 till their new owners were in a position to reclaim them. 
 Business, in these unhappy times, is mostly conducted 
 
1 88 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 at night in the " black market," and here, in these haunts 
 of mystery, disposers of stolen property, and all who 
 desire to avoid public notice, make their bargains. 
 
 One piece of work, and only one, has been put in hand 
 without delay, and that is the manufacture of new city 
 gates, and the repairing of the walls, from which half- 
 embedded shells are still projecting, too high up to remove. 
 
 On October loth, the third anniversary of the " People's 
 Kingdom," the inauguration of the President is cele- 
 brated in the stricken city. From closed houses and 
 beshuttered shops the " five coloured " flags are hung 
 forth. But those signs of rejoicing are deceptive, for the 
 flags, it seems, were forced on unwilling purchasers by 
 the soldiers. 
 
 Four days ago in the northern capital Yuan Shi Kai 
 achieved his own election to the Presidency by equally 
 masterful methods of a somewhat different nature, and 
 in a country that is outwardly at peace, a reign of terror 
 is in progress. 
 
 In one city, supposed to be in sympathy with the 
 defeated southerners, no fewer than 250 people — men 
 women, and children — ^were put to death during the short 
 space of four weeks, guilty or innocent, it was all the 
 same. A small boy, humming a snatch of a spirited 
 " rebel " song, which he had often heard sung by the 
 troops on their way to Nanking, was hauled off to the 
 shambles and cut to pieces. A man standing near tried 
 to protect him, for was not the boy his son ? " If you 
 are his father we will have you killed too," said the 
 soldiers, but the crowd gathering round intervened. 
 " The man was no relation at all ! " they protested, and 
 
"FIRE MEDICINE" 189 
 
 the soldiers let him go. An old woman on her way home 
 from market had purchased more fish than usual 
 " Come now," said the soldiers, " that is more than you 
 can possibly eat — ^you must be going to feed the rebels " ; 
 so they seized on the fish, and, to save trouble, killed the 
 woman on the spot. It was a crime to hum the rebel 
 song, or to say one to another that " Things are not 
 peaceful" — it was almost a crime to Hve. Men were 
 shot for this and shot for the other, sometimes thirty a 
 day ; and, bit by bit, those who remained lapsed into 
 silence — the silence of despair, of utter helplessness. 
 For the time being they had no other way. " Would that 
 there had never been a revolution and a ' People's 
 Kingdom ' " said one, " if all our rice is to be diseased ! " 
 
 Shanghai and other cities are plentifully provided with 
 " eyes and ears " (spies), some of whom are women. As 
 in the days of the French Revolution, " one can be 
 suspect of being suspect," and queer stories are told of 
 mysterious disappearances and arrests of the innocent 
 as well as of the guilty. At a dinner party in one of the 
 provincial capitals the host was suddenly called away by 
 a friend, who must speak a few words on an urgent 
 matter of business. He would return shortly, but the even- 
 ing passed, the guests departed, and still he did not come 
 back. Early the next morning his anxious wife, hearing 
 disquieting rumours, repaired with all haste to the Yamen 
 for information. A Yamen underling forced into her 
 unwilling hands two dollars and a blank piece of paper ! 
 With a cry of terror she reaHsed the significance of this 
 strange offering. 
 
 With it she had to buy tin -foil money to burn upon her 
 husband's grave. 
 
190 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 " Then show me his coffin ! " she cried. 
 
 " Impossible," said the man, " for there are two 
 coffins. We know not which is which." 
 
 And his crime ? Well, nothing was proved. He was 
 " suspect," that was all, and a friend of those who had 
 wished to punish Yuan. 
 
 Now and then the " suspect " is a girl. More than 
 one has been discovered travelling by the railroad to 
 Hangchow with hair elaborately dressed, not over a 
 frame, but over a bomb, and another young " woman," 
 in a delicate state of health and in a most unfit condition 
 to travel, turned out to be a youth, who had resorted to 
 this ingenious, though disgusting method of conceaHng, 
 not one bomb, but several. 
 
 How will it all end ? Young China has expected " an 
 egg to crow " and to hurry things on too quickly, but 
 certain it is that some of the ablest men in the country 
 have gone under in the conffict, and those who remained 
 have " retired into the forest." 
 
 " Better be a dog in peace than a man in anarchy," 
 say the Chinese, and " All anarchy, all evil and injustice 
 is, by the nature of it, dragon's teeth — suicidal, and 
 cannot endure ! " says Carlyle. 
 
 History repeats itself, but in these days there is no 
 Duke of Shao to give his master a timely warning. 
 
 " Where are your gossipers now ? " said the Emperor 
 Li Wang (870 b.c.) to his minister, the Duke of Shao, 
 after summary execution of suspected slanderers. 
 
 " All you have brought about," came the answer, " is 
 a screen which prevents you from learning the real 
 
"FIRE MEDICINE" 191 
 
 sentiments of the people, but you should know that it is 
 more dangerous to shut the people's mouths than to 
 stop the waters of a river." 
 
 It was considered pecuHarly unlucky that on the 
 fifteenth of the eighth moon, on the very night when so 
 many people in all parts of the country had prepared 
 their paper shrines with flags and red candles and incense 
 sticks in honour of the moon goddess, and had spread 
 a goodly feast of sweetmeats and fruits and moon -cakes 
 for her and for the household out in the open courtyard, 
 that the dreaded dog should choose that night of all 
 others for his evil pursuits.* 
 
 As his black shadow crept further and further along, 
 blocking out the Hght, the air was rent by the explosion 
 of many millions of fire crackers, almost deafening to 
 mortals, and loud enough in all conscience to frighten 
 away the foe. Besides, as they knew by experience, this 
 means of prevention had never yet been known to fail. 
 
 Before so very long all was peace once more, and up 
 and down the street devout worshippers set fire to stacks 
 of tin-foil money, killing thereby " two birds with one 
 stone," as this would not only please the moon god- 
 dess, but provide pocket money for the spirits of the 
 ancestors. 
 
 The moon-cakes — the size of small buns, filled with 
 musty almond paste — the melons and other dainties 
 were decorated with rough designs representing either a 
 rabbit, or occasionally a toad, for of the seven precious 
 things of which the moon is composed, it is said that in 
 the centre stands a three-footed animal not unHke a toad, 
 
 • The Chinese consider that an eclipse is caused by a species of dog that is 
 trying to eat up the moon. 
 
192 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 but some maintain that the figure in the moon is nothing 
 but a " jade rabbit " compounding medicines, and others 
 say that it is only a woman. 
 
 The task of the court astronomers, in the old days, 
 was certainly no sinecure. An imperial edict of those 
 times (2159 B.C.) announces that, "When the astro- 
 nomers give notice of an eclipse too soon, let them be 
 put to death without any forgiveness, and when after 
 the time, let the same thing happen to them." 
 
 Cheng Ki Tung, the famous statesman of modern 
 times, tells a picturesque story of the goddess of the 
 moon. She promised an old woman a gift of her own 
 choosing. The thrifty soul put her hand to her mouth 
 and kept it there, indicating that her great desire in this 
 world was never to be without food. Alas ! what was 
 her horror the next morning to find that during the night 
 she had grown a beard of extensive dimensions, for the 
 moon goddess had altogether mistaken her meaning. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 Combed by the Wind and Washed by the Rain 
 
 In another three years, said the Belgian engineers, 
 the " fire-carriage " would go all the way to Si An Fu, 
 the capital of Shensi, which now is called by the Chinese 
 a " wilderness place," but was once upon a time the chief 
 city of China. The RepubHc, in the first flush of enthu- 
 siasm and the self-confidence born of inexperience, had 
 risen to her feet after the revolution and desired to build 
 her own railways. True, the money did not disappear 
 in station-master's salaries before the stations had been 
 built, as is said to have been the case in Szechewan, 
 for the simple reason probably that there was next to no 
 money to be had. Finally, therefore, and very sensibly, 
 Belgian engineers, backed by a substantial Belgian loan, 
 were permitted to take the business in hand for the 
 Chinese Government. 
 
 Already the " iron-road " had penetrated some eighty 
 miles or so into the wide tract of loess country which lies 
 between Honan Fu and the border of the province — a 
 comparatively treeless region, a land of dust and sand 
 and grit, the colour and much the consistency of 
 Fuller's earth. 
 
 It had been a dry season, and though every level spot 
 was sown with winter wheat, the tips of the blades above 
 the ground were so thickly plastered with dust that 
 hardly a speck of green was to be seen ; nothing to relieve 
 
194 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 the dead monotony of the drab-tinted earth, nothing 
 except a patch of golden scarlet persimmons, ripe and 
 over-ripe, spread out for sale, on trays or in shallow 
 baskets, at rare intervals by the wayside. 
 
 But the road itself was not monotonous, one could 
 wish it were more so. Owing to the vertical cleavage of 
 the loess soil, this land of dust is broken up into ravines 
 and gullies, into cHffs and terraces, and here and there 
 the face of a cHff, dug out and fitted with a door, serves 
 as a dweUing- house. 
 
 The road is often little more than a deep and sandy 
 
 ditch, wedged in between high walls of caked sand, and 
 
 only wide enough for a single cart, but there is much 
 
 traffic on this narrow highway, merchandise from the 
 
 far west, from Thibet, from Central Asia, skins, drugs, 
 
 grain, and cotton and tobacco, and over and over again 
 
 the unwieldy carts, with their animals loosely roped 
 
 together by ropes attached to the axle, are hauled up at 
 
 a dangerous angle oli precipitous banks, the occupant is 
 
 unceremoniously tipped back, feet in the air, whilst 
 
 amidst shouting and clamour, much cracking of whips, 
 
 and words, and colliding of iron-bound cart wheels, and 
 
 a seemingly inextricable tangle of kicking mules and 
 
 jibbing horses, of knotted ropes and excited muleteers, 
 
 further progress is again made possible, no one knows 
 
 how, and the caravans from the east and west pass each 
 
 other by, and fall back once more into silence. 
 
 The carts are without springs, and without seats, and 
 when the deep ruts tumble over into holes or climb up 
 on to fallen rocks, the unhappy occupant cHngs like a 
 drowning cat to any available support, and presses back 
 into the bedding, with which a vain attempt has been made 
 
COMBED BY WIND AND WASHED BY RAIN 195 
 
 to turn the cart into a kind of padded room. Other- 
 wise, he will be flung from side to side without mercy, 
 and bruised and battered and buffeted. As it is, not a few 
 unpleasant encounters with the unyielding woodwork, and 
 much shaking of nerves and bones is inevitable. 
 
 There are agonising moments, generally in or near a 
 village, when the roadway is littered with boulders, and 
 great heaps of loose paving stones. Can this be an 
 abortive attempt at road mending ? Alas, no ! Rather 
 the reverse. These stony beds, over which the iron- 
 bound wheels (411 lbs. in weight) are grinding and 
 scrunching, whilst the animals plunge, and the cart 
 rocks and shivers, merely signify that the wall of a house 
 has tumbled over at this particular spot, years ago 
 possibly, and has been allowed to remain. 
 
 To put up cheerfully with the inevitable is certainly 
 commendable, but to submit with equal cheerfulness to 
 that which could well be avoided is to a Western mind 
 an irritating trait in the Chinese character. 
 
 In the dry season of the year we travel day after day 
 in a dense cloud of dust — fine, insidious, powdery dust 
 of loess soil. It Hnes and plasters our faces till we look 
 more Hke corpses than living folk, it forces its way into 
 our mouths till we are Hterally " biting the dust." It 
 powders our hair, and gets into the tins of jam and 
 butter,^ covering them with grit. It mingles with the 
 potted meat, adding a fresh flavour, and collects in drifts 
 of sand on our rugs and cushions. It hangs like a veil 
 before our eyes, and haunts us even in the inns at night. 
 
 The inns of this country of " yellow earth," as the 
 Chinese call it, are Httle more than dust themselves, dust 
 
196 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 and water ; in other words, mud — low one-storied 
 buildings of dry mud round a yard of wet mud ! They 
 are more adapted for beasts than men. The paper panes 
 are torn off the windows, the hinges are broken on the 
 doors. There is often no attempt at furniture over and 
 above the inevitable *' kang," a raised platform built of 
 mud, under which a smouldering fire of mud and manure 
 can be provided, should one require such a luxury. One 
 sighs for the hot baths of Kiangsi, but here even a 
 " wash face basin," as they call it, of fresh water from the 
 inn kitchen is all one can get, and sometimes even that 
 must be bought from a tea shop some yards down the 
 street. At the best it is seldom unadulterated, for small 
 particles of the ubiquitous dust are swimming on the 
 surface. Honanese do not complain. " A Honan man," 
 goes the proverb, " never washes his feet unless he fords 
 a river ! " The bedding, extricated from the dust-hned 
 carts, emits a smothering cloud of powdery loess as it is 
 flung down on the " kang." 
 
 With time and a spade one could dig up the mud floor 
 and make it level, but the Chinese prefer it undulating, 
 as this forms a better sink. 
 
 They have picturesque names for their inns. " The 
 Hotel of Accomplished Wishes," " The Inn of Heavenly 
 Origin," " The Pearl that Illumines the Night." 
 
 At the " Illuminating Pearl " we arrived late. Other 
 '* keh " (guests) had taken the best rooms, and we must be 
 content with^ittle more than a mud" kang" and a rubbish 
 heap inside four stuffy walls, and to get to this unsavoury 
 hole it was necessary to go through two other " sleeping 
 apartments " already fully occupied, in one of which 
 the landlord himself lay snoring. 
 
COMBED BY WIND AND WASHED BY RAIN 197 
 
 The early start, often in the dark hours before the 
 dawn, was possibly a blessing in disguise. Daylight 
 might have disclosed unpleasant details in our surround- 
 ings which, the "eye ne'er seeing, the heart ne'er grieved." 
 " To rise so early in the morning seems to be a fooHsh 
 Western practice," said Li Hung Chang, but on these 
 road journeys in China one has no alternative. Neither 
 carters nor travellers wish to be benighted on lonely 
 roads not unfrequented by bandits. 
 
 Old Chang, my elderly servant and a local product, 
 was evidently too accustomed to the general filth of the 
 inns even to notice its existence. 
 
 All things considered, he was more of a hindrance than 
 a help. He blackened the tea cloth and broke the 
 crockery. He stole some spoons from an inn, thinking 
 they were mine (fortunately they were only made of 
 tin), but sought to propitiate me with offerings by the 
 way, pressing on my acceptance with his dirt-begrimed 
 fingers, a sweet potato just baked. " It's not cold," he 
 said, meaning it was hot, or a persimmon, ripe and red. 
 " It is not bitter," he said, meaning it was sweet, and 
 wondering at my unwillingness to " chih " (eat). On 
 one occasion he bought me the leg of a chicken, ready 
 cooked, for the small sum of one penny, and showed it me 
 triumphantly reposing in his unwashed hand. When 
 recooked in butter, however, it was quite palatable. 
 Fortunately, there were always " old eggs," i,e.y hard- 
 boiled eggs, to fall back on. 
 
 " Tung Gwan is the lock. Si An the key. Peking the 
 treasure," goes the saying, and a spur of the Tsinghng 
 mountain range makes a natural fortress between the 
 
198 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 province of Honan and that of Shensi. The narrow 
 road, Hke a deep trough, worms its way between the high 
 cHffs, climbing slowly, through beds of loess sand, over 
 the mountain pass. 
 
 Tung Gwan, the lock, was taken and retaken time 
 and time again during the revolution. Three provinces, 
 Honan, Shensi, and Shansi, meet at this point, and the 
 Yellow river, some 500 yards wide, flows past the city 
 wall, flows somewhat sullenly, for in these days no one 
 propitiates the river god with handsome brides. Long 
 ago, when the neighbouring states were at war with each 
 other, custom demanded that some beautiful maiden be 
 thrown into the yellow waters as an offering to the god, 
 and this sacrifice never failed to bring prosperity to the 
 countryside. 
 
 There is no love lost between the people of Honan and 
 their neighbours, and at Tung Gwan, the border city, 
 one prepares to step, as it were, into a new country. 
 
 The Honanese are hot-tempered, conservative, rough 
 and uncompromising in manner, and, though distinctly 
 intelligent, are very material in their tastes.* The 
 people of Shensi, on the contrary, possess less marked 
 characteristics, and are, in fact, a mixture of many 
 types, owing to immigration in the past from five 
 different provinces. 
 
 Up till now, travelHng as we have been, in old-fashioned 
 Honan, most of the people have worn their queues in 
 true Manchu fashion, and the copper coins (10 cent 
 pieces) of the " great illustrious (Manchu) dynasty " 
 have been more in favour than those of the New Republic. 
 As a further point of difference between the two pro- 
 
 • Yusin Shi Kai was a Honanese- 
 
COMBED BY WIND AND WASHED BY RAIN 199 
 
 vinces, the gauge of the ruts in the sandy roads have 
 been adapted to Honan carts only. 
 
 At Tung Gwan, the border city, every axle of every 
 cart must be changed to suit the new conditions. 
 
 How is it, one asks oneself, that these sons of Han, 
 the teachers of the world, as they might once have been 
 called, are still content, exasperatingly content, to travel 
 along these rutted tracks, called by courtesy roads, in 
 carts without springs and without seats. One reason 
 suggests itself as now and again we come across some 
 fellow traveller. He lies asleep, regardless of the bump- 
 ing and the buffeting, blissfully unconscious of the 
 humps and the holes as the iron-bound wheels plunge 
 into the one and over the other. He can see no cause 
 for complaint, not at least as regards personal comfort. 
 Neither will he recoil from the filth of the inn when he 
 gets to the end of the day's journey. He will squat at 
 ease on the mud **kang," and enjoy to the full the savoury 
 dishes of vermicilli and pork and vegetables, which are 
 brought by the unsavoury underHng from a black and 
 greasy cook-shop down the street. 
 
 Later on he will sleep the sleep of the well-fed, undis- 
 turbed by the crawling of the insects, the braying of the 
 donkeys, the stamping of the mules, the yelHng of the 
 carters, which continues through the greater part of the 
 night, as the men go to and fro amongst their animals, 
 feeding and watering them. 
 
 To undress and redress by the dim light of a wick 
 floating in a saucer of oil, half of which is trickling down 
 the mud wall and emitting an evil smell, will be no great 
 hardship, for the simple reason that he takes off nothing 
 but an upper garment, which is soon replaced. 
 
200 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 Though the plain of Si An, through which we are now 
 travelling, is still composed mainly of the same old loess 
 soil, a greater supply of water and different climatic 
 conditions considerably alter the face of the landscape. 
 Trees, mostly thinly-attired willow trees, stand, with 
 many gaps in the line, along the side of the road, which 
 is no longer a mere ditch wedged in between high cliffs, 
 but has widened out and is sprawling like a strip of 
 ploughed upland across limitless fields, green with 
 sprouting wheat and other crops. 
 
 The Si An plain, some 90 miles wide and 200 miles 
 long, is famous for its fertility. Maize and millet, and 
 wheat and hemp, vegetables and cotton, and many 
 kinds of fruit grow there in plenty, but, alas, to cultivate 
 fruit trees properly takes too much time and care for 
 the Chinese, who appreciate, above all things, quick 
 profits, besides which, they see nothing wrong about the 
 flavourless pears and peaches or the undersized cherries. 
 In the good old days of Kublai Khan, the Emperor 
 himself planted trees, and his subjects followed suit, for 
 it was popularly supposed in those happy times that 
 the planting of trees lengthened the Hfe of the planter. 
 One is almost sorry the superstition has died out. The 
 pine and the Cyprus, moreover, were looked upon as 
 great blessings to mankind — a tonic made of the flowers 
 and sap conducing to good health and long days. The 
 dearth of trees in some parts of China is distressing. 
 Now and again a philanthropist makes an effort to 
 improve matters. In the province of Shansi, on one 
 occasion, sacks of acorns were presented to the people, 
 in the hope of forests of oaks at some far distant date, 
 but the recipients, with an eye to the present rather than 
 
COMBED BY WIND AND WASHED BY RAIN 201 
 
 the future, used them without the slightest compunction 
 for the feeding of their pigs. 
 
 Things have so changed, alas, since the days of Kublai 
 Khan, that on the road to Si An tree murderers are at 
 their evil deeds, and here and there the bark has been 
 peeled from a well-grown trunk, and the tree is slowly 
 bleeding to death. 
 
 What a senseless proceeding ! Nay, for the perpetrator 
 of the mischief is in need of timber and a live tree may 
 not be cut down on the pubHc highway, but a dead tree — 
 ah, that is another matter ! 
 
 The milestones along this Shensi road are massive, 
 tower-like erections, squat and square, some twenty feet 
 or so high. 
 
 Once upon a time they marked the trade route across 
 the Empire every ten *' li " all the way to Turkestan. Now 
 only comparatively few are left, and in some parts of the 
 country they have disappeared altogether. 
 
 " In spring keep warm, in autumn keep cold, and you 
 will never be ill," runs the Chinese saying. There was 
 no difficulty certainly in keeping cold in that Si An 
 plain. As we passed the great stone bridge, a third of 
 a mile long, over the River Wei, the sleet that had been 
 driving in our faces all day turned to snow, and the 
 willows in their scanty attire shivered in the icy wind 
 which swept pitilessly across the open fields. In another 
 seven miles or so we were in sight of the famous " walls 
 of gold " and Si An Fu, the city of '' Western Peace," 
 but names go by contraries in China, and few cities 
 in all her vast domain have known less of peace and more 
 of war. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 The City of Western Peace 
 
 Si An was for many years a royal city, the greatest 
 in the land. Wu Wang, the martial, who lived about 
 the time of Samuel, was the first Emperor to make it 
 his capital. Some nine hundred years later Shih Huang 
 Di, the Napoleon of China, reigned there in state. It 
 was he who built the great wall and burnt all the books. 
 There are villages not far away which bear in their 
 names traces of that deed of tyranny. " The Hamlet 
 of the Paper Fire," " The Village of the Heap of Cinders," 
 and still the field is pointed out in which those 450 luck- 
 less scholars were buried up to their necks in earth, 
 and ploughs driven over their defenceless heads. This 
 tyrant, not unnaturally perhaps, was haunted by a fear 
 of death, and, with the idea of improving matters for 
 him in the next world, the underground palace, about 
 one and a half miles in extent, which formed his tomb, 
 was one of the most costly undertakings ever put into 
 execution. A roof of azure blue represented the sky, 
 the bronze floor, " set " with miniature rivers of quick- 
 silver, resembled the earth. Walls were inlaid with 
 precious stones and, in accordance with time-honoured 
 custom, the ladies of the Imperial harem and all the 
 attendants were buried alive with their dead master. 
 As a protection against thieves, deadly machines, Hke 
 automatic archers, were placed inside the entrance. The 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 203 
 
 Emperor's tomb is said to be the original site of Aladdin's 
 cave in the " Arabian Nights," the legend having been 
 carried back to Arabia by the Arab traders in the days 
 of the Tang dynasty. Not a vestige now remains of the 
 underground palace. Indeed, history relates that before 
 the end of that same dynasty the great conqueror's tomb 
 was destroyed. People still point out the place that it 
 occupied on the hillside near the sulphur springs of the 
 little town of Lintung, some seventeen miles from the 
 east gate of Si An Fu, and doubtless the " fountain of 
 clear water," where Aladdin and the magician sat down 
 to rest on their way to the cave, is the original spring 
 now utilised for sulphur baths and enclosed in picturesque 
 bathhouses. 
 
 During the centuries of anarchy in the days of the three 
 kingdoms our " City of Western Peace," being one of the 
 important strongholds of the day, again passed through 
 troublous times. For a while, however, a period of calm 
 intervened under the great Tai Tsung (62/ — 650), who, 
 instead of burning books and burying scholars, built a 
 famous library, and encouraged, not only art and learn- 
 ing, but the religions both of the East and the West — 
 Nestorians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Mohammedans, all 
 enjoyed the protection of this broad-minded Tai Tsung. 
 Chang Su, his Empress, is one of the famous characters 
 of Chinese history. On her deathbed she aspired to no 
 priceless tombs or rivers of quicksilver, but said : " All 
 I desire in my coffin is a tile for my pillow and wooden 
 pins for my hair," and, looking at those who stood 
 around, she continued, " Associate with the good and 
 shun the company of the evil." Some years later a 
 second public burning took place in the environs of 
 
204 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 Si An Fu, not of books this time nor of scholars, but of 
 the fine clothes and rich jewels of the palace ladies. 
 Henceforth, only the Empress was to be allowed to wear 
 silk and satin, and the silk factories were closed through- 
 out the land. This reign of economy was short-lived, 
 however, and the same frugal court grew into one of the 
 most extravagant, though, at the same time, one of the 
 most brilliant of the day, until, alas, came a repetition 
 of the old story so often met with in the annals of 
 Chinese history, that of a beautiful concubine, a powerful 
 eunuch, and an execrated minister with " honey on his 
 lips and in his hand a sword." 
 
 In the eighth century the Thibetans sacked the city 
 of Si An. In the ninth century a terrible religious per- 
 secution took place, in which the Nestorians disappeared 
 for ever, but the Buddhists, owing to their vast numbers, 
 revived again in time. During the tenth century re- 
 bellion reigned throughout the land, but little more is 
 heard of the ** City of Western Peace "till the closing days 
 of the Ming dynasty in the seventeenth century, when 
 the rebel Li captured the place, giving his soldiers three 
 days license to do whatsoever they pleased within the 
 walls. For three months Li defied his enemies in the 
 old capital, but the Manchus came off victoriously in the 
 end, and stationed within its gates one of the largest 
 garrisons of banner-men throughout the land. But even 
 they are now no more, and Si An Fu, the " City of 
 Western Peace," covered itself with shame in the cold- 
 blooded, merciless massacre of the descendants of these 
 same banner-men three short years ago. 
 
 Not a house, not a hut remains, not a vestige of the 
 wooded gardens which were once the pride of the Manchu 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 205 
 
 quarter — nothing but a dreary tract of land, broken by 
 sandy hollows, and barren ground littered with stones. 
 The hollows are many of them graves — 300 dead bodies 
 in each according to regulations. Ten thousand or 
 more had been massacred, so said report, but some had 
 died another way. They had sought to hide in the caves, 
 of which there were not a few within the precincts of 
 that Manchu city ; but dead bodies had been thrown 
 in on top of them, blocking the outlet, rotting as they 
 lay, and burying aHve, in the most horrible way imagin- 
 able, the living souls within. A mere remnant had 
 escaped — no one quite knew how. Some few hundreds 
 were eking out a meagre existence at an industrial 
 institution estabHshed for their benefit. One used to 
 wonder what they felt Hke, these poor survivors who had 
 gone through the reign of terror, who had lost their all, 
 who had, as it were, come back to life to find their friends 
 and their families and their homes all swept away, and 
 of all the Manchu city nothing left but graves. 
 
 A " sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier 
 things ! " but to outsiders they seemed remarkably 
 passive ; nay, almost content. One asked oneself, was 
 this placidity owing to a " laugh face shell " (mask), or 
 did they, luckily for themselves perhaps, lack in imagina- 
 tive power ? 
 
 The " walls of gold," some ten miles in extent, are 
 chiefly made of mud and bricks, but, being forty feet 
 high and forty feet wide, are still as strong and formidable 
 as they were in the days of their youth, nearly a thousand 
 years ago. One does not wonder then, in this land of 
 euphemisms, that they should have acquired so proud a 
 
2o6 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 title. The gates, north, south, east and west, crowned 
 by lofty towers, punctured by tiny windows (in one tower 
 alone there are forty-seven windows), are the finest in 
 the land, finer even than those in Peking. 
 
 We, who came from the east, passed under the " Portal 
 of Eternal Happiness," the last of the three great gates, 
 divided the one from the other, as it were, by long 
 slanting " hyphens." At this busy moment of the day, 
 not long before the hour of closing for the night, it would 
 seem as though some big scrimmage were taking place. 
 Carts, bullocks, mules, horses, and wheel-barrows have 
 apparently all got entangled together in a medley of rope 
 harness under the dark tunnelled archway. The carters 
 are yelling and cracking their whips, the coolies are 
 shouting and edging their way through with their 
 burdens, hurrying pedestrians are brought to a sudden 
 standstill jambed between the wheels and the mules. 
 Sellers of cakes and other oddments press up close to the 
 walls, and continue to cry their wares even in the clamour 
 and the clatter. Everybody shouts at once, giving advice 
 to everybody else and uttering imprecations. 
 
 " You grandson of a tortoise ! " says one. 
 
 " You rabbit I " comes the still more abusive rejoinder. 
 
 What will the end be ? Broken bones and stampeding 
 horses, and carts smashed to smithereens ; nay, for this 
 is China — the greater the noise the less the damage. 
 As by magic, our animals suddenly extricate themselves 
 from the melee and, when once on the other side of the 
 " Gate of Eternal Happiness " all is peace. The street 
 that opens out before us is of such immense width that, 
 in spite of the crowded traffic ever oozing from the narrow 
 precincts of the archway, the general impression is one 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 207 ^ 
 
 of emptiness. To either side of us, dwarfed by the 
 immense width of the road, are long Hnes of low buildings 
 of the " coach-house and stable " style of architecture. 
 In reality they are beshuttered shops which, with a few 
 exceptions, are still awaiting occupants. Some day it 
 is hoped this will be a prosperous business quarter, but 
 at present the people have hardly grown accustomed to 
 doing their marketing, or setting up their wares, in these 
 once sacred precincts of the now defunct Manchu 
 city. Glance behind those brand-new buildings and 
 behold the desolate tract of stone littered-ground and 
 the hollows filled with dead. 
 
 The very timber that has been used in the building 
 came from the Manchu gardens, and, being green wood 
 wholly unseasoned, is already beginning to show ominous 
 signs of unfitness. 
 
 Times are certainly changing, and in this modern 
 street of Si An the houses are all of the same height, 
 which fact alone would once have been considered 
 extremely unlucky. 
 
 Near the busy centre of the city the " coach-houses " 
 have turned one and all into open-fronted shops, the 
 stock-in-trade of which is leaking out on to the sidewalk 
 in true Chinese style, and already dust and neglect have 
 dispelled the idea of new wood and shining varnish. 
 
 The picturesque " bell tower," with its padoga roof, 
 in which a great bell, some ten feet long, sounds forth 
 the hour both day and night, is 500 years old or more, 
 and stands at the centre of four cross-roads in the middle 
 of the city. 
 
 Under the archway, sellers of clothes, old and new, are 
 utilising the walls for the display of their goods, for this 
 
2o8 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 is a free country ! Garments, blue and grey and black, 
 occupy, like Academy pictures, every available bit of 
 wall space on both sides of the road. Overhead, in the 
 top loft of the tower, hangs the bell, and in a corner of 
 the bell-loft behind a frail partition, live the bellringers. 
 " One servant," goes the Chinese saying, " will carry 
 two buckets of water. Two servants will carry one 
 bucket between them, and three will buy water." 
 
 So has it been in the case of the bellringers. Once 
 upon a time one custodian of the bell tower was con- 
 sidered sufficient, later on, two were supplied, and now 
 a third has been added to the staff to buy vegetables for 
 the other two, and there is no one sufficiently disengaged 
 to ring the bell ! On the day of our visit the hour of 
 three had struck some moments before on the clock of 
 cheap German make, the proud possession of the bell- 
 ringers, and suggestive sounds of yawning issued from 
 behind the partitions, but why disturb oneself for so 
 small a matter ? " It is better to sit than to walk, it is 
 better to lie down than to sit, and still better to sleep 
 than do either," so goes the Chinese saying. O, ye sons 
 of Han, you have waked me too early ; I will slumber 
 again. It is not part of your training to be faithful in a 
 few things ; and this slackness in small matters is the 
 curse of the country. 
 
 •If by any unlikely chance, however, a citizen had 
 listened for the f pealing of the bell he would not have 
 been disappointed. Some rollicking young soldiers, 
 following in our wake, flung the log of wood, suspended 
 on a beam and supplied for that purpose, once, twice 
 and thrice against the sonorous metal. 
 
 Si An Fu was once a city of superb palaces, of splendid 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 209 
 
 theatres and sumptuous sepulchres, and now it has long 
 ceased to be royal and has become bourgeois. The 
 princely halls, of olden days inlaid with jade and pearls, 
 have left no trace behind. In their stead the low brown- 
 roofed houses of the " mai mai ren " (shopkeepers), with 
 their mud and plaster walls squeezed up alongside of 
 each other, so that one wall serves for two houses at 
 the very least,* remind one of the way in which the 
 people themselves, all over the land, are linked together 
 by their family clans, their multitudinous guilds, their 
 almost innumerable secret societies. 
 
 The main street from the bell tower in the centre of 
 the city to the gates of " Assured Peace," leading to 
 the west, is paved, but alas, the paving stones are at 
 every kind of an angle, and sometimes missing altogether. 
 To ride over them in a city cart is to undergo physical 
 torture, and at the end of the journey every internal 
 organ seems to have been momentarily displaced. 
 
 Many of the busiest thoroughfares are still left in a 
 state of nature. A dry mud bank constitutes the side- 
 walk, a wet mud ditch rising into lumps and falling into 
 holes does duty for the road. In wet weather, water, 
 black or brown, as the case may be, fills the ditch and a 
 slippery, shining " chocolate " paste covers the banks. 
 There are places where bank and ditch become one, and 
 subside together at the bottom of the water. The 
 unlucky pedestrian, drawn up suddenly in his halting 
 progress, wonders if he shall wade through the black 
 slush, which will probably be nearly up to his waist, or 
 ride across on unsavoury two-legged steeds, in the form 
 of filth-clogged beggars, hung, rather than clothed, in 
 
 * In Si An detached houses are almost unknown. 
 
210 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 vermin-haunted rags, who are anxiously waiting to be 
 hired. A farthing, or rather its equivalent in cash, is all 
 the payment required. 
 
 When seen from the top of the city walls in winter 
 time. Si An is one wide sea of roof tops crouching under 
 a pall of dust. The gaps between the houses are filled 
 in by ailanthus trees, with dusty leafless branches. At 
 rare intervals a picturesque tower with gracefully tip- 
 tilted roofs shoots up high above the squat houses, like 
 a slender brown tree in a garden of bushes. 
 
 The ailanthus is the *' tree of heaven," so called because 
 it seeds itself everywhere, and grows with the freedom 
 and persistence of a weed. In America they call it a 
 pest, but here in this sparsely-wooded land, where more 
 valuable trees have disappeared by fair means or foul, 
 the common ailanthus becomes a godsend. 
 
 Though in residential streets and by-roads and back 
 lanes the keynote of the city is dry mud of a khaki tint, 
 the busy thoroughfares are glorified by rich splashes of 
 colour against a background of dark woodwork and 
 gilded shop signs, the cornflower and periwinkle blue of 
 the men's garments, with sometimes a gay addition in 
 the shape of leggings of apple green or saffron yellow, 
 the poppy red or petunia pink of some small child's gala 
 attire, the crimson lanterns swinging above the open- 
 fronted shops, the carts with hoods of royal blue and 
 vivid green, the piles of oranges, the scarlet persimmons, 
 the red chillies, the porcelain vases and jade ornaments, 
 and other curios spread out upon the ground — all add 
 touches of rich colour to the scene. 
 
 At street corners, and wherever men congregate, open- 
 air restaurants carry on a surprisingly prosperous trade. 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 211 
 
 An artist would delight in the picturesque colouring 
 of these tiny food stalls. A tidy housewife would revel 
 in the ingenious way in which there is a place for every- 
 thing and everything in its place. So surpassingly 
 excellent is the fare provided, that many a well-to-do 
 epicure will linger in passing, for a meal at one of these 
 alfresco dining-rooms. 
 
 In democratic China the publicity of the affair and the 
 mixed company matters not a jot. Two round red 
 lacquer boxes (like mammoth hat boxes), decorated with 
 paintings of full-blown peonies, form the basis of the 
 erection. The table — a wide slab of wood — rests upon 
 these boxes, and the covered jars and elegant bowls of 
 dark blue and white porcelain down the centre of the 
 table contain delicacies of various descriptions. Low 
 lacquered forms accommodate the guests, a basin and 
 a pair of chop sticks are placed before each, and a good 
 square meal can be purchased for fivepence or sixpence, 
 whereas most of the diners contrive to feed well on a far 
 less extravagant sum ! Savoury dishes from a cauldron 
 on a charcoal fire at the corner of the table are dished up 
 hot and steaming as required. In the deepening 
 twilight the glowing charcoal of the stove, and the rays 
 of a crimson lantern overhead throw a warm and 
 cheerful light upon the scene. 
 
 Later on much of the paraphernalia will be packed 
 into the two boxes with the peonies, and the whole 
 establishment will depart for the night. 
 
 There is still an Imperial City in Si An, but it consists 
 of a wide tract of grass land surrounded by a half-ruined 
 wall and entered by a fine old archway. A rough-hewn 
 block of stone, which " fell from heaven," stands in the 
 
212 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 far corner, and on it the impress of a hand is still plainly 
 to be seen — the hand of the Empress Wu, the autocratic 
 usurper of the Dragon Throne in the seventh century, 
 who, calling herself divine, pretended that her super- 
 natural powers had given her control even over the 
 plants. Artificial forcing was resorted to by the court 
 gardeners, and the flowers brought to her Imperial 
 Highness at the critical moment. One day, alas, some 
 recalcitrant peonies refused to respond ; orders were 
 given that henceforth and for ever the cultivation of 
 peonies should cease. 
 
 The Empress Wu lived before her time. She ordained 
 that men and women should have equal rights, and threw 
 open examinations for official posts to the weaker sex. 
 Whether the scheme proved a failure or too great a 
 success is not clear. All we know is that it was promptly 
 abolished by the next Emperor. 
 
 The privileged occupants in these days of the Imperial 
 City are sheep, not Manchu sheep, nor Chinese sheep, but 
 Mohammedan sheep. 
 
 " Ten Peking slippery ones cannot talk down one 
 Tientsin brawler, ten Tientsin brawlers cannot talk 
 down one Mohammedan," so goes the saying. A large 
 and flourishing colony of this assertive race dwells in 
 the north-west quarter of the city, the descendants, so 
 they themselves declare, of some 3,000 Moslem soldiers 
 who came to China during the eighth century at the 
 request of the Emperor to propagate their religion ! In 
 those days the Mohammedan Empire was enlarging her 
 borders. Persia, India, Thibet, all in turn appealed to 
 China for assistance against their Moslem invaders, but 
 before long we hear of an Arab embassy knocking at her 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 213 
 
 own doors and rumours of an Arab invasion, but, owing 
 partly to Chinese diplomacy, and partly to the opportune 
 death of the Arab general, no actual invasion took place, 
 and those who crossed the border came in peace and not 
 in war, and, marrying Chinese wives, they settled down 
 for good. 
 
 It is said that they " dwelt peaceably in China, 
 tranquillising the state." 
 
 In these days there is no love lost between the Moslems 
 and the people of their adopted country. 
 
 The aggressive, somewhat overbearing Mohammedan 
 character irritates the more lethargic Chinese, and 
 various sayings in common use show the opinion held by 
 the latter with regard to their Moslem neighbours. 
 " Ten Mohammedans, nine thieves," and " One Moham- 
 medan travelling will grow fat, two on a journey will 
 grow thin," meaning that when they think that none of 
 their co-religionists are looking they will call pork 
 " mutton " and eat it with enjoyment. 
 
 Outwardly, however, the Chinese treat them with the 
 respect which most of us would accord to a fierce-tempered 
 watch-dog, and though they do not approve of Moslem 
 sheep feeding gratis on " imperial " grass, interference is 
 considered inadvisable, for it is best to let sleeping dogs He. 
 
 The Mohammedan quarter is an unattractive part of 
 the city. Down one street and up another the unmade 
 roads consist of deep drifts of dust in dry weather, and 
 deep bogs of mud in wet weather, Hned by walls to the 
 right, walls to the left, endless mud-coloured walls, 
 punctured by closed doors and innocent of windows, 
 and now and again one catches sight of roofs of some 
 more pretentious building which suggest a mosque. 
 
214 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 Those whom we pass — they are invariably men and 
 boys, for Moslem women are kept within doors more 
 carefully than Chinese — ^wear peaked caps of white 
 calico. Otherwise, except sometimes for the longer face 
 and more developed nose, one could well have imagined 
 them to be of pure Chinese ancestry. 
 
 Into the largest and grandest of the eleven mosques, 
 roofed with blue porcelain tiles shining in the sunlight 
 and surrounded by fine courts and temple buildings, 
 we sought admission. 
 
 " We Chinese," said my escort, the Follower of Virtue, 
 " may not enter into the Moslem worship halls. Neither 
 is it allowed for women to go inside the buildings." But 
 the Follower of Virtue was mistaken, or possibly an 
 exception was made in favour of one of the outside 
 kingdom folk who, at all events, were not " swine- 
 eating idolaters." 
 
 The day happened to be a Friday — the Moslem 
 Sabbath — and voices in one of the side buildings were 
 drowsing through passages of the Koran in Arabic, but 
 the attraction of the crowd in the inner court centred 
 round a long table littered with raw beef in gory masses, 
 around which a number of men were hard at work slicing 
 and chopping. Moslem priests in China derive part of 
 their income from the slaughtering of animals, this 
 unpleasant branch of a butcher's trade being a perquisite 
 of the mullahs. Prices vary. One cash is charged for 
 killing a chicken. Two hundred cash (about fivepence) 
 for the slaughtering of an ox ! The " Follower of 
 Virtue " remained outside the inner sanctum of the 
 " Temple of Purity and Truth," but there was no 
 objection to stockinged feet apparently, whether Moslem 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 215 
 
 or otherwise, provided the defiling leather shoes were 
 left on the doorstep. 
 
 In all essentials Chinese mosques follow the ordinary- 
 lines of Chinese architecture — pillared pavilions with 
 sloping roofs and tip-tilted eaves. The " worship hall," 
 with floors and pillars and panelled walls of wood 
 painted in dark rich shades of colour, and empty of all 
 furnishings and tawdry accessories save for an incense 
 table near the entrance, possessed a dignity, an air of 
 cleanliness and substantiality that one does not often find 
 in Chinese temples. The floor was covered with strips 
 of drugget, on which the worshippers gather at prayer 
 time, taking care to keep their faces turned toward the 
 west wall — and Mecca. The mirab, or prayer niche, 
 occupies the centre of this west wall, facing the entrance 
 and crowned by the Arabic inscription, " Allah the 
 merciful and compassionate." In one corner of the 
 sacred precincts a tiny '' blind " door stands at the top, 
 of a miniature flight of steps. This, the " Gate of 
 Heaven," is another favourite spot for the devout. 
 Prayer is " The Key of Paradise," but as to the five 
 daily prayers required of all good Moslems : (i) at 
 Adam's time (before daylight), (2) at Abraham's time 
 (at noon), (3) at Jonah's time (at three), (4) at Jesus' 
 time (at sunset), (5) at Mohammed's time (at 9 p.m.), 
 those engaged in earning a liveUhood excuse themselves 
 from these regulations on the ground of pressure of 
 business, and say that the priests wiU attend to these 
 matters for them. 
 
 Altogether, the Chinese Moslem takes life more easily 
 than his co-religionists in other lands. 
 
2i6 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 " Where is the bathing place ? " we asked, seeing no 
 signs of any great marble tank in the open court like 
 those in which the Indian Mohammedan performs his 
 rituaHstic ablutions. 
 
 So shivering a proceeding does not appeal to a Chinese. 
 He rejoices rather in the privacy and comfort of a bath- 
 house in which steaming water in deep tanks sunk in the 
 ground and heated by stoves in Japanese fashion, looks 
 pleasantly inviting on a chilly spring morning. 
 
 With regard to food, however, many who are slack in 
 other ways are ultra-fastidious on this particular point. 
 They cannot even defile their lips by using the word 
 " pig," calling it by preference the " black animal," 
 unless indeed they use it as a term of abuse when revihng 
 their mules and horses. 
 
 On one occasion we offered to one of our muleteers, a 
 mere boy, an innocent English bun. He looked at it a 
 little wistfully, but declined on religious grounds, fearing 
 evidently that pork dripping had formed part of the 
 recipe. 
 
 Moslem women in China have not an enviable lot. 
 Their happiness, or unhappiness, is of small moment to 
 any one. They have no rights, no privileges, except in 
 so far as they constitute useful chattels to their lords 
 and masters, who guard them jealously from the eyes 
 of others. 
 
 Women cannot enter the " Gate of Heaven " ; women 
 are not supposed to meddle with the " Key to Paradise," 
 and if by any unlikely chance they should eventually be 
 counted worthy of a better place than hell, there exists a 
 little side heaven, a mere appendix to the real thing, 
 which, according to Mahomet, is assigned for the use of 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 217 
 
 truly saintly women after death. He admitted, how- 
 ever, that only five — one of whom was the Virgin Mary — 
 had ever attained thereunto ; whereas, on the one 
 occasion when he was permitted to look down into hell, 
 he discovered that nearly all the occupants of the 
 infernal regions were — ^women ! 
 
 The other day (1914) the Mohammedans at a city in 
 the province of Kansu attacked the leader of a new 
 Moslem sect — a so-called " holy man " — ^who had not 
 only committed the sin of using a Chinese translation of 
 the Koran, but in many other ways had excited the 
 wrath of some of his co-religionists. In a few short 
 hours the members of the new sect were practically 
 exterminated. The victors not only discovered a sub- 
 stantial sum of money in the house of the " holy man," 
 but nine tiny cells, measuring 2J feet by 4|- feet, in each 
 of which a young girl was kept under lock and key, save 
 when required to appear in the presence of her master. 
 There were nine of them, for Mahomet himself had nine 
 wives, and the " holy man " had posed as being a second 
 edition of the prophet. 
 
 Some of the most precious possessions that Si An Fu 
 has inherited from past ages are the black tombstones, 
 in the famous " Forest of Tablets." A rickety gate 
 leads from a bit of dusty no man's land behind the 
 blood-red walls of the Confucian temple into a melancholy 
 enclosure of back yards and stable sheds and shabby 
 pavilions. Here, for nearly i ,000 years, these monuments 
 of antiquity have stood in black dismal rows facing the 
 dingy tumbledown walls in these long narrow barn-like 
 buildings. 
 
21 8 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 It is a sad ending for the old-time worn tablets, which 
 in the days of their youth, and many hundreds of years 
 ago, stood out in the open sunlight in the grounds of the 
 temples, doing duty as sundials. In no country but 
 China would such valuable art treasures be so inade- 
 quately housed. From time to time through the cen- 
 turies fresh steles have been added to the collection, 
 already so extensive that over 6,000 large sheets of 
 paper would be necessary in order to get a rubbing of 
 each inscription. 
 
 Not only are the whole of the thirteen classics engraved 
 in stone, but there are some fine drawings by famous 
 artists, and amongst them the most approved portrait 
 of Confucius, though, as the date of it is only a few 
 hundred years back, it must to some degree be a fancy 
 likeness. 
 
 The artist has been careful to endow the great master 
 — the " uncrowned king " — ^with the square jaw, the 
 large, heavy-featured face and superabundance of 
 adipose tissue, which, from the Chinese point of view, 
 signifies the " superior man," and one whom the gods 
 have blessed, for the " superior man " is as " free from 
 care as the chrysanthemum," and a man who is free 
 from care must of necessity be fat ! 
 
 The latest addition to the " Forest " is the tablet 
 of the " Illustrious ReHgion " — the famous Nestorian 
 monument — dragon headed, tortoise crouching, but 
 possessing an unmistakable Maltese cross. It had lain 
 buried for many years (from the ninth century to the 
 seventeenth), and only a comparatively short time ago 
 was brought into the city from the grounds of a temple 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 219 
 
 in the west suburb, and honoured by a place in the 
 Forest of Tablets. 
 
 " Olopun from the kingdom of Ta Tsin (Judea) on the 
 Coral Sea^ guiding himself by the azure clouds, carried 
 with him the True Scriptures,^^ so goes the inscription, 
 and he arrived at Chang An, the present Si An, in 635 a.d. 
 
 A description is given in classical Chinese of the process 
 of creation, the fall of man, the coming of the Christ : — 
 " A bright star announced the felicitous event. Persians 
 saw its splendour and came with tribute . . . He threw 
 open the gate of the three constant virtues, thereby bringing 
 life to light and abolishing death. . . . His mighty work 
 being thus completed, at noon-day He ascended to His true 
 (^lace),^^ and so forth. The inscription is lengthy, and 
 a part of it is in the Syriac script. Chinese scholars have 
 always been full of admiration of the literary style, and 
 in 1887 the authorities in Peking were persuaded to send 
 a donation of 100 taels in order that measures should be 
 taken for the better preservation of the tablet. It was, 
 also, characteristic of things Chinese, that by the time 
 the money had reached its destination, the 100 taels had 
 dwindled into five ! 
 
 There are few outward signs of the new era in 
 Si An Fu. 
 
 The general absence of the queue is one of the most 
 noticeable. Crudely coloured pictures advertising pink 
 pills or cigarettes, or some other much-sought-after 
 foreign commodity, wayside stalls hung over with cheap 
 and gaily-coloured foreign socks and foreign hats, 
 numerous shops of cheap foreign oddments, from 
 enamelled washing basins and oil-lamps to photograph 
 
220 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 frames and looking-glasses, show that there must be an 
 ever-increasing demand for these things. 
 
 The " Follower of Virtue " pointed me out one of the 
 grandest of these foreign emporiums. 
 
 " What do they sell ? " I inquired, for the stock-in- 
 trade looked more promising than usual. 
 
 " Yao shenmo yu shenmo ! " Hterally " want what is 
 what ! " or in clearer language, " Whatever you want, 
 they have ! " 
 
 So I essayed to buy some " loose tight braid " (elastic), 
 but no 1 Such a thing in Si An was " mai buh dao " (buy 
 not arrive — or not to be bought). 
 
 Well then — a reel of white cotton. 
 
 They smiHngly assented, and the larger part of the 
 staff aided in the search. In triumph they brought back 
 a dusty reel of black. 
 
 " I want white," I said. 
 
 " She wants white," joined in the crowd of idlers that 
 invariably gathers round to take part in the transaction. 
 
 Surely the mere colour was of no importance ; it was 
 all they had ! 
 
 " Never mind, I will send to Shanghai for it," I said. 
 
 " Never mind. She will send to Shanghai for it," 
 explained the crowd. 
 
 But the " Follower of Virtue " had a better suggestion 
 to make. 
 
 " May we borrow your brightness," we said in polite 
 Chinese phraseology, and the crowd moved aside for us 
 to pass. 
 
 There was truly a good foreign shop, said my escort, 
 near the South Court Gate to which he could take me, 
 where they actually had real foreign clothes to sell, and 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 221 
 
 a foreign " leave behind sound machine " (gramophone) 
 that was good to listen to. Surely a most up-to-date 
 drapery store, for not only were there two life-sized 
 waxed-faced models with green hair (for the dye had 
 miscarried) of " outside kingdom folk " dressed in water- 
 proofs and straw hats, and other " fashionable " articles 
 of attire made in Germany, but the salesman had just 
 received a new consignment of foreign goods from 
 Shanghai — the Paris or Vienna of China — and seized the 
 opportunity of the advent on the scene of a foreign 
 customer, to inquire whether a pair of newly-arrived 
 corsets should be worn outside the costume or inside. 
 
 Shopping in Chinese shops of the old style presents 
 difficulties to the uninitiated barbarian. Not only does 
 the strange habit exist of offering the rubbish first and 
 keeping the good things till the last, but it is somewhat 
 disconcerting to go into some respectable store to chDose 
 a purchase only to find that there is nothing to choose 
 from. Thus in the " City of the River Orchid " we went 
 on one occasion to the confectioners to buy confectionery 
 for some hundreds of New Year's guests, and, behold, 
 nothing but singularly unsuggestive brown paper parcels 
 lined the shelves of the shop. Being, however, impor- 
 tant clients we were quickly ushered through into the 
 guest hall at the back, and invited to drink tea. Fortu- 
 nately Ba Giao Si, in giving her orders was able from past 
 experience to describe the particular kinds of cakes and 
 sweetmeats desired. Otherwise to have indicated the 
 various brown paper parcels with a request for a pound 
 of this, and a pound of that might have led to an unfortu- 
 nate sameness in the results. The silversmith in Si An, 
 
222 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 whom the " Follower of Virtue " suggested for the pur- 
 chase of enamel hair ornaments, gave even fewer out- 
 ward and visible signs of his stock-in-trade. Whatever 
 the " teacher mother " wished for could be made to order. 
 Had they then nothing in stock ? They would look and 
 see, and after a long delay and much hunting upstairs 
 in the loft and downstairs in mysterious recesses, a few 
 oddments were produced, such as silver hair-pins deco- 
 rated with blue and green and yellow and purple 
 enamelled bats and butterflies, and some silver bracelets 
 of clumsy form. These with various alterations would at 
 least serve for patterns. As to the price — ^that was un- 
 certain — it would depend on the weight of the silver used. 
 
 One convenient custom obtains amongst silversmiths 
 of good repute. They must stamp the name of their firm 
 on articles of their own making, holding themselves 
 legally bound to buy them back again, whenever required 
 to do so, according to the weight of the silver. 
 
 To discover genuinely old curios is becoming increas- 
 ingly difficult, as the curio seller is a past master in the art 
 of imparting that look of unmistakable age so attractive 
 in the eyes of the " outside kingdom barbarian." 
 
 A " real " antique was offered to us the other day as a 
 great bargain. Fortunately a connoisseur happened to 
 be at hand. " This," he said, " is a newly-born piece of 
 jade and of small value." 
 
 Most of the fashionable foreign shops centre round 
 and about an open space before the headquarters of the 
 civil governor, and so densely packed with people and 
 pedlars and peep-shows and paraphernalia of one kind 
 and another, from the tables of the letter-writers and the 
 
THE CITY OF WESTERN PEACE 223 
 
 fortune-tellers to the stands of the barbers and the corn 
 cutters and the tooth pullers that it seems like some old- 
 time country fair in a modern setting. New-time police- 
 men, half smothered in khaki overcoats and miHtary 
 German caps, stand on the side walk, and the shops pride 
 themselves on their up-to-date appearance with their 
 large glass windows, their hanging American lamps, 
 their Western stock-in-trade made partly in Germany, 
 partly in Japan. In one of these " European " stores my 
 umbrella was provided with a neat and trim extra cover 
 for the sun, but alas ! they had not understood that my 
 desire had been for a " living cover," /.^., one to take off 
 and on. That which they had made was in their own 
 picturesque language " dead." The Sons of Han, with 
 characteristic contrariness, find euphemistic phrases such 
 as " saluted the age " or " thanked the world " a con- 
 venient subterfuge in order to avoid the use of the 
 objectionable word " dead " in its ordinary connection. 
 They have, however, a peculiar knack of introducing it 
 on less suitable occasions. 
 
 " What time is it ? " one inquires of a passing servant. 
 " I do not know," comes the answer, " for the clock is 
 dead," i.e., has stopped. 
 
 Thus it is no surprise to be told that the blind alley 
 leading out of the main thoroughfare is a " dead street " 
 — a street without a head, and hence, it being already an 
 unlucky spot, the outlet into the main street is used, or 
 was used, until a very short time back, as the execution 
 ground. That this, the still inevitable evil in a Chinese 
 city, should occupy a part of the pubhc highway is appa- 
 rently of no consequence, for, after all, public highways, 
 certainly in Si An, are put to many strange purposes. 
 
224 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 Carpenters saw their wood, weavers wind their silk, 
 curio sellers spread forth their wares, cartwrights build 
 their carts, barbers shave their customers, men bring 
 out a " wash face basin " and perform their ablutions, 
 dyers and paper makers hang out their stock-in-trade 
 to dry, wherever there is sufficient space, be the road a 
 busy thoroughfare or a side lane, and no one seemed at 
 all surprised to see the way blocked one morning in a 
 somewhat narrow street by a bran new swing which an 
 eager crowd was taking it in turns to enjoy. True, they 
 consented to stop for a moment or two and to pull the 
 ropes on one side to let our carts go by. 
 
 Bits of New China are breaking here and there through 
 the crust of the Old. The telegraph, of course, is a familiar 
 institution, and now the " lightning thread," for " light- 
 ning words " (telephone) will soon enable the Du-Du 
 (mihtary governor), as the " Follower of Virtue " put it, 
 to speak words at the Yamen which will be heard in his 
 private " gang gwan " (residence) nearly two miles away. 
 " Are such wonders," he asks, " known in Shanghai ? " 
 
 A telephone seems, after all, an incongruous item in a 
 city, that is still amply content to go on day after day 
 with unmade roads and undrained houses, with un- 
 cleansed streets and unminted silver, and no means of 
 transport save that of springless carts and sedan chairs 
 or Htters slung between two mules. 
 
SONS OF NEW CHIXA, IX CI OTHF.S LENT BY THE 
 PHOTOGRAPHER. 
 
 THE "new woman" OF CHI 
 DRESSED LIKE A MAN, 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF NEW CHINA, 
 
 WITH TWO ARTIFICIAL DOGS, IN 
 
 SUPPOSED IMITATION OF WESTERN 
 
 FASHION. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 In the Street of the Short Mile Gate 
 
 In educational matters, however, there are distinct 
 signs of progress. Girls' schools are now the order of the 
 day in the City of Western Peace. At certain hours, on 
 all days except Sunday, which in Government institu- 
 tions is now a holiday, a new figure may be seen in the 
 streets walking sedately along with unbound feet, and 
 quietly and becomingly dressed in a neat uniform of blue 
 cotton cloth piped with white. Those who can afford the 
 extravagance, add a cloth " costermonger " cap. These 
 dainty young ladies are students at Government schools, 
 and as such can pass along crowded highways with 
 impunity. If they happen to meet a " Before Born " 
 (teacher) they bow in the approved style bending over 
 with stiffened arms and body as though they were made 
 of wood, hinged at the waist. This is the new custom, 
 but at the same time they adhere to the time-honoured 
 rule that those who are saluting should gaze afar off, it 
 being impolite to look each other in the face. 
 
 Among some of the ladies of fashion one or two strange 
 practices have, as they fondly suppose, been borrowed 
 from the foreigner. 
 
 The wife of one of the leading generals trotted past us 
 on horseback the other day taking off her hat with a wide 
 sweep to each in turn. This new fashion is gaining ground, 
 despite the fact that in a list of sartorial rules, lately pub- 
 
226 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 lished, women are expressly advised to retain their head 
 covering when saluting an acquaintance. 
 
 A soft felt hat of a masculine type is much in favour, 
 round the crown of which may be wrapped a broad white 
 bandage if the wearer happens to be in mourning. Many, 
 however, are still content to go without hats of any kind, 
 and thanks to the use of bandoline (made from wood 
 shavings), the hair looks as smooth as black satin and 
 keeps tidy even in a boisterous wind. 
 
 One misguided lady of rank, in her eagerness to follow 
 the fashion, took to standing at her front door smoking a 
 cigarette and dressed in the handsomest clothes she 
 possessed. She admitted, however, that she disliked the 
 publicity of the proceeding, and relieved to find that, after 
 all, this was not the foreign custom amongst well-bred 
 women, she retired in haste to the secluded inner apart- 
 ments of the contemptible ones. 
 
 There was a time, not so very long ago, when all women, 
 of no matter how high a rank, made their own shoes, but 
 now, in the craze for leather foot gear of foreign make, 
 shops are to be found even in Si An where things of this 
 kind can be purchased. Some few unbind their feet — 
 this in Government schools is obligatory, but others 
 merely pretend to have big feet and stuff the toes of the 
 foreign shoe with paper, thrusting the tiny bound foot 
 into the remaining space. English letters of the alphabet 
 are a new and attractive form of ornament for the em- 
 broidered home-made shoe. A certain number of letters 
 are^put together, as often as not without any meaning, 
 which perhaps is just as well. One unsophisticated 
 maiden had unawares sown the letters J.O.N.E.S. on 
 her own dainty footgear. She could not tell one letter 
 
STREET OF THE SHORT MILE GATE 227 
 
 from the other, but admired the artistic effect. In Si An 
 amongst some of the advanced citizens there exists a 
 " Heavenly Foot Society " — the aim of which is to 
 aboHsh the " golden lilies " (small feet) for ever and a 
 day. 
 
 A month or so ago a petition was sent to Yuan Shi Kai 
 asking that a fine should be imposed on any mother who 
 still insisted on binding her daughter's feet, but whether 
 the request was granted history does not relate. 
 
 " The tongues of women increase by all they take from 
 their feet," goes the old Chinese saying, but then the 
 reference no doubt was to the " uneducated woman who 
 stares at a wall." 
 
 In Si An Fu, until the birth of the new era, and with 
 the exception of pupils from the mission schools, women 
 have had little chance of being anything else. 
 
 The one real improvement under the Republic, how- 
 ever, has been the genuine effort to promote education, 
 but now that, too, is beginning to shrivel up like an over- 
 forced plant. One is reminded of the days of Wang An 
 Shih, the Reformer (more than 800 years ago), when even 
 the pupils of the village schools threw away their text- 
 books of rhetoric and began to study primers of history 
 and geography, but, alas, less than ten years passed 
 away, and all was as before. It was a case of " flowers in 
 a mirror, of a moon in a stream." 
 
 But this time there have been many Wangs at work, 
 not only one. The inoculation with Western serum has 
 been more thorough, the results more widespread, and 
 things will never be again as they have been. One 
 thinks of the snail that crept up the wall five feet every 
 day and sHpped back four every night, and though the 
 
 fi 3 
 
2tS CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 sons and daughters of young China may not be immune 
 from the old '' disease," they will take it more lightly and 
 in some case no doubt escape altogether. 
 
 Amongst the many new words introduced of late years 
 into the language, one that the genius of the language 
 seems incHned to accept, signifies an ideal, but, alas, many 
 of the would-be idealists lack either the strength of will 
 or the pluck without which, according to the psycholo- 
 gists, ideal aspirations are nothing worth. 
 
 In the craze for quickly acquired accomplishments, 
 Si An Fu girls' schools make a special feature of exceed- 
 ingly elaborate, very laborious and (from a Chinese point 
 of view) highly ornamental, crochet 1 
 
 Marvellous tiger head bonnets for babies are con- 
 structed with padded noses, prominent eyes, stuffed 
 whiskers and so on, all complete, crocheted in many 
 colours, the brighter the better. Thus a happy compro- 
 mise is arrived at between things foreign and Chinese. 
 Nothing can be more smart and fashionable in foreignised 
 circles than some showy garment crocheted in Berlin 
 wool, and that Baby should be adorned by a tiger's head 
 is, as everybody knows, a sure preventive against evil 
 influences. Whilst the children wear tiger shoes and 
 tiger bonnets, their elders deck themselves out with 
 crochet tippets and crochet frillings and crochet flowers 
 — the latter pinned on as button-holes. 
 
 Although the learned Chang Chih Tung * was hardly 
 just to foreign instructors when he complained of their 
 " slow methods," and said that " they did not exhaust 
 the fountain of their knowledge, but dribbled it out to 
 
 • Author of " China's Only Hope." 
 
STREET OF THE SHORT MILE GATE 229 
 
 make it last longer," he admitted that there might be 
 some who " were not averse to labour." 
 
 His opinion is doubtless shared by many of his country- 
 men, but even so, great is the desire in Si An Fu for a 
 foreign teacher who will give instruction in the outside 
 kingdom words, for is not a knowledge of this unin- 
 telligible language " resembling the twittering of birds " 
 the golden key in these days to many a fat billet ? 
 
 The ancients in changing their residences did not seek 
 for good houses but only for good neighbours, but times 
 have changed ! The street of the " Short Mile Gate," 
 in which my friend the teacher sister lives, is typical of 
 democratic China — being a quaint medley of the man- 
 sions of the great and the lowly habitations of the poor. 
 The lordly residence of one of the leading generals stands 
 opposite a slum, but a few steps removed from a row 
 of small eating-houses and humble shops and, of all un- 
 attractive places, one of the night haunts of the beggars. 
 At one time a most ingenious scheme existed by which 
 these poor street parasites were enabled to keep up a 
 certain amount of warmth during the cold winter nights. 
 Lying down on the ground, and forming a square, heads 
 out, feet in, a species of tarpauline was let down on top 
 of them, by means of pulleys, constituting a kind of 
 counterpane shared by all. 
 
 The teacher sister's house, wedged in between the 
 general's mansion and a small paper shop, had been until 
 recently inhabited by a " da ren " (great man). In 
 China there is more give and take than in our Western 
 lands. On fine days the paper maker spreads out his 
 new sheets to dry in the porch and on the doorstep of the 
 foreigner's house, that being larger and more convenient 
 
230 CH.4NCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 than those of his other neighbours. The slum children 
 make garden seats of the ornamental stone work before 
 the door, and the general's riding horses are tied up to our 
 gates. Any complaint would be considered most un- 
 friendly and discourteous. Amongst the Chinese no one 
 has any compunction even in asking for the loan of a 
 garment and a refusal would be most unheard-of. The 
 Westerners' objection to wearing other people's clothes 
 would only be reckoned as one of our many marks of 
 eccentricity. In a Nanking school a pupil was repri- 
 manded for faihng to announce her need of a tooth-brush. 
 " Then all this time you have been doing without one ! " 
 " No, indeed ! " came the unexpected reply, " I shared 
 so-and-so's." 
 
 In looking down the street of the " Short Mile Gate," 
 over the mud holes and the mud heaps, one sees nothing 
 of the really fine houses wedged in between the slums and 
 the shops — nothing, that is to say, but a low wall and 
 high gates with porches. 
 
 Pass through the gates, however, of the house that was 
 once the " da ren's " and you will come to a series of 
 paved courts, one behind the other, surrounded by one- 
 storied buildings, of doors painted a bright apple green 
 flecked with patches of shining gold like so many gilded 
 postage stamps, and in the centre of the main court a 
 round porcelain tank for the goldfish. A shrine in honour 
 of the earth god stands before the gatehouse, shaded by a 
 cluster of bamboos, symboHc of peace, and the great doors 
 of the guest hall at the upper end of the central court 
 are richly ornamented by carved and painted panels 
 representing peonies (for wealth), the lotus flower (for 
 
STREET OF THE SHORT MILE GATE 231 
 
 purity), butterflies (for happiness), and the peach (for long 
 life). 
 
 The light filtering through the scarlet hangings before 
 the doors and streaming through the soft paper panes of 
 the casement windows gives a sense of subdued sunlight 
 to those within — sunlight reflected in the shining brass 
 on the black carved cupboards lining the walls. A 
 painted frieze extends half across the centre of the hall 
 between two massive wooden pillars. Who but a Chinese 
 artist could have combined so successfully all the colours 
 of the rainbow flung on in such broad, generous masses, 
 and only he could have ignored all minor details with 
 such artistic effect. 
 
 The narrow court at the back of the guest hall is re- 
 served for the well and the now empty shrine of the well 
 god. Beyond that again come the secluded back courts 
 which, in the days of the " da ren," were reserved for the 
 " skirts and ornaments " (women). 
 
 On the roof tops — significant of the fact that the " da 
 ren " had possessed a literary degree — the " family bird," 
 in other words the cock, carved in stone, stands out clear 
 and sharp against the sky. The Chinese call him the 
 bird of the five virtues. His comb (hat) shows that he 
 is an " official," his spurs give him a right to be called a 
 soldier. He " never flinches," hence every one allows 
 that he is brave, his nature is sympathetic for he never 
 omits to call the hens to share his food, and lastly, 
 he is faithful in that he never fails to announce the 
 dawn. 
 
 Though all houses of any pretensions in Si An own wells, 
 they are bitter wells, and most of the water for use is 
 
232 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 brought from the west gate of the city. Where the 
 tangle of carts and mules and pedestrians emerge from 
 the shadow of the tunnelled arch under the gate tower 
 into the main street, the water carriers with their wheel- 
 barrows and their buckets congregate, at all hours of the 
 day, on the black slushy pavement round the famous 
 sweet water wells. 
 
 " Unless foolish and deaf, it is difficult to be the head 
 of a household," runs the old-time saying in China, the 
 idea being that one must shut one's eyes to much that 
 goes on. 
 
 There are only seven things necessary in housekeeping, 
 so they say : — fuel, rice, oil, salt, soy, tea, and vinegar, 
 but in the foreign household it is a case of seventy times 
 seven, and the principal item is soap, which comes all 
 the way from Western lands and is one of the most prized 
 of outside kingdom produce even here in this northern 
 city which, according to one French writer, is the 
 " dirtiest city in the world." It is still, however, an ex- 
 pensive luxury and rather beyond the purse of the man 
 in the street, and even when bought, or possibly presented 
 as a New Year's gift by the foreign, teacher is con- 
 sidered too good to use except on state occasions. Fortu- 
 nately for native laundry work there is a kind of bean 
 which makes a good lather and will wash clothes. 
 But in the foreigner's household there is, of course, soap 
 to be had in abundance, of many varieties, and the 
 servants sometimes put it to strange uses. A muddy pair 
 of winter boots sent out to be cleaned are discovered, half 
 an hour later, reposing comfortably in a lather of soap in 
 the very pan in which the family bread had just been 
 kneaded into shape ! 
 
STREET OF THE SHORT MILE GATE 233 
 
 Chinese servants do not find it easy at first to get into 
 our ways, but once " in " they have the merit of never 
 getting out of them again. In the house of a friend a new 
 table boy was seen to be washing the plates with saliva, 
 but drying them carefully afterwards ! I forget if it was 
 that boy or another who, on being told to wait at table, 
 thought it impolite to watch the guests eating, so secreted 
 himself under the table until the moment came in which 
 to remove the plates. 
 
 The difference between the Eastern and Western point 
 of view often leads to misunderstandings. 
 
 A servant reprimanded on one occasion for dis- 
 obedience could not understand his master's wrath. 
 " Why is it so important ? " he said. " How many 
 dollars did you lose over the matter ? " 
 
 " None at all, it was not a question of money." 
 
 " Well then ? " 
 
 " Thou shalt not steal — money " is a commandment 
 well understood, but to take food from one's master's 
 kitchen, or to gather fruit from his trees, or to borrow his 
 things in perpetuity, or annex something, that does not 
 mean financial loss to the owner is not, as a rule, 
 reckoned as an actual theft. 
 
 " If you mistrust a man do not employ him ; if you 
 employ a man do not mistrust him," says Confucius, and 
 the only way to domestic peace is to pretend sometimes 
 to be both deaf and foolish, and ever and always to steer 
 a happy middle course between severity and leniency. 
 
 Our house woman in the " City of the River Orchid," 
 on hearing someone complain of the ingratitude of a fellow 
 servant made (for a Chinese) a curiously direct statement : 
 *' That is always the way with us Chinese," she said. 
 
234 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 " If you treat us well we treat you badly, if you treat us 
 badly we treat you well ! " Fortunately, however, as 
 most of us know, this is only a part of a truth, considerably 
 outweighed by all that might be said in favour of the 
 Chinese servant, either trained or untrained. 
 
 An undisputable household requisite in far inland pro- 
 vinces is the large and bulky pair of scales for the weigh- 
 ing of silver. The " silver shoes " weigh some fifty ounces 
 of silver or more. The broken pieces may vary from a few 
 cents in value to a few dollars, but though a parcel of 
 silver is inconveniently heavy, the ten cash copper coins 
 for daily use, which are sent back from a money shop in 
 exchange for the silver, are almost as much trouble to 
 carry about as a sack of coals. 
 
 It is true that there are paper notes worth from one to 
 two shillings, but they are issued by the local Government, 
 and may any day be reckoned as so much waste paper. 
 
 Small silver coins of lo or 20 cents or even Mexican 
 dollars cannot be used in Shensi. In Kiangsi, on the 
 contrary, dollars were in favour, but not always the same 
 kind of dollar. In one city the old " Dragon Coin " would 
 pass ; in the next the people preferred the Eagle, and at 
 last we arrived at a town where both the Eagle and the 
 Dragon had been superseded by an inferior coin " made 
 in Japan." In Nanchang, the capital, paper notes were 
 in favour — ^paper notes for as small a sum as 10 cents 
 (about 2|i.), which a day's journey off were practically 
 worthless. One rule, and only one, holds good all over 
 the land, and that is, that, whenever the money of one 
 place is exchanged for that of another, the owner loses 
 in the transaction. 
 
STREET OF THE SHORT MILE GATE 235 
 
 Small wonder that the Chinese financiers are for ever 
 postponing the much-talked-of " reform of currency." 
 There was a time, so the histories tell us, when actually 
 a gold coinage existed in China, and people " possessed 
 the liberty of coining money for themselves." When 
 one remembers the deluge of paper notes during the first 
 years of the Republic issued by all sorts and conditions 
 of men, one could almost imagine oneself back in those 
 " good old days " ; but in that golden age (b.c. 179) an 
 Emperor occupied the throne of China so greatly in 
 advance of his time that he not only introduced old age 
 pensions for all over eighty, but added an extra luxury 
 in the case of those over ninety in the shape of " sufficient 
 silk for a gown." * How have the mighty fallen ? It is 
 doubtful, too, whether the octogenarians of the Middle 
 Kingdom continued to enjoy state assistance for many 
 years, as during the reign of their benefactor's successor 
 we read that national finances became distinctly strained, 
 and to relieve the situation the Emperor bethought him 
 of an ingenious plan by which to collect funds. The white 
 deer in the royal parks were killed, and the skins were 
 richly embroidered and sold to the officials, who were 
 compelled to buy them at fictitious prices, and this we 
 imagine to be the first fancy bazaar on record. 
 
 • " Imperial History of China," Rev. J. MacGowan. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 The Pepper Month 
 
 Though in theory China now recognises January ist as 
 New Year's Day, she keeps all her celebrations for the 
 " Go Nien " of the old calendar, which this year happens 
 to fall on January 26th. The " Pepper Month " being 
 the last month of the year is a busy time here as else- 
 where. The chief business of the day is to get in all the 
 money you have lent, and to pay back as little as possible 
 of that which you have borrowed. Only here, in this land 
 of contradictions, does one find so many people in a 
 chronic state of being both debtors and creditors. Cooks, 
 charwomen, gardeners, and those whom one thinks are 
 living from " hand to mouth " have, most of them, a 
 small sum of money lent out which may or may not 
 ever be repaid. Yet all the time they are probably 
 weighed down by debt. 
 
 Money or no money, everybody buys fresh mottoes in 
 gay coloured paper for the street doors. Such sayings as 
 "Though there are many books I have not read" {i.e., 
 though my learning is not great) " may my deeds call 
 forth no reproach," is the laudable inscription on one of 
 the humblest doors. 
 
 Possibly new lanterns as well as new mottoes will be 
 purchased, and the portraits of the two famous door gods 
 to protect the house from evil, to say nothing of the 
 perforated paper hung above the lintel for luck. 
 
THE PEPPER MONTH 237 
 
 On New Year's Eve one can hear the tap tap, chop 
 chop sounds in all directions and the monotonous sea- 
 saw-like pounding of the " wind box " (bellows) under the 
 stove, for rich and poor aHke are preparing for the great 
 feast of the " Three Beginnings " (the year, the month, 
 and the day), and in Chinese cooking, meat, fish, vege- 
 tables, no matter what, must be chopped into small 
 pieces before appearing at table. 
 
 As the last month of the year is called the " Pepper 
 Month" (from a similarity between the character 
 " lah " — " last " and " lah " meaning *' red pepper " ), so 
 New Year congratulations rejoice in the unsuggestive 
 title of " pepper flowers." 
 
 " To-day," wrote a Chinese woman who lived many 
 years ago, " everybody dips the brush into the ink to 
 write the words ' happiness, wealth and felicity.' If I 
 might give wise advice to the ambitious it is to bear the 
 Hfe that is laid upon them, and not to ask for things which 
 Providence cannot possibly accord to all." 
 
 But such philosophy would be beyond most of her 
 countrywomen, whose horizon is still bounded by the 
 words — " lucky and unlucky." The old superstitions are 
 hard to shake off, and one cautious old lady who had 
 heard something of the Christian doctrine and who, 
 moreover, was the proud possessor of a hymn book, 
 turned over the pages hoping to get some advice with 
 reference to her intended house moving. She had not to 
 search for long before she came to the words : " Sunday 
 the best of days " — evidently this must mean the 
 most lucky of days. Hence she gave her orders accord- 
 ingly ! 
 
 Some anxious souls, desirous of putting off as long as 
 
238 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 possible the " saluting of the age " (death) stow money 
 under the mattress on New Year's Eve which helps, so it 
 is said, to prolong one's life. One man, of a practical turn 
 of mind, made a bonfire of his shoes. " They have brought 
 me nothing but ill luck," he said, " through the whole of 
 the past years. It were foolish indeed to allow them to 
 exert their evil influence any longer ! " 
 
 " All good things are three," say the Germans, but in 
 China " all good things are two." In sending gifts, 
 whether at the New Year or at any other time, one must 
 be especially careful to send an even number — two, four, 
 or if one is particularly generously inclined, six. Should 
 the gift, however, be in return for one received, the num- 
 ber of articles should be the same in both cases, and as red 
 paper wrappings are not always available, a strip of 
 red on a brown paper package will answer all require- 
 ments, and finally they are placed on a handsome tray 
 which, however, the bearer will bring back with a small 
 sum of " tray money " for his personal benefit, for any one 
 but a servant to carry parcels through the street is con- 
 trary to etiquette — ^which, however, is not rigorously 
 followed in the case of books, but even a book must be 
 wrapped in paper or a cloth ; the latter, moreover, is con- 
 sidered more " timien " (smarter) than paper. 
 
 A broad red sheet on which a long list of names had 
 been inscribed was brought in the other day by the 
 " Follower of Virtue." It turned out to be an invitation 
 to " drink spring wine " at one of the great houses of the 
 city. 
 
 The answer was easily achieved. It consisted merely 
 of writing the character " djih " meaning " know " 
 
THE PEPPER MONTH 239 
 
 jotted against one's name — a slightly brusque method 
 from a Western point of view, but evidently amply 
 sufficient. 
 
 On the day of the feast, the invitation was repeated. 
 To omit this " second time of asking " would be a mark 
 of inciviHty. Without it in fact one might almost con- 
 sider the engagement cancelled. 
 
 Mr. Wang, our host, prided himself on his intimate 
 knowledge of the queer manners and customs of " outside 
 kingdom folk." Besides, in these republican days, it 
 was thought distinctly smart to do things in foreign 
 style. 
 
 They had not got to the point, however, of allowing 
 men and women to dine together. Therefore in one of the 
 ante-chambers came the parting of the ways, and we the 
 " skirts and ornaments " followed our guide into one of 
 the inner rooms of Mr. Wang's " jade-like wife " — a 
 mother of five children, but as girHsh in appearance as a 
 maiden of eighteen, with the small eyes " limpid as water 
 in autumn " that are considered beautiful in China, and a 
 thin delicate nose. 
 
 The last of the five children being a girl, the mother had 
 made a present of her to a neighbour with no more ado 
 than we should make in offering some one a geranium 
 cutting. 
 
 Little Mrs. Wang, being nothing if not fashionable, 
 wore a costume, resembling in all essentials that of a 
 man, with a long straight gown of soft blue brocade 
 hiding her trousers, and a sleeveless jacket of rich purple. 
 An embroidered silk cloth dangled from her waist. It 
 had been presented to her for the tea table, but she 
 evidently preferred to use it as a pocket handkerchief. 
 
240 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The reception room was a bedroom, though the stately 
 four-post bed at one end, draped with creamy white 
 curtains, constituted the only actual piece of bedroom 
 furniture. In correct Chinese style we sat in stiff rows 
 with our backs against the wall and mostly in silence. 
 Small talk about the weather is not as useful a resource 
 in China as in some countries. " Do you think it will 
 rain to-day," an English girl on one occasion inquired of 
 a stern Confucianist, but answer came there none. Think- 
 ing he had not heard, she repeated the question, at 
 which he replied with some annoyance, " How can I 
 know the affairs of Heaven ? " Politics in these dangerous 
 times must be studiously avoided, books and travel they 
 know nothing about, and conversation in the inner 
 apartments is circumscribed in the extreme. The room 
 itself was somewhat bare and unsuggestive. Here and 
 there pressed up against the wall stood a dwarf tree, 
 twisted into fantastic shape and displaying a wealth of 
 lovely shell pink blossoms. Otherwise, save for our 
 hostess and her friends in their long masculine gowns of 
 delicate silvery blue and violet brocade, the room was 
 void of decoration. In the adjoining dining hall, which 
 we entered by order of teeth (seniority) curtained beds 
 and dwarf trees were no more, and efforts had been made 
 to create a truly European atmosphere. The last new 
 importation in American lamps hung from the ceiling, 
 the long narrow table was adorned by caHco tablecloths, 
 and at regular intervals trumpery EngHsh vases of 
 bright blue and pink glass alternated with lodging-house 
 cruets, the " jars of the seven stars," as the Chinese call 
 them. The vases were innocent of flowers, this trifling 
 accessory being apparently deemed superfluous. Cahco 
 
THE PEPPER MONTH 241 
 
 pocket handkerchiefs represented the serviettes, and a 
 small plate beside each guest was already occupied by- 
 several pieces of real foreign bread, excellently made, 
 and a large hunk of sponge cake. Hot wine in pewter 
 pots in Chinese style was poured into wine glasses in 
 foreign style, and every guest was carefully supplied with 
 a knife, fork and spoon, though the latter were only made 
 of tin, a poor exchange for the elegant, ivory chopsticks 
 of former days, and to our hostess peculiarly awkward 
 implements to manipulate. She welcomed the dishes of 
 sea slugs and other soft dainties which needed no cutting. 
 " This you can bite, is it not so ? " she said to me once 
 as some of these succulent morsels were placed before us. 
 She was not alluding of course to any dental incapacity 
 on my part, but rather to her own rehef in being able to 
 dispense with the objectionable knife and fork. " Truly," 
 said the guests, " you have wasted your time on our 
 behalf," as plates heaped high with all the delicacies of 
 the season were placed before us, and the courses followed 
 each other in appalling numbers. " Better be rude to 
 your guests than starve them,'' is the approved maxim, 
 and even the dessert (a concession to foreign ideas in any 
 case) was almost a meal in itself. Before each guest a 
 plate laden with sliced pears, peeled oranges, sponge 
 cakes, nuts, and I know not what else besides, was placed 
 as a final bon-houche. 
 
 On the whole, the entertainment did its donors much 
 credit, for object lessons in the queer ways of outside 
 kingdom folk must have been few and far between, 
 yet no essential detail had been overlooked. 
 
 At the end of a dinner party it is usual for each guest 
 to leave " golden sand " (a substantial tip) for the 
 
242 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 servants. Mr. Wang, however, seemed aware that this 
 was not a foreign custom, therefore, by means of the 
 indispensable middleman, we were particularly requested 
 to follow our own rules of etiquette. 
 
 A fashionable entertainment in these strange times 
 aspires to be as " Western " as possible. A contrast this 
 to the days when the Emperor in writing to Queen 
 Victoria spoke of her people as " savages of the further 
 seas " who were commanded to " submit humbly to the 
 Celestial Empire " or otherwise he threatened to " pound 
 them into mincemeat." 
 
 In the street of the " Short Mile Gate " other " Pepper 
 Month " festivities were in progress, and the teacher sister 
 had invited the wives of all the city members of the 
 *' Save the World " Mission to a feast. The question was 
 how many feasts would suffice. 
 
 If in China you desire to invite thirteen or fourteen 
 guests, you must provide for twenty-four. Should your 
 numbers exceed twenty-four even by a solitary one, you 
 must provide for thirty-six, and so on up the scale, the 
 method in this madness being that one feast is sufficient 
 for twelve people, but, as it is not possible to order half a 
 feast or a quarter of a feast there is only one way out of 
 the difficulty which is to make it two feasts or three 
 feasts or more as the needs may suggest. 
 
 Hence for our thirty-nine to forty guests the order 
 given to the " fan-dien " (restaurant) was for four feasts for 
 forty-eight people. Unluckily the weather had turned 
 wet and cold. The " hurried rain " as the Chinese call it, 
 had changed to goose feathers (snow), keeping some of our 
 guests away. 
 
THE PEPPER MONTH 243 
 
 The master of the " fan-dien " saw his opportunity. 
 He would send enough food for twenty-four and hope 
 that the " stupid foreigners " would not notice the some- 
 what short supplies and the guests naturally would be too 
 poHte to mention the matter. He had, however, 
 " counted without his host," and the teacher sister 
 was too well versed in the ways of the " mai mai ren " not 
 to perceive that the dishes or rather the basins grew 
 smaller as the meal progressed. Diplomatically she 
 referred the matter to the middleman. There followed 
 the uneasy laugh pecuHar to all circumstances of a similar 
 nature in China, and all went well to the end of the meal 
 and the appearance on the scenes of the " false vege- 
 tables." This name is given to the last course not from 
 any discourtesy to the vegetables, but merely to signify 
 that they are not intended to be eaten. No well-bred 
 person will ever think of transgressing on this point, it 
 being an understood rule that by this time everybody 
 has had ample sufficiency. In Kiangsi, and possibly in 
 other parts of China, a fish answers the same purpose, as 
 the word " yu " meaning ''fish," has the same sound as 
 " yu," meaning " sufficient," though, of course, the 
 written character is by no means the same. 
 
 Fortunately the snowflowers did not long remain upon 
 the ground, but the weather was raw and cold, and those 
 who came and went must have looked with envy at the 
 glowing coal in the guest halls of the outside kingdom 
 folk, for the only fuel that the majority could afford 
 was a cheap mixture of mud and manure which smoul- 
 dered odoriferously under the brick beds, and for the 
 " wind stove," a few handfuls of charcoal. Coal, though 
 only about two cash a pound at the pits in the next 
 
244 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 province of Shcnsi, is 50 j. a ton by the time it reaches Si 
 An Fu, owing entirely to the difficulty of transport. In the 
 olden days a certain Empress of China thought out an 
 original plan for heating the palace apartments and had 
 the walls of her rooms " smeared with pepper to generate 
 warmth." 
 
 During the first days of the New Year the streets are 
 gay with the new flower lamps, of every shape and size, in 
 the form of birds and beasts and flowers, wonderfully and 
 beautifully made — from long-legged cranes, popularly 
 supposed to be the horses of the gods and symbolic more- 
 over of longevity, to the rose-tinted butterflies significant 
 of happiness. 
 
 On the sixth of the first moon the time-honoured 
 custom is still observed of presenting lanterns to one's 
 friends and nearly every passer-by is carrying a " flower 
 lamp." 
 
 The shops on the festive days are all closed, and the 
 dark stained wood of the doors and shutters streaked and 
 splashed with the scarlet and orange and geranium red 
 of the New Year scrolls. 
 
 On the night of the fifteenth, pleasure-seekers turn out 
 to see the sights — the men mostly on foot, the ladies in 
 covered carts carefully concealed from view. There are 
 many novel designs — moving doves and tiny dancing 
 figures worked by some ingenious apparatus inside the 
 glowing balls of light, but the greatest crowd pressed 
 round the last new toy from the outside kingdom — 
 an acetylene gas lamp. 
 
 These are gay days for the city god, who sits on his 
 throne in the " Temple of the City Moat " at the end of a 
 
A CITY TEMPLE. 
 
THE PEPPER MONTH 245 
 
 narrow paved lane of gaudy little shops which still remain 
 open, for their stock-in-trade consists chiefly of the 
 necessaries for idol worship and cheap toys for the chil- 
 dren — ^writhing snakes made of wire and bamboo, paper 
 swords and tiny monkeys concocted of mud and rag and 
 bits of fur, which, at the instigation of a piece of thread, 
 pop a mask over their own faces, clever toys most of 
 them, and a farthing a piece at the outside. 
 
 In the courts around the temple the sightseers come 
 and go amongst the pedlars and the sweet sellers, and all 
 is bright and festive, but one step further takes us across 
 the threshold of the god's private domain and into 
 another world. 
 
 The air is so thick with the smoke of the candles and the 
 smouldering incense that the image of " His Excellency " 
 in the background is hardly visible. Much homage is 
 offered to him in these reactionary days, and many dainty 
 dishes are placed before his shrine, for does he not reign 
 supreme over that other more mysterious Si An Fu in the 
 Shadow World. What do they pray for these supplicants 
 who kneel for a few brief moments before the altar ? 
 With the majority, the chief object seems to be to consult 
 the oracle, and shaking out a slip of wood from a bundle 
 given by the priest they exchange it for a strip of paper, 
 from which, if they are clever in these matters, they will 
 read some prophetic utterance with reference to the 
 future. 
 
 There are three things, all of which, so goes the saying, 
 no one man can ever obtain in spite of all the prayers in 
 the world — a son, wealth, and whiskers ! 
 
 The great man of the city in these days is the Du-Du 
 (military governor of the province). Now and again we 
 
246 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 pass him squatting on the floor of his springless cart, sur- 
 rounded by a mounted mob — in other words — ^his body- 
 guard. They are in uniform certainly and some of them 
 are armed, but the shaggy ponies choose their own pace, 
 usually a slow one, and their riders sit as they please. 
 The Du-Du is a man of parts, say those who know, and in 
 democratic China, it matters not a jot that he began life 
 in the blacksmith's shop round the corner, his father's 
 property. The family, instead of being ashamed of the 
 connection, is on the contrary so sensible in matters 
 of the kind, that the great man's relatives still continue to 
 carry on the business despite the proximity of the forge 
 to the palace. Is there any country in the world except 
 China in which a prominent statesman will tell you 
 without even a feeling of regret that his aunt is a char- 
 woman, and his uncle a cook. 
 
 In the " City of the River Orchid " the younger 
 brother of one of the influential families of the place had 
 joined the ranks of the " Flowery Ones " (beggars). 
 We came across him one day going round for the regular 
 dole of cash, the monthly tax paid on the first and the 
 fifteenth which the beggars levy on the shopkeepers, and 
 which, the shopkeepers, most of them, are ready to pay for 
 the sake of peace. The man's family apaprently fully 
 acquiesced in the arrangement realising the fact that he 
 would never be anything but a " ne'er do weel." 
 
 The Du-Du's relations, however, were no beggars, but 
 prosperous blacksmiths, and he himself, the clever boy of 
 the family, had been educated, well and thoroughly, first 
 in China and later on for five years in Japan. He had 
 proved his worth in the stormy days of the Revolu- 
 tion, had ascended the cloud-ladder (been promoted) and 
 
THE PEPPER MONTH 247 
 
 possessed without doubt a " fragrant name " (good 
 reputation). 
 
 The " Follower of Virtue " one day in the festive New 
 Year season brought in word that this was the Du-Du's 
 birthday, and if the teacher mother wished, he would 
 escort her to see the presents that the great man had 
 received. They were on view apparently in the open 
 street ! 
 
 Who would be a Du-Du with a birthday ? 
 
 All around the doors and walls of his private residence 
 a rowdy " Hampstead Heath " fair had established itself 
 in honour of the festive occasion. A theatre stage had 
 been erected high above the heads of the crowd — less 
 pretentious peep-shows cropped up here and there, the 
 " buyers of mirth " had congregated in force, the clamour 
 of voices, the beating of gongs, the cries of the pedlars 
 hawking their wares, the high shrill tones of the children 
 must have effectually sapped all peace and quiet from the 
 Du-Du's residence — in honour of the day. 
 
 Ranged along the street against the walls of his house 
 were the birthday presents — consisting for the most part 
 of gigantic umbrellas of red silk spread open for all men 
 to see, and inscribed with the names of the donors in 
 gilded characters. " The umbrellas of 10,000 people," as 
 they are called. 
 
 Red umbrellas and the congratulations of 10,000 
 people to-day ! And to-morrow ? Who knows ? A 
 summons possibly to Peking — " Whence no footsteps 
 return," for it is whispered abroad that the days of all 
 Du-Du's are numbered. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 The Contemptible One 
 
 " The Phoenixes in concord sing " is a well-known 
 wedding air, but alas, like much else in China, words 
 stand for the real thing, and family Hfe is peculiarly 
 lacking in concord. 
 
 A young Chinese friend of mine, who has studied in 
 Japan and travelled in Europe, and lived for a time in 
 England, considers it would be a great step in the right 
 direction if the bridal pair were permitted to start house- 
 keeping on their own account. " In this street," she said 
 (a street in one of the most fashionable quarters of a 
 large city), " there are many families with whom I am 
 acquainted and in not one household is there any peace 
 or happiness. The sisters-in-law, the mother-in-law, the 
 big wives and the little wives quarrel from morning till 
 night ! " 
 
 Needless to say, our little friend and her husband were 
 running their own menage on Western lines. 
 
 No wonder the poor dehizens of the inner apartments 
 quarrelled ! Their lack of education, of course, had a good 
 deal to answer for. One recoils from the thought of those 
 long, empty hours in the secluded courts usually con- 
 signed to the " contemptible ones." For many, the most 
 absorbing occupation of the day is probably the hair- 
 dressing and the face powdering. The former is a lengthy 
 business. The wealthy, of course, have their maids and 
 
THE CONTEMPTIBLE ONE 249 
 
 their slave girls to wait upon them, but where there are 
 no attendants to fall back on, each one will lend a hand 
 to her neighbour. Thus in a girls' school it is no uncommon 
 sight to see a long row of school girls, one sitting behind 
 the other, each with her combs and her bandoline, her 
 flowers and her coloured braid, dressing with great care 
 and precision her friend's glossy black tresses, while at 
 the same time her own locks are being brushed and 
 twisted into place. In these days either the Japanese 
 style of coiffure is in favour, or the most unbecoming 
 fashion of the Ming dynasty of nearly 300 years ago, 
 which necessitates the cutting of two straight strands of 
 hair to fall hke black ribbons over the cheek bones. 
 
 " If one have plenty of money but no children, one 
 cannot be reckoned rich. If one has children but no 
 money, one cannot be considered poor " — so goes the 
 common saying in China, and families that are well to do, 
 increase sometimes by leaps and bounds unknown in 
 Western lands. The other day in this city of Si An Fu 
 each of the three wives of a certain wealthy citizen pre- 
 sented their lord and master with three baby daughters. 
 It was unfortunate that every child born in the house 
 that month should have belonged to the despised sex, but 
 with funds at their disposal the three wives could soon 
 make up for the disappointment and without more ado, 
 each in turn adopted a baby boy, thereby enlarging the 
 nursery population by six small children in as many weeks. 
 To adopt a child, whether one has children of one's own 
 or not, is a curiously prevalent custom in all parts of the 
 land, and that not only amongst the rich but amongst 
 the comparatively poor. Different plans are resorted 
 
250 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 to by different people and " Light of the Moon," 
 whom I came across not long ago at a Chinese- 
 American training school, could have told a dismal 
 story of her experiences, which doubtless are common 
 enough if one only knew. In her native town a 
 marriage had been arranged for her by her parents and 
 the usual " go between," with a youth whose three 
 wealthy uncles, being childless and getting on in years, 
 had desired above all things male heirs to carry on the 
 ancestral worship. They had, therefore, supplied all 
 necessary funds for the nephew's marriage with the 
 stipulation that all male offspring should belong not to 
 the father or the mother, but to the three old men who 
 had financed the nephew and purchased the wife. 
 
 But year after year passed on, and no " pearl of the 
 palm " (son) was vouchsafed to " Light of the Moon." 
 Hence, the contract was considered at an end. She was 
 given leave to return to her father's home, but as no one 
 wanted her there, she had drifted by a happy chance into 
 the teacher sister's school and would before long be able 
 to earn her own living. 
 
 By many it is not considered " respectable to drink 
 the tea of two families," i.e,^ to marry again, and in this 
 land, where the majority of women are born into the world 
 to " suffer and obey," there are many lonely souls whose 
 husbands are either dead or have cast them off like " a 
 fan in autumn." It is a melancholy life to sit " opposite 
 one's own shadow," as the Chinese put it, drawing near 
 the wood (death) knowing — oh, the bitterness of the 
 thought — that when they get to the next world, there 
 will be no son or grandson to worship at the grave and 
 provide one with the necessaries not of Hfe, but of death. 
 
THE CONTEMPTIBLE ONE 251 
 
 No one cares if she goes or stays, though some come 
 to her now and again for advice, for as the Chinese say, 
 " it is well to give heed to the voice of an old woman for 
 sorrow has given her wisdom." 
 
 For the " contemptible one," however, whom marriage 
 has presented with " golden joys " (sons), the day will 
 come, provided she herself is not deficient in strength of 
 character, when she, even she, will turn into one of the 
 most important personages in the house. 
 
 " Man proposes, woman disposes," say some, alluding 
 without doubt to those masterful mothers-in-law, many 
 of whom are women of dignity of character and much 
 intelligence. One cannot but realise what a power for 
 good they might be in the land, given more careful train- 
 ing and a less superficial education in the days of their 
 youth, for as one so often hears it said, no country rises 
 above the level of its women. 
 
 " The woman is as earth to receive, man is as heaven to 
 give." 
 
 " The newly-married wife should be but a shadow and 
 echo in the house," goes the Confucian maxim, but the 
 newly-married wife in modern days likes to have her 
 say in most matters, and it is often no longer a case of 
 " swallows twittering " (women chatting) but of paro- 
 quets screeching. 
 
 Now and again, but rarely, the " Phoenixes in concord 
 sing " and the wedded pair live together like " fish in 
 water." I remember such a case in a northern city, but, 
 alas, it was short-lived. The husband, a professor at the 
 university was receiving a substantial yearly income, and 
 
252 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 was, moreover, the proud father of four charming children . 
 His earher Hfe in the south, before his marriage to his 
 dainty Httle northern wife with eyebrows Hke " the 
 silhouettes of distant mountains " and the prettiest 
 wine hollows (dimples) imaginable, had not been blessed 
 by the god of wealth. 
 
 The little wife, however, was content not to inquire 
 into details. Picture, therefore, the overwhelming grief 
 which burst upon her like a " clap of thunder from a clear 
 sky " when, one fine day, the senior wife (and according 
 to Chinese law the only real wife) appeared on the scenes. 
 Up till now, her very existence had been kept a secret 
 from her successor. Wife, number one, having never 
 possessed any children of her own, appropriated the four 
 little ones that had been born to her rival. This, of 
 course, was her legal right, and the secondary wife 
 became practically a nonentity in the very house in 
 which, up tiU now, all innocently and unsuspectingly, she 
 had reigned as mistress. 
 
 On the day of our visit — I remember it well — a faint 
 smile of joy had come back to her sad little face and in her 
 arms she held her youngest child. It had fallen ill it 
 seemed, and the senior wife took no interest in sick chil- 
 dren, therefore, its own mother might have it back again 
 and welcome ! 
 
 Now and then in these modern days girls try to 
 manage their matrimonial affairs for themselves, and 
 without going to the length of advertising in the paper, 
 Hke the advanced young lady already mentioned, a 
 maiden of independent spirit in the " City of the River 
 Orchid " decided to have nothing to do with the man 
 whom her father, the " severe one," and the " go- 
 
THE CONTEMPTIBLE ONE 253 
 
 between," had selected for her husband. Therefore she 
 cut off all her hair and appeared in public in masculine 
 garb. Her wish was fulfilled, but alas, the matter did not 
 rest there — time has gone on and no Phoenix guest 
 (bachelor) either in the city or out of it has ever desired 
 to have her as his " stupid thorn " (wife). Whether she 
 finally took to vegetarianism in the hope of returning to 
 life at her next birth in the shape of a man I do not 
 know. She continues to live in her father's house, laughed 
 at by all for the one escapade of her youth. 
 
 In Si An Fu there were few wealthy homes in which one 
 wife reigned supreme. I remember a handsome guest 
 hall in the house of an ex-official where the elegant lounge 
 and all the chairs were upholstered in fur, and in which 
 the wives clustered round the '' outside kingdom guests " 
 like a swarm of bees. Only one amongst them all could 
 read any Chinese characters, and that one, who by the 
 way, led most of the conversation, turned out to be, not 
 a wife at all, but a slave girl — a bright, handsome maiden, 
 who had, so she said, been a patient once in the " Save 
 the World " hospital, and had there learnt to read a few 
 words. Of the poor uneducated wives there were the 
 " contemptible ones " of the ex-official, and the others 
 were mostly the wives of his brothers who, in approved 
 Chinese style, all lived under one roof. 
 
 " Several generations in a house is a mark of Heaven's 
 favour." We called one day on the senior wife of a neigh- 
 bour — a military official. She had not " invited our jade 
 toes to benignly approach." Therefore it was possible 
 that she might request us " not to stop the wheels of our 
 chariot." The old serving- woman, who accompanied us, 
 dividing the offices of chaperone and attendant, was sent 
 
254 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 in to find out her ladyship's pleasure, and soon returned 
 inviting us to enter. The outer courts, coolly shaded and 
 damp and green with palms and other pot plants, would 
 have been attractive on a hot day were it not for the 
 presence of unsavoury oddments, more fitted for house- 
 maids' cupboards or bathrooms, which cropped up in 
 unexpected places. The house itself presented the usual 
 lack of upkeep — from the peehng paint on the doors to 
 the torn paper panes of the windows — but ofiicials are 
 here to-day and gone to-morrow, and who would be 
 stupid enough to plant a willow in order that one's suc- 
 cessor may enjoy its shade. 
 
 The " big wife " Hved at the end of the court in the 
 most honourable of all the inner apartments. She 
 received us exceedingly graciously in her bedroom, seat- 
 ing herself on the bed hung with pale blue silk curtains, 
 whilst to her guests were assigned the seats of honour at 
 either side of the table. Table cloths of glazed calico, 
 highly coloured and beflowered, represented the last new 
 treasures from abroad, and cheap photographs of her 
 relations hanging crookedly on the walls, looked strangely 
 vulgar and out of keeping by the side of some dignified 
 scrolls, the drawings of which were embroidered in deHcate 
 old shades of silk. Some writers praise the Chinese for 
 their neatness. A well-dressed Chinese is probably the 
 neatest being in the world, and in their writing, their 
 drawing, their surgical work, and in many other ways 
 they possess that " neat touch " which many of us sigh 
 for in vain. Whence then comes this lack of disorder in 
 their houses so often remarked upon ? Greatly, perhaps, 
 because they are " pickers up of unconsidered trifles " 
 and are ever loth to throw anything away. Therefore, 
 
THE CONTEMPTIBLE ONE 255 
 
 as space is often limited, many unsightly objects are 
 piled up on tables provided for other uses, or pushed into 
 corners not out of sight but out of mind. Besides, who is 
 to decide whether they are unsighly or not — every man 
 to his taste, and in a well-to-do house there is usually a 
 guest hall, tidy and symmetrical to an almost painful 
 degree, to which the critical visitor may confine his 
 attentions. In my lady's bedroom, however, there are 
 many treasured oddments, which no one ever thinks of 
 dusting, sometimes anatomical remains, which shall be 
 nameless, and accumulations which overflowed even on 
 to the bed. These things did not trouble her however, 
 she sat with perfect ease ready to join in a conversation, 
 which she, however, had no notion of starting on her own 
 account. She was but a girl, after all, with no education 
 save the smattering of learning which the teacher 
 sister had helped her to acquire during the short space 
 of time when the " Before Born " (her husband) had per- 
 mitted her to attend a school, opened recently for higher 
 class girls. 
 
 She was busy now, she said — too busy to go to school 
 any longer, and those who understood, congratulated her 
 on the " possession of joy," the graceful Chinese way of 
 signifying a coming event. Besides she did " needle- 
 thread " she added, and showed us some bits of dainty 
 embroidery for the ends of pillows. 
 
 And then suddenly a shadow crossed her face, a look 
 almost of terror, and she clutched the teacher sister's 
 hands and indicated that some one had stolen up outside , 
 the window. After all, it was only the little second wife 
 who had lately been imported into the household. We 
 had seen her already and knew her as a pretty lively. 
 
2s6 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 sharp-tongued little lady who, in her short Hfe, had 
 travelled much and knew the world and was, so report 
 said, a greater favourite with the " Before Born " than 
 the others. The little scene, though quickly over, told 
 us quite enough of the strained state of affairs existing 
 between the two. As we bade our farewells with the 
 usual formulas : — " Du tsai ! " (all remain where you 
 are) — " Please do not accompany us further," we passed 
 the rooms of number two, who was standing as unper- 
 turbed mistress of the situation at her own door, smiling 
 with a touch of triumph in her smile, for with her good 
 luck, her quick wit, and her education (she could both read 
 and write) she seemed to say that it was she, and no 
 other, who in time would be the ruler of the household.* 
 Yet in spite of the unhappiness of so much of their own 
 married Hfe, the Chinese woman finds it difficult to under- 
 stand why their English sisters should so often prefer to 
 remain unmarried. Li Hung Chang, speaking of the 
 massacre of the nuns in the days of terror at Tientsin, 
 voices evidently the sentiments of his countrymen when 
 he says : — " Our people think the putting out of the way 
 of the nuns is a benefit to the latter as well as to the world 
 at large, for they have no husbands and by their looks do 
 not get much to eat." 
 
 • Since writing this, news has reached me that number two now stands alone, 
 for the other is dead ; died, they tell me, in giving birth to her child. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 " Stooping Soldiers " * 
 
 " If man does not recognise spring, plants do," goes 
 the saying, and though there is still a wintry touch about 
 the winds that blow, the air in the garden courts tucked 
 into odd corners amongst the buildings of the " Save 
 the World " hospital, is sweet with the scent of flowers, 
 the white petalled blossoms of the " smiling flower " 
 (magnolia) and the feathery sprays of the white lilac. 
 Once upon a time, the place, famous now throughout the 
 city and for many a mile around for its good deeds and 
 the " fragrant name " of its doctors, was the little-known 
 palace of a mandarin. 
 
 On fine days a melodious whistle, long drawn out, 
 passes and repasses far overhead — softer and louder and 
 louder again. These are the pigeons with little musical 
 instruments attached to their tails — tame pigeons which 
 will return to their homes at night. Once again the kites 
 have appeared, another sure sign of spring, kites of every 
 size and shape from dragons to butterflies. Even the 
 soldiers dawdHng round the city gates cannot resist 
 joining in this most alluring of pastimes. Great skill is 
 shown by the experts — some of whom, of course, have 
 had many years' practice. A Chinese author tells the 
 story of one of these elderly kiteflyers — a paterfamilias 
 who, having been called away on business, tied the string 
 of his kite, an enormous specimen, larger than himself, 
 
 • Brigands. 
 
2s8 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 on to his baby's cradle. What was his dismay on his 
 return to find that a gust of wind had seized the kite which 
 had soared out of sight, carrying with it the cradle ! 
 
 But to return to our city of Si An Fu, whilst the soldiers 
 were amusing themselves flying kites, and their friends 
 were tying whistles to pigeons' tails, and whilst the more 
 serious-minded were getting ready to " sweep the graves " 
 at the " Clear Bright Festival," and the '* mai mai ren " 
 were beginning to admit that trade was good, flying 
 words of serious import broke in upon our peace. 
 
 " White Wolf," the bandit chief who, for many months 
 now, had been striking terror into the hearts of the people 
 in neighbouring provinces, was marching by quick stages 
 towards the Si An plain. 
 
 It was said that this soldier of fortune — called the 
 " White Wolf " from a play on his name — ^had begun Hfe 
 as a corporal. He was the son of respectable farmers in 
 the province of Honan, and whatever his military rank 
 may have been, it was soon evident that he possessed the 
 independence of character, the power of organisation and 
 the gift of inspiring confidence in others which go so far 
 towards the making of a leader of men. The story used 
 to be noised abroad in Shensi that the bandit chief had 
 first made his mark as military adviser to a certain luck- 
 less general, at whose untimely death he vowed vengeance 
 against the powers that be, but, as in the early days of 
 the RepubHc scullions turned into corporals and corporals 
 into military magnates and students into Cabinet 
 Ministers in the twinkling of an eye, so ^* White Wolf" 
 may easily have been both corporal and adviser. One 
 point appears certain, that for one reason or another he 
 was soon at loggerheads with the authorities, and we hear 
 
"STOOPING SOLDIERS" 259 
 
 of him at the head of some sixty stalwart braves, escaping 
 almost miraculously from a trap that had been laid for 
 him. He was now a free lance and lost no time in 
 strengthening his position. The sixty followers increased 
 by scores and by hundreds, success brought success, and 
 in those days of change and uncertainty, of sham Par- 
 Haments, of an unstable Government and ever-varying 
 laws, all things were in favour of a soldier of fortune. 
 
 In the summer of 191 3, we hear of him besieging cities 
 and holding foreigners for ransom. A price was put upon 
 his head, and during the autumn months soldiers scoured 
 the province of Honan, pursuing him in this direction and 
 in that. They acquitted themselves with such zeal that on 
 our way through the province a few weeks later we learnt 
 that he had been caught and killed several times over, and 
 that on each occasion prize money had been paid over 
 to the soldiers, who had triumphantly brought in the 
 decapitated head for inspection. 
 
 The brigand chief, however, with the mobiHty that has 
 always characterised his movements, ran little risk of 
 being captured by the happy-go-lucky soldiers of the 
 Honan army. His power grew till he became a terror in 
 the land. 
 
 Since in China the " sins of a son are visited on his 
 father," orders were given to destroy the ancestral farm 
 and all its occupants. By the winter, " White Wolf " 
 at the head of an extensive army, consisting chiefly 
 of disbanded soldiers, marched on into neighbouring 
 provinces, killing and looting. 
 
 It was New Year's Eve when he reached the city of 
 L , in the province of Anhwei. 
 
 In the house of the " foreign teacher " on New Year's 
 
26o CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 morning a gruff voice was heard demanding the " smoke- 
 dragon." The smoke-dragon ! Did he mean the kitchen 
 chimney — ^were they, perhaps, searching for food ? No ; 
 he meant the opium pipe. Here, however, he had missed 
 his mark, there were no opium pipes in that house. He 
 might, if he Hked, look for himself and see. His followers 
 however, had other and more sinister ends in view. 
 " Where is the school ? " they asked — " the girls' school ? 
 Are there no girls here, then ? " 
 
 " None — ^you may see for yourselves." 
 
 But here, as everywhere their greatest desire was for 
 money — not copper money, however, for that was far too 
 bulky to carry far on a quick march, and ''White 
 Wolf's " men must move quickly or not at all. This was 
 one of the unwritten laws of the bandit army and, 
 according to reports, some who had failed to keep up with 
 the rest had been promptly shot. 
 
 It was silver that they wanted, and experience had led 
 them to seek it in the right quarters. A young doctor 
 who had been trained in a foreign hospital, had set up in 
 practice in the city not long before. In seeking to protect 
 himself by hoisting the Red Cross flag over his door he 
 had only succeeded in attracting the attention of the 
 brigands. A man as well dressed as he, and making a 
 living as a foreign-trained doctor, was certain to have 
 money, so as he showed no signs of producing it, they 
 shot him in the leg, wounding him badly. 
 
 His servant carried him bleeding to his friends at the 
 Yamen, but alas ! his friends, wise in their generation, 
 had fled. 
 
 " Then take me," he said, " to the house of the 
 * foreign teacher,' for he will surely befriend me," 
 
"STOOPING SOLDIERS" 261 
 
 And now for the foreign teacher came one of the 
 most dangerous moments of the day. The bandits 
 crowded into his house in the wake of the wounded man. 
 
 " We want silver," they said. 
 
 " Give them silver," gasped the servant — ^his eyes blue 
 like those in a dead sheep's head with fright. " Only 
 give them what they want and surely my master will pay 
 it back to you later on." 
 
 But already the foreign teacher had brought forth 
 his little store — some twelve dollars. 
 
 " We want more than that," they said. 
 
 " Yes, give them more. Give them more ! " pleaded 
 the servant. 
 
 " I have no more I " 
 
 But the servant, being Chinese, did not believe this — 
 and begged piteously that more should be produced, and 
 the brigands smiled grimly, thinking they were in luck's 
 way. 
 
 But as not even the skill of an outside kingdom man 
 could create silver in an empty cash box, the twelve 
 dollars remained twelve dollars, and even the unfortunate 
 servant began to reahse that the " Before Born " was in 
 earnest and his words were true words. 
 
 " Then we will shoot you ! " said the brigands. 
 
 And one of them, drawing forth his dirk, pretended to 
 stab him. " I will run my knife into you," he muttered. 
 
 " Very well," said this strange foreigner, who seemed 
 afraid of nothing, and with a smile on his face he came a 
 step nearer to them holding out his hand. " Very well, I 
 am not afraid to die." 
 
 The words and the smile puzzled them. 
 
 It was they who drew back. 
 
262 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 " Did you say," said one, " that you carCt be killed." 
 
 " No, nothing of the kind. I said I am not afraid to 
 die I " And the two boys and the foreign teacher's " Si 
 mu " (wife) — they were evidently not afraid either ! They 
 faced the brigands who levelled their guns at them, as 
 calmly and as pleasantly as though they were looking 
 at a peep-show. Strange ! thought the men, for they were 
 unused to such stoicism. They could not understand it 
 and felt uncomfortable in its presence. They professed 
 indifference, however, and swaggered off dividing the 
 money on the way. 
 
 Before evening the city was in flames. The houses of 
 the wealthy, and those belonging to the salt and the grain 
 merchants had one and all been ruthlesslv set on fire. 
 Streets and shops were littered with the discarded copper 
 coins. The rich had fled, and all that the brigands cast 
 aside, the poorest of the poor, and the beggars of the 
 city, took for themselves. 
 
 During the day the foreign teacher had earned for 
 himself a " fragrant name " amongst the bandits. He 
 had, by urgent request, bound up wounds and rendered 
 useful service to not a few. 
 
 When, therefore, that night a band of incendiaries 
 came to his house, and suggested setting that on fire with 
 the rest, they were promptly deterred by their leader. 
 " Nay," he said, " that is the house of the foreign doctor 
 and must on no account be touched." 
 
 Looters, however, came again more than once in search 
 of treasure. A man of somewhat superior type to his 
 companions presented a handsome jade bracelet to one 
 of the fearless little English boys in return for a mouth- 
 organ, and instructions how to use it. The bracelet. 
 
"STOOPING SOLDIERS" 263 
 
 however, was soon seized upon by the next bandit that 
 passed that way. Towards the end of the second day the 
 words " a wind is blowing " were passed rapidly from the 
 one to the other down the crowded street. There was 
 evidently not a moment to be lost, for the enigmatical 
 phrase meant to the initiated that Government soldiers 
 were in pursuit and would soon be upon them. 
 
 They were rough customers these ** White Wolf" 
 brigands, but the very ones who had made the most 
 trouble in the foreigner's house lingered a moment to bid 
 farewell, and gave token of the admiration they had felt 
 for the superb courage of the two lads by dropping on one 
 knee before them and giving the salutation that is never 
 offered in China except to a superior. 
 
 After the bandits had gone, the city still smouldered, 
 and the poor and the outcasts and the ne'er-do-weels crept 
 out from their hiding places, and swept up the copper 
 cash, and dug out treasure from the burnt ruins, and 
 removed furniture from deserted houses, and collected 
 stores of salt and rice and grain from charred and smoking 
 heaps, of which a good deal was still usable. 
 
 Some of them will look back to the '' White Wolf " 
 invasion as the day of the founding of their fortunes, 
 and many who used to be poor are now for a time, at 
 least, almost affluent. " When a man is poor," say the 
 Chinese, " he is wanting in enterprise." No longer should 
 this reproach be hurled at their heads. 
 
 When '* White Wolf" appeared on the border of the 
 Si An plain, the Du-Du himself, with the few men at his 
 disposal — some 2,000 or so — ^hurried forth to intercept 
 the enemy's progress — a fool's errand, said some, but in 
 
264 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 any case, it was hinted mysteriously that we were safer 
 without the soldiers. At all the city gates, our military 
 protectors — being Honanese, and nominally at least 
 unmarried men — ^had been hastily removed and replaced 
 by local policemen who, having their wives and families 
 within the walls, would, it was thought, be more likely 
 to remain loyal. 
 
 The '' Wolf's " progress was apparently as easy as "hot 
 water going through snow." At each place he came to 
 the people fled before him. He took what he wanted 
 and passed on. 
 
 Some of the Du-Du's men had fallen into one of his 
 well-laid traps — and marching into a peaceful little town 
 where there were no people about but a few harmless 
 country folk, they suddenly discovered that the gates had 
 closed behind them, and the country folk, increasing in 
 numbers, turned into armed men — the ^^ White Wolf's " 
 followers in disguise. Some few of the soldiers " escaped 
 by a layer of skin " and appeared at the •" Save the World " 
 hospital to be healed of their wounds. Rumour re- 
 ported that the bandit army had run short of ammuni- 
 tion and had been cutting up telegraph wires to supply 
 the deficiency ! By this time they were not much more 
 than twenty miles away from us — and those in charge of 
 the guns on the city wall had seen with the " 10,000-mile 
 mirror " (telescope) the fires in the brigands' camp, up in 
 the mountains to the south, and reported their numbers 
 to be legion. 
 
 In case of attack no one could pretend to say if Si An Fu 
 would remain firm or not ** White Wolf" had friends 
 within the city walls, and bandit armies in China take 
 cities by strategy rather than by force. 
 
I 
 
"STOOPING SOLDIERS" 265 
 
 Those, the very poor, who " ate empty handed rice " 
 had heard of others of their ilk who had made a compe- 
 tence for Hfe by merely taking possession of the things 
 that the robbers had left behind. " White Wolfs " 
 programme was " down with the rich at any cost." It 
 was those who " wore good garments and ate good food " 
 (were well off) who suffered most, and in some cases 
 suffered not unjustly, for only the poor could know how 
 often they themselves had " eaten bitterness " at the 
 hands of their richer neighbours — those wealthy arrogant 
 ones, who had an inconvenient way of buying things 
 without paying the full value, of storing up grain so as 
 to raise the price, and of treating righteous complaints 
 as unwarrantable insults. 
 
 It was said that the soldiers with a keen eye to the 
 main chance were beginning to think favourably of 
 '' White Wolf." Words were noised abroad that all 
 prisoners of war in the bandits' camp were financed and 
 promoted, whereas the unlucky few who had fallen into 
 the hands of the Government troops had been brought 
 into the city and shot dead without a word. 
 
 The authorities in Si An Fu fearing trouble within the 
 gates, issued peremptory orders prohibiting certain sub- 
 jects of conversation. " Do not discuss politics," used 
 to be a common notice on the walls of Peking tea shops, 
 and now the same rule was again enforced, and every one 
 had forgotten the " People's Kingdom " and the proud 
 motto of " Liberty, Fraternity, EquaKty." 
 
 " They are only ten miles away ! " said the " Follower 
 of Virtue " one evening, rushing in upon us with the 
 disturbing news. 
 
 A few minutes later a terrific report rent the air, as 
 
266 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 though all the cannon on the city wall had started 
 firing. 
 
 But it was not the cannon after all — only a bomb that 
 had been jerked out of a soldier's belt as he was riding 
 down the street on one of the jolting carts. In exploding, 
 it had shattered four men to pieces and brought down an 
 archway, causing a temporary panic amongst the people, 
 who had mistaken the hubbub for brigands. Before morn- 
 ing it seemed more than possible that ** White Wolf" 
 and his men would be outside the city gates — but we had 
 reckoned without the weather. An hour later the rain, 
 heavy thunder rain, was falling in a deluge ; by the next 
 morning it had turned to sleet and by the next to snow. 
 The unmade roads of Shensi sink out of sight altogether 
 in a long speU of wet, and it was hardly possible, and cer- 
 tainly not probable, that either the Government troops 
 or the bandits would march in any direction whatsoever. 
 As, however, local conditions of weather could hardly be 
 known in Peking, the opportunity seemed an excellent 
 one in which to report a grand victory on the part of the 
 Government forces. Possibly there was a grain of truth 
 at the back of it, for Si An Fu was left severely alone, and 
 the brigand army went on its blissful course of destruc- 
 tion, looting the cities on the plain. 
 
 On the way back to Honan a few days later the carts of 
 merchandise, which had blocked the way so often on our 
 journey up, had vanished one and all — carts, animals, 
 coolies had gone into hiding, or had been commandeered 
 by the transport corps of the northern army, which was 
 " oozing " along in pursuit of ** White Wolf," and 
 which some day, possibly, meant to take up the matter in 
 real earnest. For the present there seemed no particular 
 
"STOOPING SOLDIERS" 267 
 
 hurry. Besides, how could any one with heavy baggage, 
 carts and gun carriages, hasten over these impossible 
 roads. More than once we met long lines of them bogged 
 deep in mud. There was, moreover, an air of permanency 
 about the situation which seemed to suggest want of 
 interest on the part of the carters, or lack of initiation on 
 that of their new masters. 
 
 On one occasion our carts were ordered summarily to 
 stand on one side to await the approach of the general 
 in command. A mounted bodyguard clattered past, and 
 we looked with interest to see the ^' da ren " (great man) 
 ride by in state, but we looked in vain, for the general 
 was squatting humbly on the floor of his covered cart, a 
 huddled figure hardly visible in the dark background. 
 
 The countryside had changed its winter robe of dusty 
 coloured loess into one that was striped and flecked with 
 green — the green of the spring wheat which lined the 
 terraced cliffs, and spread itself out in broad patches 
 on every level tract of land. Diving down into a well- 
 watered valley for a mile or so in the province of Honan, 
 we found ourselves in a garden of peach trees out in all 
 their glory. The pink blossoms hung like rose-tinted 
 clouds at the foot of the blue misty mountains, and after 
 a while the road itself became a rippHng stream, babbling 
 down hill amongst the rocks ! 
 
 China in these days, ignoring her beloved doctrine of 
 the happy middle course, leaps from one extreme to the 
 other, and side by side with her mediaeval roads and 
 antiquated means of transport, behold the last new thing 
 in military aeroplanes — made of bamboo and aluminium, 
 fitted with bombs and French aviators and also in pur- 
 suit of " White Wolf ." 
 
268 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 The country people gathered round to look at these 
 new inventions of the outside kingdom folk, but their 
 stolid faces expressed no surprise. 
 
 An aeroplane was just a new kind of " gwei " (demon) 
 and could fly, but what was more natural ? All demons 
 could fly, and the scholars would no doubt have reminded 
 one of the fact that such things as flying cars were known 
 to the men of the Middle Kingdom many hundreds of 
 years ago.* 
 
 It was fortunate that our military escort, provided for 
 our protection by the officials, did not form part of the 
 regular army. 
 
 At each Hsien city the men were changed for the worse. 
 The first lot had uniforms and swords, but some of the 
 swords were broken ; the next had rifles but no ammu- 
 nition ; and on the last day of all, our guards possessed 
 neither swords, nor rifles, nor uniforms, but ragged 
 clothes and bare feet and were doubtless beggars acting 
 as substitutes. • 
 
 Three months have passed since the northern armies 
 travelled over the Si An road in pursuit of *' White 
 Wolf." Patiently they have followed in his wake glean- 
 ing the fields that he has reaped through the province of 
 Shensi to that of Kansu and back again to Shensi. Loot 
 was plentiful and the job proved lucrative. It was a 
 thousand pities to bring it to a close too soon, so the 
 northern soldiers, appreciating their good fortune, kept 
 the hunted " Wolf " at a discreet distance. And now the 
 brigand chief, they say, has returned for a while to his 
 old haunts in Honan, and the northern armies, resting 
 
 • " Rough wood-cuts of flying cars have been handed down for many cen- 
 turies." " The CiviHsation of China," H. A. Giles. 
 
"STOOPING SOLDIERS" 269 
 
 after their labours, might not inappropriately sing the 
 song of the three jolly huntsmen : — 
 
 " So they hunted and they hoUo'd till the setting of the sun, 
 An' they'd nought to bring away at last when the huntin' 
 day was done. 
 
 Look ye there. 
 
 *' Then one unto the other said, * This huntin' doesn't pay, 
 But we've powler't up and down a bit an' had a rattlin' day, 
 Look ye there." 
 
 There was doubtless some connection between 
 ** White Wolf " and the revolutionary party. But when 
 the European War broke out in August, 1914, and foreign 
 moneys were difficult to obtain, the rumours of a fresh 
 revolution, planned forth at month in China, died down 
 with surprising rapidity, and with dramatic suddenness 
 the great bandit chief was declared to be dead. That his 
 death was attributed to three different causes aroused 
 the suspicions of the incredulous, and although in the end 
 the people of Kai Fong Fu had the satisfaction of seeing 
 a mutilated head with the inscription " White Wolf " 
 hung upon the city wall, there are still many in that 
 same province of Honan who continue to believe in his 
 existence. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 A Painted Cake * 
 
 In the war waged against idolatry during the first 
 year of the " People's Kingdom," even the grand old 
 Confucian temple at Nanking did not escape. There 
 were no idols there to shatter and to burn, but the 
 soldiers seized on all the idolatrous accessories of Con- 
 fucian worship — the wooden axes, the imitation musical 
 instruments, the red-fringed official hats and so forth, 
 and battered them to pieces. Though the tablet of the 
 " Great Master " above the altar still remained intact the 
 floor of his temple was littered with broken trophies. 
 They would never be required again ; never again would 
 any member of a " People's Kingdom " be called upon to 
 " ko teo " even to the " Perfect Sage."" 
 
 In the " City of the River Orchid " during the second 
 year of the Republic an empty Confucian temple was 
 considered great waste of house room, and a company of 
 soldiers, bed and baggage, were installed in the once 
 sacred precincts. But the third year of the " People's 
 Kingdom " beheld a sudden reversion to the old order of 
 things. At the " Spring Festival " at Si An Fu, and 
 indeed, all over the country, the old time celebrations 
 were carried out in detail by order of the President. 
 No less than fifty-seven animals — oxen, sheep and pigs — 
 were slaughtered that day in the city in honour of the 
 " Uncrowned King." The officials assembhng before his 
 
 * A thing that has come to nothing. 
 
A PAINTED CAKE 271 
 
 altar " ko teoed " in the old-fashioned style, and " the 
 Perfect Sage, in virtue equal to Heaven and Earth," was 
 requested once again to enjoy the offerings presented to 
 him. 
 
 The ceremony had taken place early in the morning, 
 and when, with the " Follower of Virtue " in attendance, 
 I presented myself at the gates under the dusty cypress 
 trees, it was only to find that all was over. Before the 
 honoured tablet, however, the " Philosopher's King's " 
 own share of the feast — a dead ox of substantial dimen- 
 sions — still lay undisturbed. Butchers, cutting up the 
 other slaughtered animals, were hard at work, and the 
 dead pig, the especial property of Confucius's disciples, 
 was slung on a bamboo pole to be carried forth and 
 divided with the rest. Bowls of grain had formed part 
 of the offering, and finally all would be shared out 
 amongst the leading men of the city. 
 
 " We will send the teacher mother a piece of the 
 Confucian cow," suggested an attendant, receiving, 
 however, the hasty assurance that she truly could not 
 venture to accept so magnificent an offer. 
 
 Though to many the RepubHc has become a " painted 
 cake," some at least of the seeds scattered here and there 
 in the days of its first youth have taken root. Hence 
 comes it that amongst men of wealth and men of influence 
 quite a few are not only wilhng, but eager, that their sons 
 should acquire some knowledge of Western learning and, 
 moreover, adopt the Western religion. It is too late and 
 altogether not convenient (^* puh bien dang") they say, 
 for them to become Christians themselves, but for the 
 rising generation the matter is entirely different. How 
 
272 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 about the ancestral worship, one inquires — the prayers 
 and sacrifices to the spirits of the forefathers required of 
 all dutiful sons ? They have faced that question, too, and 
 naively make answer that the enforced worship of ances- 
 tors ill accords with the spirit of liberty and equahty of a 
 true republic. " Man man tih " (by degrees) these idola- 
 trous ceremonies will all be abolished. " Man man tih " 
 democratic China will show the world what a " People's 
 Kingdom " should be like ! How this triumph is to be 
 achieved nobody knows, but " the sage accompHshes 
 great things without undertaking them," said the wise 
 men of old, and " the tree of ample branches grew from a 
 tender shoot, and the castles of nine stories began with a 
 heap of dust ! " 
 
 The reactionary change in the educational programme, 
 as illustrated by the management of the last Civil Service 
 examination, was certainly a little disconcerting to the 
 candidates. For three years they had been working 
 hard at Western subjects in accordance with the rules 
 laid down. Picture then their dismay when, in the third 
 year of the " People's Kingdom," the examiners left 
 Western subjects severely alone, and confined their atten- 
 tion to the old classics — the very books which, in the 
 mad craze for modern learning, had been relegated to 
 back shelves. 
 
 " A man who has a knowledge of foreign ways and is 
 ignorant of Chinese," said the famous statesman Chang 
 Chih Tung, " has become a brute." Possibly this opinion 
 is still shared by some of Chang's successors, who would 
 also point out the fact, that in many cases modern educa- 
 tion and revolutionary ideas have stalked through the 
 
A PAINTED CAKE 273 
 
 land hand in hand. Men who should have known better 
 have " affected illumination for the confusing of old- 
 established regulations." 
 
 Ultimate success in the examinations depended greatly 
 on the answer to the one important question : '* Did you 
 fill any official post under the Ching dynasty ? " All 
 who replied in the negative were promptly ploughed. 
 Great was the bitterness, many were the protests, so 
 much so, that the authorities took fright and hastily 
 invited the disappointed candidates to enter the lists 
 a second time. Those whose papers passed muster were 
 thereupon appointed to more or less nominal posts in 
 the various provinces. 
 
 That the people should in future understand what is 
 expected of their sons, the Ministry of Education 
 pubHshed a list of seven subjects on which students of 
 elementary schools would be periodically examined. They 
 were to be taught to love their own country, to respect 
 militarism, to exalt truth, to follow the precepts of 
 Confucius and Mencius, to encourage self-restraint, to 
 beware of greed and contention, and (in this one 
 detects a touch of probably unconscious sarcasm) they 
 were especially to beware of making too rapid 
 progress ! 
 
 These seven principles were " the objects to be attained 
 in education." It would be interesting to know on what 
 lines the final examinations were conducted. 
 
 Amongst the country people educational reforms, 
 though approved in theory, were difficult to put into 
 practice. 
 
 In an east coast province orders came from Peking 
 that a census should be taken of the children in certain 
 
274 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 outlying districts with a view to the establishment 
 of schools. The laudable efforts of the gentry, how- 
 ever, who undertook to make the necessary inquiries 
 were woefully misunderstood. The names and ages of 
 the boys and girls could be needed for one purpose only, 
 and far and near the rumour got about that in order 
 to finish laying the foundations of the new " iron road " 
 (railway) bridge over the great river a large number of 
 children's souls were indispensable. So and so's son had 
 already fallen ill and died as a result of the investigations, 
 and there was no telling who would be the next. The 
 people, frightened and indignant, mobbed the house of 
 the leading magnate of the neighbourhood threatening 
 vengeance. 
 
 Soon the whole countryside would have risen in revolt 
 had not the book in which the children's names were 
 inscribed been hastily handed over to the irate parents, 
 and a promise given that no further inquiries should be 
 made. Small wonder that altruism' finds little favour in 
 China ! 
 
 Meanwhile the President, Yuan Shi Kai, lived as a self- 
 made prisoner in the " forbidden city " appearing but 
 seldom, and then mostly in an armoured motor car. He 
 aboHshed provincial assemblies and Peking Parliaments 
 and miHtary governors, and appointed a select band of 
 seventy counsellors who wisely followed a piece of advice 
 given in the reign of Tao Kuang and by " avoiding any 
 reference to vexed questions, were non-committal, in- 
 variably humble and plausibly evasive, never criticising 
 adversely and never condemning." The polite President 
 expressed a hope that the seventy counsellors " would 
 become illustrious, and that through them, the welfare 
 
A PAINTED CAKE 275 
 
 and the misfortune of the people would be made quite 
 clear." 
 
 As to the provinces, a military general and a civil 
 magistrate would divide the honours between them and 
 " produce concord by speaking salutary words to the 
 heads of families." 
 
 In places where the President had reason to suspect 
 active opposition a military despot with a force at his 
 command was appointed to look into things. 
 
 One of these autocrats " confused great matters with 
 small," and never ventured thereafter to go beyond the 
 gates of his Yamen. On one eventful New Year's Day he 
 forbade the use of fire crackers, but the populace, accus- 
 tomed to proclamations which might or might not be 
 taken seriously, made up their minds that so innocent an 
 amusement as the firing of a few crackers could not pos- 
 sibly do any one any harm. They had reckoned without 
 the soldiers who, patrolling every quarter of the city, 
 dragged forth the offenders, old and young, rich and poor, 
 into the street and forcing them down on to their knees 
 inflicted a hundred blows on all who could not or would 
 not purchase their escape. Alas, for the vain boast of 
 ^' Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." 
 
 Still there are many who tell you proudly that " China 
 is now a Republic " and talk of the great future of their 
 country, and some of them stand waiting for the plums to 
 fall. Meanwhile energetic little Japan does not wait but 
 gathers a few in advance from the branches of the tree. 
 
 The influence of Japan is far reaching. 
 
 We read in old records of the sixteenth century " that 
 the * barbarians from the islands ' (the Japanese) invaded 
 the Inner Land (China) and distressed the villages, on 
 
276 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 which account the public manners underwent a change ; 
 the townspeople became light and vain ; fellows who had 
 not a bushel of corn at home would wear elegant clothes 
 and beautiful shoes abroad." At the beginning of the 
 twentieth century, the " barbarians from the islands " 
 play a different game. They invade the ports and the 
 big cities, selling goods to ready buyers, teaching schools, 
 absorbing trade, and starting industries, thus seeking to 
 make themselves more or less indispensable to their fellow 
 Orientals. One curious fact remains, significant of much, 
 that, in spite of the despoiling of the rich, the pillaging of 
 cities, the looting of villages, the devastation of wide 
 tracts of country and the borrowed millions of foreign 
 money that has been practically poured into a sieve and 
 wasted — in spite of all this ruin and distress, China is still 
 very nearly as rich as ever she was, but has grown even 
 more adept than of old in the art of hiding her light 
 under a bushel. Some who have lost their all are by no 
 means " living in decay," but have still money enough 
 and to spare, for the Chinese are far too clever to put all 
 their eggs into one basket. A little of the hoarded 
 wealth has been borrowed lately, borrowed in perpetuity 
 by the powers that be, to swell the so-called " internal 
 loan." To refuse to lend would have been too costly a 
 proceeding. " We must devise means to meet our 
 obligations," so ran the message from Peking, " for as 
 long as the European War lasts ambitious persons will 
 watch for an opportunity to grasp the power of directing 
 our financial administration, thereby sucking dry our fat 
 and marrow, and for ever depriving us as a nation of any 
 hope to recover our wonted greatness." 
 
 There are not many, however, who think such a 
 
A PAINTED CAKE 277 
 
 disaster possible. The coat of arms semi-officially pro- 
 posed in the early days of the Republic still reflects the 
 aspirations of some of the enthusiasts. In the first place 
 grain was selected, to which the sun, moon, and stars 
 were added to signify light, a mountain to denote com- 
 mand ; a dragon, mutabiHty ; a pheasant, culture ; 
 sacrificial cups, filial piety ; aquatic grass, purity ; flames, 
 brightness ; grains of rice, nurture ; a hatchet, decision, 
 and finally a zig-zag symbol was intended to represent 
 discernment. 
 
 But though these dreams of the would-be reformers 
 were as " upper floors in the middle of emptiness " one 
 thing was certain, that a newborn patriotism was 
 struggling for life,* and a new spirit of independence was 
 rapidly gaining strength. 
 
 Young China had caught a ghmpse of all the kingdoms 
 of the world and the glory of them. Once roused, there 
 was Httle she could not do if she set her mind to it. Wit- 
 ness the marvellous results of the opium crusade, con- 
 ducted under especially difficult circumstances. 
 
 The great Yuan Shi Kai himself assured the world in 
 191 6 that the Republic had not been a failure and was 
 absolutely certain to continue. " The monarchical 
 government is as dead in China as in the United States," 
 he said. Yet even in the light of these words no one was 
 in the very least surprised to hear that the President of 
 
 * In 1919, as a protest against the handing over of Tsingtau to Japan by the 
 Allied Powers, the students of China organised one of the most remarkable 
 strikes of modern days : universities and schools were closed, shops were shut, 
 and banks ceased to do business. As one result of this stand brought about by 
 the scholars of the country, certain corrupt officials in Peking, who had been 
 playing into the hands of Japan, were dismissed from office, and many are now 
 of opinion that the Shantung question will eventually be solved in favour of the 
 rightful owner of the soil. 
 
278 CHANCE AND CHANGE IN CHINA 
 
 the Republic intended himself to become the founder of 
 a new dynasty. 
 
 In the East as in the West there is " many a slip betwixt 
 the cup and the lip." The " strong man of China," as 
 the English journalists used to call him, spoke in honeyed 
 tones of the future of the Republic and set himself at the 
 same time to make preparations for his own coronation. 
 
 In some Chinese temples there hangs an abacus on the 
 wall beneath which these words are inscribed — 
 
 " Many times man reckons up accounts, 
 But Heaven reckons once and once for all." 
 
 As ever, it was the unexpected that happened. With 
 the dramatic suddenness that so often marks the death 
 of a great man in China, Yuan Shi Kai was called upon to 
 hand in his last reckoning. 
 
 China — a house divided against itself, with many 
 leaders and no ruler — stands in some ways where she has 
 stood before with one supreme difference : that she no 
 longer considers the " Middle Kingdom " the centre of all 
 culture, and the only part of the universe that matters, 
 but has widened her outlook and dreams dreams and 
 sees visions and cherishes ideals which some day no 
 doubt will help to make her people one of the greatest 
 nations of the world. 
 
INDEX 
 
 A. 
 
 Abacus, 278 
 
 Actress, 99 
 
 Adoption, 49, 249 
 
 Aeroplane, 267 
 
 Ailanthus, 210 
 
 Aladdin's cave, 203 
 
 Alcohol, 38, 129 
 
 Amazons, 2, 13, 102 
 
 America, 80, 81 
 
 American lamps, 223, 240 ; missions, 
 
 80, 81 ; " style," 102 
 Ancestral hall, 77 — 8 
 Ancestral worship, 77 
 Apomorphine, 38, 129 
 Arab, 203, 213 
 Army pay, 132 
 Arrowroot, 161 
 Artists, 28, 231 
 Assembly hall, 176 
 Astronomers, 192 
 Azaleas, 113, 117, 118, 119 
 
 B. 
 
 Ba Giao Si, 37, 41, 45, 48, 53, 74 
 
 Balsam, 118 
 
 Bamboo, 16, 44, 69, 89, 141 
 
 Bandits, 18, 197, 258, 260, 263 
 
 Bark, 113 
 
 Barracks, 81, 178 
 
 Barrows, 137 
 
 Baths, 116, 159, 216 
 
 Beauty, 58, 143, 239, 252 
 
 Beggars, 25, 49, 209, 187, 229 
 
 Belgian engineers, 193 
 
 Betrothal, 64 
 
 Birth, 46 
 
 Birthday cards, 64 
 
 Bitter cakes, 156, 160 
 
 Black market, the, 188 
 
 Blue stone, 175 
 
 Bombs, 190, 266 
 
 Book of rites, 143 
 
 Bricks, 17, 205 
 
 Bridegrooms, 57 — 9, 61 
 
 Brides, 57, 58, 61—3 
 
 Brigands, 153, 257, 261, 264 
 Buddhists, 10, 203 — 4 
 Bungalow, a, 13 
 Burial clothes, 186 
 Buried scholars, 203 
 Butterfly nets, 17 
 
 C. 
 
 Cabinet Ministers, 177, 258 
 
 Cages, 127, 128, 135 
 
 Calendar, 82, 83 
 
 Camphor trees, 19, 55 
 
 Cards, playing, 52 
 
 Carlyle, 2, 181, 190 
 
 Carts, 194, 195, 206, 209 
 
 Castor oil, 45, 158 
 
 Cats, 32 
 
 Census, 133, 273 
 
 Centipedes, 24 
 
 Ceremony clothes, 83 
 
 Chang Hsuan, 184 — 6 
 
 Cheerfulness, 41, 128 
 
 Chekiang, 18, 60, 135 
 
 Chess, 107 
 
 Chickens, 87, 119, 121, 197 
 
 Children, 34, 35, 50, 51, 57, 134, 183, 
 249 
 
 Chinese cooks, 119, 133, 144, 237, 246 ; 
 courtesy, 162 ; customs, 62, 63, df^ 
 86, 90, 147, 198, 202, 222, 225, 244 ; 
 detectives, 102 ; diplomacy, 213 ; 
 etiquette, 35, 67 — 8, 147, 238, 242 ; 
 financiers, 235 ; gardens, 109, 166 
 186, 207; gardeners, 109 — 10, 113 
 212 ; homes, 13, 47, 56, 74, 76, J04, 
 III, 142, 146, 240, 248; officials, 
 42, 94, 149, 227, 228, 272 ; poets, 
 III, 117, 163 ; proverbs, 18, 54, 58, 
 59, 62, 64, 85, 87, 99, 104, 156, 179, 
 190, 201, 208, 212, 227, 232, 249, 
 251 ; servants, 197, 208, 223, 233 
 — 4, 238 ; superstitions, 30, 67, 91, 
 97, 117, 126, 135—6, 139, 152, 154, 
 173, 200, 238 ; youths, 34—6, 85, 
 106 
 
 Ching Dynasty, 184, 273 
 
 Christianity, 10 1 
 
28o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Christians, 58, 78, 168, 271 
 
 Chu Yuan, 151, 155 
 
 Cigarettes, 80, 81, 126, 219 
 
 City of Old Age, 135 
 
 Clans, 77 
 
 Classics, 73, 83, 90, 218, 272 
 
 Clocks, 95, 176 
 
 Cloths to cry with, 66 
 
 Coal, 135, 144, 160, 243 
 
 Coat of arms, 272 
 
 Cocks, 231 
 
 Cockroaches, 71 
 
 Coffin cement, 71 
 
 Coffins, 65, 71, 130, 164—5, 178, 190 
 
 Combretum, 41 
 
 Comfort, 130, 199 
 
 Confucius, 92, 169, 233, 251, 270 — I, 
 
 273 
 Cormorants, 20 
 Corn cutter, 223 
 Corpse, a, 61, 71, 131 
 Corsets, 27, 221 
 Cotton, 17, 200 
 Cotton-wool tears, 66 — 9 
 Cows, 29, 167 — 8, 271 
 Crochet, 228 
 Cruelty, 130, 165, 185 
 Cupping, 123 
 Currency, 235 
 Cypress, 56, 200 
 
 Dates, I, 28, 52, 71 
 
 Dead streets, 223 
 
 Death, 33, 70—1, 73, 91 
 
 Democracy, 177 
 
 Democratic China, 211, 229, 246 
 
 Demon-ridden haunts, 141 
 
 Dessert, 1 10, 241 
 
 Detectives, 102 
 
 Doctors, 45, 54, 57, 177, 262 
 
 Doles, 8, 246 
 
 Doves, 58 
 
 Dowager Empress, the, 100, 152, 161, 
 
 184 
 Dragon, the, 94, 96 
 Dragon Throne, 4, 161, 212 
 Dress, 12, 88, 162, 239 
 Drill, 116 
 Drugs, 26 
 Ducks, 157 
 Du-Dus, 181, 224, 245, 247, 264 
 
 E. 
 
 Education, 105, 227, 248, 273 
 
 Effigy, 74 
 
 Election, parliamentary, 84, 144 
 
 Emperor, the, 200, 235 
 
 Empress, the, 100, 152, 161, 184, 
 
 203—4 
 Engineers, 137, 193 
 Etiquette, 35, 67—8, 145, 147, 238, 
 
 242 
 European War, 269, 270 
 Examinations, 14, 273 
 Executions, 12, 21, 130, 190 
 
 False vegetables, 243 
 
 Farms, 52, 55 
 
 Fashions, 2, 13, 26, 226 
 
 Feasts, 59, 75, 242—3 
 
 Female Learning Hall, 100 
 
 Festival of Lanterns, 93 
 
 Filial piety, 69, 277 
 
 Finance, 235 
 
 Fire dragon, 95 — 6 
 
 Five evils, 79 
 
 Flowers, 109, no, 124, 257, 267 
 
 Flying cars, 268 
 
 Foreign influence, 2, 12, 13, 14, 26, 51, 
 63j 75)- 79) 80, 90, 93, 103, 105, 112, 
 115, 140, 145, 169, 173, 176, 178, 
 193, 219, 221, 224, 239, 240 
 
 Forest of Tablets, 217 
 
 Fortune-tellers, 27, 223 
 
 Foxes, 118 
 
 Freehold property, 172 
 
 Fruit, 165, 194, 200 
 
 Fuel, 118, 160, 196, 232 
 
 Funerals, 65 — 9, 72, 74, 165 
 
 Fur, 111,253 
 
 Gamboge, 76 
 Games, 106 
 Gaol, 126—8 
 
 Gardens, 109, 166, 186, 207 
 Garlic, 154 
 
 German clocks, 208 ; goose-step, 2 
 military caps, 24, 223 ; ware, 115 
 Germany, 221^.223 
 Gifts, wet and dry, 87 
 
INDEX 
 
 281 
 
 Ginger, 46 
 
 God of Revenge, 97 
 
 Gold, 79, 81,235 
 
 Good Tidings Hall, 169 
 
 Gramophones, 221 
 
 Grass, 73, 136, 189 
 
 Graves, 9, 72, 132, 173, 205, 258 
 
 Guilds, 25, 209 
 
 Gun boats, 182 
 
 H. 
 
 Hair, 57, 221, 249, 253 
 
 Hall of Instruction, 104 
 
 Harmonium, 100, 145 
 
 Hats, 3, 225 
 
 Heavenly Foot Society, 227 
 
 Homes, 13, 47, 55, 104, iii, 142, 146, 
 
 240, 248 
 Honan, 196, 198, 259 
 House-boats, 163, 166 
 Housekeeping, 232 
 
 I. 
 
 Idols, 10, II, 40, 81, 93, 140, 148 
 
 Imitation foreigners, 93 
 
 Imperial Edict, 4 
 
 Income tax, 172 
 
 Incubators, 119, 157 
 
 Indians, 44 
 
 Industrial institutes, 178, 205 
 
 Industries, 25, 120 — i, 156 — 7, 160, 
 
 175 
 Inns, 196, 199 
 Insects, 71, 83, 128 
 Internal loans, 276 
 lyang, 166, 168 
 
 Jade, 42, 65, 209—10, 222, 253, 262 
 Jailors, 40 
 
 Japan, 3, 102, 116, 179, 223, 273 
 Jewellery, 80 
 
 K. 
 
 Kansu, 217, 268 
 Key of Paradise, 215 
 Kiangsi, 135—6, 196, 234, 243 
 Kindergartens, 2 
 King of Thieves, 170 
 Kitchen god, the, 73, 88, 89 
 Koran, the, 214, 217 
 
 Land tax, 172 
 
 Lanterns, 93—4, 171 5 244 
 
 Law, 39, 70, 99, 103, 252 
 
 Letter-writers, 27, 222 
 
 Letters, 117, 178, 242 
 
 Life-saving medicine, 54 
 
 Lilac, 117 
 
 Lime, 71, 135 
 
 Loans, foreign, 181, 193 
 
 Loans, internal, 276 
 
 Longevity clothes, 77 
 
 Loquats, 114, 165 
 
 Love the Kingdom Cloth, 178 
 
 M. 
 
 Manchu cities, 7, 205, 207 
 Manchus, 7, 8, 198, 204 
 Mahommedans, 29, 203, 205, 207 
 Malay cure, 41, 42 
 Marionettes, 97 
 Marriage with a corpse, 61 
 Matrimonial market, 80 
 Medicine man, a, 24 
 Merchandise, 194 
 Milestones 20 feet high, 201 
 Ming Dynasty, 204, 249 
 Ministry of Education, 273 
 Moon, eclipse of, 191 
 Moslem butchers, 214 
 Music, 67, 75, 92, loi, 257 
 Mutiny, 9 
 
 N. 
 
 Nails, 34, 41, 45 
 
 Nanking, i, 5, 8, 12, 14, 15, 183—4, 
 
 198 
 Nestorian tablet, 218 — 9 
 New Year's Day, 83, 90, 236 
 Nourish the Children Hall, 51 
 Nuns, 10, 256 
 
 Official records, 149 
 
 Officials, 42, 94, 149, 227, 228, 272 
 
 Oil, 125 
 
 Old age pensions, 235 
 
 Opium, 37—44, 127—9) H9j ^77 
 
 Orphanage, an, 15 
 
282 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Painted clocks, 176 
 
 Painted poultry, 121 
 
 Pagodas, 33, 175, 177 
 
 Paper money, 234 
 
 Parliament, 85, 177, 274 
 
 Parliamentary election, 84 — 5 
 
 Patriotism, 277 
 
 Pepper flowers, 237 
 
 Photographers, 114 — 5 
 
 Pills, 44, 219 
 
 Poison, 76 
 
 Police, 24, 29, 151, 187, 223, 264 
 
 Politics, 240, 263 
 
 Pope Chang LXII., 174 
 
 Pottery, 164 
 
 Powder, j^^ 170 
 
 Po Yang lake, 164, 175, 178, 180 
 
 Prayers, 79, 89, 160, 164, 215, 245 
 
 Presents, 86, 88 
 
 Presidential election, 144 
 
 Prisons, 126 — 8 
 
 Protestant missions, 21, 41, 137, 139, 
 150, 168—9, 242, 257 
 
 Proverbs, 18, 41, 54, 58, 62, 64, 74, 85, 
 86, 87, 99, 104, 105, 156, 179, 190, 
 201, 205, 208, 227, 249, 263 
 
 Punch and Judy, 97 — 8 
 
 Racial mark, 48 
 
 Railways, 2, 10, 26, 137, 193, 274 
 
 Rats, 33 
 
 Rebels, 183 — 4, 204 
 
 Recreation, 107 
 
 Reduplication of death, 71 
 
 Rents, 30 
 
 Republic, I, 4, 9, 82, 91, 154, 174, 
 
 193, 198, 235, 270, 277, 278 
 Restaurants, 211, 242 
 Revenge, 62 
 
 Rice, 31, 136— 7, 151, 169,263 
 Robbers, 129, 147, 154, 170 — i 
 Roulette tables, 23 
 Rush swords, 152, 154 
 
 S. 
 
 Sacrifices, 158 
 Salt, 17, -jd, zyi 
 
 Save the World Mission, 242, 253, 264 
 
 Scales for silver, 234 
 
 Schools, 80, 99, loi, 105, 114, 116, 
 
 225 — 6, 228, 249, 260, 274 
 Self-contained villages, 17 
 Serpent Month, the, 151 — 2 
 Servants, 197, 208, 233 — 4, 238 
 Shadow World, the, 245 
 Shanghai, i, 2, 21, 26, 44, 63, 144, 
 
 183, 189, 221, 224 
 Shansi, 198 
 
 Shensi, 198, 258, 266, 268 
 Shops, 23, 26 — 7, 84, 221, 223 
 Si An Fu, 193, 200 — I, 203, 207, 208, 
 
 210, 219 — 20, 223, 227, 245, 266 
 Silkworms, 32, 121 — 25 
 Silver, 42, 222, 224, 234 
 Slaves, 31, 51, 134, 253 
 Sleep, 106 
 
 Smoke dragon, the, 260 
 Snails, 28, 119 
 Soap, 30, 232, 233 
 Soldiers, 2, 6, 9, 10, 11, 21, 63, 81, 
 
 III, 114, 147, 155, 183, 189, 264 
 Souls, 4, 8, 35, 48, 157,274 
 Spies, 189 
 Spirit clothes, 71 
 Spirit money, 84 
 Spirit wall, 43 
 Stage, the, 99 
 Steles, 218 
 
 Strike of the students, 277 
 Suffragettes, 102 
 Suicide, 7, 60, 70, 76 
 Sulphur springs, 203 
 Sun bride, a, 31 
 Sun Yat Sen, i, 5, 93 
 Superstitions, 30, 67, 81, 97, 117, 126, 
 
 135, 136, i39» 152, 154, 173, 174, 
 
 200, 238 
 Symbols, 33, 56, 63, 230, 244 
 Syriac script, 129 
 
 T. 
 
 Tablets, 68, 79, 218, 219, 271 
 
 Tallow, 19 
 
 Tang Dynasty, 203 
 
 Taxable people, 133 
 
 Taxes, 172 
 
 Tea, 161 
 
 Teachers of the world, 199 
 
INDEX 
 
 283 
 
 Teeth, 81 
 
 Telephones, 224 
 
 Ten tables of wine, 74 
 
 Terrace of Night, the, 130 
 
 Thibet, 194, 204, 212 
 
 Thieves, 170 
 
 Toys, 17, 31, 245 
 
 Trade, 25, 27, 41, 42, 210 
 
 Traveller's candles, 136 
 
 Tray money, 238 
 
 Trees, 113, 200 — i 
 
 Tsientang river, 19, 25, 163 
 
 Tung Gwan, 197 — 9 
 
 Turkistan, 201 
 
 U. 
 
 Umbrellas, 27, 30, 68, 182, 223 
 
 Vaccination, 51 
 Vegetarians, 30, 76, 253 
 Villages, 17, 68, 119, 202 
 Visiting cards, 108 
 Votes, parliamentary, 85 
 
 W. 
 
 Waifs, 85 
 
 Walls of Gold, 201 
 
 War to punish Yuan, 180 
 
 War, European, 269, 276 
 
 Water dragon, the, 96 
 
 West country people, 169 
 
 Wet gifts, 87 
 
 White Wolf, 258, 267 
 
 Woman of Luck, 57 
 
 Women, 13, 34, 40, 50, 70, 99, 100, 
 
 102, 142, 169, 173, 177, 214, 217, 
 
 248, 251, 256 
 Women's rights, 212 
 Worms of the Kingdom, 93 
 
 Y. 
 
 Yamen, the, 5, 14, 37, 38, 43, 50, 118, 
 
 126, 129, 180, 189, 224 
 Yangtse river, 147, 179, i8o 
 Yellow river, 198 
 Youths, 34, 36, 85, 106 
 Yuan Shi Kai, 4, 79, 100, 181, 1S3, 
 
 187, 188, 277, 278 
 
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