Chapter XXIV: Hsieh-Tien-Tze to Paoning Fu

The weather continued grim, cold, and damp, with a penetrating east wind. I felt the cold more than on any previous journey, even when for weeks at a time the mercury had registered 20° below zero, and on this occasion it never fell below 40° above, and on some of the “coldest” days was as high as 45°. Men who had them were wearing their handsome furs up to March 12th.

After leaving the coal-pit and the bleak hillside, we descended to a region where the natural terrace formation of the hills was extensively aided by art, and the country looked as if it were covered with Roman camps.

At the risk of wearying my readers, I must again remark on the singularity of the formation of this large portion of the Red Basin, which is continued in its most exaggerated form at least as far south as Shien Ching, on the Kialing, fully 270 _li_ south of Paoning. Looking down from any height, it is seen that the red sandstone has been decomposed into hundreds of small hills, from 200 to 300 feet high, with their sides worn into natural and very regular terraces, of which I have counted twenty-three one above another, while the actual hilltop is weathered into a most deceptive resemblance to a fort or ruined castle.

Much of SZE CHUAN is remarkable for the scarcity of villages, but, on the other hand, it is dotted over both with large farmhouses, where the farmer and his dependants live in patriarchal style, surrounded by a roofed wall with a heavy gateway, and with large cottages, the walls of which, with their heavy black timbers and whitewashed walls, have a most distinct resemblance to the old Cheshire architecture, while the roofs, with a nearly even slope from the ridge-pole to the extremity of the deep eaves which form broad verandahs, have more kinship with that of the Swiss _châlet_ than with the typical Chinese roof, curving upwards at the corners.

If the tradition be true which declares that in the early days of this dynasty people were sent in chains to colonise this fair province, it may be, as Mr. Baber suggests, that they had not the family and clan ties which lead men to herd together in the communities which are also a necessary element of safety in many circumstances. It was not till the Taiping outbreak that these scattered settlers, who had lived and multiplied for nearly two centuries under conditions of security, found it necessary to combine for mutual protection. It then occurred to them that the numerous precipitous, rocky hills of the region, if walled round near the top, would be impregnable refuges, and they subscribed money and labour, and carried out their idea, sprinkling the country with picturesque _chai-tzu_, or redoubts, to which they ascended in times of dread. It did not occur to them to build permanent dwellings and remain at these altitudes.

In the purely agricultural parts of the province, where there are no local industries requiring concentration of population, such villages as are to be met with elsewhere, in which tenants, labourers, innkeepers, and proprietors, with shopkeepers and artisans, live in communities, are rarely met with. Out of the system of scattered dwellings and minute hamlets, trading arrangements for supplying the wants of the agricultural population have grown up, the like of which I have not seen elsewhere. These are the markets (_ch’ang_).

In travelling along the roads one comes quite unexpectedly upon a long, narrow street with closed shop fronts, boarded-up restaurants, and deserted houses, and possibly a forlorn family with its dog and pig the only inhabitants. The first thought is that the population has been exterminated by a pestilence, but on inquiry the brief and simple explanation is given, “It’s not market day.”

A few miles further, and the roads are thronged with country people in their best, carrying agricultural productions and full and empty baskets. The whole country is on the move to another long, narrow street closely resembling the first, but that the shop fronts are open, and full of Chinese and foreign goods; the tea shops are crammed; every house is full of goods and people; from 2000 to 5000 or 6000 are assembled; blacksmiths, joiners, barbers, tinkers, traders of all kinds, are busy; the shouting and the din of bargaining are tremendous, and between the goods and the buyers and sellers locomotion is slow and critical. Drug stores, in which “remedies for foreign smoke” are sold, occur everywhere.

The shops in these streets are frequently owned by the neighbouring farmers, who let them to traders for the market days, which are fixed for the convenience of the district, and fall on the third or fifth or even seventh day, as the need may be. The gateway at each end of the street is often very highly decorated. Theatrical entertainments frequent these markets, and if the actors are well known and popular, 4000 or 5000 people assemble for the play alone. The markets are the great gatherings for all purposes. If anything of public opinion of a local character exists, it is manufactured there. There official notifications are made, and bargains regarding the sale or rent of land are concluded. Family festivals even are often held there, and after marriage negotiations on the part of heads of families have been concluded the preliminaries are drawn up and ratified at the market. There the cottons of Lancashire undergo a searching criticism, and are weighed, handled, held up to the light by men who cannot be deceived as to the value of cotton, and are often found wanting. Into the vortex of the market is attracted all the news and gossip of the district. It is much like a fair, but I never saw any rowdyism or drunkenness on the road afterwards, and I never met with any really rough treatment in a market, though the crowding and curiosity made me always glad when it was not “market day.”

On the afternoon of March 7th there was some hazy sunshine, and the effect was magical. The route lay partly along the Shanrang Ho, an affluent of the Ku-kiang, itself navigable up to, and for sixty _li_ above Sing-king-pa Hsien, so report said.] Considerable fleets of colliers lay at different points, vessels carrying from ten to twenty-five tons, flat-bottomed. They were loading, in one case, from a coal-yard of half an acre at least in extent, fenced strongly and carefully with bamboo, in which the coal was piled in big, oblong blocks weighing two hundredweight each, to a height of seven feet, each block being carried from the pit by two men. The colliers are built in compartments, and very strongly, as there are severe rapids both above and below Sing-king-pa Hsien.

After ferrying this river, along with a number of Buddhist priests, we gradually attained high ground, and secured the granary of a new inn for my room. Being new, the place was clean and dry, and promised well for the next day’s halt, and most of the unpacking was done, when the trim, young hostess requested us to “move on.” She said her father-in-law was away, and he would be angry with her for receiving a foreigner. I did not care to assert “treaty rights” against the obvious anxiety of so prepossessing a young woman, and we repacked, and slithered along six more _li_ of bad roads till we came to a lone farming cottage on the top of a windy ridge, with a most extensive view, where I was very glad to remain for the next day, as I had had rather a severe week. From Sing-king-pa Hsien my _chai-jen_ were two young soldiers in the most brilliant of stagey uniforms, and I think that they must have been the reason of my exclusion from the previous inn. Among the many curious proofs of superstitious beliefs one occurred many times on the last days of the journey: a small arch made of bamboo stuck into the slush of a rice-field. This is done in cases of the illness of the owner, and it is believed that the offering will restore him.

On this windy ridge of King-kiang-sze I slept in the granary, which I should have considered extreme luxury, as it was not dark when the door was shut, had it not been that it was only just built, and the mud on the walls was quite wet. The granary was detached from the house, open, as fortunately many Chinese rooms are, for two feet below the roof, and in several other directions, being in fact so draughty that no candle would keep alight in it.

I stayed in bed all the next morning owing to severe chills, the consequence of living in wet clothes, but had to get up in the afternoon to gratify the curiosity of fully thirty women, who had hobbled in from the adjacent hamlets, some of them twenty _li_ away, to see “the foreign woman.” I feared that they would be greatly disappointed to see me in Chinese dress, but I found that they did not know that foreigners wore any other! My hair, “big feet,” shoes, and gloves were all a great amusement to them, and, above all, my light camp bed, which they were sure would not bear any weight, so they sat down on it back to back to the number of twelve!

Of course they asked many questions, among others did we in our country make away with baby girls? I could not anywhere learn that infanticide prevails in any part of SZE CHUAN in which I travelled, and when I told these women of the extent to which it is practised in some parts of KWANTUNG, the remark was, “Couldn’t they sell them for a good price?” Undoubtedly many SZE CHUAN girls are sold to traders from Kansuh. These mothers mostly had large families. The children are not weaned till they are three, and often not till they are four and even five, years old. Of “bringing up by hand” they know nothing—condensed milk has not reached that primitive region. If a mother dies at the birth of her babe, the mothers of the hamlet take the joint responsibility of supplying the orphan with maternal nourishment. They asked me if I had many sons, and when I confessed that I had none, they expressed great sympathy, because there would be no one at my death to perform the ancestral rites. It is quite customary, on hearing of the absence of sons, for women to pump up tears as a conventional requirement, and this propriety was not neglected on this occasion. It occurred to them that I could not have a daughter-in-law, which in their thinking was a great deprivation, not on sentimental, but on purely practical grounds, the daughter-in-law being equivalent to the mother-in-law’s slave.

Few of them had been to Paoning Fu, only two days’ journey off, and none to Wan Hsien. The markets of the neighbourhood were the boundaries of their horizon, and, the festivals of the divinities of their hamlets their gaieties. I like the Chinese women better than any Oriental women that I know. They have plenty of good stuff in them, and backbone. When they are Christianised they are thorough Christians. They have much kindness of heart; they are very modest; they are faithful wives, and after their fashion good mothers. I gave my visitors tea and sweetmeats all round, and they departed, having taught me far more than they learned from me.

During the afternoon men with large shields slung across their backs, and carrying red staves, appeared, and there was at once a considerable fuss and a demand for my passport, the big seals of which made a salutary impression upon them. These officials were “census men,” and were engaged in numbering the houses. The taking of a census has not been a popular matter from time immemorial, and in the East an idea of increased taxation is always associated with it.

Like many Chinese systems, the census system is admirable in theory, but frauds, lapses, and neglect render it inefficient. Every city and village is divided into “tithings,” or groups, of ten families each, and on every doorpost hangs, or ought to hang, a tablet, _mun-pai_, inscribed with the names of all the inmates of both sexes. If the head of a family omits to make an entry, or fails to register correctly the males of his household who are liable to public service, he may receive from eighty to a hundred blows. If the system were carried out, suspicious strangers could be easily caught, and local responsibility for any crime fixed without any trouble, but a householder finds it convenient to escape filling up the schedule by bribing the “shield men” with _cash_ equivalent to twopence-halfpenny.

The next day, for a considerable distance, every house had blossomed into a brand-new _mun-pai_, which indicated the arrival of a new magistrate determined to enforce the law. The talk of the inn was that it heralded additional taxation.

The next day’s journey to Heh-shui-tang was through varied and pretty country, much more populous, and with abounding water communication supplied by the Chia-ling, often in that region called the Paoning river, and its branches. The main traffic down the river is coal and salt. There are very many salt wells at a good height on the river bank. The brine is drawn by being pumped once a day, and that only when the river is low, and is evaporated by coal fires, the heavy yellow smoke giving the aspect of manufacturing industry. Salt is a Government monopoly. The Government buys all the salt which is produced, at a rate fixed by itself, and sends it all over the country for sale, making an enormous profit. It is said that the salt produced in SZE CHUAN brings in to the Government a revenue of £2,000,000 sterling! In some places the borings for salt extend to depths of nearly 3000 feet, as the result of the continuous operations of ten or twelve years, two feet a day being very satisfactory progress. “Fire wells” are often found near salt wells, and the “fire” is used for evaporating the salt. The product of the wells seen on that day’s journey is small, but fifty boats of about twelve tons were loading with it.

At the pleasant and thriving little town of Nan-pu, which produces a very white salt, the mandarin was polite, and sent four gaily uniformed soldiers with me, who, however, shortly turned themselves into rather shabby civilians, showing, as on several other occasions, that the love of mufti is not confined to English officers. The mandarin’s secretary asked if I would like to see anything in Nan-pu. I could think of nothing in the little, quiet, trading town, but for the sake of politeness I said I should like to see a school.

My men were at their midday meal, but bearers were provided, and I was soon deposited in the courtyard of an unpretending building, followed by a great crowd, which was kept from pressing on me by the mandarin’s “lictors.” The schoolroom contained several tables, some heavy benches, a teacher’s chair, a number of “ink-stones,” and thirty-three boys, from the ages of seven up to fourteen, who were all learning to read and write.

Near the roof a Confucian tablet, surrounded by inscribed strips of red paper, stood in a niche, and on one side of the schoolroom there was a life-size figure of the God of Literature, with a wooden box half full of ashes in front, in which some incense sticks were smouldering. The teacher was a kindly-looking old man in conventional goggles. He had probably repeatedly failed to pass his literary examinations, and being unfit for manual labour, had become a pedagogue. He held something very like “taws” in his hand, but his pupils had no unwholesome awe of him.

The boys were writing when I went in, _i.e._ tracing printed ideographs placed below thin paper with brushes filled with Chinese ink, which they rubbed on the ink-stones as required. The teacher went round, pointing out faults, and showing them how to hold their pens.

After this they studied, as everywhere in the East, aloud, shouting their lessons at the top of very inharmonious voices, an audible assurance relied upon to convince the teacher that they were giving full attention to their tasks. As soon as any boy had mastered his lesson, he came up to the master and stood with his back towards him while he recited, so that the master might be sure that he was not glancing at the book which he held in his own hand. Mispronunciations were corrected. What I saw constitutes education in such a school, together with formal instruction in proprieties: bowing before the tablet of Confucius on entering the room, saluting the teacher, etc. Such a school may be called a primary school, and the larger proportion of scholars never go any farther. In villages and small towns the parents pay from three to six dollars a year to the teacher, to which are added small presents of food at stated intervals. The hours are long—from sunrise till ten and from eleven till five. Evening schools are occasionally opened for those who are occupied in the day. A pedagogue must be a man of good repute, “grave, learned, and patient,” and well acquainted with the Chinese classics.

(_From a Chinese Drawing._)

The monotonous reading and writing lessons and the tedium of memorising unmeaning sounds are continued for about two years, and when the pupils have become familiar with a few thousand forms and sounds, then the actual work of teaching begins; and the pedagogue, with the help of a commentary, explains the meaning of the words one by one, taking due care that they are all understood.

This system, as pursued in the humble school at Nan-pu, is the basis of that vast fabric of education which has made China for two thousand years what she is, and has produced among the Chinese a greater veneration for letters than exists in any country on earth, letters and literary degrees, absolutely apart from the accidents of birth or wealth, being the only ladder by which a man, be he the son of prince or peasant, can attain official employment, honours, and emoluments, China being in fact the most truly democratic country in the world.

It is easy to laugh at an education which for boys of all ranks consists solely in the knowledge of the ancient Chinese classics, and there is no doubt that it stunts individuality, belittles genius, fosters conceit, and produces incredible grooviness. But, on the other hand, there is no education, unless it might be one strictly Biblical, which furnishes the memory with so much wisdom for common life, and so many noble moral maxims. Whatever of righteousness, virtuous domestic life, filial virtue, charity, propriety—and just dealing exists among the Chinese, and they do exist—is owed to the permeation of the whole race by the teaching of the classics.[42]

The six school books (classics in themselves) which are introductory to the study of the classics are, _The Trimetrical Classic_, arranged in 178 double lines, the first of which contains the much-disputed doctrine, “Men at their birth are by nature radically good.” It inculcates filial and fraternal duties, and much besides, as the following extract shows: “Mutual affection of father and son; concord of man and wife; the older brother’s kindness, the younger one’s respect; order between seniors and juniors; friendship among associates; on the prince’s part regard, on the minister’s true loyalty; these ten moral duties are for ever binding among men.” This classic concludes with a number of fascinating incidents and motives for learning taken from the lives of ancient sages and statesmen. If a boy never goes farther than this, his memory is stored with excellent examples and principles.

The second book is the _Century of Surnames_. The third is unique in the world, the _Millenary, or Thousand Character Classic_, which consists of exactly 1000 characters, no two of which are alike in meaning or form. It treats of many important subjects, and, like the _Trimetrical Classic_, abounds in praises of virtue and exhortations to rectitude. Its text is absolutely familiar to all the people, and a Christian preacher who shows himself acquainted with it is sure of an interested audience.

The fourth school classic is called _Odes for Children_, and contains thirty-four stanzas of four lines each, chiefly in praise of literary life, such as this:—

“It is of the utmost importance to educate children;
Do not say that your families are poor,
For those who can handle well the pencil (pen),
Go where they will, need never ask for favours.”

In all the school classics many examples are given of intelligent youths entering on life without advantages, who by application, virtuous conduct, and industry, have raised themselves to the highest offices in the empire.

The fifth school classic is the _Canons of Filial Duty_, a book of 1903 characters only, purporting to be a report of a conversation between the _Great Teacher_ (Confucius) and Tsang Tsan, a disciple. Whether it is actually what the Chinese believe it to be or not, its influence has been and is enormous, extending unweakened through a period of many centuries, and laying by its principles and maxims the foundations of the social order which prevails, not only in China, but in Japan and Korea. This paramount teaching begins with the sentence, “Filial duty is the root of virtue, and the stem from which instruction in the moral principle springs.” It contains an axiom which has great weight: “With the same love that they” (scholars) “serve their fathers, they should serve their mothers.” Many books have been written to illustrate these _Canons_, one a toy book, _The Twenty-four Filials_, containing twenty-four quaint and delightful stories of filial devotion. This is a most popular collection of tales, and the examples embroidered on satin, or painted on silk, or coarsely daubed on paper, are to be seen everywhere.[43]

The sixth and last is the _Siao Hioh_, or _Juvenile Instructor_, a book whose influence is estimated as enormous. It has had fifty commentators, one of whom writes of it, “We confide in the _Siao Hioh_ as we do in the gods, and revere it as we do our parents.” It is in two books, divided into twenty chapters and 385 short sections. The first book treats of the elementary principles of education, of the duties we owe to ourselves in regard to demeanour, dress, food, and study, and of the duties which we owe to our kindred, rulers, and fellow-men, and it gives illustrative examples of the good results of obeying these maxims, taken from ancient history as far down as B.C. 249!

The second book seems somewhat of a commentary on the first, or an elaboration of it. It gives a collection of virtuous and wise sayings of great men who lived after B.C. 200, and these are followed by a number of examples of conduct in distinguished persons, showing the effect of good principles and the advantage of following the teachings of the first book. The most elaborate rules of etiquette are laid down with a view of promoting mutual reverence, and the Chinese of to-day receives his guests at his outer door and conducts them, with the most careful attention to elaborate rules of precedence, through courts, and up flights of steps to his guest-hall, he and they moving their feet and accepting or declining attention in slavish accordance with the rules of this ancient classic.

The Chinese of to-day, in thought, action, and etiquette, are the product of these school books. I see no possibility of spontaneity so long as education is _solely_ on these lines. In reading the translations of these classics, in spite of a certain insistence upon trifles, and perhaps of exaggeration of unimportant points, I have been enormously impressed by their admirable moral teaching as a whole. Virtue is inculcated by precept and example on every page, and with the solemn sanctions of antiquity. Deficiencies there are, but there is not a single thing in this curriculum which a man ought not to be the better for learning, or one thing which it would be desirable for him to forget. If he is unable to go farther, he is possessed of what may be called the kernel of the best literature of his country, and his national feeling is fostered by the fact that the noble truths and examples impressed on his mind are not of foreign origin, but have originated within the frontiers of the Middle Kingdom. The missionaries show at once their appreciation of the _Chinese classics_, as well as a judicious desire to conserve Chinese nationality and keep the pathway to official employment open, by giving great prominence to this classical teaching in their schools.

“Villages had their schools, and districts their academies,” says the _Book of Rites_ (B.C. 1200), and I looked with reverence on the dirty, cobwebby walls of the little private school at Nan-pu as their historical successor.

I asked the teacher how many of his thirty-three pupils were likely to go on with their education and compete at the examinations, and he replied, “Three,” holding up three fingers, on one of which was a carefully-tended nail an inch and a half long, that there might be no mistake. The parents of the pupils were poor, and would not be able to keep them at school for more than three years at the outside, while shopkeepers, farmers, and country gentlemen would not keep them there more than five years unless they meant to go on to the literary examinations. In the case of these well-to-do persons, several families living in the same street hire a well-qualified teacher at a stipulated salary to teach their boys, and the instruction is given in light, well-aired rooms. In such a school as I spent an hour in, the teacher provides and furnishes the room according to the number and position of his pupils. On a boy entering a school he receives his _shu-ming_, or “book name,” by which he is known during his future life.

If I have conveyed what I wish to convey, clearly, it will be evident that Chinese education in the primary schools is limited to the teaching of virtue, duty, and etiquette. There is no provision for developing the intellectual powers, nor has general learning any place. There is a complete want of symmetry in the mental training, but if it fails to form broad and well-balanced minds, it must be admitted that the exaggeration is in the best direction in which distortion could occur.

That night I felt profound regret at concluding the first stage of my journey, and the soft, dreamy sunshine of the next day increased it. The country is soft in its features, and very pretty and prosperous-looking, abounding in industries, and consequently in villages and small towns, and produces everything that is good for food. The road adheres pretty closely to the valley of the Chia-ling, which we ferried twice. Its water is translucent, and of an exquisitely beautiful peacock green. It is one of the great arteries of commerce of the Yangtze Valley, and though, like the Yangtze, obstructed by rapids and given to the production of great sand-banks, specially below Paoning Fu, it and its affluents afford invaluable means of communication.

This river, uniting with the Yangtze at Chungking after receiving such fine tributaries as the Ku, the Fu, and the Pai-shui, is navigable for boats of 5000 catties up to the flourishing little town of Pai-shui-Chiang, actually over the border of KANSUH, and over 500 miles by water from Chungking. These big boats trade chiefly with Nan-pu, which produces salt, taking salt up and bringing coal down. There are smaller boats carrying 2000 catties, of which I saw many, which go right down to Chungking, carrying KANSUH tobacco, sheepskins, furs, and medicines. Mr. Litton, of H.B.M.’s Consular Service, saw seventy boats at one time moored off the city of Kuang Yuen, near the frontier of KANSUH.

The country is much affected by the great sand-banks formed by the river, which become bound together by the fibrous roots of a sword-grass, and alter the channel, forming, after a few years of deposit, fine arable land. The road I travelled from Heh-shui-tang, after skirting the Chia-ling at a great height for many miles, under cliffs abounding in recessed temples, in which groups of divinities carved in the rock receive hourly worship from wayfarers, enters Paoning Fu by a pontoon bridge about 130 yards long.

After the treelessness of much of the region I had traversed, and the comparatively poor soil and inferior dwellings, the view of Paoning and its surroundings was most charming in the soft afternoon sunshine. Built on rich alluvium, surrounded on three sides by a bend of the river, with temple roofs and gate towers rising out of dense greenery and a pink mist of peach blossom, with fair and fertile country rolling up to mountains in the north, dissolving in a blue haze, and with the peacock-green water of the Chia-ling for a foreground, the first view of this important city was truly attractive.

In the distance appeared two Chinese gentlemen, one stout, the other tall and slender, whose walk as they approached gave me a suspicion that they were foreigners, and they proved to be Bishop Cassels, our youngest and one of our latest consecrated bishops, and his coadjutor, Mr. Williams, formerly vicar of St. Stephen’s, Leeds, who had come to welcome me. We ferried the Chia-ling, and passing through attractive suburbs, either green lanes with hedges, trees, and vegetable gardens, or narrow flagged roads, very clean, bounded by roofed walls and handsome gateways of private houses, we reached the China Inland Mission buildings, consisting of a neat church, very humble Chinese houses for the married and bachelor missionaries, guest-rooms, and servants’ quarters, all cheerful, but greatly lacking privacy. This was a pleasant halt after a journey of 300 miles without a really untoward incident, except the riot at Liang-shan.