This book is DUE on the last date stamped below WARS l^'^*- my 4 1929 ■4 NOV 2 5 ^929 «W^R 1- A^' ',^f<" Form L-0-15))(-8,'24 kssp i^ENIIWAL ^ / iiJf^'' .■w A MEMORIAL ARCH. Sprague, photo. ^ / FROM W^ESTERN CHINA TO THE GOLDEN GATE THE EXPERIENCES OF AN AMERICAN UNIVERSITY GRADUATE IN THE ORIENT WITH THIRTY ILLUSTRATIONS '2.1 ^7 2 By- ROGER SPRAGUE BERKELEY LEDERER, STREET & ZEUS CO. 1911 COPYRIGHT 1911 BY ROGER SPRAGUE FOR SALE BY THE GLESSNER- MORSE CO. 2163 SHATTUCK AVE.. BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA PRICE, POSTPAID, 85 CENTS 'I U TABLE OF CONTENTS FROM WESTERN CHINA TO THE GOLDEN GATE Chapter Page I. THE PLACE FROM WHICH THE START WAS MADE 7 II. THE START 15 III. WESTERN CHINA SCENERY 19 IV. TRAVELLING BY RAFT 28 V. MT. OMEI AND THE GREAT BUDDHA.... 35 VI. THE LONELY MISSION STATION."^ 43 VII. INTERESTING SIGHTS 50 VIII. A CHINESE INN CJ .* 57 IX. DOWN THE RIVER 69 X. LIES TOLD TO TRAVELLERS, .i. 77 XL' FROM SHANGHAI TO SAN FRANCISCO... 83 RECENT AND RADICAL CHANGES 9^ POSTSCRIPT 127 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page 1. A MEMORIAL ARCH Frontispiece 2. IN THE PROVINCIAL COLLEGE 9 3. A STREAM IN CHENTU 11 4. SOUTH GATE BRIDGE, CHENTU 13 5. SEDAN CHAIR 17 6. A CHINESE FARM HOUSE 21 7. ON THE CHENTU PLAIN 23 8. RICE FIELDS 25 9. PAGODA AT LOY KIANG 26 10. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF YAH JO 29 11. TEMPLE IN KIATING 33 12. THE GREAT BUDDHA 39 13. THE GREAT STONE FACE 41 14. THE LONELY MISSION STATION 45 15. ENTRANCE TO A GUILD HALL, ZID-ZO 47 16. AT A CONFUCIAN TEMPLE 48 17. MEMORIAL ARCH ERECTED IN 1902 52, 18. CARVING ON THE ARCH . . 53 19. A COVERED BRIDGE 59 20. JUNK SAILING UP THE GORGES 74 21. AMERICAN HOSPITAL, CHUNGKING 76 22. ON THE BUND AT SHANGHAI • 85 23. PAGODA AT DAY YANG 95 24. A TEMPLE NEAR CHENTU 98 25. A BRIDGE IN THE TEMPLE GROUNDS 102 26. THE TEMPLE STAIRS 108 27. INCENSE BURNER 112 28. SERVANT AND POLICEMAN 116 29. A COUNTRY HOME 120 30. A SHADY LANE 124 FROM WESTERN CHINvV TO THE GOLDEN GATE. ^/ 373 THE PLACE FROM WHICH THE START W^\S MADE In making the following journey, the writer returned to America from a region in full view of the immense snowy peaks of Thibet. He first travelled by sedan chair, carried on men's shoulders; next, by bamboo raft, shooting tem- pestuous rapids where the water roared and dashed over cruel black rocks ranged on either ^ hand; then, by native junks both large and ^ small; next, by a small Japanese river steamer; '^ next, by a large Japanese river steamer; and ^ finally, by an immense Japanese ocean liner of 21,000 tons displacement, twenty-two knots speed. Many and varied were the experiences by the way, of which the following rapid sum- mary will give some slight idea. In telling the story, the writer has been impelled by the notion that, since in these days American schoolmen are frequently called to China to teach in the 8 government schools, the experiences of such a man while returning from his post at a point far in the interior of that country, would be of interest to the general public. I wish to transport you to a remote point in the west of China, the great city of Chentu; a city so far removed from the United States that when it is noon in New York, it is within eight minutes of midnight there. For while New York is seventy-four degrees west from. Green- wich, Chentu is one hundred and four degrees east, so that one hundred and seventy-eight de- grees of longitude intervene; nearly one-half the circuit of the globe. When New York is booming with the rush and clangor of noonday, in Chentu the great iron gates which afford en- trance and exit have long been closed, for they are locked at sunset; the wooden barriers which separate one section of the city from another have been shut for two hours, and the only signs of life are the night-watchmen making their rounds with flickering Chinese lantern and vi- brating gong. But I shall not ask you to linger there, for I wish you to accompany me on my return to IN THE PROVINCIAL COLLEGE. Sprague, photo. 10 America after a year's residence while engaged in giving instruction in the Chinese government schools. At the conclusion of the writer's engagement, it seemed best not to return at once by the quickest means, but to spend a couple of months in further touring that strange country; for it is indeed a strange one. In these days of rapid travel and easy com- munication between the nations, we are apt to imagine that our modern methods of transpor- tation have been introduced, to some extent at least, into all the more important portions of the world. We read of railways in Korea, rail- ways in darkest Africa, of another projected from the Cape to Cairo. But, in spite of all, there still remain portions of the earth's sur- face, thickly settled and with an ancient civili- zation, to which our modern methods of trans- portation have not yet penetrated. It is in such a region, located far in the west of China and on the savage borderland of Thibet, that Chen- tu is located; Chentu, the capital of the prov- ince of Four Streams (Szechuen) — the largest and most populous of the eighteen into which A STREAM IN CHENTU. Sprague, photo. 12 China is divided. A province whose area is larger by 20,000 square miles than that of Cal- ifornia, and contains a population of sixty mil- lions of people, yet which does not possess a single railway nor, outside of the two chief cities, any electric lights or telephones. It is true that it is connected with the outer world by two lines of telegraph, one to the east and the other to the south, but it is equally true that wheeled vehicles, except the wheelbarrow, are almost unknown. The safest, easiest, and most custo- mary method of travel is to ride in a sedan chair carried on men's shoulders. Every city of any importance is surrounded by an immense stone wall faced with the most substantial masonry; such a wall as Palmyra might have possessed in the days of Aurelian. And yet, after all, that country is far more advanced as regards modern civilization than was the western world one hundred years ago. Were you to unroll the map of China and locate the city of Chentu, you would find it near the center of the province of which it is the capital, and apparently far from Thibet. As a matter of fact, the great Thibetan highland 13 SOUTH GATl', CHEXTU Sprague, Photo. commences forty miles northwest of the city; but on the maps the Chinese have extended the provincial boundary out into what is truly Thibet, so as to include all that portion of the latter country in which Chinese officials are sta- tioned. The entire western half of the province is in Thibet, for it is made up of immense moun- tains inhabited by Thibetan tribes rather than 14 Chinese. The eastern half of the province is the important part, where the great bulk of the population resides; Chinese living in walled cities. It is in this province that the headwaters of the Yangtze, the great river of China, issue from the mountains and unite to form the main stream, which constitutes a natural highway from the interior to the eastern provinces and to the coast. Two noble streams sweep past the gates of Chentu, converging and uniting near the southeast angle of the city. As a con- sequence, it is customary for a traveller leaving that city for abroad, to hire a native boat, float down the river a thousand miles through its gorges and over its rapids, issuing from between the walls of the last great gorge into the broad and easy navigable portion of the river; there to continue his journey by steamer for another thousand miles to Shanghai and the sea. Such would have been the writer's course had time been an object. But that was not the case. 15 II THE START When an American travels in that country, he goes prepared to cater for himself. The writer's first care, before leaving his comfort- able quarters at the Provincial College, was to engage a servant who was accustomed to cook for foreigners and who could walk long dis- tances. In a place like Chentu, one of the prin- cipal centers for missionary enterprise in China, this was easily accomplished. Then, as I pro- posed to travel by land, a sedan chair carried by three men was next engaged ; also an addi- tional man to carry the bedding and provisions which are packed in large baskets. On the morning of departure, I took my seat in the chair, the poles of which were elevated to the men's shoulders. The carrying coolie came be- hind, the servant brought up the rear, and so the procession moved out. As soon as we had passed outside the city gates, a halt was called at the first eating-house and a representative of 16 the firm from which the men were hired paid them some advance money. The men at once proceeded to spend a part of it on their morn- ing meal, for it would be strictly against all custom and precedent for them not to start on an empty stomach. Their first meal for the day is always eaten after they have travelled some short distance. Their breakfast finished, they request you to take your place in the chair once more; they pick it up and continue on the way for about an hour when they stop to rest for a few minutes at some roadside halting place, for China abounds with such. They smoke their native tobacco, and quite possibly drink tea. For the next hour, perhaps you prefer to walk instead of ride. Indeed, to the writer, it would be most acute misery to sit cramped in the chair all day, nor have the men any objection to carrying it empty. In this fashion we journeyed along the road, arriving about noon at a walled city. Here we entered an inn. The chair was set down in the main courtyard while the baskets were carried into the inn's best room, which boasted a board 17 SEDAN CHAIR. Sprague, photo. floor instead of the hard-packed clay one fre- quently finds. The provisions were unpacked, eggs and vegetables were purchased if needed, and the servant proceeded to achieve a very creditable, meal, doubly welcome after outdoor exercise. All inns are provided with furnaces for cooking, where a fire is kept up twelve hours in the twenty-four. Meanwhile, the 18 coolies were eating their rice. After the ser- vant had washed the dishes and repacked the basket, we started again, having been delayed perhaps an hour. About dusk we arrived at another walled city where we went to the best inn for the night. The noon program was re- peated, except that after supper, the bedding was unpacked and arranged on a bedstead. In the morning we started once more on an empty stomach, and, after travelling for an hour or so, stopped for breakfast. Such is the method of travel. Ill WESTERN CHINA SCENERY I have frequently been asked, "What is there to see in that country?" Sometimes when we think of those far eastern lands we dream of temples and palaces of gleaming marble glow- ing with oriental splendor, or shrines loaded with gems and heavy with gold. Do not expect to find them in China. India has the former and Russia the latter, but China does not pos- sess them. Nevertheless, there are a thousand other features which make up for their ab- sence. So long as one is out in the country among the fields, travelling by sedan chair in western China is most enjoyable. Even in win- ter, the country presents an agreeable appear- ance, while in summer it is as though one were journeying through a most delightful park. The richness of the verdure and carefulness of cultivation must be seen to be appreciated or believed. Here will be broad, bright-green stretches of rice land, the little dykes by which the fields are divided checkering the landscape 20 into squares; here will be waving bamboos sur- rounding a farmhouse; here will be a group of grave-mounds, sheltered by tall, funereal pines. By the side of the way, possibly, there will be brilliant, aromatic wild flowers. Here will come a line of great water-buffaloes, and the water-bufifalo is a picturesque animal in spite of all his clumsiness. Then, as you begin to ap- proach some walled city, you will pass under a succession of those noble memorial arches which the Chinese are accustomed to erect in honor of the possessors of the virtues which they love to commemorate. The road leading to the north gate of Chentu has been termed a veri- table Appian Way. For a distance of four miles from the city it is paved with heavy blocks of sandstone, and is in perfect repair, spanned with noble arches and bordered by buildings which become more and more numerous as you approach the gate, until it has all the semblance of a busy city street. Finally you cross a stream one hundred yards broad by a massive bridge, and the lofty wall of the city towering forty feet in the air, crowned with battlements and surmounted by a fort, stands before you. 21 ^Mfn_^-il^ ... ■ |fl| ll ■^4;;:.^, ^^H ^^^^1 ^h! 1^1 H^^^^^^HH ^Kt ^bh ^t^^H i^^^^^H K '^0 Ikh ■HHI K^^ hB A FARM HOUSE. Spraguc, photo. The farmhouses, surrounded by hedges of the tall graceful bamboo and sheltered by shade trees, constitute one of the most picturesque fea- tures of the Chentu plain. But don't try to ap- proach them too closely. Never did the saying, "Distance lends enchantment to the view," ap- ply with greater force than in the case of Chi- 22 nese farmhouses. And how numerous they are! In the most thickly settled districts, the write; has estimated that the distance from one to the next is not more than two hundred yards. This does not mean that they are ranged along the road at that interval with ten miles of open country behind each, but that, if we took one as a starting point, we could on an average find six others each two hundred yards from the first and with intervals of two hundred yards between them. Of course this statement must not be taken as mathematically precise; never- theless, it is not so very far from the truth. This description of the country, so far, ap- plies to the Chentu plain, nor have I exhausted the list of its beauties. Running water, which always enhances the charms of a landscape, abounds. Here we find one of the grandest ir- rigation systems in the world. We read in the records of the past of the irrigated plains of Mesopotamia, but here is a system which dates back two hundred years B. C, and which has been preserved and extended by each succeeding generation, instead of being destroyed. In sum- mer the volume of water issuing from the moun- 23 ON THE CHENTU PLAIN. Sprague, Photo. tains is far in excess of all needs, and the whole plain is made musical by the tinkling of brooks, or resounds with the roaring of the larger streams. The trees which the Chinese plant along the banks of the irrigation channels to 24 preserve them are in full leaf and contribute greatly to the park-like appearance of the coun- try. All that romancers have written or poets have sung of rural beauty seems tame in com- parison with the reality afforded by this earthly paradise. Of course, in case of a person famil- iar with the more highly cultivated portions of England or France, the country might cause no surprise, but to a traveller from the western part of the United States it seems nothing less than marvelous. In California, the land lies idle much of the year, and in the early autumn as the train speeds through some of the richest sec- tions, all signs of vegetation seem to have dis- appeared, and the only life one sees is the scut- tling forms of long-eared jack-rabbits. In the Chentu plain, the soil is never idle from year's end to year's end, and has not been for centuries and centuries. But that plain is only a limited area, one hun- dred miles long and fifty miles broad. In most of western China, where it is not mountainous, you travel up hill and down dale, the differ- ence of elevation between hill and dale amount- ing to two hundred or three hundred feet. It 25 ■^■. ••'« ^ *■--- RICE FIELDS. Spraguc, photo. has always seemed to the writer that it is in such a district that one can most fully appreciate how completely the earth's surface has been 26 PAGODA AT LOY KIANG. Sprague, photo. transformed by the hand of man, in order that it may yield its richest abundance. The hills consist of horizontal layers of rock, outcrop- ping here and there, while between the outcrop- ping edges of the layers are easy slopes. These slopes are all cultivated and planted with such 27 crops as peas, beans, and sugar cane, while the stream cliannel in every little valley or ravine has been terraced into rice fields. Except the rivers, there is no such thing as a stream in its natural state. For hundreds of miles you may travel through such country. The road will possibly wind down into a little valley and as- cend the hill beyond, only to come out on the edge of a high blufif overlooking some large stream, a tributary of the Yangtze. Imme- diately a beautiful river view is unrolled be- fore you, for the branches of the great river of China flow with a very meandering course and gentle current. Boats will be tracking up stream or rowing down, and the songs of the rowers will float to your ears. The summits of the river bluffs, as well as the lowlands within the meanders, will be clothed in the rich- est green. The gentlest of airs will scarcely suf- fice to fan the cheek, for western China is re- markably free from harsh winds. The whole scene will be idyllic in its charm. IV TRAVELLING BY RAFT Travelling through a region which possessed many of the above features, the writer jour- neyed southwest at the rate of thirty miles a day for four days, until he arrived at a city lo- cated on the banks of the river Yah. The prin- cipal reason for visiting this section of the country was to enjoy the descent of the river by bamboo raft, shooting the rapids and wind- ing through its picturesque gorge nearly a thou- sand feet in depth and very narrow, for almost all its navigation is carried on by these primi- tive contrivances, which merit a brief descrip- tion. They are made of long hollow bamboos, four or five inches in diameter, bound side by side and end to end — a single layer, floating half submerged. The forward end is turned up about three feet, and there are four oars, each supported on a short crutch. The length of the raft may vary from seventy to one hundred feet, while its breadth will be about eight feet. Ex- BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF YAH JO Sprague, photo. 30 tending down the middle and nearly the full length will be a platform about three feet broad, raised less than a foot above the bed of the raft. On this the freight is carried. But when a traveller engages a raft, a common Chinese bedstead, a rough wooden afifair, is fastened on the platform, and filled with fresh straw, which is then covered with matting. Strips of bamboo are arched over it, and these are covered with mats which will shed any rain that may fall. After a week's delay spent in visiting the American missionaries, the writer embarked on his raft one dull, chill morning and slipped down the stream. For the first ten miles he was accompanied by two of the missionaries, for the Yah is not only noted for its rafts and rapids but also for its duck shooting. They had sent their servants and horses ahead to meet them at an appointed spot, and when we reached it the raft was brought to the bank and my com- panions departed carrying fifteen ducks as the result of their marksmanship. There are no game laws in China, and the missionaries fre- quently resort to this river for the sport it af- fords. There are always plenty of birds, for 31 they are never molested by the Chinese, who are favored with the same paternal form of gov- ernment that the United States has given to the Filipinos. The people are not permitted to own firearms, consequently all the duck shoot- ing is done by foreigners. In summer, the descent of the Yah from the place at which the writer embarked to the point at which it joins the river Min, of which it is a branch, can be made in eight hours, for that is the season of high water, and the current is correspondingly swift. But the writer travel- led in January, and consequently tw^o full days were required. The first day the river was a suc- cession of quiet stretches, where the raft floated gently along, sometimes urged by the oars, al- ternating with roaring rapids. The sound will be heard for some time before the rapids are reached. The current will gradually gain in velocity, and finally you are at the brink and down you go, "shooting the chutes" in most ex- hilarating fashion. It is from below that a rapid can be best appreciated. You look back and see the water coming down a short steep incline of very perceptible grade. If another 32 raft is following, it is most interesting to see it approach the edge of the incline and come sliding down. But how about the rafts which are being towed up stream? Is it possible for them to be hauled by main strength up such places? No, indeed! A narrow channel, or several such in some cases, is cut through the shingle, and water from the main stream turned into it. The channel leads around the rapid and is just deep enough (about three inches) to float a raft with much bumping and scraping. It is through these narrow channels that the rafts are led around the rapids. When approaching the great gorge of the Yah, we took advantage of such a channel to avoid a portion of the stream which is especially difficult. Although our raft only drew about three inches of water, the pebbles were rattling and scraping beneath us the whole way. In the quiet reaches of the river, one may walk about one's raft dry-shod. When going through a rapid, one stands on the central plat- form, or, if it is especially tempestuous, sits on the bed with one's feet tailor-wise, while the TEMPLE IN KIATING. Sprague, Photo. 34 water spouts up between the bamboos and rolls in from either side. We reached the gorge on the afternoon of the first day. While the immense gorges of the Yangtze are far more celebrated than that of the river Yah, and altogether eclipse it as re- gards size, yet, in the writer's opinion, the latter is much more picturesque, for its walls are tap- estried and garlanded with trailing vines and semi-tropical plants, which soften their harsh- ness and beautify them as only a luxuriant vege- tation can. If such was the impression received during the winter, the dry season, when nature is at her poorest, how delightful must be the scene in summer when all is at its best! In such fashion, we drifted down the stream, the current becoming slower and the scenery more prosaic the further we went until, late on the second evening, we drew up beneath the walls of the city of Kiating. We disembarked and made our way within the gate to a large inn, where the writer remained for a few days. 35 MT. OMET AND THE GREAT RUDDTTA During the delay, the writer visited the base of China's sacred mountain — Omei — which springs abruptly from the plain one day's jour- ney west of the city, and rears its noble crest ten thousand feet above the level of the surrounding country. As it was winter, no attempt was made to ascend. The following account of the moun- tain was obtained from one of the resident mis- sionaries at Kiating. "Mount Omei — one day's journey to the west of the city" — he said, "is becoming quite a for- eigners' summer resort. Some sixty mission- aries spent a portion of last summer there. As yet most of them reside in rooms in some of the in- numerable temples that dot the mountain. A few bungalows have been built, and steps are being taken for several more. "It is a most interesting old mountain. Every year come thousands of pilgrims to worship there, for it is the Buddhist's Mecca of China. d>6 In the winter some of the tribes-people come, and also the Thibetan pilgrims. The trip to the highest point of the mountain — called the Golden Summit — is of interest to more than the religious pilgrim. More beautiful scenery it would be hard to find. And when one ac- tually reaches the summit, words fail one to de- scribe what — if the weather be favorable — is re- vealed to the eye. A pair of Chinese scrolls an- nounce 'To the East behold a sea of clouds, to the West the mountains of snow.' And these same clouds — ever moving, tossing, changing — present a panorama apt in its comparison to the rolling sea. But sometimes the clouds lift, and then a sheer clifif drops a mile or more to the lower hills, and beyond that stretches the swell- ing Omei plain. Kiatingfu seems right at our feet, and on the clearer days the Chentu plain beyond is clearly visible. "The snow mountains to the west are those of Thibet. There is a whole range of them extend- ing several hundred miles in length. One noble peak towers above all the others. It is one of the world's high mountain peaks, being about 25,000 feet above the sea. What the pilgrims 37 long most to see is Buddha's Glory and the Spirit-lamps. The former is a rainbow circle which, under certain atmospheric conditions, appears over the clifif. The latter seem to be some form of phosphorescent lights that, on some nights, appear in great numbers on the valley. Most travellers who have visited the Golden Summit have agreed that it is one of the most interesting and wonderful places in the world." Another of the sights of Kiating is the ruin of an immense image of Buddha. Twelve hundred years ago a niche two or three hun- dred feet high was cut in a clifif which stands by the side of the river. The recess ex- tended the full height of the clifif and in it was carved an immense image. Unprotected from the elements and neglected by the people, time has done its work, and all that is left consists of a few vestiges of the face. The entire niche is overgrown with brush, and vegetation hangs from the image so as to give it the appear- ance of possessing eyebrows and mustache. Standing on the opposite bank of the river, you can dimly trace the outline of a face; that is all. 38 But while this old relic is a disappointment, there is another coUosal image of Buddha in west China which is preserved in all its glory, and which has never been described in any book in the English language. Baberj the English traveller, mentions having heard a rumor of its existence. He was told that a hill had been hewn into a seated image of Buddha "several hundred feet high, which far overtops the roofs of surrounding temples." Inspired by the ambition to locate and pho- tograph so remarkable a piece of work, the writer journeyed to the spot, the location of which he was able to surmis'e after some adroit questioning. How much time was required to get there, and what the distance and direction, will not be divulged. Great difficulty was en- countered in getting men to carry, and most of the distance had to be walked, but finally the spot was reached. There the great idol was in all his dignity; not nearly so large as rumor had made him out, but a Colossus still. The upper half of the hill-side consists of a sand- stone clifif, and in this a niche fifty feet broad has been cut, leaving a central core of stone. THE GREAT BUDDHA. Sprague, Photo. 40 which was then carved into a figure seated in European style, not cross-legged as Buddha is so often represented. The writer measured the breadth of the opening and, using that as a unit of measurement on the photograph, the height of the image is not less than one hundred feet, that of the hill not less than two hundred. As the camera was pointing upward at a small angle, the vertical measurements must be greater than the figures given. The reader will observe by glancing at the picture that a series of five tiled roofs, descend- ing like a flight of steps, have been built before the image to protect it from the weather, so that only the face can be seen from without. But by going within, the location of the feet can be determined; they are on a level with the space between the two lowest roofs. You will also see a white-fronted structure below and to the right; it is a temple, and another temple crowns the height. As the writer and his men came in sight of the Great Buddha, we halted and rested from our journey at a point near one of the gates to the walled city which lies in the valley below. As our eyes turned to the great 41 ^vm ^^ ■||HH|H| ^'k " ^^^1 ^^^^^^^^H '-."- ""»' '. 5r. ^ '~^hS ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 %^'\,^.-^JtU HHHP^ ^[^^^^^^^^^^^^1 L^LifMaw ;^jn ^H£^' t^^^HB - '''^'/sBiiB ^.'^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M .» '^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 f_t>Kr .«& |]% ^^BH ' '^^ 'I^^^^^^^^^^H V ^-^B^H ■L^l ■B^^"^- ^^^^^^^H ^1 j| %^^H '■^^^^ ^ffll W "'^H t^^^^^^^^^^^^B ' '. ^ \ V^l L ^ 2^ ^^HH .' ^ 'V ■ ^V^^^^H IHr' , ^ ■r ^^^^■RS '*- *' ^^M- ^^^^^^^1 i^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^l^^KlK^^^I ^1 ^■| n^^^HHBIS J J ^^^^^ HJ^^^^Bi^^SiiH Ag Hn| ibli>^! HJ^HD^Hh . ' 1 jjS^^^H B^M j^^^^B^^^^^^HRII^^ i>a ■31 WK^ IBHi^^' THE GREAT STONE FACE. Sprague, photo. face, which has been gilded until it shines like metal; as the immense size and perfect preser- vation of the idol made their impression, the thought that came to my mind was "How far more marvelous is this than many of the w^orld's boasted wonders." I thought of the Colossi at Thebes and the Sphinx. What are they? 42 Scarred, ruined and defaced by the hand of man and the effects of time, they are scarcely recognizable as images. They are little better than lumps of battered rock. But far in the west of China sits this old Buddha, remote from the tracks of travel, unnoticed and almost unknown; yet greater in size than the Egyptian Colossi, his proportions preserved in all their pristine freshness, temples above and below him, and priests in attendance to keep the in- cense burning at his feet.. There he sits gazing grimly out over the tiled roofs of the city which lies before him. While exploring the temple, I asked one of the priests the age of the image. His answer came, "Gee chien nien. Some thousands of years." I give it for what it is worth. 43 VI THE LONELY MISSION STATION From this point the writer journeyed across country to the Lu Ho, an important tributary of the Yangtze. The river was reached at a place the name of which the inhabitants pronounce Zid-zo. I remember well the night of my ar- rival in that city. The festivities attendant upon the New Year were still in progress, and the principal business streets were hung with hundreds of paper lanterns of the most ex- traordinary designs. Some of them were in the shape of fish, while others were crude repre- sentations of birds and quadrupeds. Here let us pause for a moment, while I try to portray by a few touches the conditions under which missionaries do their work. Far in the interior of Asia, more than a thousand miles from the sea as the crow flies, that city is located. It lies on the bank of a gently flowing river. The dull gray walls of the city overlook the dull gray waters of the 44 stream, while overhead hands a dull gray sky, since the province of Four Streams is renowned throughout all China as the land of clouds. Behind the city, a temple-crowned height rises three hundred feet above the narrow streets, from which a winding path leads to the sum- mit. On its other sides, the summit is inacces- sible, for a cliff drops sheer and perpendicular. The temple is a place of pilgrimage for the Buddhists of western China, and every year they come there in thousands, to worship at the shrine of the Bright-eyed Goddess. As they wind their way up the steep slope and through the low mounds of the cemetery which lies on the hill-side, they must pass the foot of a fan- tastic wooden pagoda, situated about half way up the ascent. It is right at the base of the tower, and in the midst of the burial ground, that the residence of the American mission- aries is located. There they "live and move and have their being." From there they look down on the sea of gray tiled roofs and thin curling columns of smoke, lying two hundred feet below. From there they de- scend to hold the services in their little church THE LONELY MISSION STATION. Sprague, photo. 46 tucked away in a crowded corner of the city, which even from a Chinese point of view is exceedingly crowded. A bridge over a shallow depression connects the foot of the hill with one of the city's narrow side-streets. It is probable that in summer, during the rainy sea- son, a stream flows under the bridge, and con- sequently a custom has grown up of throwing the garbage of the city from it. In winter, the channel is dry, but the custom is kept up not- withstanding. The result is that the atmos- phere in that locality can neither be described nor imagined. And when the bridge has been crossed on the way citywards, conditions are very little better, for the way lies through the nastiest, the filthiest, the vilest smelling street that I remember having found in all that country. Such are the surroundings of the mission- aries. Their home is a low, unpretentious structure of what Conan Doyle would call the "wattle and daub" type of architecture. Yet it is neat and comfortable, amply adequate for the needs of one family. I found it occupied by a young couple who had arrived from Chicago ENTRAX'CE TO GUILD HALL, ZID-ZO. Sprague, photo. 48 AT A CONFUCIAN TEMPLE. Sprague, photo. only a year before. They were still in the midst of their study of the language, since it is necessary for a missionary to devote the first two years of residence to acquiring the ability to converse with the people. With the help of a native pastor to do the preaching, they were trying to accomplish what little they could. 49 Once a year, they travel three or four days' journey to the north, to the capital, for confer- ence. Once a year, the senior missionary, who supervises their district, visits them for a few days. The rest of the time, months may pass without their seeing a white face. It is true that the city lies on the principal highway of western China, and if a globe trotter visits that portion of the empire, he is pretty sure to pass that way. Such a one may, possibly, linger for a day, climb the hill, and enjoy their hospi- tality. A. S. Roe, author of that delightful volume, ''China As I Saw It," was entertained there. But such visits are "short and far be- tween." Most of the time those two young people are as isolated from the white race as though they were in the wilds of Thibet. I should not be presenting a fair picture of travel in that portion of the empire, if I had not stopped to draw this sketch of the mission station, for it is a red-letter day in the itinerary of the traveller when he reaches one of these little oases of western civilization set down in the dirt and discomfort of China. 50 VII INTERESTING SIGHTS I next wandered southward as inclination prompted, visiting five large walled cities lo- cated on or near the banks of the river. What need is there to give the details of the journey? Were this narrative written in the style of the Anabasis — "Thence we proceeded so many par- asangs and arrived at such and such a place" — ■ it would prove dull reading indeed. There have been too many accounts of western China in that style, by travellers whose only object seemed to be to gallop over as much ground in as little time as possible, rather than to learn something of the country and present an ade- quate picture of it. No wonder that their books have not found favor with the public. Nor could I at this late day recount the details. Dim memories arise of days spent in the "up hill and down dale" country, walking along the stone-paved roads or carried in sedan chair. Other days are recalled spent lingering in some 51 walled city, exploring its temples, photograph- ing its monuments, watching and studying the complex and busy life of its inhabitants. Be- fore my mind's eye arise lofty pagodas, richly sculptured memorial arches, roomy temples, and great stone bridges. It has not been the writer's intention to give the impression that all the features worth seeing in western China are due to the natural diversities and luxuriant vegetation of a highly cultivated country. West- ern China has its architectural monuments. Especially fine and interesting are the bridges. Marco Polo and all the travellers since him have dilated upon their beautiful and substan- tial character, claiming them superior to those found in almost any other portion of the em- pire. When the Venetian visited the Chentu plain six hundred years ago, he wrote, "For here the bridges have very handsome roofs, constructed of wood, ornamented with paint- ings of a red color, and covered with tiles." Many a time has the writer crossed precisely such a structure. Every feature was there, even to the paintings. Of course they were not the same as those that Marco saw, for they have MEMORIAL ARCH ERECTED IN 1902 Sprague, photo. 53 long since fallen in decay. But the old bridges have been rebuilt; the old styles have been kept up. While many are roofed, many are not; there is a great variety of design; the surround- ings are always different, and consequently the CARVING ON THE ARCH. Sprague, photo. traveller has something fresh and novel to see and admire in each. But it was the memorial -arches, or portals, which span the highways, that particularly fas- cinated the writer. Even Japan, that land of 54 art and beauty, where almost every feature is a delight to the eye, does not possess them. Yes, Japan has the torii but what are they? — two logs of wood driven into the ground and spanned by heavy beams of slightly curved shape and pointed ends. It is true that their very simplicity of design gives them a touch of the artistic, but how can they possibly compare with the monuments which ornament the Chi- nese highways? There they stand with their graceful outlines, massive structure, and intri- cate carving. While it is true that many are decaying and others have been battered to pieces by wind and weather and have fallen in fragments, yet new and handsome specimens rise to take the place of those which fall by the wayside. And then there are the pagodas, sometimes two hundred feet in height, built in the most substantial fashion, of great smooth bricks, and usually located on some prominent hill-top by the side of a river; always down-stream from the city whose welfare they are supposed to guard, so that the water may not waft pros- perity away from the community. More curious than these are the temples with their rows of great grim idols, the seated fig- ures often ten feet high. All that the writer had ever read or dreamed of such things was eclipsed by what he saw. __- — It would be the greatest mistake to imagine that western China is such a country as Korea was prior to 1882, and in many respects still is; the people sunk in degredation and misery; their surroundings scarcely fit for animals. The people of western China have an ancient civil- ization of their own, which has been but little affected by the decay which has come upon the eastern provinces under the Manchu dynasty, and from which they are now trying to recover. While it is true that the villages and those por- tions of the cities outside the walls are usually squalor itself, yet within the walls you see much that is calculated to command respect. Streets solidly paved with sandstone, kept fairly clean and in good repair; aesthetically arranged and ornamented shops, with carved and lacquered fronts; large and attractive stocks of merchan- dise of many sorts; commodious and brilliantly decorated guild halls for the merchants; these 56 are some of the things you would see in a pros- perous commercial center such as Kiating. It is true that the buildings are usually low, one- storey structures, but such is not always the case. In a city called Zid-zo, the writer found whole streets of two-storey buildings. This was on ac- count of the location of the town, which pre- cluded any further increase in area. As it was impossible to expand side-wise, it became neces- sary to expand upwards. if 57 VIII A CHINESE INN The reader may have a natural curiosity in regard to the accommodations for travellers. As it was in this part of the trip that the writer visited an inn which is noted as being the best in western China, it may be profitable to give a description of it, for many travellers have men- tioned it, but have refrained in a tantalizing fashion from presenting any adequate picture. Captain Gill and Baber lodged there forty years ago in the days when a journey to Chentu was looked upon as a journey to Lhassa, the capital of Thibet, is now. In Archibald Little's delightful volume "Mount Omei and Beyond," he describes how he was driven out of Chung- king by the cholera epidemic; how he set out to spend the summer on Mt. Omei, and for the first four or five days followed the Great Road which leads to Chentu; how at the city of Loong Chang he left the main road, diverging towards the west to visit the salt-wells of Zil-u- 58 gin, and he describes his regret at leaving the comforts of a large Chinese inn at Loong Chang to encounter the dirt and discomfort of the small stopping-places at which he was forced to take shelter, while on his way to the salt- wells. It was the writer's fortune to put up at the identical inn at which Mr. Little stopped, and I found it the best place of the sort in western China, with the exception, of course, of the new inn at Chentu, which is supposed to be in foreign style. In view of its associations and also in view of the fact that its features are fairly representative of the better-class inn in that country, a description of the place may not be uninteresting. But the reader must remem- ber that this is a large inn doing a roaring trade on the principal highway of western China. It is an old fashioned Chinese inn at its best. Sometimes the entrance to a high class inn is through a long, narrow passageway barely wide enough to allow a chair to pass, but in the case of the one at Loong Chang the premises are wide open to the street. You may stand outside and command a full view of the establishment. Sup- 60 pose that you were to arrive on foot and were to pause on the threshhold and look about you, what would you see? At the very entrance, a green-grocer has established his stand. In addi- tion to his vegetables, he dispenses eggs, candles, straw sandals, pipe-lights and such miscella- neous wares as the cook or customers may require at a moment's notice. To the right and left of the entrance are a drug store and the innkeeper's living room and office respectively. As you enter the inn, you would pass four bar- bers, two on the right and two on the left, who have taken their places at the entrance and all four of whom are quite possibly busy with cus- tomers. The implements of their trade are dis- tributed on a low shelf. After passing by the barbers, you would pass the hotel office. Here are kept the cash, the lamps, the wine, and, the most prominent of all, the quilts which are given out to the customers. In front of the office are a few tables at which men may be seen drinking tea or perhaps enjoying a full meal. As you walked along you would see that the whole place is solidly and evenly paved with heavy slabs of sandstone, about four or five 61 feet long, six inches thick and nearly a foot wide. Continuing, you would pass a short space where the kitchen is located. It is on the right, and its most prominent features are the clay- built furnace where coal is burned and cooking is going on, and the great troughs of stone con- taining cold water brought from the river. These have been constructed by laboriously hol- lowing out great solid blocks of sandstone, and are sometimes as much as ten feet long. Their depth and breadth are usually two feet each. It must be remembered, however, that the sand- stone of western China is very easily worked. So far the roof has been lofty, but you must next pass under a platform about ten feet high. On the left is the living-room of the druggist, and outside his door is stacked an ordinary pile of medicinal plants to be used later in com- pounding remedies. To this pile, the druggist's white and yellow cat is tethered by a fathom of cord. The cat occasionally utters a protest against this mild form of confinement. Oppo- site the druggists's quarters is displayed the ancestral tablet, before which the joss sticks are 62 usually kept burning. As you walked out from beneath the platform, you would come into the main court-yard of the inn. This is a space about fifty feet long and is wide open to the sky. The rooms for the commoner class of guests are located on either hand. To the right, there are four above and four below; as many more to the left. For the rooms are arranged in two storeys, access to the upper rooms being afforded by means of a gallery. This gallery is on the same level as the platform before mentioned. Standing in the center of the court-yard and looking back, you would (if familiar with Chinese institutions) immediately recognize the platform as a stage for play-acting, and it is to this that Archibald Little referred when he spoke of the inn's possessing an "elevated stage after the fashion of the old English inns." The visitor from England recognizes as familiar many features in China which to an American seem most novel. If a play were to be given at the inn, the gentry would be seated in the gal- lery, the commoners would stand in the court- yard below. I can in imagination see the an- nouncement posted that a play is to be given. 63 As the hour approaches, I can see the officials arriving in their chairs of state, accompanied by their wives and children. They take their places in the gallery while the commoners crowd the open court below. I can hear the crash of barbaric music which heralds the ad- vent of the play — the wild clangor of the cym- bals, the blasts of the horns, the rapid beating of the drums, and the shrill notes of the Chinese fiddles. The actors file on the stage in their gorgeous costumes and fantastic head-dresses. The play commences. But let us continue our journey through the inn. Behind the main court-yard you would find a lofty open structure about fifty feet broad and twenty feet deep. The floor is open and empty and it is here that the sedan chairs of the guests and visitors are expected to be set down. The rear wall contains three openings. The middle one is square and is closed by great black doors, on which is drawn in gilt lines a huge fantastic animal. The openings to the right and left are circular, but a few feet inside are doors of the ordinary pattern. These entrances lead to the "high rooms" which are 64 occupied by officials, foreigners, or merchants willing to meet the cost. Within each of these entrances a little court-yard is located, also open to the sky, and behind the court-yards come the "high rooms." In each case there is a front and a back room, each about fifteen feet wide by ten feet deep. Behind each pair of rooms, there is a last little court-yard containing a tree. This is a feature very characteristic of Chinese inns — at the extreme rear of the premises a bit of ornamental vegetation. Were you to traverse this inn from front to rear, the probability is that you would encoun- ter nothing offensive to either sight or smell, so superior is it to the majority. There is a slight layer of dirt on the paving, and the board floors in the rooms have never experienced such a thing as a scrubbing. They are swept after the departure of a guest, but never washed. Archibald Little mentions that the roads were muddy at the time of his visit, and the incrusta- tion which he and his retinue tracked into the rooms is still there, but I was unable to trace his footprints because they have been obliter- 65 ated by the super-incrustation brought in since then. Life at such a place is quiet enough for the most part, but let some high official arrive to lodge there for the night, let him be accom- panied by his family and a numerous retinue, and at once a scene of turmoil and confusion en- sues. First, the Great Man's official chair is carried in by its four bearers and set down. The Great Man steps out. His chair is fol- lowed by those containing his w^ife and family, and these in turn by those containing his higher servants. Next come the frames containing the bulkier baggage, for he may even carry with him his own tables and chairs, not to mention other multitudinous personal effects. Next come the baskets carried on poles and containing food, cooking utensils and the like. All these chairs and all this luggage arrives just as the dusk of the evening is setting in. They are set down amid indescribable shouting, swearing and jangling more appropriate to the field of battle than to a peaceable inn. The Great Man's guard of armed retainers possibly find the inn more fully occupied than was anticipated, and 66 they begin to have their doubts as to whether they shall find a proper place to sleep. They raise their voices in inquiry and imprecation. The head servant of the inn is summoned to bring his keys and open fresh rooms. Mean- while he is being called in half a dozen other directions. He loses his temper with the rest. The court-yard is blocked with chairs, luggage, and coolies. Finally, the more important chairs are carried into the smaller court-yards and are safely set on tables and trestles. The luggage is carried within the rooms; the supper for the Great Man and his family is prepared and served in their apartments. The servants and carrying-coolies eat at the tables in the outer part of the inn. Quiet at last settles down. As a rule, in describing Chinese inns to trav- ellers recently arrived in the country, it is cus- tomary to speak of them as vermin-infested. As a sample of the sort of thing which is handed out to the new arrival in search of information, the story of how the missionary passes the night at such a place may be cited. They say he takes two tables and places them together side by side or end to end, it doesn't make any dif- 67 ference which because they are square; three feet square. He next spreads an oiled sheet over the tables. This hangs down about two feet on all sides. He makes his bed on the oiled sheet and lies down between his quilts. As soon 'as the light is extinguished, the bugs come crawling, crawling, crawling from all the corners of the room — big bugs, little bugs, medium sized bugs. They reach the table, crawl up the legs, but are prevented from reach- ing the missionary by the gimlet-proof oiled sheet. After breaking a few teeth trying to bite their way through, they turn and crawl down the inner side of the sheet with the intention of turning and climbing up outside until they come at the mission- ary, when they will have him. But when they reach the edge of the sheet it is neces- sary to make a very sharp turn. It is the making of this sharp turn which floors them, for they cannot get around it without falling to the floor. There they lie for a while, kicking the air. By and by they get on their feet once more and make a fresh start up the table legs, but the result is always the same. The sharp turn 68 is too much for them. So the program goes on. Meanwhile the missionary calmly reposes. He sleeps the sleep of the just until morning, when he arises and departs rejoicing on his way. If you inquire as to the size of the insects, you will be told, "Big as grasshoppers and then some more." As a matter of fact, the plague of in- sects in western China is not bad; is not to be compared to what will be found in some sec- tions of the United States. While the inns are not entirely free from them, the evil is not one- hundredth part of what might be expected. The writer occupied one of the official suites three days. On departing, a Mexican dollar was tendered in payment. It was received with a gratified grin. » y^' s^ 69 IX DOWN THE RIVER The Yangtze river was finally reached at Lu Jo, situated where the Lu Ho and Yangtze com- bine, for such a location is a favorite one with Chinese towns. It is to this place that the writer would conduct a traveller if he wished him to see a typical Chinese city and carry away a pleasing impression. Passage was taken in a rice-laden junk, and, after floating a hundred miles down the river, Chungking was reached. This is the great commercial city of western China, and is the place where foreign ideas have been most fully introduced. The writer found many of the merchants living in resi- dences built in the foreign style, but far hand- somer and more costly than any which the for- eigners had themselves erected in that country. And now before we leave that portion of the empire and resume our course down the Yangtze to the sea, I wish to say that it is '*a good land, a land of brooks of water, of foun- 70 tains and depths, springing forth in valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of oil, olives, and honey; a land wherein you shall eat bread without scarceness, you shall not lack anything in it; a land whose rocks are coal and iron and out of whose hills you may dig copper." Never- theless, I should not recommend any one to go there for a holiday excursion. That is, not un- less his interest in the world was very great, and his willingness to put up with discomforts equal to it. The next point to be reached was the city of Ichang, five hundred miles down the stream. Some authorities give the distance as four hun- dred miles, but the latter figure is probably too low. A steamer had recently been put on the upper Yangtze. This vessel was a powerful tug with a tender lashed alongside. Both ves- sels were fitted to carry passengers, and both splendidly equipped to battle with the dangers of the great river of China. It seemed as though this would be the best means of trans- portation, but the vessel would not leave immediately, and furthermore, it was gen- 71 erally predicted by both residents of Chung- king and naval men that she would never be able to get down to Ichang on that trip, on ac- count of the low state of the water. The river in truth was low, and the writer decided to travel by native craft. An attempt was made to hire the captain's quarters in a large cargo junk and one was found whose captain agreed to rent his room at a reasonable figure, but with char- acteristic Chinese carelessness he put his papers through the custom-house before booking his passenger. In order for him to arrange the matter, it would be necessary for him to take out a fresh set of papers at fresh expense, so that chance for transportation was lost. No other large cargo-junk offering at once, the only re- course was to hire a boat of one's own, and a woopan was selected. This was a native craft about thirty feet long. The central portion had been boarded ofif and furnished with swinging doors. It had been arched over with heavy Chinese matting, and a room about twelve feet long and six feet wide was thus provided. The flooring of this room was not placed on the boat's thwarts, as is frequently the case, but was 72 placed on cleats a few inches above the bottom of the boat. This arrangement permitted a per- son to stand erect when inside and still have plenty of room between his hat and the roof. In the season of low water there are perhaps a hundred rapids, large and small, between Chungking and Ichang, of which three are of the first magnitude. As the month was March, the river was at its lowest and wherever a rapid was possible we found one. When passing these, our boat possessed the delightful peculiarity of swinging a complete circle; sometimes the circle would only be described once, but more often two or three times. When we reached the first great rapid it seemed as though we should get through without this experience. But no! When almost through, our boat commenced its customary evolution. A heavy cargo-junk, which shortly before had been half a mile astern, was now only a few hundred yards dis- tant, and as we swung broadside to the current, the junk's immense bow-paddle or steering sweep, which projects in front, pointed at us in a most menacing fashion. Had it caught us amidships, we should have been sent rolling 73 over like a straw. Fortunately there was no col- lision on the first swing, but on the second we touched the junk's side. Although, we only seemed to graze it, the impact was sufficient to smash one of the spars lashed alongside. How- ever, no other damage was done. On the morning of the next day, we saw the walls of the first of the Yangtze's five great gorges rising before us, one immense rock tow- ering four thousand feet above the river. We approached the defile and soon were passing through it. In such a place the structure of the earth's crust is strikingly shown, the great layers of rock sloping up in one direction as you enter and in the opposite as you leave, while in the center where the mountains have been carved to the core they form a perfect arch. Landing from the boat, the writer secured a photograph of the scene. The first, or Windbox, gorge is short, but below it comes another twenty miles in length — the Wushan. That evening the wind, which blew up stream and in the teeth of boats bound down, commenced to rise, and we were compelled by its force to make an early stop when the dusk came on. We were right JNK SAILIXG UP THE GORGES. Spragne, p in the wildest and grandest portion of the Wu- shan gorge, and all next day we lay there while the wind whistled and howled and drifted sand into the boat, until the rain began to fall and caked the sand and prevented any more of that. But while conditions were unfavorable for travel downwards, they were glorious for traffic bound up stream, and all day long we were see- ing junk after junk rush by, frequently under a mere rag of sail, but all going at a great rate, the foam rolling and roaring before them. The next morning we were able to proceed on our course, and so we continued down the river, shooting the rapids and threading the gorges, until one afternoon found us escaping from the last great gloomy defile. We had been nine days on the way. Ten miles more to Ichang! So they called the distance, but it seemed the longest ten miles the writer ever travelled, and darkness had come before we reached the landing. A modern Japanese steamer, brilliantly illuminated by electricity, was lying in the stream. We tied up near the custom's jetty, and almost within the glare of the vessel's lights. As I sank to 76 sleep that night, and heard the steamer's bell ringing out the hour, I felt myself once more in touch with modern civilization. I had re- turned from the middle ages to the twentieth century. AMERICAN HOSPITAL, CHUNGKING. Sprague, ])hoto. // X LIES TOLD To TRAVELLERvS A week was spent at this point, the time af- fording opportunity to see the commencement which the Chinese are making on a railway that will eventually connect the rest of the country with the western provinces. During this delay at Ichang, there occurred an incident, slight enough in itself, yet which so perfectly illustrates a kind of annoyance to which a per- son newly arrived in China may be subjected, that I am tempted to give it in detail. It is true that the writer, owing to his familiarity with the language and customs of the country, suffered no inconvenience, but that was not the fault of the person who tried to trick him. Be- fore telling the story, it is necessary to make a brief explanation. In China the money is not coined by the central government at Peking, but each province has its own mint and its own coinage. On passing from one province to an- other, it is usually necessary to exchange the 78 silver of the province from which you have come for that of the province into which you go. The money changers demand a certain per- centage for making the exchange. But when the writer arrived at Ichang, he found that at that time (April, 1910) money of all provinces was accepted there at its face value. This is on account of the central position of the town, and the number of traders who come from different parts of the empire. Dollars of any province are always in demand. Furthermore, the writer inquired at a steamship office, and was posi- tively informed by the Chinese clerk that his Chentu dollars would be accepted in payment for a ticket to Shanghai. As that company had no steamer departing soon, the ticket was pur- chased at another office for the first steamer leaving, and was paid for in Chentu dollars, which were gladly received. But when the day of departure drew near, the writer still had one hundred of those dollars in his possession, and he offered them to the missionaries in return for a check on the English bank at Shanghai. In order to make this transaction clear, it is necessary to explain another custom. In most 79 of the large centers in China there are foreign- ers in the employ of the government. These men are paid each month in silver, each pack- age of one hundred silver dollars weighing about six pounds. The missionaries buy this money, paying for it by checks on the English bank at Shanghai, where the money coming from abroad for the support of the missions is deposited. The government employee thus gets rid of as much of his cumbersome silver as he does not require for immediate use, and mails the check to his bank at Shanghai, together with a request that his account be credited with that sum. Of course, both missionaries and government employees might deal with native banks, and in some places they do. But Chinese banks are regarded as an uncertain quantity. Foreigners prefer if possible to use the great English bank. The above is just as much a custom of the country as is the eating of rice. At the Ichang missions, Chentu dollars are usually in especial demand on account of the parties of missionaries which are being sent up the river from time to time, and to whom those dollars are an absolute necessity. Accordingly, 80 the writer knew that in offering the dollars to the Ichang missions he would be conferring a favor in return for many which he had received at other places. However, it happened at that particular time that the Ichang missions were stocked up with dollars. At least, that was the reason they gave for declining the silver. But the writer suspects that missionary bank ac- counts are not bottomless, and that the real rea- son was that they did not wish to write a check when there might not be sufficient funds on on hand to meet it. Consequently a visit was made to the office of one of the steamship com- panies; in fact, the very office where the in- formation had first been received that Chentu dollars would be accepted at their face value in payment for transportation. The company's agent, a Scotchman, was in charge and received the writer courteously enough, but when the dollars were offered to him he declined them. Had he simply said that he did not need them, no exception could have been taken, but he ad- vised that the dollars be carried down the river to the bank at Hankow, and, following the writer to the door, said: 81 "Really, if I did take your d(3liars, I don't see how I could use them in the business." This from the representative of a large steam- ship and commercial firm, carrying on a regu- lar trade with the very province from which the dollars came! The above remark was made almost within the hearing of the Chinese clerk who had previously given out the information that the firm regularly received Chentu dollars in payment of bills. The writer listened to the remark in silence, turned on his heel, anJ walked to another office, where the Chinese ac- countant very readily accepted the silver, giv- ing in exchange Shanghai money in the shape of bank notes issued by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. This was far better than if he had written a check. In fact, it was equivalent to writing a check and cashing it at one transaction. The real reason why that Scotchman made such an absurd statement was that he belonged to a class of men frequently met in commer- cial circles in China, whose chief delight is to befool and befuddle the new-comer. He had become so accustomed to handing out false 82 and misleading information to strangers that he could not resist the temptation to give the same sort of thing even to one who had arrived from the wrong direction, from the interior instead of from abroad, and who was familiar with the language, and probably knew more about the customs of the country than he did. But imag- ine the case if the writer had been a new-comer, ignorant of the language and customs! Such information coming from the representative of a great steamship and commercial company would have been accepted as reliable, instead of a gross fabrication. The dollars would have been carried on to Hankow where they are not wanted, there to be disposed of at a heavy loss. I have related this whole incident at consider- able length in order to make clear that the Texas liar, with his yarns for the tenderfoot, is not confined to any particular locality. You meet him in China, too. 83 XI FROM SHANGHAI TO SAX FRANCISCO Shanghai was reached in due season, and ten days were spent in the great modern commer- cial city which foreign enterprise has built on the shores of China. Before I go on, I must make an explanation which has been given ten thousand times before by ten thousand travel- lers who have written of Shanghai. That city is not "on the sea" as its name claims, nor is it situated on the Yangtze river, although you enter the mouth of that stream to reach it. Shanghai is on the Whangpoa, a branch of the Yangtze, and it is twelve miles from the city to the point where the smaller stream joins the great river. It is necessary to repeat the above statements for the benefit of the few who may see them for the first time and for those who have forgotten. Most of the steamers bound for Shanghai ascend the river to the city and land their passengers directly at its docks, but vessels of 84 the largest size do not. These lie just without the entrance to the smaller stream, while the passengers and their effects are brought to them by a powerful tug or tender. The steamer in which the writer was to travel was an immense boat of 21,000 tons displacement, twenty-two knots speed, entirely constructed in Japan and manned too by the Japanese, except for the American captain and purser employed as a concession to the travelling public. Accord- ingly, on the afternoon of departure the writer embarked in the tender. As the powerful tug swirled on its way down the broad reaches of the river, we passed a fleet of old-style war- junks. There they lay — a long line, moored end to end, with their clumsy sails, immense, overhanging sterns, and old-fashioned smooth- bore cannon pointing over the bulwarks. As I leaned on the rail and watched them, I thought to myself that of all the strange, bizarre, and antiquated objects which I had seen in China, the strangest of all were these. The most curi- ous sight I saw had been reserved for the last. We were now rapidly approaching our steamer as it lay bulking large on the river. ox THE BUXD AT SHAXGHAI. Sprague, photo. 86 with its huge yellow funnels and ventilators, its turbine engines and its triple screws. We made fast to the gangplank, and, as soon as the pas- sengers were on board, one of the seamen seized a lever and began to torture the steam-winch, which in response spat, hissed, growled and snarled, and presently the baggage was being hoisted on board to a growling and snarling accompaniment from the steam-winch. So smoothly did the engines do their work, that we had been under way an hour before we were aware of it. We crossed to Nagasaki for coal, and from there proceeded to Kobe, which we reached one evening after a glorious day on the Inland Sea under ideal weather conditions. After Kobe, our next port was Yokohoma, where we lay three days, the time permitting of excursions to the capital, Tokio, to which Yokohoma bears the same relation that the Piraeus did to Athens. Oh, what a contrast the shops of the two cities, filled with their beautiful art work — cloisonnee and- satsuma — afforded to those of China! The writer never realized until he visited Japan what exquisite works of art can 87 be produced from bronze, porcelain and enam- eled metal. If his purse had equalled his in- clinations, he would have loaded the ship with vases, bronzes and richly carved furniture. Soon came the time for departure. One aft- ernoon we slipped out from the harbor. Once more we heard the muffled thunder of the triple screws and we shaped our course for Honolulu. Would that some thrilling incidents had oc- curred on that voyage in order that I might re- count them! It would greatly enliven this narrative if I were able to tell how "on the last day before we reached port, the barometer be- gan to fall, the clouds began to gather, and be- fore noon had come a great gale was sweeping over the ocean with irresistible fury, and carry- ing us along towards our destination. I stood at the forward end of the topmost deck watch- ing the vessel cleave a way through the billows. The ship balanced itself for a moment on the summit of a gigantic wave. As we hung there for an instant, I saw a Japanese fishing-boat in the valley beyond, not fifty feet to the right of our direct course. The next moment the great steamer plunged downward and smote the 88 water with a shock which flung a mighty bow- wave. As that creaming, seething, roaring wall of water rolled away on either hand, in the twinkling of an eye it had descended upon that frail fishing craft. In the twinkling of an eye it had drowned the dying yell of the de- spairing Japanese; it overwhelmed their boat, and carried it down, down, five thousand fath- oms down, to mingle with the slime and ooze that cover the bottom of the sea in those abys- mal depths." But I am sorry to say that I am unable to furnish any such incidents. Like most ocean voyages, ours was prosaic rather than poetic. It is true that on the night before reaching Honolulu we came near running down a Japanese fishing-boat, but the weather was calm and no damage was done. The next morning we were lying outside the harbor. There they were again — those old, fa- miliar sights and scenes; the bold outlines of Diamond Head, the curving beach of Waikiki, the rusty slope of Punch Bowl, and the glorious dark green of higher hills, illuminated by a brilliant tropical sun, while great white masses of the trade-wind clouds overhung them and 89 rose miles in the air, shifting and swaying, twining themselves into first one and then an- other configuration of dazzling, pearl-white beauty. The quarantine inspection was long and rigid, for we carried on board a band of the hated Russians — hated because previous bands had once been welcomed to their shores by the citi- zens of the Hawaiian Isles, and had been fur- nished homes and employment on the great sugar estates, only to prove their utter undesir- ability for the kind of work expected of them. It was hoped to find evidences of disease which would make their entry difficult or impossible, but none such were found, and by noon we were at the dock and ashore for a half day's run in Honolulu, than which there is no more delight- ful place of residence though you search the wide world over. The writer well recalls his year and a half of residence in that city. Would that it had continued for the rest of his days! But regrets are vain, and after a glimpse of the valleys, the parks, the palm-lined avenues, the cool, dim halls of the Aquarium, and a thou- sand other delightful features which will 90 readily present themselves to the mind of any one familiar with the place, we were once again on board our steamer, and the next morning witnessed our departure for San Francisco. Six days more at sea. Sometimes we sighted a steamer miles away on the horizon, and one morning we passed another at close range bound in the same direction as ourselves; and then on the final morning we saw before us Jthe familiar outlines of the Golden Gate, its cliffs rising from out the great, rolling, majestic sea that for thousands of years had been breaking on those rocks. We entered the harbor of San Fran- cisco and presently found ourselves surrounded by all the complex life of a modern sea-port. And the last impression which I received from my journey was that this is the real land of wonders; wonders which have become so fa- miliar that we are apt to take them as matters of course. The idea which came to the writer has been brought out by the poet Tennyson. In Locks- ley Hall, one of his early poems, he shows what a powerful impression had been made upon him as a young man by the marvelous march of 91 modern scientific invention and discovery which was then commencing. Perhaps you will re- call the passage beginning: "Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new: That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do." In another passage the poet speaks of the en- joyment he found in "this march of mind, In the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind." Again he called upon the scientific age in which he lived to "Rift the hills, and roll the waters, flash the lightnings, weigh the Sun." But, when an old man, he wrote "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After." There he says: "Half the marvels of my morning, triumphs over time and space, • Staled by frequence, shrunk by usage, into commonest commonplace." 92 So it is with us. "Familiarity breeds con- tempt," and we have come to look upon the greatest triumphs of mind over matter as the "commonest commonplace." The wonders of the past have become the commonplaces of the present; the commonplaces of the past have become the objects of curiosity of to-day. It is necessary to reside in some corner of the world into which modern science has not yet pene- trated, or is only just gaining a footing; some country where the conditions of former centu- ries still prevail, in order to realize what a wonderful land we live in. THE END 93 RECENT AND RADICAL CHANGES I presume that the North China Herald, pub- lished weekly at Shanghai, has some readers in the United States. It is certain that it enjoys a wide circulation among the English-speaking residents of China, but I suppose that very few casual readers of the North China Herald of October 30, 1909, noticed in an obscure corner among the news items from Ichang, a city a thousand miles up the Yangtze river, the item: "Two naval officers recently arrived for the gunboats in western China, and set out by na- tive boat for their destination. They returned to Ichang after a few days, having been wrecked, and having had their goods consider- ably damaged or lost altogether. The river is falling, but a strong current is still running in places. The Shutung came into port a week ago and has not yet left for Chungking." I happened to observe it six months later, be- cause I was temporarily stranded in California, and I was reviving memories of old Chinese days by conning a file of Shanghai papers. That announcement, in its few simple phrases, speaks 94 volumes to one who can understand all it means, for the facts referred to typify the old order and the new, — the old order which is passing away in China and the new which is arriving. It is along that line that I wish to speak. It is of changing China that I wish to write. Dur- ing a recent residence of a year and a half in that country, one year of which was spent as an instructor in a government college located in one of the most remote provinces, the writer came into contact with many of the movements which are revolutionizing affairs. It is his in- tention to speak of some concerning which he can testify from personal observation. When that correspondent stated that the new steamer Shutung had arrived, he also stated that the problem of rapid transportation on the up- per Yangtze had at last been solved after many, many years of wearisome waiting, and solved by the Chinese themselves. Permit me to briefly outline the old conditions of travel on the river and the work which was done in at- tempting to improve them, for the whole story illustrates the changes which are coming over China. PAGODA AT DAY YAXG. Knipe, plioto. 96 When a traveller arrived in Shanghai, bound for what is still considered by many foreign residents of that city a wild, inaccessible and dangerous terra incognita, namely western China, he found that the journey was easy enough for a thousand miles of the way. Every day a steamer leaves for Hankow, six hundred miles up the Yangtze river, and for the next four hundred miles to Ichang steam navigation is reasonably regular and dependable. He found that the vessels navigating the river were of a very superior class, possessing, according to the announcements of their sometimes too optimistic agents, "all the conveniences of a first-class mail-steamer." He found the river flowing with a moderate current beneath low banks, which it overflowed at times of very high water. If the river was in flood, its navi- gation much resembled that of some great lake; but if it was at a moderate stage, the steamer plowed along as close as possible to the bank in order to avoid the strong current, and the trav- eller seated on the upper deck beheld the fea- tures of the country and the daily life of its in- habitants unrolled before him like a great series 97 of moving pictures. While he enjoyed the com- forts and luxuries of modern civilization, he beheld the squalor and wretchedness of China. He saw everything, but came in contact with nothing. But w^hen he arrived at Ichang, he found he must face a very different set of condi- tions before he could reach Chungking, the great port of western China, located on the banks of the river, five hundred miles beyond. At Ichang the mountains begin, and ten miles beyond that city the river issues from the first of the immense gorges by which it bursts its way through the rugged barrier that separates the central portion of the empire from the west- ern. For the next tw^o hundred miles, it either courses through profound gorges, or hurls itself over tempestuous rapids. Happily the latter come between the former; were they to coin- cide, the navigation of the river would be a physical impossibility. As it is, the junks by hugging the bank can be dragged past the rap- ids, although in some places as many as two hundred men will be required in addition to the crew. A large junk will carry as many as seventy men, of whom between forty and fifty A TE.AIPLE NEAR CHEXTU. Sprague. photo. 99 will be trackers walking and clambering along the bank, dragging the clumsy vessel up stream by the bamboo towing line. The remainder will be needed to keep the tracking line clear from the rocks, to man the small boat which serves as a tender, and to work on board the junk, manipulating the sail and the immense bow-paddle or steering sweep which projects in front and by which the boat is turned when its rudder will not suffice. If the wind is strong, the boats are frequently greatly favored by it, for it usually blows up stream, following the windings faithfully. This is so much the case and is so strongly counted on that when a junk is bound down stream, the mast is unstepped and lashed alongside, nor is it raised again until the junk has once more been engaged to ascend the river. But even when the wind is most favorable, when the trackers can be taken on board and the great sail does all the work, progress is still halting and slow, for after some glorious dash before the breeze, the boat must lie all day or two days in line at the foot of some rapid, waiting its turn to haul past. 100 The first hundred and fifty miles of the jour- ney are so much more difficult than the re- mainder that they are reckoned half the voyage, but one of the fiercest rapids still remains to be encountered, and the whole progress to Chung- king is a continual struggle. At Ichang, the traveller, who perhaps during the entire voyage from Shanghai had never once descended from the upper deck of the steamer to mingle with the common class of Chinese passengers on the lower deck, must leave his luxurious quarters and take passage in a house-boat, a native craft sixty or seventy feet long with the forward half of its deck uncov- ered and occupied by the men numbering forty or more; the after half covered by the house in which the passengers and junk-master live. The writer well remembers the wearisome experi- ence of himself and his companions in over- coming those five hundred miles, for the wind helped us not at all. Day after day we lay in our boat while our trackers were toiling through the gorges and past the rapids of the Yangtze, dragging us nearer and nearer to our destina- tion. Week after week passed by, nearly a 101 month had gone when finally the tiled roofs and lofty pagodas of Chungking rose before us, and that stage of the journey was done. Ours was not an experience which involved any particular hardship, but others have not been so fortunate. An extreme case was that of a young missionary who came out from the United States with his wife and baby girl some years ago. They embarked in a house-boat. Not half the distance had been covered when the child fell ill. In a few more days it was dead. About this time the husband and father was stricken down with typhoid fever,and it became necessary to bind him to the deck to prevent him from throwing himself overboard in his delirium. The deck of a house-boat is not like that of a ship, but is made up of small squares or sections which are laid loosely on the deck beams. These sections are of such a size that they can be easily picked up and set to one side by hand when the boat is being loaded or unloaded. The fever-stricken man's hands and feet were separately fastened each to one of these sections, and when the delirium seized him, he would raise the squares alternately with \. k 'Ti!, 'Mr^£iA'\ffi f^f "^fr- BRIDGE IN TME THAfPLE GROUNDS. Sprague, pliotc 103 a wild clattering, while his cries rang through the boat, floated over the water, and were echoed back from the great cliffs rising in gloomy grandeur by the side of the river. Meanwhile the junk was being hauled through the rapids, sometimes careening as though it would certainly capsize, while the drum by which the trackers are signalled to pull harder was being beaten with maddening intensity, the men managing the huge bow- sweep were chorusing a wild chant as they tried to keep the boat in the channel, and the waters were roaring and dashing over a row of jagged rocks which partly rose above the sur- face not a biscuit's toss away. Imagine the situation of the wife. There was the baby in its cofiin, which must be guarded from the rats night and day. There was the husband, pros- trate and helpless. There was the fore part of the boat packed with Chinese coolies of the lowest and roughest class, boatmen and trackers, swarming on board at meal-time or at night to sleep while the boat was tied to the bank. With her child dead, her husband delirious, and sur- rounded by a wild band of howling heathen, she 104 finally reached Chungking. And yet, although a frail, delicate girl, accustomed all her life to the luxuries and refinement which our modern civilization usually throws around the daugh- ters of the wxU-to-do, she suffered no injury whatever from her frightful experience, and reached her destination with health and strength unimpaired. Medical attendance was immediately avail- able for the missionary, and he was speedily put upon his feet. After a short delay, he was able to walk most of the way from Chungking to Chentu, his destination, for they resolved to complete their journey by land. They had had enough of river travel. Such was and still is the nature of the river. Such was and still is the nature of the native navigation — clumsy, square-ended junks towed by gangs of coolies walking along the bank or clambering over the great boulders which plen- tifully bestrew it. For twenty years attempts have been made to interest foreign capital in putting a steamer on the run. Once an English side-wheeler was put on, but was purchased by the British navy for 105 a gunboat after its first trip. Again, a German steamer was started, but was l(3St the first day out from Ichang. Finally, in 1909, a steamer which had been ordered in England by a Chi- nese company was brought out in sections and put together at Shanghai. This was the Shu- tung previously referred to — a powerful tug with a tender to carry passengers. The tender could be towed, but was usually lashed along- side. In the spring of 1910, when the writer ar- rived at Chungking, homeward bound to the United States, he found the Shutung about to commence regular runs on the five hundred mile stretch. Two or three days are taken for the run down, and six for the upward run. If it were possible to travel by night, much less time would be needed, but that is out of the question on account of the innumerable dangers from rocks and rapids. It is true that on the thirteenth trip — unlucky number — a rock was bumped and it became necessary to land the pas- sengers when only forty miles of the journey re- mained to be accomplished. However, the damage was comparatively slight and soon re- paired. With this exception, the vessel has been 106 flying back and forth as smoothly as the shuttle of a sewing machine. The writer described the journey under the old conditions at such length in order to make clear the immense difference between travel by junk and travel by steamer; in order to show what a saving of time, trouble and money is afforded by the presence of the Shutung on the river. And remember, this change has been brought about by a Chinese firm, and not by one of the foreign transportation companies long established on the lower Yangtze. The above instance is a mere straw to show which way the wind blows. If the writer had nothing weightier to relate, he might as well keep silent altogether. Another instance which I sort out from the numerous ones that illus- trate recent and radical changes is that with re- spect to beggary. Until lately, mendicancy abounded in western China, and especially were the beggars of Chentu famous. The stories which have been told about them are legion. When Archibald Little, the English merchant and explorer, first visited the city, he wrote back that "Chentu was a vast collection of alleys 107 where all the dirt and beggary of western China seemed to have reached their climax." John- ston,who travelled "From Peking to Mandalay" in 1906, said that he never encountered so many beggars as at Chentu, and it was about this time that one of the oldest missionaries in that portion of the empire, long resident in the above city, commenced a series of articles for publication descriptive of the 20,000 beggars of Chentu. He took them up in detail, describing their crowds as they thronged the streets, their dirt, their rags, their wretchedness, their beggars' guild, their beggar king, and the beggars' bridge outside the city's east gate where their chief might frequently be seen levying toll upon his beggar subjects as they crossed. The reverend gentleman dwelt upon the perfection of their organization which made it impossible for a merchant to refuse their demands abso- lutely; should he decline to contribute, immedi- ately a drove of tatterdemalions would be marched to the spot by the beggars' guild. They would besiege his place, block all en- trance, and load the air with their cries for cash TliE 'J'E.MPLK S'iWikS. Sprague. photo. 109 until he must needs accede to their demands or retire from all business. The reverend gentleman entrusted this series of articles to a monthly journal published by the missionaries at a small printing office, the machinery for which had somehow drifted out to that remote corner of the world. They appeared in print in due season. Meanwhile, he departed for England on his furlough, for every seven years a missionary may return to England, Canada, or wherever his home may be in order to greet his friends once more and come in touch with the western world. A year later he was again at his post in Chentu, when lo! he found the beggars gone and the whole system of beggary swept away. The beggars' guild, the beggar king, the beggar persecutions were all things of the past, and it became neces- sary for the reverend gentleman to set to work with his pen and prepare a fresh series of ar- ticles describing the new conditions and how they had been brought about. And how had it been acomplished? By driv- ing the beggars out of town to wander up and down the railway track, or rather the public 110 highway, for of railways western China has none? No, and again no! The method was to establish public institutions, call them work- houses if you will, into which the beggars were gathered and where they were taught to be self- supporting. Those who proved promising were sent out into such regular employment as could be found for them. Those who were worthless were kept in the institutions, where they were given sufficient work to keep them and from which they were sent out to certain employ- ments for which they were in demand. The question might arise here, "For what employ- ment is a worthless beggar in demand?" That which the writer has particularly in mind is — marching in funeral processions. When a Chi- nese of means or position is buried, a great crowd is necessary to escort his coffin on its way, and for this the members of the Beggars' In- stitute are particularly suitable. The writer has frequently stood by the side of the way and seen them march past, behind, or rather before, a coffin (for it comes last), each man decently at- tired and wearing a small straw hat on the Ill band of which were the characters telling where he came from. It would be a mistake to believe that this revolution was worked in a day. When the writer arrived in Chentu on the 1st day of Jan- uary, 1909, a few beggars were still to be found plying their trade with rice bowl and whining complaint in the old-fashioned way, but these were mostly outside of the wall, and even they disappeared before long. Now and then a man would appear begging on the streets, but the police soon took care of him. A letter written from Chentu in December, 1909, well describes the present situation as follows: "The youth of the West are being educated for future use- fulness. Extensive plants for housing boys who have no particular vocation have been con- structed. They are, in fact, large industrial schools over which broods the military spirit. A boy beggar is a stranger in Chentu, and boys idling about the streets are few." Other cities tributary to Chentu, fired by its example, were not slow in following suit, and when in the summer of 1909 the writer toured the Chentu plain, visiting the walled cities IN'CEXSE BURNER. Grainger, photo. 113 scattered about it, beggars were scarce and hard to find. In many places they did not seem to exist. Even at Lu Jo, situated more than two hundred miles aw^ay on the Yangtze river, the same system was in process of being established. The writer is aware that exception may be taken to the above statements on account of the blind fiddlers to be seen wandering the streets. I am perfectly well aware of their existence and also know that many of them are frauds, but there is as much difference between them and the old-fashioned Chinese beggar as there is be- tween daylight and dark. They do not impor- tune, and their music is supposed to be a return for anything which may be given. In the United States some authorities hold that the man without money, without visible means of support, is entitled to occupy that por- tion of the earth's surface lying between the limits of high and low tide. Other authorities deny this. In western China there is a place for such a man ! Another and still more important and far- reaching change is that which has come over the educational system. Who has not heard of 114 the old system and the famous examination hails at the provincial capitals? — long rows of cells in which the contestants were immured during the tri-ennial examinations; success meaning that the candidate was eligible for the still higher tests held at Peking. The old system of education was analogous to that which Tom Brown received at Rugby and Oxford. Just as Tom Brown was famil- iarized with the classics of Rome and Greece, and taught to compose both prose and poetry in those languages, so was the educated Chinese given a mastery over the classics of his country and taught to compose both prose and poetry in the classical Chinese, which differs almost as much from the language of the common people as does Latin from English. Just as Tom Brown looked down on the plumber and re- garded him as uneducated man, while realiz- ing that he possessed a technical knowledge of his trade, so did the old-fashioned Chinese look down on the foreigner with his knowledge of modern languages, science and the mechanical arts. However, the literati of China had one advantage over Tom Brown in that the classics 115 which they studied were filled with the great moral teachings of the Chinese philosophers, while the English student was familiarized with the ribald poetry of Horace. Since the suppression of the Boxer outbreak, the entire system of private study and tri-ennial examinations has been done away with. In many places the old rows of examination cells have been torn away and have been replaced with modern schools. Such was the case at Chentu, capital of the province in which the writer was located. In the very heart of the city lies a walled enclosure about half a mile long. The wall is enormously heavy in front where it is pierced by three great tunnel-like entrances. This was probably once the abode of the Kings before Kubla Khan conquered the province as related by Marco Polo. Ever since those days it has been dedicated to official uses. To-day, it is literally filled with government schools. Some of these are industrial, others normal, others hard to classify. One would imagine such an area would hold all the re- formatory and educational institutions for which there would be any need in the city, but SERVANT AXIJ POLICEMAN. Spragnc, photc 117 as a matter of fact there are many more in other quarters. To adequately describe them all would fill a volume. The writer has no inten- tion of trying to do anything more than touch upon the subject here. Suffice it to say that the new system of secondary and higher education recognizes the value of a knowledge of modern languages and science. In all of the more im- portant cities of the eighteen provinces, it has provided for middle schools at which those subjects are commenced. These are supple- mented by Provincial Colleges located at the capitals, where the work begun in the Middle Schools can be carried further. Wherever he went in Western China, the writer found the Middle Schools, frequently in cities whose size would hardly seem to warrant their presence, and it was everywhere evident that the public took a pride and an interest in them. In one city, a great official yamen had been given up by a high mandarin and had been transformed into the city's Middle School. In other places, temples possessing valuable sites had been uti- lized. In every case the name of the school was blazoned forth in enormous characters to ad- 118 vertise the fact that the city possessed one. The writer inspected many of these institutions throughout the province, and ever found them neat and adequate. Their equipment is always after the same pattern — dormitories, study halls and lecture rooms. The latter would frequently be a credit to an American college. It is only in a few of the higher institutions of learning — colleges and normal schools located at Chentu — that laboratories have been installed. But the greatest change of all is that with re- spect to opium. In former days an account of travel in China which did not mention the drug was like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out, so important a feature was it in the life of the nation. Globe trotters have exhausted their stocks of adjectives in describing the glory and gorgeousness of the fields of the opium poppy. Of the province in the heart of which the writer was located was written, "It is the seat of opium culture in China, patches of poppies flaunting in the gorges, and great plains and valleys above ablaze with the seductive flowers which furnish three-fourths of China's opium." When Mrs. Bishop was approaching Chentu, 119 she wrote, "Waves of color on slope and plain rolled before the breeze. Houses were almost submerged by the colored billows. Far and near, along roads and streams, round stately temples and prosperous farm-houses, rippled and surged these millions of corollas." In every book on China appeared such head- ings as, "Thousands of opium victims annually." "Opium victims must die." "Opium cures and asylums." "Missionaries' opium refuges." "Im- possible for Chinese to resist the subtle fascina- tion of the drug." "China's darkest cloud." But when the writer arrived at Chentu, Jan- uary 1st, 1909, the imperial edict had gone forth that the cultivation of opium must cease, and cease it did. Not everywhere at once, but soon nevertheless. The month before, every opium shop in the city had been closed by the officials. During my entire stay in western China, I never once saw a field of the poppy. While that province was slower than any other province as regards making rigid enforcement of the edict, yet the reports from all sources in 1910 prove that the opium culture is a thing of the past. This shows what power the officials A COUNTRY HOME. Sprague. pholo. 121 have when they choose to exert it in a country where the citizens are not allowed to own fire- arms. Their method is — first to educate the people by means of printed proclamations as to the desirability of any reform, and then to remove temptation from their path. In the case of the opium, if any farmer tries to raise a field of the poppy, soldiers are sent to uproot the crop. But to say that the importation and use of the drug has entirely ceased would be a fabrication. In the early months of 1910, it was no unusual sight on the principal highway in western China to see strings of more than one hundred coolies carrying opium imported from British India up the country. Nevertheless, conditions have so changed that foreign residents of that province have told me that they were afraid to describe conditions as they existed three years before, for fear their statements would sound absolutely incredible to one who had only seen the situation as it is to-day. We have been accustomed to consider China as the stand-still kingdom, the do-nothing king- dom, the land where the people are wedded to 122 the ways of their forefathers from which they will not depart. But after residing in the coun- try, the writer began to doubt whether conser- vatism is any more natural to the Chinaman than it is to the average European. Indeed, it would be easy to cite instances which would seem to indicate the contrary. Permit me to illustrate. I have told how the Chinese estab- lished a steam passenger service over that por- tion of the upper Yangtze which lies between the former head of steam navigation and the great commercial city of western China, Chung- king, and how at the time of my departure a steamer was flying back and forth over the five hundred mile stretch as smoothly and swiftly as the shuttle of a sewing machine. Before leaving Ichang, I met a Chinese official who was waiting there the few days that must elapse before the steamer left on its next regular trip up the river, intending of course to travel by that conveyance. And yet, on the day before, a party of English naval officers had started up the Yangtze in the old-fashioned house-boats, which would consume a month in reaching their destination; vessels as antiquated as Noah's ark. 123 In other words, the Chinese were ready and quick to adopt the new, expeditious method of travel as soon as it was available, while the for- eigners clung obstinately to the old style, shut- ting their eyes to the fact that it had been superseded. While the writer is not positively informed, it is safe to say that the steamer completed two round trips before the officers reached Chung- king. Twice they met the steamer descending, twice they saw it pass them bound up stream. It is barely possible that, by the second time they saw it glide on and leave them, they had lost some of their conservatism. Another case of ultra-conservatism on the part of the foreign resident in China comes to mind. A few days before the incident above narrated, a party of missionaries had started up the river for western China. Their leader was an old fellow known as Dr. Wilson, w^ho had been in that country I don't know how long, but had been away on furlough two years. When starting up stream, he had insisted on taking his silver with him in the form of ingots, instead of the more convenient dollars which A SHADY LANE. Sprague, photo. 125 are now universally current in that country. He was told by the Ichang missionaries that the ingots were out of date and that he had better take dollars, but the obstinate fellow in- sisted that because, when he first went to Chen- tu, dollars were not current there, such must still be the case, and he departed up the river with his lump silver. Even the missionary who told the writer the incident, a person of the most solemn, stupid type, could not help cracking a wooden grin at the old man's ex- pense. I have told how beggary has been almost suppressed in western China, but in the for- eign settlement at Shanghai, a city entirely in the hands of Europeans and Americans, and governed by a municipal council from which Chinese are rigorously excluded, the old-fash- ioned Chinese beggar still wanders about the streets. If you enquire why they are allowed, you will be solemnly told that the beggars' guild would not permit otherwise. Only a per- son who knows what a Chinese beggar is like can fully appreciate the unconscious humor of the reply. 126 Reports of China's awakening have been coming in from many sources during the last few years, and the writer has tried to sum things up, but has really only been able to touch a few points. Fifty years ago, Japan was more backward than China. Since then, the Chinese have seen the Japanese raise them- selves until they rank in arts, arms, and science with the leading nations of the world. The Chinese ask, "Why cannot we do the same?" However, don't imagine that you would find yourself in a modern nation, were you to visit the Celestial empire. The country is still in- credibly primitive in most respects. While it is true that railroads are building, as yet they are few, and great sections of the empire possess none. Ofif of them, man is the beast of burden. Many of the innovations which the Chinese are introducing become so Chinesi- fied in the process that they seem more curious to an American than the things which they sup- plant. Many marvelous changes have come over that country in the last few years, but it is still China and always will be. 127 POSTSCRIPT After one has passed through a series of novel and surprising experiences, memory loves to recall them and dwell upon them. Even now, when I sit and doze before the fire, visions of old Chentu days rise before me. Per- haps I dream of the city in summer, when the principal thoroughfares are roofed over with thick mats to protect them from the fierce rays of a semi-tropical sun, until they are trans- formed into dim shady tunnels where the thronging natives come and go, and bearers of burdens wearily wend their way, while on either side the wares of the merchants are ranged in their open-fronted shops so that the scene resembles a great bazaar. Again, the vision changes, and I seem to be wandering through the shady precincts of some gloomy old temple, where tall feathery bamboos nod and sway in the passing breeze, and dark funereal pines stand guard, and 128 monstrous idols, gaudy with gilt and lacquer, gaze solemnly back at the curious visitor from the western world. The incessant beating of the drum, and the hollow boom of the great bronze bell, betoken the fact that the priests are gathered at their devotions. Then I rouse myself, and it seems that these recollections are but dreams. It seems impos- sible that any cities exist in which the honk of the automobile, the clang and whirr of the elec- tric car, are not heard. It is impossible that I ever passed through any such experiences. They must belong to "such stufif as dreams are made of," and I dismiss them from mind. But before they fade from memory altogether, I have embodied some of them in the preceding narratives, and now place them before the pub- lic. I trust .hey have sufficient novelty to com- J^ mend them to the general reader. Com- ding, weai an? vlth UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. RECD LD-URt 315 3 1158 00756 7V JA UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 001 117 974 4