THE YANGTZE VALLEY AND BEYOND

TIBETAN LAMAS MASKED FOR A RELIGIOUS DANCE.

THE YANGTZE VALLEY AND BEYOND
AN ACCOUNT OF JOURNEYS IN CHINA, CHIEFLY IN THE PROVINCE OF SZE CHUAN
AND AMONG THE MAN-TZE OF THE SOMO TERRITORY

BY MRS. J. F. BISHOP
(ISABELLA L. BIRD), F.R.G.S.

HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ORIENTAL SOCIETY OF PEKING, ETC. ETC.

WITH MAP AND 116 ILLUSTRATIONS

DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY, K.G.

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1899

DEDICATED BY PERMISSION
TO THE
MARQUESS OF SALISBURY, K.G.
WITH THE AUTHOR’S PROFOUND RESPECT, AND ADMIRATION
OF THE NOBLE AND DISINTERESTED SERVICES
WHICH HE HAS RENDERED TO THE
BRITISH EMPIRE

PREFACE

These journeys in China [concluding in 1897], of which the following pages are the record, were undertaken for recreation and interest solely, after some months of severe travelling in Korea. I had no intention of writing a book, and it was not till I came home, and China came very markedly to the front, and friends urged upon me that my impressions of the Yangtze Valley might be a useful contribution to popular knowledge of that much-discussed region, that I began to arrange my materials in their present form. They consist of journal letters, photographs, and notes from a brief diary.

In correcting them, and in the identification of places, not an easy matter, I have been much indebted to the late Captain Gill’s River of Golden Sand, The Gorges of the Yangtze, by Mr. A. Little, three papers on “Exploration in Western China,” by Mr. Colborne Baber, in the Geographical Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, and very specially to the official reports of H.B.M.’s Consuls at the Yangtze ports. I have denied myself the pleasure of reading any of the recent literature on China, and it was only when my task was done that I glanced over some of the later chapters in The Break Up of China, and China in Transformation. For a great part of my inland journey I have been unable to find any authorities to refer to, and as regards personal observation I agree sadly with the dictum of Socrates—“The body is a hindrance to acquiring knowledge, and sight and hearing are not to be trusted.”

I cannot hope to escape errors, but I have made a laborious effort to be accurate, and I trust and believe that they are not of material importance, and that in the main this volume will be found to convey a truthful impression of the country and its people. The conflicting statements made on every subject by well-informed foreign residents in China, as elsewhere, constitute a difficulty for a traveller, and homogeneous as China is, yet with regard to very many customs, what is true in one region is not true in another. Even in the single province of SZE CHUAN there is a very marked unlikeness between one district and another in house and temple architecture, methods of transit, customs in trade, and in much else.

I have dwelt at some length on “Beaten Tracks”—i.e., treaty ports and the Great River—though these have been described by many writers, for the reason that each one looks at them from a different standpoint, and helps to create a complete whole. The illustrations in this volume, with the exception of the reproductions of some Chinese drawings, and nine which friends have kindly permitted me to use, are from my own photographs. The spelling of place names needs an explanation. I have not the Chinese characters for them, and in many cases have only been able to represent by English letters the sounds as they reached my ear; but wherever possible, the transliteration given by Consul Playfair in his published list of Chinese Place Names has been adopted, and with regard to a few well-known cities the familiar but unscholarly spelling has been retained. To prevent confusion the names of provinces have been printed in capitals.

I am painfully conscious of the many demerits of this volume, but recognising the extreme importance of increasing by every means the knowledge of, and interest in, China and its people, I venture to ask for it from the public the same kindly criticism with which my former records of Asiatic travel have been received, and to hope that it may be accepted as an honest attempt to make a contribution to the data on which public opinion on China and Chinese questions must be formed.

ISABELLA L. BISHOP

October, 1899.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE I. GEOGRAPHICAL AND INTRODUCTORY 1 II. “THE MODEL SETTLEMENT” 15 III. HANGCHOW 29 IV. THE HANGCHOW MEDICAL MISSION HOSPITALS 44 V. SHANGHAI TO HANKOW (HANKAU) 55 VI. THE FOREIGNERS—HANKOW AND BRITISH TRADE 61 VII. CHINESE HANKOW (HANKAU) 67 VIII. HANKOW TO ICHANG 83 IX. ICHANG 95 X. THE UPPER YANGTZE 104 XI. RAPIDS OF THE UPPER YANGTZE 114 XII. RAPIDS AND TRACKERS 128 XIII. LIFE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE 138 XIV. THE YANGTZE AND KUEI FU 150 XV. NEW YEAR’S DAY AT KUEI-CHOW FU 160 XVI. KUEI FU TO WAN HSIEN 166 XVII. CHINESE CHARITIES 181 XVIII. FROM WAN HSIEN TO SAN TSAN-PZU 194 XIX. SZE CHUAN TRAVELLING 207 XX. SAN-TSAN-PU TO LIANG-SHAN HSIEN 214 XXI. LIANG-SHAN HSIEN TO HSIA-SHAN-PO 223 XXII. HSIA-SHAN-PO TO SIAO-KIAO 240 XXIII. SIAO-KIAO TO HSIEH-TIEN-TZE 249 XXIV. HSIEH-TIEN-TZE TO PAONING FU 264 XXV. PAONING FU AND SIN-TIEN-TZE 282 XXVI. SIN-TIEN-TZE TO TZE-TUNG HSIEN 296 XXVII. TZE-TUNG HSIEN TO KUAN HSIEN 316 XXVIII. KUAN HSIEN AND CHENGTU 338 XXIX. KUAN HSIEN TO SIN-WEN-PING 361 XXX. SIN-WEN-PING TO LI-FAN TING 373 XXXI. LI-FAN TING TO TSA-KU-LAO 395 XXXII. THE “BEYOND” 404 XXXIII. THE MAN-TZE, I-REN, OR SHAN-SHANG-REN 443 XXXIV. FROM SOMO TO CHENGTU FU 455 XXXV. DOWNWARD BOUND 460 XXXVI. LUCHOW TO CHUNG-KING FU 477 XXXVII. THE JOURNEY’S END 490 XXXVIII. THE OPIUM POPPY AND ITS USE 506 XXXIX. NOTES ON PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN CHINA 518 CONCLUDING REMARKS 530 ITINERARY 545 APPENDICES 546 INDEX 549

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE Tibetan Lamas masked for a Religious Dance (Lal Singh) Frontispiece Zig-zag Bridge and Tea House, Shanghai 27 A Pah, or Haulover 33 West Gate, Hangchow 35 Pavilion in Imperial Garden, Si-hu 39 God of Thunder, Lin-yang 42 C.M.S. Mission Hospital, Hangchow 45 A Street in Hankow (John Thomson, F.R.G.S.) 69 Hankow from Han Yang 73 Coffins awaiting Burial 76 Female Beggar in Mat Hut 78 A Travelling Restaurant 80 Chinese Soldiers 87 Military Officer 88 A Fisherman and Plunge Net 90 The Tablet of Confucius 97 Entrance to Ichang Gorge 107 The Author’s Boat 111 Bed of the Yangtze in Winter, Ta-tan Rapid 116 The Hsin-tan 120 Ping-shu Gorge, Hsin-tan 125 The Mitan Gorge 129 Temple near Kueichow 133 Trackers’ Houses 143 Author’s Trackers at Dinner 158 A Chinese Punchinello 161 Temple of Chang-fei 167 Pagoda near Wan Hsien 169 Guest Hall, C.I.M., Wan Hsien 173 Bridge at Wan Hsien 179 A Chinese Burial Charity 185 Baggage Coolies 197 A Pai-fang 199 Granite Dragon Pillar 203 Pass of Shen-kia-chao 215 Wayside Shrine 218 A Chinese Chatsworth 225 Bridge and Inn of Shan-rang-sar 229 A Porcelain Temple 233 The Water Buffalo 235 Ordinary Covered Bridge 237 A Group of Kuans (Mandarins) 255 Lady’s Sedan Chair (Chinese Propriety) (Dr. Kinnear) 259 A Sze Chuan Farmhouse 267 A Sze Chuan Market-place 271 Pedagogue and Pupils 275 Recessed Divinities, Chia-ling River 281 Temple of God of Literature, Paoning Fu 283 The Right Rev. Bishop Cassels, D.D., Paoning Fu 287 Chinese Protestant Episcopal Church, Paoning Fu 289 C.I.M. Sanitarium, Sin-tien-tze 293 Entrance to a Market-place 297 Author’s arrival at a Chinese Inn 303 An Ox Mill 306 A Hand Mill 307 The Ta-lu 309 Woman Reeling Silk 317 The Rev. J. Heywood Horsburgh, M.A., in Travelling Dress 322 Water Mill, Chengtu Plain 325 Bridge at Mien-chuh 328 Treadmill Field-pump (Captain Gill) 332 Wooden Bridge, Kuan Hsien 335 Roof of Erh-wang Temple 341 Oil Baskets and Wooden Purse 344 Barrow Traffic, Chengtu Plain 345 Poppy Field in Blossom 349 The White Opium Poppy (F. S. Mayers) 351 The Author in Manchu Dress (Moffat, Edinburgh) 353 Divinity in Wen-shu-yuan Temple, Chengtu 359 Entrance to Grounds of City Temple, Kuan Hsien 363 Double Roofed Bridge 368 Tibetan Rope Bridge (Captain Gill) 370 Human Pack Saddle for Timber 374 Bamboo Suspension Bridge, Weichou 379 Ancient Towers at Kanpo 383 Kan-chi 387 Rock Temple, Li-fan Ting 391 Village of Wei-gua 397 Street of Tsa-ku-lao 401 A Sugar-loaf Mountain, Siao Ho 405 Revolving Prayer-Cylinders 408 Bridle Track by the Siao Ho 411 View from Chuang Fang 414 Castle at Chu-ti 416 Headman’s House, Chu-ti 417 Altar of Incense on Man-tze Roof 418 Sick unto Death 420 Lama-serai and Headman’s House, Mia-ko 421 Elephantiasis (Dr. Christie) 427 Chinese Officer and Spearmen, Mia-ko 432 Village of Rong-kia 434 Canyon of the Rong-kia 435 Square Tower, Somo 438 Distant View of Somo 439 A Man-tze Village 444 Somo Castle (back view) 447 Entrance and Judgment-seat, Somo Castle 453 Heshui Hunter, and Notched Timbers 456 A Heshui Family, Ku-erh-kio 457 A Dragon Bridge 459 Village on the Min 462 West Gate, Chia-ling Fu 465 Frieze in Rock Dwelling, Min River 468 Boat on the Min (Dr. Causland) 469 Town on the Yangtze 472 Suburb of Sui Fu 473 Tsiang Ngan Hsien, with entrance to Rock Dwelling 476 Pagoda near Luchow 479 The Author’s Wu-pan 483 Method of carrying Cash and Babies 486 Fishing Village, Upper Yangtze 487 Wall of Chung-king, with Gate Towers 491 Chung-king Soldiers, Customs Guard 494 Gala Head-dress, “Dog-faced” Woman (Dr. Kinnear) 498 The Author’s last Wu-pan 500 “Stone Precious Castle,” Shi-pao-chai 502

ERRATA.

Page 2. Third line from bottom, for “140” read “263.”

„ 177. Footnote, third line from bottom, after “illustration” read “on page 498.”

„ 415. Eleventh line from bottom, for “Tu-sze” read “Tu-tze.”

„ 495. Eighteenth line from top, for “88°” read “87°.”

„ 518. Eleventh line from bottom, for “six thousand” read “8875.”

THE YANGTZE VALLEY

CHAPTER I.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND INTRODUCTORY

The events which have rendered the Yangtze Valley literally a “sphere of interest” throughout the British Empire lie outside the purview of these volumes. Few people, unless they have been compelled to the task by circumstances or interests, are fully acquainted with the magnitude and resources of the great basin which in the spring of 1898 was claimed as the British “sphere of influence,” and I honestly confess that it was only at the end of eight months (out of journeys of fifteen months in China) spent on the Yangtze, its tributaries, and the regions watered by them that I even began to learn their magnificent capabilities, and the energy, resourcefulness, capacities, and “backbone” of their enormous population.

Geographically the Yangtze Valley, or drainage area, may be taken as extending from the 90th to the 122nd meridian of east longitude, and as including all or most of the important provinces of SZE CHUAN, HUPEH, HUNAN, KIANGSI, NGANHUI, KIANGSU, and HONAN, with considerable portions of CHE KIANG, KUEICHOW, and YUNNAN, and even includes the south-eastern drainage areas of KANSUH, SHENSI, and SHANTUNG. Geographically there can be no possible mistake about the limits of this basin.[1] Its area is estimated at about 650,000 square miles, and its population, one of the most peaceable and industrious on earth, at from 170,000,000 to 180,000,000.

The actual length of the Yangtze is unknown, but is believed not to exceed 3000 miles. Rising, according to the best geographical information, almost due north of Calcutta, its upper waters have been partially explored by Colonel Prjevalsky and Mr. Rockhill up to an altitude in the Tang-la mountains of 16,400 feet, and as far as lat. 34° 43′ N. and long. 90° 48′ E.[2]

It has thus been ascertained that the Great River, though not tracked actually to its source, rises on the south-east edge of the Central Asian steppes, and, after draining an extensive and little-known basin, pursues a tempestuous course under the name of the Chin Sha, hemmed in by parallel ranges, and raging through gigantic rifts in YUNNAN and South-western SZE CHUAN, which culminate in grandeur at the Sun Bridge, a mountain about 20,000 feet in altitude, “which abuts on the river in a precipice or precipices which must be 8000 feet above its waters” (Baber).

It is not till these savage gorges are passed and the Chin Sha reaches Ping Shan, forty miles above Sui Fu, that it becomes serviceable to man. In long. 94° 48′ Colonel Prjevalsky describes it as a rapid torrent, with a depth of from five to seven feet, a bed, upwards of a mile wide, covered in summer, and a width in autumn of 750 feet at about 2800 miles from its mouth. In travelling from its supposed source to Ping Shan, a distance roughly estimated at 1500 miles, its fall must be fully 15,000 feet (assuming that the altitude of its source is 16,400 feet),[3] while for the same distance (again roughly estimated) from Ping Shan to Shanghai the fall is only 1025 feet, and from Hankow to the sea, a distance of 600 miles, only an inch per mile.

The Min or Fu appears to have its source in the Baian Kara range, called in Tibetan Maniak-tso,[4] and joins the Chin Sha at Sui Fu. While the Chin Sha is only navigable for about forty miles above this junction, the Min is navigable to Chengtu, about 266 miles from Sui Fu, and by another branch to Kuan Hsien, forty miles higher. I descended the Min from Chengtu to Sui Fu in a fair-sized boat at the very lowest of low water. As being navigable for a far greater distance, the Chinese geographers regard the Min as the true “Great River,” the superior length of the Chin Sha not being taken into account. It should be noted that the Chinese only give their great river the name of Yangtze for the two hundred miles of its tidal waters.[5]

After the River of Golden Sand and the Min unite at Sui Fu, the Great River asserts its right to be regarded as the most important of Asiatic waterways by furnishing, by its main stream and the tributaries which thereafter enter it, routes easy of navigation through the rich and crowded centre of China, with Canton by the Fu-ling, with only two portages, and with Peking (Tientsin) itself by the Grand Canal, which it cuts in twain at Chin Kiang.

It is only of the navigable affluents of the Yangtze that mention need be made here. The raging and tremendous torrents foaming through rifts as colossal as its own, and at present unexplored, lie rather within the province of the geographer.

In estimating the importance of these affluents it must be remembered that the Yangtze, of which they are feeders, is not an outlet, but the outlet, for the commerce of SZE CHUAN, which, owing to its size, population, wealth, and resources, may be truly termed the empire province of China.

On the north or left bank the Min, before uniting with the Chin Sha at Sui Fu, receives near the beautiful trading city of Chia-ling Fu the Tung or Tatu, a river with a volume of water so much larger than its own as to warrant the view taken by Mr. Baber and Mr. von Rosthorn that it ought to be considered the main stream, and the Ya, which is navigable for bamboo rafts up to Ya-chow, the centre of the brick tea trade with Tibet. After this the Yangtze at Lu-chow receives the To, which gives access to one of the richest regions of the province, and at Chungking, the trading capital, the Chia-ling.

This is in itself a river of great importance, being navigable for over 500 miles, actually into the province of Kansuh. It receives several noble navigable feeders, among the most important of which are the Ku, entering it a little above Ho-chow, the Honton or Fu, and the Pai Shui. It passes for much of its course through a rich and fertile region, and through a country which produces large quantities of salt, and it bisects the vast coal-fields which underlie Central SZE CHUAN. On the right or south bank above the gorges, at the picturesque city of Fu-chow, the Fu-ling, which has three aliases, enters the Yangtze. This is an affluent of much commercial importance, as being the first of a network of rivers by which, with only two portages, goods from the Far West can reach Canton, and as affording, with its connections the Yuan Ho and the Tungting lake, an alternative route to Hankow, by which the risks of the rapids are avoided.

After the Yangtze enters the gorges, which at one point, at least, narrow it to a width of 150 yards, there are no affluents worthy of special notice until Ichang is passed, when the Han, navigable for cargo boats for 1200 miles of north-westerly windings from its mouth at Hankow, takes the first place, followed by the Yuan, Hsiang, Kan, Shu, and others, which join the Yangtze through the Tungting and Poyang lakes. These rivers, specially the Han, are themselves swelled by a great number of navigable feeders, which east of Sha-shih, in the Great Plain, are connected by a vast network of navigable canals, the differences in level being overcome by the ingenious contrivance called the pah. These natural and artificial waterways are among the chief elements of the prosperity of the Yangtze Valley, affording cheap transit for merchandise, land carriage in China, mile for mile, costing twenty times as much as water carriage.

The time of the annual rise and fall of the Great River can be counted on with tolerable certainty. With regard to the rise, from what I saw and heard I am inclined to attach more importance to the swelling of its Yunnan affluents during the south-west monsoon than to the melting of those snows which, as seen from the stupendous precipice of Omi-shan, are one of the grandest sights on earth—the long and glittering barrier which secludes the last of the hermit nations.

The rise of the Yangtze is from forty feet or thereabouts at Hankow to ninety feet and upwards at Chungking. During three months of the year the rush of the vast volume of water is so tremendous that traffic is mainly suspended, and even in early June many hundreds of the large junks are laid up until the autumn in quiet reaches between Chungking and Wan Hsien. The annual rise of the river as well as the rapids have to be taken into consideration in the discussion of the question as to whether steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze can be made commercially profitable.

The actual rise, which is more reliable than that of the Nile, begins late in March, is at its height early in August, and then gradually falls until December or January. Late in June, when I descended the Great River, its enormous submerged area presented the same appearance on a large scale as the limited Nile valley—an expanse of muddy water, out of which low mounds, probably of great antiquity, rise, crested with trees and villages, with boats moored to the houses.

The country in the neighbourhood of Shanghai is a fairly good example of the characteristics of the Great Plain. In ordinary dry weather the surface of the soil is not more than five feet above the water-level, and as seen from any pagoda the whole country, with the exception of the two or three low Tsing-pu hills, which are seldom visible, presents the aspect, familiar to dwellers in the fens, of a cultivated dead level, intersected by numerous canals and creeks and by embankments for the preservation of the fields from inundation. Much the same sort of view in winter may be seen from any elevated point for hundreds of miles, modified by a few ranges of hills of somewhat higher elevation, wider creeks, and shallow marshy lakes.

It is not solely by deposits of rich alluvium brought down by the annual rise of the river that the soil of the Great Plain is gradually raised. The agency of dust storms is an important one, and these occur extensively throughout Northern and Central China, moving much material from place to place. I saw a dust storm at Kueichow which lasted for seven hours, burying some hovels and much agricultural country, and even producing a metamorphosis of the rocky bed of the Yangtze. Such storms have been observed as far east as Shanghai, but their occurrence at Kueichow shows that their area is not limited to the Great Plain or even to the region east of the mountain barrier between HUPEH and SZE CHUAN.

It is not till the Yangtze reaches Sha-shih that its character completely changes. The first note of change is a great embankment, thirty feet high, which protects the region from inundation. Below Sha-shih the vast river becomes mixed up with a network of lakes and rivers, connected by canals, the area of the important Tungting lake being over 2000 square miles. The Han alone, with its many affluents and canals, disperses goods through the interior for 1200 miles north of its mouth at Hankow, but there are some difficult rapids to surmount. The Hsiang and the Yuan, uniting with the Yangtze at the Tungting lake, are navigable nearly as far to the south. The Kan, which unites with the Yangtze through the Poyang lake, which has an area of 1800 square miles, is navigable to the Mei-ling pass, near the Kwantung frontier.

The delta of the river is indicated below Wu-sueh by even a greater labyrinth of tributaries, lakes, and canals, the area of the Tai Hu and the other lakes in the southern delta being estimated at 1200 square miles, and the length of the channels used for navigation and irrigation at 36,000 miles. In summer, after the spring crops have been removed, the whole region is under water. The population migrates to mounds, and the temporary villages communicate by boats.

At Chinkiang the Grand Canal enters the Yangtze from Hangchow, and leaves it on the left bank, some miles away, for Tientsin. On that north bank engineering works, extending over a vast area of country, have been constructed, evidencing the former energy and skill of the Chinese.

These have diverted the river Huai, which with its seventy-two tributaries form important commercial routes to North An Hui and Honan, from its natural course to the sea, and have compelled the bulk of its waters to discharge themselves into the Yangtze through openings in a large canal which runs nearly parallel with it for 140 miles. By means of innumerable artificial waterways, the excavation of some lakes, and the enlargement of others, the Huai no longer has any existence as a river east of the Grand Canal, most of this work having been carried out to prevent undue pressure on the bank of that great waterway at any one point south of the old course of the Hoang Ho.

North of the canal, and parallel with the Yangtze, lies a parallelogram the extent of which is estimated by Père Gandar at 8876 square miles, and is one of the most productive rice-fields in China. This is below the water-level. It has immense dykes protecting it from the sea, pierced by eighteen drainage canals, but its chief drainage is into the Yangtze. Waterways under constant and careful supervision intersect this singular region. For the remaining distance the mighty flood of the Yangtze rolls majestically on through absolutely level country, in which in winter embankments and waterways are everywhere seen. The influence of the tide is felt for about 200 miles.

There is an ancient Chinese proverb regarding the mouth of the Great River: “Lo, this mighty current hastens to its imperial audience with the ocean.” But opaque yellow water and mud flats, extending as far as the eye can reach, leave the imperial grandeur to the imagination.

Tennyson’s description of the work of rivers as being “to sow the dust of continents to be,” applies forcibly to the Yangtze, which, after creating the vast alluvial plains which stretch from Sha-shih for 800 miles to the ocean and endowing them in its annual overflow with sufficient fresh material to keep up an unsurpassed fertility, has yet enough to spare to discharge 770,000 feet of solid substance every second into the sea, according to scientific estimates. The Yangtze has done much to create, within comparatively recent years, at least the eastern portion of the province of Kiang Su and the island of Tsung-ming near Shanghai, capable of supporting a population of considerably over 1,000,000 souls. Another marked instance of its power to create is shown near the treaty port of Chinkiang. The British fleet ascended the Yangtze, so recently as in 1842, by a channel south of the beautiful Golden Island. Now, instead of the channel, there is an expanse of wooded and cultivated land sprinkled with villages.

Nearly a mile wide 600 miles from its mouth, nearly three-quarters of a mile at 1000, and 630 yards at 1500, with a volume of water which, at 1000 miles from the sea, is estimated at 244 times that of the Thames at London Bridge, with a summer depth of ninety feet at Chungking and of ten feet at its few shallow places at Hankow when at its lowest winter level, with a capacity for a rise of forty feet before it overflows its banks, with an annual rise and fall more reliable than those of the Nile, with navigable tributaries penetrating the richest and most populous regions of China, navigable in the summer as far as Hankow for the largest ships in the world, and during the whole year to Ichang, 400 miles farther, for fine river steamers carrying large cargoes, even the Upper Yangtze, that region of grandeur, perils, and surprises, is traversed annually by 7000 junks, employing a quarter of a million of men. During my own descent of the Min and Yangtze from Chengtu to Shanghai, a distance by the windings of the river of about 2000 miles, I was never out of sight of native traffic, and those who, like myself, have waited for two or three days at the foot of the great rapids for the turn to ascend, can form some idea of how vast that traffic is.

The navigable portion of the Yangtze, as regarded from the sea, naturally divides itself into three stretches, the first, of 1000 miles, rolling as a broad turbid flood, traversed by several lines of steamers, through the deep grey alluvium of some of the richest and most populous provinces of China, mainly its own creation; the second, the region between Ichang and Kueichow Fu, through which hitherto goods have been carried by junks alone, in which it cleaves the confused mass of the HUPEH ranges by a series of magnificent gorges and tremendous cataracts; and the third, the long stretch of rapids and races between Kueichow Fu and Sui Fu at its junction with the Min.

It is not possible to exaggerate the sublimity and risks of the navigation of the Upper Yangtze, especially at certain seasons. Of the vast fleet of junks which navigate its perilous waters, five hundred on an average are annually wrecked, and one-tenth of the enormous importation of cotton into Chungking arrives damaged by water. Yet so ample are the means of transport, and so low the freight considering the risks, that, according to Mr. von Rosthorn, of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs, foreign cottons are sold in SZE CHUAN at a barely appreciable advance on their price at Ichang, to which point they are brought by steam from the coast in eight days.

The Chinese Gazetteer notifies one thousand rapids and rocks between Ichang and Chungking, a distance of about 500 miles; and in winter this does not seem an outlandish estimate, but in early summer, with the water twenty-four and thirty feet higher, many of the vigorous rapids, alternating with smooth stretches of river only running three knots an hour, disappear, along with boulder-strewn shores, rocks, and islets, giving place to a broad and tremendous volume of water, swirling seawards at the rate of seven, eight, and ten knots an hour, forming many and dangerous whirlpools.

Of the magnitude of the native traffic on the Lower Yangtze, undiminished by the various steamboat lines which keep up daily communication with Hankow, it is scarcely needful to write. In ascending it is evident to the traveller by the time that Chinkiang, the port of junction with the Grand Canal, is reached, that, broad as the river is, there is none too much “sea room” for the thousands of junks of every build, from every maritime and riverine province, fishing and cargo boats of every size and rig, rafts, lorchas, and cormorant boats, which throng its waters.

The open ports of Wuhu and Kiu-kiang, each with its fleets of junks, and trade worth several millions sterling annually, and big cities such as Nanking, Yangchow, and Nganking, each with its highly organised mercantile and social life, and trade guilds and charities, are important and interesting; and it is seen in a rapid glance that large villages with numerous industries, rice, cotton, and silk culture predominating, abound, that everything is utilised, that every foot of ground capable of cultivation is bearing a crop, and that even the reed-beds of the irreclaimable swamps furnish materials for houses, roofs, fences, and fuel. It is seen that elaborate and successful engineering works have reclaimed large tracts of country and keep them drained, that a network of irrigating and navigable canals spreads over the whole level region, and that the traffic on these minor waterways is enormous.

So ceaseless are the industries by land and water, that it is hardly a surprise to find them culminating 600 miles from the ocean in the “million-peopled” city of Hankow (Han Mouth), the greatest distributing centre for goods in China, with miles of craft moored in triple rows along the Han, itself navigable for 1200 miles.

The empire province of SZE CHUAN, with the great navigable tributaries of the Yangtze, by which goods are conveyed at small cost to countless towns and villages, will be treated in some detail farther on. It is enough to remark here that it has about the area of France, that it has a population estimated by the Chinese census authorities at 70,000,000, and by none at less than 50,000,000; that it has a superb climate, ranging from the temperate to the sub-tropical; a rich soil, much of which, under careful cultivation, yields three and even four crops annually of most things which can be grown; forests of grand timber, the area of which has not even been estimated; rich mineral resources, and some of the most valuable and extensive coal-fields in the world. It cannot be repeated too often that for its export trade, estimated at £3,300,000, and its import trade, estimated at £2,400,000, the Yangtze is the sole outlet and inlet.

Such an exhibition of Chinese energy, industry, resourcefulness, and power of battling with difficulties is not to be seen anywhere to the same extent as on the Upper Yangtze, where the enormous bulk of the vast import trade has to be dragged up 500 miles of hills of water by the sheer force of man-power, at two or three of the worst rapids a junk of over one hundred tons requiring the haulage of nearly four hundred men.

Waterways take the place of roads, which are usually infamous, throughout the Yangtze basin, but the bridges are marvels of solidity, and in many cases of beauty. The annual inundations on the Great Plain partly account for the badness of the roads, and constitute an expensive difficulty in the way of the forthcoming railroads.

To write of the Yangtze Valley, the British “sphere of influence” (a phrase against which I protest), without any allusion to such an important factor as its inhabitants, would be a mistake, for sooner or later, in various ways, we shall have to reckon with them.

The population throughout, from the ocean to the unexplored rifts of the Chin Sha, is homogeneous, that is Chinese, with the exception of certain tribes of the far west: the Sifan, Mantze, and Lolo. The Tartars or Manchu, who have supplied the throne with the present dynasty, whose fathers drove the Chinese before them like sheep, and who still garrison the great cities, have mainly degenerated into opium-smoking loafers, the agent in their downfall being hereditary pensions.

Throughout this vast population, perhaps not over-estimated at 180,000,000, with the exception of spasmodic and local rebellions now and then, law and order, prosperity (except in such disasters as floods or famines) and peace prevail, and that security for the gains of labour exists without which no country is great. The system of government, the written language, and the education are uniform, and the “three religions”—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism—are so mixed up together that there is little antagonism between them.

The organisation of this valley population, social and mercantile, is a marvel, with its system of trade, trade guilds, trade unions, charities, banking and postal systems, and powerful trade combinations.

In much talk about “open doors” and “spheres of influence” and “interest,” in much greed for ourselves, not always dexterously cloaked, and much jealousy and suspicion of our neighbours, and in much interest in the undignified scramble for concessions in which we have been taking our share at Peking, there is a risk of our coming to think only of markets, territory, and railroads, and of ignoring the men who, for two thousand years, have been making China worth scrambling for. It may be that we go forward with “a light heart,” along with other European empires, not hesitating, for the sake of commercial advantages, to break up in the case of a fourth of the human race the most ancient of earth’s existing civilisations, without giving any equivalent.

In estimating the position occupied by the inhabitants of the Yangtze Valley, as of the rest of China, it is essential for us to see quite clearly that our Western ideas find themselves confronted, not with barbarism or with debased theories of morals, but with an elaborate and antique civilisation which yet is not decayed, and which, though imperfect, has many claims to our respect and even admiration. They meet with a perfectly organised social order, a system of government theoretically admirably suited to the country, combining the extremes of centralisation and decentralisation, and under which, in spite of its tremendous infamies of practice, the governed enjoy a large measure of peace and prosperity, a noteworthy amount of individual liberty and security for the gains of labour, and under which it is as possible for a peasant’s son to rise to high position as in the American Republic.[6]

Western civilisation finds itself confronted also by a people at once grossly material and grossly superstitious, swayed at once by the hazy speculations and unintelligible metaphysic which in Chinese Buddhism have allied themselves with the most extravagant and childish superstitions, and by the dæmonism of Taoism, while over both tower the lofty ethics and profound agnosticism of Confucius. It finds a classical literature universally held in profound reverence, in which, according to all testimony, there is not a thought which could sully the purest mind, and an idolatry puerile, superstitious, and free from grand conceptions, but in which bloody sacrifices and the deification of vice have never had a part, or immoral rites a place.

The human product of Chinese civilisation, religion, and government is to me the greatest of all enigmas, and so he remains to those who know him best. At once conservative and adaptable, the most local of peasants in his attachments, and the most cosmopolitan and successful of emigrants—sober, industrious, thrifty, orderly, peaceable, indifferent to personal comfort, possessing great physical vitality, cheerful, contented, persevering—his filial piety, tenacity, resourcefulness, power of combination, and respect for law and literature, place him in the van of Asiatic nations.

The Chinese constitute an order by themselves, and their individuality cannot be read in the light of that of any other nation. The aspirations and modes of thinking by which we are ruled do not direct their aims. They are keen and alert, but unwilling to strike out new lines, and slow to be influenced in any matters. Their trading instincts are phenomenal. They are born bargainers, and would hardly think half an hour wasted if through chaffering they gained an advantage of half a cash, a coin forty of which are about one penny. They are suspicious, cunning, and corrupt; but it is needless to run through the established formula of their vices. Among the things which they lack are CONSCIENCE, and such an enlightened public opinion as shall sustain right and condemn wrong.

Matthew Arnold has said that Greece perished for want of attention to conduct, and that the revelation which rules the world is the “pre-eminence of righteousness.” It may be that the western powers are not giving the Middle Kingdom a very desirable object-lesson.

On the whole, as I hope to show to some extent in the following pages, throughout the Yangtze valley, from the great cities of Hangchow and Hankow to the trading cities of SZE-CHUAN, the traveller receives very definite impressions of the completeness of Chinese social and commercial organisation, the skill and carefulness of cultivation, the clever adaptation of means to ends—the existence of provincial patriotism, or, perhaps, more truly, of local public spirit, of the general prosperity, and of the backbone, power of combination, resourcefulness, and independence possessed by the race. It is not an effete or decaying people which we shall have to meet in serious competition when it shall have learned our sciences and some of our methods of manufacturing industry. Indeed, it is not improbable that chemistry, for instance, might be eagerly adapted by so ingenious a race to the perpetration of new and hitherto unthought-of frauds! But if the extraordinary energy, adaptability, and industry of the Chinese may be regarded from one point of view as the “Yellow Peril,” surely looked at from another they constitute the Yellow Hope, and it may be possible that an empire genuinely Christianised, but not denationalised, may yet be the dominant power in Eastern Asia.

The Chinese are ignorant and superstitious beyond belief, but on the whole, with all their faults, I doubt whether any other Oriental race runs so straight.

The Yangtze Basin is a magnificent sphere of interest for all the industrial nations for fair, if not friendly, rivalry, and to preserve the “open door” there, and throughout China, is a worthy object of ambition. To strengthen instead of to weaken the Central Government is undoubtedly the wisest policy to pursue, for in the weakness of the Peking Government lies the weakness and possible abrogation of all treaty obligations. It is its strength and capacity to fulfil its treaties which alone make them worth anything. In the weakening of the Central Government, and the disintegration of the empire, our treaty rights in the Yangtze Valley, for instance, would be worth as much as our sword could secure, and it cannot reach above Ichang, while if the integrity of the empire be preserved, and it is aided along judicious paths of reform, this vast basin, with its singular capabilities, and its population of 180,000,000, may become the widest arena for commercial rivalries that the world has ever seen.

CHAPTER II.
“THE MODEL SETTLEMENT”

Those of my readers who have followed me through all or any of my eleven volumes of travels must be aware that my chief wish on arriving at a foreign settlement or treaty port in the East is to get out of it as soon as possible, and that I have not the remotest hankering after Anglo-Asiatic attractions. Nor is Shanghai, “The Model Settlement of the East,” an exception to the general rule, though I gratefully acknowledge the kindness and hospitality which I met with there, as everywhere, and recall with pleasure my many sojourns at the British Consulate as the guest of Mr. and Mrs. Lowndes Bullock.

But as the outlet of the commerce of the Yangtze Valley, and as a foreign city which has risen on Chinese shores in little more than half a century to the position and importance of one of the great trading centres of the world—its exports and imports for 1898 being of the value of £37,680,875 sterling[7]—it claims such notice as I can give it, which is chiefly in the shape of impressions.

I have reached Shanghai four times by Japanese steamers, three times in coasting steamers of American build, once in one of the superb vessels of the Canadian Empress line, once from Hankow in a metamorphosed Dutch gunboat, and the last time, after nearly three and a half years of far eastern travel, in a small Korean Government steamer, her quaint, mysterious, and nearly unknown national flag exciting much speculation and interest as she steamed slowly up the river. Of these vessels, the Empress of China alone discharged her passengers and cargo at Woo-sung, a railroad terminus twelve miles below Shanghai, and that not necessarily.

Many hours before reaching port, the deep heavenly blue of the Pacific gradually changes into a turbid yellowish flood, well named the Yellow Sea, holding in suspension the rich wash of scarcely explored Central Asian mountain ranges, the red loam of the “Red Basin” of SZE CHUAN, and the grey and yellow alluvium of the Central Provinces of China, all carried to the ocean by the “Great River,” according to a careful scientific estimate, to the extent of 6,428,858,255 cubic feet a year, solid stuff enough to build an island ninety feet in depth and a mile square annually.

Countless fishing-boats roll on the muddy waste; sailing vessels, steamers, and brown-sailed junks of every build show signs of convergence towards something, and before long a blink of land is visible, and a lightship indicates the mouth of the Yangtze Kiang and a navigable channel. It is long even then before anything definite presents itself, and I confess to being disappointed with the first features of the Asiatic mainland—two long, thin, yellow lines, hardly more solid-looking than the yellow water stretching along the horizon, growing gradually into low marshy banks, somewhat later topped with uninteresting foliage, through which there are glimpses of what looks like an interminable swamp. Then Woo-sung appears with its new railroad, godowns, whitewashed buildings, and big ships at anchor discharging cargo into lighters and native boats, and then the banks of the narrowing Huang-pu, the river of Shanghai, are indicated by habitations and small fields and signs of small industries.

Within four miles of Shanghai the vivacity of the Huang-pu and its banks becomes overpowering, and the West asserts its ascendency over the slow-moving East. There are ranges of great godowns, wharves, building yards, graving docks, “works” of all descriptions, filatures, cotton mills, and all the symptoms in smoky chimneys and a ceaseless clang of the presence of capital and energy. After the war with Japan there was a rapid increase in the number of factories.

The life and movement on the river become wonderful. The channel for large vessels, though narrow, shifting, and intricate, and the subject of years of doleful prophecies as to “silting up” and leaving Shanghai stranded, admits of the passage of our largest merchantmen, and successful dredging enables them to lie alongside the fine wharves at Hongkew. American three and four-masted and other sailing vessels are at anchor in mid-stream, or are proceeding up or down in charge of tugs. Monster liners under their own steam at times nearly fill up the channel, their officers yelling frantically at the small craft which recklessly cross their bows; great white, two-storeyed paddle arks from Ningpo and Hankow, local steamers, steam launches owned by the great firms, junks of all builds and sizes, manageable by their huge rudders, sampans, hooded boats, and native boats of all descriptions, lighters, and a shoal of nondescript craft make navigation tedious, if not perilous, while sirens and steam whistles sound continually. “The plot thickens.” Foreign hongs, warehouses, shipping offices, and hotels are passed in Hongkew, the American settlement, and gliding round Pu-tung Point, the steamer anchors abreast of the bund in a wholesomely rapid flow of water 2000 feet wide.

I arrived in Shanghai the first time on a clear, bright autumn day. The sky was very blue, and the masses of exotic trees, the green, shaven lawns, the belated roses, and the clumps of chrysanthemums in the fine public gardens gave a great charm to the first view of the settlement. Two big, lofty, white hulks for bonded Indian opium are moored permanently in front of the gardens. Gunboats and larger war-vessels of all nations, all painted white, and the fine steamers of the Messageries Maritimes have their moorings a little higher up. Boats, with crews in familiar uniforms, and covered native boats gaily painted, the latter darting about like dragonflies, were plying ceaselessly, and as it was the turn of the tide, hundreds of junks were passing seawards under their big brown sails.

On landing at the fine landing-stage, where kind friends received me and took me to the British Consul’s residence in the spacious grounds of the Consulate, I was at once impressed with the exquisite dress of the ladies, who were at least a half of the throng, and with the look of wealth and comfort which prevails.

All along the British bund, for at least a mile from the Soochow Creek, which separates it from Hongkew, to the French settlement, are banks, hongs, hotels, and private houses of the most approved and massive Anglo-Oriental architecture, standing in large, shady gardens, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, the “P. & O.” office, the Canadian-Pacific Railroad office, the fine counting-house and dwelling-house of the old and famous firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co., and the long façade of the British Consular buildings, with their wide sweep of lawns, being prominent.

The broad carriage-road and fine flagged side-walk are truly cosmopolitan. Well-dressed men and women of all civilised nations, and of some which are not civilised, promenade gaily on the walk and in the garden. Single and two-horse carriages and buggies, open and closed, with coachmen and grooms in gay and often fantastic cotton liveries, dash along the drive. Hackney victorias abound, and there are jinrickshas (from which foreigners drop the first syllable) in hundreds, with Chinese runners, and Shanghai wheelbarrows innumerable, some loaded with goods or luggage, while the coolies of others are trundling along from two to four Chinese men or women of the lower classes, seated on matted platforms on either side of the wheel, facing forwards.

I was not prepared for the Chinese element being so much en evidence in the foreign settlement. It is not only that clerks and compradores dressed in rich silks on which the characters for happiness and longevity and the symbols of luck are brocaded are in numbers on the bund, and that all the servile classes, as may be expected, are Chinese, but that Chinese shops of high standing, such as Laou Kai Fook’s, are taking their places in fine streets which run back from the bund, that some of the handsomest carriages on the bund and the Bubbling Well Road, the fashionable afternoon drive of Shanghai, are owned and filled with Chinese, that Chinese ladies and children richly-dressed drive in the same fashion, and that of late, specially, wealthy Chinese have become keen competitors for British houses, and have even outbid foreigners for them. Is Shanghai menaced by the “Yellow Peril” as Malacca, Singapore, and Penang have been?

A great trading Chinese city, with an estimated population of 200,000, has grown up within the foreign boundary, subject to foreign municipal laws and sanitary regulations, but so absolutely Chinese, that were it not for the wide streets and the absence of refuse-heaps and bad smells, one might think oneself in one of the great cities of the interior. The Chinese are quite capable of appreciating the comfort and equity of foreign rule, and the various advantages which they enjoy under it. They pay municipal taxes according to their rating, and “feu duty” for their land, which it is usual for them to hold in the name of a foreigner. They are under the jurisdiction of the Chinese Government, but civil cases in which foreigners are concerned and breaches of the peace are tried in what is known as the “Mixed Court,” an apparently satisfactory and workable arrangement, and serious criminal cases belong to the Chinese Shanghai magistrate.

I soon began to learn why Shanghai is called, or calls itself, “The Model Settlement,” and to recognise the fitness of the name. The British and American settlements are governed by a Municipality elected by the ratepayers, consisting of nine gentlemen, who, assisted by a secretary and general staff, expend the sums provided by the ratepayers to the general satisfaction, arranging admirably for the health, security, comfort, and even enjoyment of the large foreign community, as well as for the order and well-being of the constantly increasing Chinese population, showing to the whole East what can be accomplished by an honest and thoroughly efficient British local administration. This body is, as it deserves to be, grandly housed.

The more important streets are lighted with electricity, the others with gas. Mounted Sikh police patrol the suburban roads, and a mixed force of Europeans, Sikhs, and Chinese preserves order and security in the settlement by day and night. An expensive but successful drainage system keeps Shanghai sweet and wholesome. Water-carts are always at work in dry weather, and scavengers’ carts cleanse the streets three times daily. Waterworks three miles from city pollutions supply pure water abundantly, and keep up a very high pressure unfailingly. The band of thirty performers, which plays in the public gardens every afternoon in winter, and three evenings a week in summer, attracting nearly the whole foreign community to lounge under the trees or stroll on the smooth gravel walks, is the creature of the Municipality.

Shanghai has two telegraph lines embracing London; daily papers well conducted, the North China Daily News specially maintaining a deservedly high reputation; several magazines, and communication with Europe always once a week, and usually oftener, by well-appointed mail steamers of four lines. Telegraphic news from all parts of the world appears simultaneously in London and Shanghai; it is thoroughly in touch with Europe and America, and European politics and events in general are discussed with as much intelligence and almost as much zest as at home. Excellent libraries, and the large book-store of Messrs. Kelly & Walsh, cater for the intellectual needs of the population, but it is likely that the depressing climate in spring and summer, and the whirl of society and amusements in winter, indispose most of the residents for anything like stiff reading.

The tremendous energy with which Shanghai amuses itself during seven months of the year is something phenomenal. It is even a fatigue to contemplate it. Various causes contribute to it on the part of the ladies. There is the Anglo-Saxon vitality which must find some outlet. Then there is the absence of household cares owing to the efficiency of Chinese cooks and “boys,” and ofttimes the absence of children also, owing to the need for home education; and there is also the lack of those benevolent outgoings among “the poor” which occupy usefully a portion of the time of leisured women at home. Then, owing to the imitative skill of Chinese tailors, who can construct the most elaborate gowns from fashion-plates for a few shillings, it is possible for women to have the pleasure of appearing in an infinite variety of elegant toilettes at a very small expense, and dress is certainly elevated into a fine art in Shanghai.

Of the men I write tremblingly! Chinese tailors seem as successful as Chinese dressmakers, and the laundrymen equal both, no small matter when white linen suits are in question. May it be permitted to a traveller to remark that if men were to give to the learning of Chinese and of Chinese requirements and methods of business a little of the time which is lavished on sport and other amusements, there might possibly be less occasion for the complaint that large fortunes are no longer to be made in Chinese business.