Chapter XXIX: Kuan Hsien to Sin-Wen-Ping

Before I left Kuan for Chengtu I had decided on extending my journey up the Siao Ho, a western branch of the Min, on which the mountain town of Li-fan Ting is situated, into the mountainous borderland which lies between China proper and Tibet, the country of some of the reputed aboriginal tribes which concurrent rumour said were under the rule of a woman. At Kuan and Chengtu no information could be got regarding the country west of Li-fan, except that Tibetans trading to Kuan said that “everything could be got at Somo,” which appeared to be the residence of the ruler. As there was little use in undertaking such a journey without a more efficient interpreter than Be-dien, Mr. Horsburgh kindly suggested that Mr. Kay, a lay member of the Church Missionary Society, who has a considerable knowledge of colloquial Chinese, should accompany me. I had a hazy intention if things went well of attempting to get down to Ta-lien-lu by the Chin-chuan and Tatu river, returning to the Yangtze by Ya-chow and Chia-ling Fu, but the season was late for this.

When I went to Chengtu I left my travelling arrangements to be made in my absence, simply indicating what they were to be, and that they were to be in writing. A favourite axiom of mine is the late General Gordon’s saying, “I am my own best servant,” and as a general rule I attend to the smallest details of a journey in advance myself, down to every strap, buckle, and horseshoe. On this occasion the suffering following the blow on my head and my journey to the capital had induced me to trust to others, who, however kind, were without travelling experience; and on returning I found that the travelling arrangement was the exact opposite of the one I had indicated, and that, instead of the coolies having been engaged from a hong with a written agreement, a servant had been allowed to make up a family party on indefinite lines!

Two days of hot, heavy rain delayed the start, and gave ample opportunity for the exercise of those innumerable acts of thoughtful kindness which these small, isolated communities delight in showing to strangers, and which can never be forgotten. There were two disagreeables. Be-dien had been in a shocking sulky fit for two days, and would not answer anyone who spoke to him; and instead of the promised letter from the Viceroy came an indignant note from Mr. Vale, of Chengtu, saying that at the last moment it had been refused.

On the third day the rain became a quiet downpour, tailing off at midday into a misty drizzle which continued; and as further waiting was undesirable, I started, in my three-bearer chair, with five porters, two _chai-jen_, Mr. Kay, his servant, and Be-dien. As my European clothing had fallen to pieces, I was dressed as a Chinese and wore straw shoes. My baggage was all waterproof, and instead of oblong Japanese baskets and bundles protected by oiled paper, I had two deep, square bamboo baskets as better fitted for the mountains, and no loose packages but my camera. Unfortunately, as preventing accurate observations, a year before I had sent home the instruments lent to me by the Royal Geographical Society; a pony had rolled on my hypsometer, and an aneroid barometer kindly lent to me was not reliable, and I had no means of ascertaining the amount of its unreliability before I left China.

The beautiful gorge outside the city, and the grand Prince’s Temple were drowned in mist, out of which heavy odours of gardenia drifted. All the vegetation, under the genial influences of heat and moisture, was in full beauty, and there, as everywhere, vigorous plants of the Japanese anemone bordered the road. The climbing roses were in blossom, and, weighted with moisture, hung almost down to our heads. Rocks were matted over with the _hymenophyllum Wilsonianum_, as thick as the fleece of a sheep, and the hare’s-foot fern began to make its appearance along with the familiar _polypodium vulgare_.

We left Kuan by the west gate, near a very fine temple, to which the picturesque mass of lacquered pillars and roofs in the illustration is only the outer entrance. Passing above the divided waters of the Min, and Li Ping’s simple contrivances for preserving the banks, which consist far more frequently of long cylindrical baskets of bamboo network containing stones as big as a man’s head than stone revetments, we crossed the Min by a very fine bamboo suspension bridge, which scarcely vibrated more under our tread than did the old Menai bridge under a carriage.

These bamboo bridges are a feature of the Upper Min, and are remarkably graceful, specially when thrown across at a considerable height. In the better class there is a covered bridge-house at each side and stone piers. Six bamboo ropes each as thick as a man’s arm are stretched very tightly across the river by strong windlasses firmly bedded, which are used for re-tightening the ropes as they “give.” These ropes are kept apart by battens of wood laced vertically in and out. The plank roadway is laid across the lower of the ropes, and follows their curve, which owing to the use of the windlasses for tightening up is not great. These bridges are renewed always once, and sometimes twice, a year, an operation taking two days and under. Owing to the extreme width of the river at the Kuan bridge, there are three or four spans with stone piers. Usually these suspension bridges are carried right across. The roadway is sometimes trying to the nerves, for planks tip up, or tip down, or disappear altogether, or show remarkable vivacity when the foot is placed upon them, and many a gaping hiatus, trying to any but the steadiest head, reveals the foam and fury below.

The road follows the river at a height and dives into the mountains, which are at first of sandstone, with curious strata running up at right angles to the valley, and then of limestone. The valley is populous, smoky, and trafficky. Lime-kilns abound, and a considerable population is employed in working the coal seams, which occur chiefly in the sandstone; while hundreds of coolies, carrying both coal and lime, were moving towards Kuan, and many more were loading vessels and rafts, which, if they escape the risks of the gorge below, can reach Lu-chow on the Yangtze.

At the end of nine miles, turning by a short cut up a romantic tributary of the Min, through a gorge of entrancing beauty, where forest trees and flowering shrubs were linked by an entanglement of flowering trailers, crossing a river by a covered bridge, we arrived at Fu-ki, where there was a quiet, pleasant inn, one of several of the same character on this route, where, instead of evil odours, the scent of syringa from the hill behind entered my room. It was very quiet and peaceful. There was no crowding or boring holes in the plaster, the river hummed monotonously below, the mercury was under 60°, and altogether it was a delightful change from the crowding, curiosity, noise, and blazing heat of the Chengtu plain.

Again the next day we started in a steady downpour, which ceased at the top of the very pretty temple-crowned pass, over four thousand feet in altitude, of Niang-tze-ling, after which it was fine and cool. The road drops down from the pass to the deep canyon of the Min, which bifurcates at Weichou, and the river and mountain scenery become increasingly stupendous, reminding me greatly of the road from Kashmir to Tibet after it reaches the Indus. Two fine bamboo suspension bridges near the foot of the pass, others higher up, and a number of rope bridges of Tibetan pattern give both easy and difficult access to the other side. There was a decided Tibetan influence in the air, which I welcomed cordially. Red lamas passed us on pilgrimage to Omi Shan, and numbers of muleteers in sheepskins and rough woollen garb, their animals laden with Tibetan drugs, and, better than these, some “hairy cows” (yaks), which had not yet lost the free air of their mountain pastures, and executed many rampageous freaks on the narrow bridle path. Lamas and muleteers were all frank and friendly, asked where we were going, how long we had been on the road, enlightened us on their own movements, and cheerily wished us a good journey. Most of the mules had one or more prayer-flags standing up on their loads, for the Tibetans are one of the most externally religious peoples on earth.

The Min[47] from the pass of Niang-tze-ling assumes the character which it retains more or less to the source of the Siao Ho or lesser branch. It is a fine, peacock-green river; then, though at low water, of considerable volume, booming, crashing, and foaming through canyons and gorges in a series of cataracts, hemmed in by cliffs and mountains so precipitous as rarely to leave level ground enough for a barley patch.

The bridle track, a very good one on the whole, though there are some shelving rock slithers, has been cut, not blasted, in the rock, at times on steep declivities and at times on precipices, and follows the up and down left bank of the Min ascents and descents at a height with great fidelity. It is not broad enough for a loaded mule to pass a chair, and the sight of a caravan in the distance always caused much agitation and yelling, the Tibetan muleteers invariably drawing off on the first margin they could find, and greeting us with courtesies and good wishes as we passed them. I envied them the altitudes and freedom to which they would return from the cramping grooviness of China.

Now and then the road is scaffolded, or steps are cut in the rock, or it passes under an arch of rock, or a bridge carries it across a lateral chasm down which a crystal torrent dashes, after turning two, three, or four rude mills placed in dizzy positions one above another. It is so severe that we only did thirteen miles in nine hours, and I saw plainly what I had suspected from the first, that one of the scratch team of bearers was not up to his work.

The whole of the first fortnight’s journey was along the deep, wild gorge of the greater or lesser Min. It differs widely from ordinary Chinese travelling, and has a strong resemblance to the wild gorges of the Yangtze. The mountains rise from the river to a height of over 3000 feet. Ghastly snow-cones look over them, their slopes, always steep, often break up into cliffs 400 or 500 feet high; the river has often not a yard of margin, and hurries along, crashing and booming, a thing of purposeless power and fury, which has never been tamed of mankind, its sea-green colouring a thing of beauty, and its crests and stretches of foam white as the snows which give it birth.

These mountain-sides, as far as Weichou, are completely covered with greenery, dwarf ashes, oaks, chestnuts and beeches, big enough for use by the charcoal-burners. Coarse grasses, thistles, yellow roses, a very pretty yellow cistus, bryony, brambles, yellow jasmines and flowering creepers in abundance, all dwarf, with the barberry in blossom, covered the stony, broken hillsides. Three species of warm-scented artemisia and fuzzy brown balls of uncurling fronds of ferns were expanding in the crevices of the rocks, and the rocks themselves were often tinged rose-pink with the early leaves and delicate clasping fingers of Veitch’s _Ampelopsis_.

It was a clear escape from the crowds of China. The traffic on the road was mostly Tibetan. There is little room for crops; an occasional patch among the rocks near the river, and small fields, then growing rape, and later starved barley, terraced great heights, where the mountain slope is less steep than usual. Small as the population is, it does not grow enough for its wants, so many of the men hunt the deer and wild boars on the mountains and sell the carcases in Kuan in the winter, and others trap the fur-bearing animals, which appear to be an inferior sable and marten.

There are a few hamlets on the road, which subsist chiefly by supplying the needs of travellers, but the restaurant was usually hidden away, and made no display on the “street.” Rice is scarce and not always attainable, and wherever we halted, instead of the appetising displays of ready-cooked viands which tempt the coolie appetite, there was rarely even a fire, and it was always an hour before anything was cooked. The inns, though much better than any I had been accustomed to, and often built of new boards, do not provide any fire in the mornings unless by special arrangement, and till this was understood I started without tea. Their stock of food was soon exhausted, even at the larger villages where we halted for the night, and the descent upon them of twelve hungry persons was manifestly unwelcome. Some of the hamlets are built at great heights, and are accessible by rugged paths and steps cut in the rock. The people are hardy, rough, and fairly friendly. The Chinese are, to my thinking, men of plains and rivers and slimy paths—a rice-eating people, associating with the water buffalo. Here they are abruptly metamorphosed into hardy mountaineers, hunters, maize and millet fed. Even the women, though still binding the feet, are independent in their air and movements, and perform feats in crossing rivers. The country is a cross between China and Tibet. However, there are no temples, and few shrines or other signs of religion.

Fully one-third of the population is on the west side of the Min, cut off from the high road with its business and gaieties by a furious torrent, and in most cases too poor to construct bamboo suspension bridges. Their strong nerves enable them to get over the difficulty. I know of no sight in China which fascinated me so much as their rope bridges, which we met with on the second day, and which occur sometimes at frequent intervals, as far as Weichou, from which point I saw no more of them.

The mountaineers stretch a plaited bamboo cable at a great height across the gorge, tighten it as well as they can, and secure each end round a round stone or a convenient rock. Sometimes a shed is built over the terminus and a shrine close by. Every mountaineer provides himself with two semi-cylinders of hard wood, often hinged, about a foot long. With perfect _sang-froid_ he places these on the cable, and binds them together with a rope. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he proceeds to suspend himself from the cylinder by ropes passed under his knees, his waist, and the back of his neck; some dispensing with the last.

He is then hanging under the rope, and, gripping it fast by the slide, he gives the solid earth a shove and casts off. No matter how tightly a long rope is strained, it must still “sag” considerably in the middle, and down the passenger rushes at tremendous speed, head foremost, down hill across the chasm, with an impetus which sends him a little way up the other slope. Then, letting go the cylinder, he puts his hands on the rope above his head, and hauls himself up hand over hand, slowly and laboriously. When he reaches land he detaches the cylinder, packs it and the rope into his basket, shoulders his burden—and both men and women continually carry small sacks or bundles of wood across—bows at the shrine, and goes his way.

I saw a woman cross carrying a load on each side. It took her ten minutes to ascend from the middle of the rope, which must have been ninety feet above the torrent, to land. Her face was purple with the effort, and her hands must have been pretty sore, for she spit upon them several times during the crossing. Even children are trusted to these arrangements, which need considerably more nerve than the _Jhulas_ of the Himalayas. In some places to minimise the difficulty there are two rope bridges, each descending from a high to a low level.

It is only occasionally at the mouth of one of the grand lateral gorges which open on the valley that there are any trees, and then they are very fine, specially walnuts and the exotic Zelkowa, and the _Salisburia adiantifolia_, with a few sturdy conifers, and the villages are surrounded by peaches, apricots, and the Japanese _loquat_ (_Eriobotrya Japonica_).

It was a delightful day’s journey to Sin-wen-ping, and the keen mountain air and the novelty and freedom were full of zest. Solitary grandeur, the deafening din of the Min, the green crystal affluents which descend upon it down glorious gorges, the precipices rising a thousand feet from the water, the abrupt turns where progress seems blocked, and each mountain barrier is grander and loftier than the last, and then the majesty of the day’s journey culminates at a mountain village with a fine suspension bridge, beyond which the road looks only a thread along the side of a precipice.

When the bearers reached Sin-wen-ping they said they would go no farther, for there was a “big wind” farther on, which would blow the chair into the river, and the porters said they could not carry the loads against it. Then it came out that Be-dien had left behind the lanterns which I bought a few days before; so the men carried their point of making a day of thirteen miles. Again I urged that the agreement with them should be put in writing; but it was not done, and I found later that it was on quite different lines from those I had laid down. I saw grave difficulties ahead, and should have been glad to ride and be rid of the men, but I had left my saddle in Korea.

It was very cold in the inn, only half my room being roofed, and the mercury, which was 83° on the Chengtu Plain, was only 40°. It was invigorating and delicious. The people, too, were very friendly, and did not manifest their curiosity rudely. A runner arrived from the capital with a big official envelope addressed to me, containing letters with the Viceroy’s seal; but as they were addressed to the mandarins of Pi Hsien where I did not halt, and Kuan Hsien which I had left, and made no reference to the regions beyond, they did not promise to be useful. On the _yamen_ at Chengtu refusing the promised letters, Mr. Vale telegraphed to H.B.M.’s Consul at Chungking, and this was the result. The letters stated to the mandarins that at Liang-shan and Peng Hsien the mob had attempted by violence to break in my door, and that I had been attacked with stones, all within the Viceroyalty, and the Viceroy directed the _kuans_ to take efficient measures for my protection.