*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49561 ***

FROM PEKING TO MANDALAY


[Illustration: CROSSING THE YALUNG RIVER. (_See p. 191._)
_Frontispiece._]


    FROM

    PEKING TO MANDALAY

    A JOURNEY FROM NORTH CHINA TO
    BURMA THROUGH TIBETAN SSUCH'UAN
    AND YUNNAN

    BY R. F. JOHNSTON, M.A., F.R.G.S.

    MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY
    DISTRICT OFFICER AND MAGISTRATE, WEIHAIWEI

    WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS

    LONDON
    JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
    1908


    TO

    DAVID PLAYFAIR HEATLEY

    WHOSE PRESENCE IN THE EAST WOULD BRING HAPPINESS
    TO EXILE, AND WHOSE ABSENCE IN THE WEST HAS
    CAUSED HIS BANISHED FRIEND TO TURN
    MANY TIMES WITH LONGING TO
    THE SETTING SUN.




CONTENTS


 CHAP.                                           PAGE

     I. INTRODUCTION                                1

    II. PEKING TO ICHANG                           10

   III. ICHANG TO WAN-HSIEN THROUGH THE YANGTSE
            GORGES                                 24

    IV. WAN-HSIEN TO CH'ÊNG-TU                     31

     V. CH'ÊNG-TU TO OMEI-HSIEN                    43

    VI. MOUNT OMEI AND CHINESE BUDDHISM            54

   VII. MOUNT OMEI                                 82

  VIII. OMEI-HSIEN TO TACHIENLU                   112

    IX. TACHIENLU                                 131

     X. TACHIENLU TO PA-U-RONG, YALUNG RIVER      153

    XI. PA-U-RONG TO MULI                         186

   XII. MULI TO YUNG-NING                         213

  XIII. YUNG-NING TO LI-CHIANG                    234

   XIV. LI-CHIANG TO TALI-FU                      248

    XV. ETHNOLOGY OF THE CHINESE FAR WEST         265

   XVI. TALI-FU TO BHAMO                          293

  XVII. BHAMO TO MANDALAY                         322

 XVIII. CONCLUSION                                354

        APPENDIX A: VOCABULARIES                  391

        APPENDIX B: ITINERARY                     399

        NOTES                                     411

        GENERAL INDEX                             447

        INDEX OF NAMES                            453




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


 CROSSING THE YALUNG RIVER            _Frontispiece_

 A FLEET OF JUNKS                 _To face page_ 10

 SOUTH BANK OF YELLOW RIVER, WITH VIEW OF
 RAILWAY BRIDGE                                " 14

 A CHINESE "BRAVE"                             " 32

 A CHINESE WALLED CITY                         " 44

 CHILDREN OF CHINA                             " 53

 CHINESE BUDDHIST MONKS IN "UNDRESS"           " 65

 CHINESE PLAN WITH AMITABHA BUDDHA AS CENTRAL
 FIGURE                                       "  74

 "JIM" ON THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT OMEI            " 102

 CHINESE PLAN OF MOUNT OMEI, SURMOUNTED BY
 THE SEAL OF THE MONASTERY OF THE GOLDEN
 SUMMIT                                       " 105

 TEA-CARRIERS ON THE ROAD TO TACHIENLU        " 118

 APPROACH TO TACHIENLU                        " 118

 VIEW FROM THE "SUMMER PALACE" NEAR TACHIENLU " 142

 CHINESE HALF-RUPEE AND TIBETAN COINS         " 152

 REDUCED FACSIMILE OF SILVER PLAQUE WORN BY
 WOMEN IN THE YALUNG VALLEY                   " 152

 CLAY VOTIVE TABLETS FROM MULI, WITH MINIATURE
 BUDDHAS                                      " 152

 EAR-RING WORN BY MO-SO WOMEN OF YUNG-NING    " 152

 "THE GATE OF TIBET"                          " 154

 OCTAGONAL TOWER AT RI WA                     " 170

 HOUSE OF T'U PAI HU                          " 172

 THE AUTHOR'S CARAVAN                         " 172

 A RUSTIC BRIDGE                              " 174

 TIBETANS OF WESTERN SSUCH'UAN                " 177

 MOUNTAIN SCENERY NEAR SIN GO LA              " 177

 A HALT ON THE ROAD TO MULI                   " 188

 MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY ON THE ROAD TO MULI      " 202

 THE AUTHOR'S CAMP, 2ND MAY                   " 208

 RUSTIC BRIDGE CROSSING LITANG RIVER ON THE
 ROAD TO MULI                                 " 210

 LAMASERY OF MULI                             " 220

 THE AUTHOR'S MULETEERS, NEAR YUNG-NING       " 226

 YUNG-NING                                    " 229

 THE YANGTSE RIVER, NEAR YUNG-NING, ABOVE THE
 FERRY                                        " 236

 THE YANGTSE RIVER AT THE FERRY               " 238

 TALI-FU                                      " 260

 VIEW AT PAGAN, IRRAWADDY RIVER, BURMA        " 332

 MONASTERY AT PAGAN, IRRAWADDY RIVER, BURMA   " 349

 RUINS AT ANURADHAPURA, CEYLON                " 354

 A VILLAGE FAIR IN CHINA, WITH OPEN-AIR
 THEATRE                                      " 356

 A TEMPLE-THEATRE IN NORTH CHINA              " 371

 THE GRAVE OF "JIM," WEIHAIWEI                " 376

 MAP--AUTHOR'S ITINERARY FROM HANKOW TO
 BHAMO                                  _At the End_




FROM PEKING TO MANDALAY




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION


The journey of which an account is given in the following pages was not
undertaken in the special interests of geographical or other science
nor in the service of any Government. My chief object was to gratify
a long-felt desire to visit those portions of the Chinese Empire
which are least known to Europeans, and to acquire some knowledge of
the various tribes subject to China that inhabit the wild regions of
Chinese Tibet and north-western Yunnan. Though nearly every part of
the Eighteen Provinces has in recent years been visited and described
by European travellers, my route between Tachienlu and Li-chiang was
one which--so far as I am aware--no British subject had ever traversed
before me, and of which no description in book-form has hitherto
appeared in any European language.

From the ethnological point of view the Chinese Far West--to which the
greater part of this book is devoted--is one of the most interesting
regions in the world, and presents problems the solution of which
would settle many of the vexed questions relating to the origin and
inter-relations of the Asiatic peoples. As for its geographical
interest, it may be sufficient to say here that the principalities of
Chala and Muli contain what are probably the highest spots inhabited by
man on the face of the globe, and that several of the passes crossed by
my little caravan are loftier than the highest of the passes existing
along the route traversed by the British expedition to Lhasa. My
own contributions to geographical and ethnological lore are of the
slenderest; but if I can persuade some of my readers that Tibetan
Ssuch'uan and western Yunnan are worth visiting, be it only for the
glory of their mountain scenery, I shall consider that my book has
fulfilled the most useful purpose to which it aspires.

For those who are seized by a craving to revert for a time to something
like the nomadic life of our remote forefathers, or to pass like
the old Hindu ascetics into "the homeless state," there can be no
country in the world more full of charm than some of the wilder and
less-peopled regions of the Chinese Empire. There are enormous areas
in that country covered with primeval forests in which man's foot has
never trod, lofty mountains whose peaks are crowned with sparkling
diadems of eternal snow, grand and savage gorges in which Nature has
carved for herself in indelible letters the story of the world's youth,
and gloomy chasms through which rush the mighty rivers that carry to
the Indian Ocean and the Pacific snows that melted on the white roof
of the world. And amid all this magnificence and desolation there are
lovely valleys and stretches of garden-land that might have been
chosen as the Edens of a hundred mythologies, and which in historic
times have been the homes of religious recluses and poets, who, like
others of their kind in Western lands, found in silence and solitude
a refuge from the bitterness and pain of the world, or a hermitage in
which, amid scenes of perennial beauty, they could weave their flowers
of thought into immortal garlands of human words.

[Sidenote: LOVE OF NATURE IN CHINA]

It is a mistake to regard the Chinese as essentially a prosaic race,
caring only for material things and nothing at all for what we should
call things of the spirit. If they have less power of artistic creation
than the Japanese--and even that may be doubted--they are quite as
sensitive as the people of any other race to the magic of beauty in
either nature or art; and especially do they--like our own Ruskin--take
a vivid delight in the loveliness of mountain scenery. There is a
well-known story of a Chinese scholar who, like the scholars of most
lands, was blest with few of this world's goods, and, unlike a great
many of them, was noted for his zealous devotion to the service of his
country's gods. One night he heard the voice of an invisible being that
spoke to him thus: "Your piety has found favour in the sight of heaven;
ask now for what you most long to possess, for I am the messenger of
the gods, and they have sworn to grant your heart's desire." "I ask"
said the poor scholar "for the coarsest clothes and food, just enough
for my daily wants, and I beg that I may have freedom to wander at
my will over mountain and fell and woodland stream, free from all
worldly cares, till my life's end. That is all I ask." Hardly had he
spoken when the sky seemed to be filled with the laughter of myriads of
unearthly voices. "All you ask?" cried the messenger of the gods. "Know
you not that what you demand is the highest happiness of the beings
that dwell in heaven? Ask for wealth or rank, or what earthly happiness
you will, but not for you are the holiest joys of the gods."

[Sidenote: ISOLATION]

To those of our own day--and there are many such--whose highest ideal
of happiness is that of this poor Chinese scholar, to roam at will
through the beautiful places of the world, or perhaps even to dwell in
some lonely hermitage far removed from

  "The weariness, the fever and the fret
  Here, where men sit and hear each other groan,"

it must be a bitter reflection that man is by his own works dooming
himself to lose for evermore the privilege of freedom and the solace of
isolation. When an authoritative voice informs us, in connection with
wireless telegraphy, that "our ultimate ideal must be instantaneous
electrical communication with every man on earth, ashore or afloat,
at a cost within the reach of every one," what becomes of the unhappy
man who finds one of the greatest joys of travel in the very fact of
his utter loneliness, and in the knowledge that he is for the time
being severed from all possibility of communication with his civilised
fellow-men? The writer I have just quoted[1] assures us that owing
to the recent triumphs of science "a severance of communication
with any part of the earth--even the Antipodes--will henceforth be
impossible. Storms that overthrow telegraph posts, and malice that
cuts our cables, are impotent in the all-pervading ether. An explorer
like Stanley in the tropical forest, or Geary amid ice-fields, will
report daily progress in the _Times_.... Sir William Preece's dream of
signalling to Mars may (say by utilising Niagara for the experiment)
yet be realised." Thus even a flight to the virgin continents of
another planet will not give the future traveller the delicious sense
of freedom that comes from the knowledge of complete isolation or of
entire severance from the cares of civilised life. How can we expect
our mistress Nature to be gracious to us if we, with our unholy
inventions, woo her so much more rudely and roughly than did her
lovers of the golden time when the earth was young? For my own part
I rejoice that a wireless-telegraphy apparatus has not yet become an
indispensable item in every traveller's equipment, and that no law
has yet been enacted penalising any individual who presumes to sever
himself from communication with his fellows.

If it appears churlish and ungrateful to speak of the pleasures
of separation from all those comforts and delights that Western
civilisation has placed within our grasp, and without which the
normal European would hardly find life worth living, it is only fair
to remember that no one is in a position to appreciate such comforts
and delights so heartily as the man who has been temporarily deprived
of them; though the depth of his appreciation will, of course, vary
according to the extent of his dependence on the amenities of civilised
life during his ordinary existence as a social unit.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: TRAVELS IN THE FAR EAST]

The journey described in this book was not the first undertaken by me
in the countries of the Far East. Towards the close of 1902 I travelled
through the French province of Tongking (erstwhile tributary to the
Chinese Empire) and ascended the Red River to the high plateau of
Yunnan. After traversing that province from east to west I reached
the town of Ssumao, and thence struck southwards into the Chinese
Shan States and the French Protected States of Upper Laos. A journey
of many days in a dug-out canoe down one of the most beautiful
rivers of that country gave me a delightful opportunity of becoming
acquainted with the domestic life of the Lao-Shans--surely among the
most attractive and hospitable races in the world. Leaving my canoe at
the charming little Laos capital, Luang Prabang, I proceeded down the
Mekong on a raft and visited the ruins of the obliterated kingdom of
Vien-chan. There I left the Mekong and wandered overland through the
great dry plain of eastern Siam to Korat. From Korat I was speedily
conveyed by the prosaic means of a railway to the perplexing city
of Bangkok, with its curious medley of East and West, old and new,
its electric trams, its royal white elephants, its gilded pagodas and
State umbrellas, and its forlorn collection of European legations.
Except for the baggage-coolies hired at intervals along my route, I
was for the greater part of this four months' journey unaccompanied by
friend or servant. At one point, indeed, I was literally alone: for in
the country of the Lao-Shans my four baggage-coolies, owing to some
unreasonable dread of perfectly non-existent dangers, suddenly left me
to my own devices, and returned to their homes, obliging me to abandon
all my baggage except what I was able to carry in my own hands and
pockets. It was then that my eyes were first opened to the fact that
civilised man encumbers himself with a great many material possessions
which he could quite well do without; for at no time did I suffer the
least inconvenience from the loss of any of the articles which up to
that point I had considered absolutely essential to my comfort and
well-being. Servants and heavy baggage can indeed easily be dispensed
with in any tropical country in which the natives are not unfriendly,
and provided that the traveller is willing to subsist entirely on such
food as the country affords; and it is undoubtedly the case that a
traveller with few _impedimenta_ can penetrate with ease into remote
places that are inaccessible to one whose train includes numerous
coolies and beasts of burden. One who is travelling with some definite
scientific object in view must, of course, carry a suitable equipment
of scientific instruments, and may require a retinue of servants and
surveyors; but it is the mere wanderer--especially he who wanders in
search of things strange and beautiful--not the scientific explorer,
whose requirements I am here considering. It is perhaps unwise to
render oneself absolutely dependent for supplies on the friendliness of
natives, but in my own case it so happens that I have never met with
inhospitable treatment from any of the Asiatic peoples among whom I
have travelled, whether Chinese, Tongkingese, Tibetans, Shans, Siamese,
or Burmese. I leave it to others who have had different experiences to
tell their own tales.

At other times during my residence in China I have found opportunities
to make tours, either in connection with official business or on leave
of absence, in other parts of the Far East. In China I have made
several excursions into the interior of the provinces of Kwangtung,
Kwangsi, Kiangsi, and Shantung. In 1904 I travelled through the German
colony of Kiaochou and the provincial capital, Chinan-fu, on my way
to the little town of Ch'ü Fou, where I visited the tomb of Confucius
and was entertained by the Duke K'ung, said to be the seventy-sixth
descendant of the great sage in a direct line; and on the same occasion
I ascended the famous sacred mountain of T'ai Shan, where the Emperor
Shun is said to have sacrificed to heaven in the third millennium B.C.
At the close of the same year, while the Russo-Japanese war was still
raging, I was enabled through the kindness of a distinguished naval
officer to pay an interesting visit to the capital of the distracted
kingdom of Korea.

[Sidenote: OUTLINE OF JOURNEY]

The journey described in the following pages was of a more ambitious
character than those just mentioned, and occupied the greater part
of a year. My intention was to ascend the Yangtse to the province of
Ssuch'uan, and thence to make my way across that province to those
principalities of eastern Tibet that now own allegiance to the emperor
of China. I intended if possible to make my way southward through those
states, and so enter the province of Yunnan; whence, as I knew from
the narratives of former travellers, I should have no difficulty in
making my way into Upper Burma. The details of my route I left to be
determined by circumstances. Though I was occasionally subjected to
minor disappointments and delays, the assistance of the various local
officials and the friendly spirit shown by the people among whom I
travelled enabled me to carry out my plans with success.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mr J. Henniker Heaton, M.P., in _The Nineteenth Century and After_,
September 1906.




CHAPTER II

PEKING TO ICHANG


The first part of my journey was accomplished with great rapidity,
and my description of it will not occupy long in the telling. I had
no desire to spend a longer time than was absolutely necessary in
northern China, and was glad enough to avail myself of every facility
for reaching Ichang--the port on the Yangtse where steam navigation
ceases--as soon as possible. The recent completion of the northern
section of the great trunk railway of China has rendered it possible
to travel from Peking to Hankow in four days,[2] and so makes it
unnecessary to undertake a long and somewhat dreary journey on
horseback or in springless carts over hundreds of miles of dusty plains
and impossible roads.

I left Wei-hai-wei on 6th January 1906 in the steamer _Shuntien_,
and reached the ugly and depressing little port of Chin-wang-tao on
the 8th. In the evening of the following day, after a night spent
in Tientsin, I reached the capital, and was glad to exchange the
discomfort of a monotonous railway journey for the luxury of that
excellent Peking hostelry the "Hôtel des Wagons Lits." The next four
days were spent in paying visits at the British Legation and elsewhere,
and in fighting ineffectual battles against an unusually aggressive
dust-storm. No one, except perhaps a traveller in the desert of Gobi
or over the sand-dunes of Khotan, can form any conception of the
penetrating power of Peking dust. Parched throats, husky voices,
bloodshot eyes, are the price that must be paid for the pleasure of a
walk through the streets of Peking during a dust-storm; even one's own
residence is no sanctuary, for double window-sashes and padded doors
are alike powerless to withstand the scourge. Most of the legations are
fairly well protected by their lofty park-walls, but how to keep an
ordinary Peking house or hotel free of dust is as insoluble a problem
as that which baffled Alice's Walrus and Carpenter.

[Illustration: A FLEET OF JUNKS.   [_To face p. 10._]

[Sidenote: PEKING]

Peking being now one of the ordinary objectives of the modern
globe-trotter, I will not encroach upon the province of the compiler
of tourist guidebooks by attempting a description. Even the Englishman
who has never left his native soil knows something of the city
that defied all the Powers of Europe seven years ago, and paid so
bitterly for her defiance. There have, of course, been great changes
in Peking since those dark days; but away from the railway stations
and the legation quarter, with its bristling guns, its battlemented
walls and its heterogeneous army of foreign guards, there is little
to show that Peking was so recently in the grip of a victorious and
remorseless enemy. Its streets, temples, shops and palaces are very
much as they were in 1900, showing the same mixture of grandeur and
sordidness, splendour and decay. As for its people, who will venture
to say how much or how little they have changed? That they love the
people of Europe no better than they did eight years ago may be taken
for granted: I am not aware that we have done anything to win their
affections. That they have learned something of the secret of European
prowess, and have realised why our arms were resistless, even against
their Boxer champions, is no doubt true; and if this lesson does not,
for some strange reason, fill them with admiration and reverence for
Europe, it is certainly teaching them where to seek a cure for the
ills of their own country. Events are now making it clearer every day
that a true spirit of national feeling is rising among the people, and
that the best minds in China are devoting themselves to the problem
of their country's salvation. Nowhere is this state of things more
obvious than in Peking, but it is not only in the capital that the
new spirit is working strange wonders among the Chinese people. China
is, indeed, rapidly growing to be more than a mere geographical term.
The racial solidarity that is the underlying cause of her wonderful
power of passive resistance shows no signs of disintegration at the
present time, and it will form the best possible foundation for a
new national patriotism. Only ten years ago an English traveller and
politician, predicting the partition of China, explained that he used
the word "China" only for convenience, for "there is really no such
thing as 'China' at all."[3] For such a view there was some excuse at a
time when humbled China was lying wounded and helpless at the feet of
victorious Japan, but few, I fancy, will be inclined to endorse it now.

[Sidenote: CHINESE POLITICS]

The position of Peking at the present time is one of peculiar interest,
for all the different forces that are now at work to make or mar China
issue from, or converge towards, the capital. There, on the Dragon
Throne, beside, or rather above, the powerless and unhappy emperor, the
father of his people and their god, sits the astute and ever-watchful
lady whose word is law to emperor, minister, and clown alike. There
dwell the heads of the Government boards, the leaders of the Manchu
aristocracy and the great political parties, the drafters of new
constitutions and imperial decrees, and the keen-witted diplomatists
who know so well how to play against European antagonists the great
game of international chess. To Peking come the memorials of viceroys
and provincial governors; indictments and denunciations against high
officials for ultra-Conservatism or for Radicalism; bulky petitions
from visionary students who have studied Western politics, and hope
against hope that their proposed measures of reform may chance to
come under the imperial eye. And there the great Powers of the West,
reproducing in miniature the mighty armed camps of Europe, watch each
other with jealous eyes from the gates of their embattled legations.

The Lu-Han railway, by which I left the Capital on 13th January,
brought me to Hankow on the evening of the 16th. The total distance
is 1,223 kilometres, or about 759 miles. The provinces traversed by
this great trunk line are Chihli, Honan, and Hupei. The line for the
most part lies through a rich, flat country, studded with innumerable
trees, villages, and farmsteads, but presenting no features of special
interest to the ordinary traveller. The train stopped every evening,
and resumed the journey early each morning, the first stage being
completed at Shun-tê-fu, in Chihli. The second day we entered the
province of Honan and crossed the Yellow River by the great bridge
which has been the subject of so much criticism and discussion in
engineering circles in the East. The construction of this bridge--a
screw-pile structure almost two miles long--was by far the most serious
and costly work that faced the French and Belgian engineers in the
course of their labours, the chief difficulties consisting in the
enormous rise and fall in the river and the shifting sands and almost
fathomless mud of its bed. What must strike most travellers who are
devoid of any technical knowledge of engineering are the great length
of the bridge, the flimsiness of its appearance (for its massive
supports are sunk far below the bed of the river), and its narrowness.
Whether it is really fit to stand the strain of an abnormal summer
flood, and whether its piers have been sunk sufficiently deep to ensure
permanent stability, are questions which time and experience alone can
solve. It had only been opened a few weeks before I crossed it, and
since then traffic has had to be suspended more than once. Only one
train could pass over the bridge at a time, and each was taken across
by a special light engine.

[Illustration: SOUTH BANK OF YELLOW RIVER, WITH VIEW OF RAILWAY BRIDGE.
  [_To face p. 14._]

[Sidenote: RAILWAY-TRAVELLING IN CHINA]

The second day's journey was completed at Chêng-chou, half an hour's
journey from the south bank of the Yellow River. Here I found a
quasi-European inn named the "Hotel Pericles," kept by an Italian
ex-railway employee. Macaroni and chianti and the genial conversation
of our host, Mr P. Mouchtouris, and two of his compatriots, afforded a
cheerful interlude in a somewhat monotonous journey.

At the close of the third day we found ourselves at a place called Chu
Ma-tien--a railway depôt only, not within sight of any large centre
of population. On the following day we passed through the mountainous
country that divides the provinces of Honan and Hupei, with scenery the
most picturesque to be found anywhere between the two railway termini.
Hankow itself, which was reached a few hours later, lies on the flat
banks of the Yangtse, at a distance of about 600 miles from Shanghai.
On the opposite bank of the great river lies the provincial capital,
Wu-ch'ang, the seat of Government of the viceroy or governor-general;
while on the same side of the river as Hankow, but separated from it by
the Han river, lies Han-Yang. These three places together form what is
practically one vast city of something like two million inhabitants: a
city so favourably situated in the heart of China that it can hardly
fail to become a commercial capital of pre-eminent importance. The
large European trading community is fully alive to this fact, and
building land is rapidly increasing in value. It is the terminus of the
ocean-going vessels, and the starting-point of the smaller cargo and
passenger-steamers bound for Ichang, about 390 miles further up the
river. Hankow also derives great advantage from its position--denoted
by its name--at the mouth of the Han, one of the Yangtse's greatest
tributaries, itself navigable for native cargo boats for no less than
1,200 miles. Finally, Hankow is at present the terminus of China's
only trunk railway, that by which I travelled from Peking, and it will
soon be similarly connected with Canton in the south. It is perhaps no
exaggeration to say that there is hardly a city in the whole world that
has a greater commercial and industrial future before it than Hankow.

[Sidenote: RAILWAYS IN CHINA]

That the railway will pay, and pay enormously--especially when the
connections with Canton and Kowloon are completed--is a matter beyond
all possibility of doubt. That it will be of real benefit to the people
of China is more to the point. It will undoubtedly enable the native
merchants and farmers to send their goods and produce to markets which
were formerly unattainable by them, and will go far towards minimising
the misery caused by local famines. There is plenty of evidence that
the Chinese are everywhere anxious and delighted to avail themselves of
the wonderful new force that has been introduced into their country:
the old days when the Shanghai-Wusung railway had to be sold by the
foreign owners to the Chinese Government, and was then deliberately
wrecked and abolished to appease the prejudices of anti-foreign
mobs,[4] have passed for ever away. The final proof--if one were
needed--that the Chinese Government has definitely surrendered its
old anti-railway policy, lies in the fact that it is itself promoting
the construction of purely Chinese lines such as that from Peking to
Kalgan; lines not only owned by Chinese capitalists, but actually
engineered and constructed by Chinese engineers and contractors.
The recent opposition of the Government to the construction of such
lines as that from Kowloon to Canton, or from the Burmese frontier
to T'êng-yüeh, lies simply in the rapidly-growing national hostility
to the monopolisation of Chinese industrial enterprises by foreign
capital, and the interference of foreign Powers--based on their
subjects' pecuniary stake in the country--in the internal affairs of
the empire. Therefore, though we hear a great deal just now about the
difficulties placed by Chinese officialdom in the way of the employment
of foreign engineers and foreign capital in railway construction
and the exploitation of mines, this must not be interpreted as a
reluctance on the part of China to have railways built or to have
the mineral wealth of the country opened up. It is merely that the
Chinese wish to build their own railways, and to work their own
mines, in order that international disputes and political dangers may
be avoided and that China may be exploited for the primary benefit
of the Chinese Government and people, rather than for the benefit of
foreign Governments and foreign capitalists. The European points out
that the Chinese, either from want of money or from lack of technical
knowledge and experience, are incapable of giving effect to these
admirable ideals, however much they might wish to do so; to which the
Chinese retort that rather than tolerate foreign interference, they
prefer to wait until these disadvantages can be obviated, even if the
country's advance in wealth and civilisation is thereby retarded. This
attitude, even if economically unsound, is quite a natural one in
the circumstances; but, unfortunately, there are a number of people
in Europe and in the Far East who seem to regard any attempt made by
China to keep or regain control of her own resources as a kind of
international crime, which must, if necessary, be punished by gun-boats
and bayonets. We resent the introduction of a Chinese element into
British Columbia, Australia, and South Africa, but we make bitter
protests against the "anti-foreign feeling in China" if the responsible
statesmen of that country refuse to silence the cry of "China for the
Chinese."

[Sidenote: CHANG CHIH-TUNG ON RAILWAYS]

The Viceroy Chang Chih-tung--one of those able statesmen who prevented
the spread of Boxerism in the Yangtse valley and so saved foreign
commercial interests there from a serious disaster--was one of the
first high officials in China to realise the benefit that would accrue
to all classes of the community from the construction of railways.
"Is there any one power," he wrote, "that will open the door of
learning for the scholar, the farmer, the workman, the merchant, and
the soldier? To this question we reply emphatically, there is, and it
is the Railway. The potentialities of the scholar lie in extensive
observation; of the farmer, in finding a ready sale for farm products;
of the workman, in the increase of machinery; of the merchant, in
cheap and rapid transit; and of the soldier, in the quick despatch of
the munitions of war.... The Railway is the source of the wealth and
power of Western countries.... How can the people of our Flowery Inner
Land progress, or even exist, without railways?"[5] This emphatic
declaration by one of the greatest and most patriotic of Chinese
officials is significant in more ways than one. China is to have
railways, not merely as a means of rapid transport for merchandise and
produce, but for the purpose of consolidating the military strength of
the empire.

It must be a matter of serious regret to Chinese statesmen that
the resources of the country--both in capital and in engineering
skill--were not sufficient to enable China to undertake the whole
financing and construction of the great trunk railway; and there can be
little doubt that as soon as China is in a position to act upon Article
V. of the Belgian Agreement, which she is entitled to do any time
after 1907, she will refund all the Franco-Belgian capital advanced to
her under the terms of that Agreement, and take over entire control of
the whole northern section of the railway. It would probably be to the
entire advantage of legitimate foreign trade and enterprise in China
that she should do so, and the eventual benefit to be derived by China
herself would be incalculable--provided, of course, that she honourably
fulfilled her commercial treaties with the Western Powers.

       *       *       *       *       *

On arrival at Hankow I spent two days in making such meagre
preparations as I considered necessary for my long journey into the
interior; for Hankow--being only four days distant by steamer from
Shanghai--is the last town where it is possible to purchase European
stores at a reasonable price.

[Sidenote: AN UNLUCKY STEAMER]

Shallow-draft steamers with excellent accommodation for both Chinese
and Europeans leave Hankow for Ichang two or three times a week. The
traffic is divided among British, Chinese and Japanese companies. It
was by a Japanese steamer that I started for the Upper Yangtse on 18th
January. Our journey was not devoid of unforeseen incident. All went
well until the 21st, when we ran on a shoal. All our efforts to get off
proved unavailing till the 23rd, when by means of the process known
to naval men, I understand as kedging, we hauled ourselves into deep
water. This, however, was not effected without breaking a chain-cable
and losing a valuable anchor, which sank irrecoverably in the mud.
Our Japanese captain then announced that the vessel drew so much water
that he could not then attempt the only available channel, and that
there was no alternative but to return to Hankow and discharge some of
the cargo. This caused intense dissatisfaction among the hundreds of
Chinese passengers, most of whom were on their way to their homes to
spend Chinese New Year's Day (which fell on 25th January) with their
families. Some of the passengers, I was informed, actually threatened
to use force to compel the captain to proceed, and were only pacified
when they were given the option of going ashore in the ship's boats,
and finding their own way to their several destinations. Twenty or
thirty passengers availed themselves of this offer, and were packed
into a single boat towed by the ship's steam-launch. On their way to
the shore some unfortunate accident caused the boat--which was by no
means over-crowded--to upset, and all the passengers were thrown into
the water. I never learned the exact number of those who were drowned,
for no proper tally of the passengers who had embarked appears to have
been kept, but it was almost certainly not more than three. The rescued
passengers were all bundled into the steam-launch, the boat (which was
bottom upwards) temporarily abandoned, and the survivors brought back
to the ship. The families of the poor fellows who paid so severe a
penalty for their anxiety to reach their homes were doubtless waiting
to welcome them with all the exuberant joy that the New Year festival
brings into even the poorest Chinese household; and it was sad to
reflect that in all probability no word of the tragedy would reach them
until those whom they were waiting to greet were laid down at the doors
of their homes in their coffins.

This sad event did not complete the chapter of our accidents. After
we had anchored for the night some miles lower down the river, on our
return journey to Hankow, our vessel was swung round by a back-eddy
and crashed into several junks moored close to the shore. The damage,
fortunately, was not very serious, and was promptly paid for by the
captain of our ship. On the following day the ship's compradore came to
me and asked if I could give him any medicine for a Chinese passenger
who was showing signs of lunacy or delirium. As I had no remedies of
the kind required, I could only recommend him to keep his patient
under careful control until we reached Hankow. But about the middle
of the day the poor man eluded the vigilance of those who, I presume,
were looking after him, and deliberately jumped overboard. The ship
was immediately stopped, a boat lowered with great promptitude, and
the man rescued: he had never sunk below the surface, and it was
obvious that he owed his safety entirely to his thickly-wadded winter
garments, which were tied tightly at the waist and ankles and served
as a temporary life-buoy. The cold waters of the wintry Yangtse had a
more beneficial effect upon him than any drug, for on our arrival at
Hankow he appeared to be completely restored to health. Just before
we dropped anchor off the Hankow bund, one of the Chinese crew fell
down the companion and damaged his ankle. Whether any further disasters
occurred on board this unlucky vessel is unknown to me, as the same
evening I hastily transferred my luggage, my dog and myself to the ship
_T'ai Yuan_, which was due to leave for Ichang early the following
morning. I was not surprised to hear that the loss to the owners owing
to this unfortunate journey was estimated at not less than $10,000.
Fortunately for the shareholders, the company is subsidised by the
Japanese Government.

[Sidenote: ACCIDENTS ON THE YANGTSE]

The _T'ai Yuan_, which was the property of the same company, was
evidently smiled upon by a less malevolent star, for nothing except an
hour's fog on the second morning interfered with our passage to Ichang.
On arriving at the little treaty port of Sha-shih, on the morning
of 30th January, I found from conversation with one of the Customs
officials stationed there that the news of the tragedy described above
had reached that port in a very distorted form. He asked me if it were
true that twenty passengers had been drowned! In the evening of the
same day we cast anchor at Ichang, where the number of the men reported
to have lost their lives had risen to thirty.


FOOTNOTES:

[2] Since reduced to thirty-six hours.

[3] _The Far East_, by Sir Henry Norman, p. 593.

[4] But there is another side to this story which does not reflect much
credit on the foreigners concerned. This aspect of the matter has been
fully detailed by Mr Chester Holcombe, in _The Real Chinese Question_,
chap. i.

[5] _China's Only Hope_, by Chang Chih-tung, translated by S. I.
Woodbridge, 1901.




CHAPTER III

ICHANG TO WAN-HSIEN, THROUGH THE YANGTSE GORGES


Just before Ichang is reached, the appearance of the Yangtse valley
undergoes a sudden change. The great flat plains of the Lower Yangtse
are left behind, and rugged hills creep gradually up to the river's
edge. Ichang owes its importance to the fact that it is situated at
the eastern entrance of the great gorges of the Upper Yangtse, at the
highest point of the river which is at present attainable by steamers.
Its distance from the mouth of the Yangtse is almost exactly 1,000
miles. Its situation on the left bank of the river, facing a striking
mountain the shape and size of which are said to be almost identical
with those of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, is very picturesque. The
town is not large, the population being barely 40,000, including about
thirty or forty Europeans, the majority of whom are missionaries. There
are also consular and customs officials, and a few merchants. The port
has been opened to foreign trade for many years, but there has not as
yet been any great commercial boom. It is, indeed, little but a port of
trans-shipment. The main item in the out-going trade is native opium,
for the poppy is grown very extensively in the valleys above Ichang.
The town will therefore be considerably affected by the new anti-opium
regulations.

[Sidenote: NAVIGATION ON UPPER YANGTSE]

Cargoes arriving by steamer and destined for the markets of the rich
province that lies beyond the gorges are at Ichang transferred to large
river junks. These junks, if they are fortunate enough to escape the
manifold dangers of rocks and rapids, are hauled through the gorges
by small armies of trackers, and take a month at least--sometimes far
more--to cover the 400 miles between Ichang and Chung-king. With a
favourable wind they can travel under their own sail in the smooth
water between the rapids, but even then, owing to the strong current,
the rate of progress is slow.

The right of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtse from Ichang to
Chung-king and Hsü-chou-fu (Sui-fu) has existed since 1894, but the
problem of the rapids is still an unsolved one, and steamboats can
only attempt the journey at a great risk. The dangerous portion is
the 200 miles between Ichang and Wan-hsien. Mr Archibald Little
successfully navigated his _Lee-chuen_ through the gorges in 1898, but
few attempts have since been made to connect Ichang and Chung-king by
steam, though it is obvious that owing to the great cost and risk of
the present methods of carrying on trade with the markets of Ssuch'uan,
the development of a flourishing trade with that exceedingly rich and
prosperous province is a matter of great difficulty. France, no doubt,
hopes that by the extension of her Yunnan railway beyond Yunnan-fu
the trade of Ssuch'uan will to some extent be diverted to Tongking
and Haiphong, but she is, of course, fully cognisant of the fact that
once the problem of the Yangtse rapids is solved by engineering skill,
any such trade as she may have captured will inevitably find its way
back to its natural channel. It is to be hoped, therefore, in the
interests of China and Great Britain, that the problem will before long
be tackled in real earnest by competent persons; it is certainly not
one on which the opinion of amateurs is of any value. British river
gun-boats have surmounted the obstacles on several occasions,[6] and
a couple of such vessels are now kept in permanent commission in the
tranquil waters between Wan-hsien and Hsü-chou-fu. In summer they also
ascend the Min river (which enters the Yangtse at Hsü-chou-fu) as far
as Chia-ting, a distance from Shanghai of about 1,680 miles.

[Sidenote: CHINESE RED-BOATS]

Apart from the serious question of the rapids, there is no doubt that
the Yangtse, with its tributaries, forms a magnificent system of
navigable rivers. Not only can gun-boats ascend the Min river as far
as Chia-ting, but native craft further ascend at all times of the year
as far as Ch'êng-tu, the capital of Ssuch'uan, a distance of 133 miles
above Chia-ting, and over 1,800 miles from Shanghai. The main stream
of the river known to Europeans as the Yangtse is navigable only to
P'ing-shan, 40 miles above Hsü-chou-fu, making a total distance from
the Pacific Ocean of about 1,600 miles. It is on account of the shorter
navigable distance of the main stream that the Chinese popularly regard
the so-called Min as the true Great River. Chia-ting is within a day's
journey of Mount Omei, and from the summit of Mount Omei one can see
the Great Snow Mountains which form the eastern buttress of the Tibetan
plateau. It is thus possible to penetrate by steam-boat or other vessel
so far into the interior of China as to be within sight of her western
boundary. This fact may surely be adduced in support of the contention
that China possesses the finest system of navigable waterways in the
world.

At Ichang, through the kind assistance of Mr H. H. Fox, British Consul
at that port, and by the courtesy of the local Chinese officials, I
procured a "red-boat" to convey myself and my faithful bull-terrier
Jim up the rapids and through the gorges to Wan-hsien. The so-called
red-boats are Chinese Government life-boats. There are several
stationed in the neighbourhood of each of the most dangerous rapids,
and they are manned by skilful and daring water-men. Every year a
large percentage of the trading junks are wrecked in the rapids, and
the annual loss of life, great as it is, would be appalling if it were
not for the red-boats. This life-saving institution is maintained
by Government with the assistance of voluntary contributions. A
subscription towards the up-keep of the service is granted annually by
the British Admiralty. There is no institution in China which reflects
more credit on the government of the country, and is more deserving of
unqualified praise.

In a red-boat I was more cramped in space than I should have been in
one of the large house-boats usually chartered by European travellers,
but my rate of progress was much more speedy. My only shelter was a
mat-awning, open at both ends, and as the thermometer rarely went above
45°, and at night often went down to 36°, I should have suffered some
inconvenience from the cold had I not been able to exercise myself
by scrambling along the rocks and boulders ahead of my trackers. The
red-boat in which I travelled was, of course, specially detached for my
use and exempted from the performance of its ordinary duties, though
for part of the way it acted as escort to a naval officer who was going
up the river in one of the ordinary house-boats to join his ship.

[Sidenote: YANGTSE GORGES]

So many descriptions--good, bad, and indifferent--of the wonders of
the Yangtse gorges have already been thrust into the hands of a more
or less grateful public, that most of my readers may be glad to learn
that I do not intend to add to the number. The travellers who in
recent years have endeavoured to emulate the excellent accounts of
such pioneers as Mr Archibald Little are so numerous that I would in
all diffidence suggest to those who may hereafter desire to publish
their "impressions" of the gorges, that it would be a graceful act
on their part to pay a small fine--let it be a large one if the
public receives their work with cordiality--towards the funds of the
life-boat service. It would certainly be impossible to find a worthier
object for their generosity. All I will venture to say myself--though
I have already paid my fine--is that no description of the scenery of
the gorges can do justice to the reality. For though I have beheld
scenery more beautiful and quite as grand, I never saw anything in
my travels that filled me with a deeper sense of awe. Perhaps one
of the secrets of the fascination of the gorges is the ever-present
contrast between the dumb forces of nature and evanescent humanity.
For ages past human muscle has matched itself in a brave struggle
with those titanic forces. The very rocks themselves, the standing
symbol of changelessness, reveal something of the history of this
unending strife. The smooth grooves worn deep into the jagged summits
of innumerable crags have been scooped out by the ropes hauled by a
hundred generations of dead trackers, and just above the water-line
the deep holes in the hard lime-stone made by the poles of millions of
toiling junkmen in past centuries are still used as hooks and points
of leverage by their descendants of to-day. When it is remembered that
more than a hundred trackers are sometimes required to haul a single
junk against the current of the greater rapids, and that a junk may
take half a day in covering a distance of 200 yards, some idea will be
formed of the permanent difficulties that confront, and always have
confronted, the indomitable Chinese navigator on these inland waters.

Much has been written by former travellers on the subject of the
terribly hard lives led by the Yangtse trackers, but I am not sure that
the degradation of the tracker and the wretchedness of his life have
not been greatly over-stated. Hard as the work is, the trackers' mode
of life can be by no means unhealthy, and their daily food is, from
the Chinese point of view, both plentiful and good. Better than all,
their work is in its way interesting, and of such a nature that it can
never become really monotonous. That they take a genuine satisfaction
in its accomplishment, quite apart from the reward they are to receive,
seemed to me, as I watched them at their labours, an obvious fact. I
fancy that Ruskin would have supported the view that the tracker's
lot is by no means so pitiable as that of myriads of factory hands in
the hideous industrial centres of modern Europe. Personally, if I had
to choose between hauling junks over rapids in the magnificent gorges
of the Yangtse, and pulling cranks and levers in a dismal Lancashire
factory, I should not for a moment hesitate in my choice: and I should
not choose the cranks and levers.

My journey from Ichang to Wan-hsien occupied eleven days. We started on
2nd February, reached Pu-tai K'ou (the boundary between the provinces
of Hupei and Ssuch'uan) on the 6th, passed through the Fêng Hsiang
gorge--perhaps the grandest of all the defiles--on the 8th, and beached
ourselves under the walls of the city of Wan-hsien on the morning
of the 12th. Here I paid off my hardy boatmen, and prepared for my
overland journey to Ch'êng-tu.


FOOTNOTES:

[6] It was accomplished very successfully by a British river gun-boat
as recently as the summer of 1907.




CHAPTER IV

WAN-HSIEN TO CH'ÊNG-TU


Wan-hsien, though one of the most beautifully situated cities on the
Yangtse, is, like most Chinese towns, more pleasing at a distance than
close at hand. It lies on a slope at a bend of the river 200 miles
above Ichang, and 1,200 miles from the ocean. It is not yet an open
port, though I was shown a spot said to have been selected by the
British consular authorities as the site of the future Consulate. The
only resident Europeans are a few missionaries and a postal agent. The
trade of the city is brisk and developing, for the numerous roads that
lead from here into the interior of the province are much used by the
native merchants of Ssuch'uan for the conveyance of their goods to the
river. In time to come Wan-hsien will no doubt reap a large profit
from its advantageous position at the point of contact of several main
arteries of traffic.

At Wan-hsien I was very hospitably entertained for a day and a night by
the Rev. J. C. Platt, of the China Inland Mission, who was also most
courteous in assisting me in the engagement of coolies for the next
stage of my journey.

My caravan consisted of three coolies to carry my sedan chair
(purchased at Wan-hsien), which I very seldom used, three to carry my
baggage, and a temporary "boy," or personal servant, who was engaged
to accompany me as far as Ch'êng-tu, the capital of the province. I
was also furnished by the _chih hsien_, or district magistrate, with
the usual escort of two or three Chinese soldiers who, whether they
are wanted or not, always accompany Europeans on overland journeys
in China. From this point onwards my method was to engage temporary
coolies and "boys" at various stages of my journey, discharging them as
soon as I had passed out of the district in which their local knowledge
rendered them specially useful. I lived entirely on native food, except
on the rare occasions on which I enjoyed the hospitality of European
missionaries. My knowledge of Chinese rendered me independent of
interpreters or guides, though the changes of dialect were sometimes
disconcerting.

[Illustration: A CHINESE "BRAVE."  [_To face p. 32._]

[Sidenote: SCENERY OF EASTERN SSUCH'UAN]

The journey from Wan-hsien to Ch'êng-tu consisted of fourteen long
stages, the total distance being nearly 400 miles.[7] The road lies
through one of the fairest and most fertile portions of the great
province of Ssuch'uan, and is one of the best I have met with in the
interior of China: a circumstance which is partly due to the fact that
Chinese officials generally use this road in travelling from the east
of China to the provincial capital. The inns are numerous and--from
the Oriental point of view--fairly comfortable. The innkeepers, so far
from showing any aversion to entertaining foreigners, tout eagerly
for their custom, and generally greet one with the amiable remark
"_t'zŭ hou ta jên_" ("At your Excellency's service") as one enters
their courtyards. The people are peaceful and industrious, and annoy
foreigners only by their insatiable curiosity. Europeans have not very
often travelled by this road, as they generally prefer--having a good
deal of heavy baggage--to keep to the Yangtse as far as Chung-king,
and thence ascend the Min river; but there are now several missionary
stations between Wan-hsien and Ch'êng-tu, and the country is quite
well known to foreigners. The road lies partly over undulating hills,
generally cultivated almost to their summits with rice, rape, wheat,
maize, and many other crops, and partly over rich and densely-populated
plains. The scenery is always picturesque, and sometimes,--among the
hills--exceedingly beautiful. The villages, farm-houses, and temples
are generally situated amid little forests of feathery bamboo. The
hill-sides are studded with charming little _châlets_, and very
often the submerged rice-fields in their immediate vicinity give the
appearance of artificial lakes in an English park, especially when
the banks or balks are lined with graceful vegetation. My dog, I was
glad to find, attracted much greater attention than I did myself: for
bull-terriers are unknown in China. Delighted cries of "_K'an yang
kou_" ("Look at the foreign dog!") greeted us whenever we entered a
village street, and in some places delight was tempered by amazement.
"Call that a dog?" I heard a village patriarch remark rebukingly. "It's
a bear!" My readers may rest assured that my four-footed travelling
companion was no more like a bear than a unicorn.

Though the climate of Ssuch'uan is always comparatively mild, the
mornings were generally chilly enough to make walking a pleasanter
mode of progression than chair-riding. The method adopted by the
peasantry to keep themselves warm struck me as distinctly novel. They
carry in their hands little wicker-baskets, in which is a diminutive
metal receptacle containing glowing charcoal. This is the Ssuch'uanese
equivalent to a European lady's muff; but sometimes they hide it away
under their clothes, in which case their appearance is apt to be rather
comic.

My second night after leaving Wan-hsien was spent in the small district
city of Liang-shan, where the late Mrs Bishop, as she relates in
her _Yangtse Valley and Beyond_, was mobbed and assaulted. No such
unpleasant experience awaited me, and I found the people orderly and
good-humoured. The evening of the fourth day brought me to Ta Chu,
where I found an unusually good inn. Those who have travelled much in
China need not be reminded of the joy with which one finds comfortable
quarters awaiting one at the end of a tiring day's journey; the
experience is none too common. During the fifth day's march I passed
several out-crops of coal. It seems to exist in great abundance,
though mining operations do not appear to have been carried far below
the surface. The coal is used in the inns of this district, and burns
well. On the sixth day we crossed the Ch'ü river in a ferry-boat. This
stream, which is navigable for local craft, rises in the high range
of hills in the north-east of Ssuch'uan, and for part of its course
is known as the Pai Shui, or White Water. Ch'ü-hsien and Kuang-an are
the only fair-sized towns on its banks, the point at which I crossed
being between these two towns. The river joins the Chia-ling, with
other tributaries, at Ho-chou, and so goes to swell the Yangtse at
Chung-king. The water is remarkably clear. The summer rise, judging
from the appearance of the banks, is probably not more than 10 feet, if
so much.

[Sidenote: SHUN-CH'ING-FU]

On the eighth day from Wan-hsien I reached the prefectural city
of Shun-ch'ing-fu,[8] once a prosperous industrial centre but now
somewhat decayed. A great industry here used to be the preparation of
vegetable dyes from the safflower, but the trade has been killed by the
introduction of aniline dyes from Austria. Sericulture, however, is
still a flourishing industry. Three or four years ago a disaster befell
the city in the shape of floods, which destroyed whole streets and
undermined portions of the city wall.

Soon after leaving Shun-ch'ing our road lay over an excellent
four-arched bridge called the Jung An Ch'iao ("Everlasting Peace
Bridge"), and we then began the ascent of a hill commonly known locally
as the Hsi Shan, or West Hill. Here there are cavern-shrines, and a
number of honorific portals and tablets, which indeed are exceedingly
common along all the main roads of Ssuch'uan. Many of the inscriptions
consist of "legends of good women," but the great majority commemorate
the virtues of local officials. The carved figures on the buildings
of the Hsi Shan are curious and interesting, and would probably repay
study. Some distance beyond this point I observed a large flat rock
close to the road, bearing the significant inscription: _Ch'i ssŭ wu
kao chuang_ ("Die of anger but don't go to law"). This is part of a
well-known proverb which goes on to say: _O ssŭ wu tso tsei_ ("Die of
hunger but don't be a thief"). It would be well for the peasantry of
China--who as often as not ruin themselves over their law-suits--if
they would pay as much respect to the first of these injunctions as
they generally do to the second.

On the 25th February my road descended from an undulating range of
hills to the edge of the great plain, in the middle of which is
situated the provincial capital, Ch'êng-tu; but it was not till the
close of the following day, the fourteenth since leaving Wan-hsien,
that we entered the city.

[Sidenote: HIGHWAYMEN]

As in all wealthy centres, the contrast between the rich and poor in
the Ch'êng-tu plain is very striking. I never met so much evidence of
great wealth elsewhere in China, and certainly never encountered so
many beggars. One of them, seeing that I was alone and on foot--for
I had left my chair some distance behind--offered to carry me to
Ch'êng-tu on his back. Another tried to impress upon me the advantages
of his wheelbarrow as a mode of conveyance, though its wooden wheel
was nearly broken in half. The number of bad characters in the city and
neighbourhood seemed to me unusually large, and I was constantly warned
against highway robbers. I hardly expected to have the good fortune to
meet so picturesque a villain as a real highwayman, but such was my
fate during my last day's journey before entering Ch'êng-tu. There were
two of them, armed with pistols that were not only loaded, but could
be discharged--a feature that is not characteristic of all Chinese
firearms. They were lurking behind some bamboos on the side of the
road, apparently waiting for an opportunity to attack and plunder any
one whose docility of appearance marked him out as a suitable victim.
One of them took fright at the sudden apparition of the three soldiers
of my escort, who were walking in front of my chair, and bolted. He was
immediately followed by his companion, and close on their heels came my
scarlet-coated warriors, emboldened, no doubt, by the knowledge of the
fact that they were three to two. I caused my chair to be put down in
order that I might the better observe the race, and the fight which I
supposed would ensue. But there was no struggle. Both the highwaymen,
encumbered by the weight of their unwieldy pistols and a couple of
heavy knives, were speedily overtaken and captured, and, when brought
back to me, threw themselves to the ground and made a piteous appeal
to my generosity. They explained that they had found the knives and
pistols in a field, and were trying to find the original owner in order
to return them to him, and that they had no idea (until we demonstrated
the fact by firing off the weapons) that the pistols were loaded.
Whether they took up the same line of defence in the presence of the
magistrate to whose care I consigned them, I do not know, nor have I
learned their subsequent fate.

The Ch'êng-tu plain, with its marvellous system of irrigation and its
three or four crops a year, is the richest and most populous district
in the whole of the Chinese Empire. This extraordinarily productive
plain is about 90 miles long by 70 wide, and supports a population
estimated at no less than 4,000,000, of whom about 350,000 reside
within the capital itself. It is studded with many prosperous towns and
villages, and is cultivated to its utmost extent. Among the crops are
rice, wheat, tea, tobacco, maize, the opium-poppy, which was not yet in
bloom, and the yellow rape that turned hundreds of acres of land into
seas of bright gold. The plain is connected by a navigable waterway
(the Min) with the Yangtse, and it is in the heart of the richest
province in China. The city of Ch'êng-tu has been identified with Marco
Polo's Sindafu. "This city," wrote Marco in the thirteenth century,
"was in former times a rich and noble one, and the kings who reigned
there were very great and wealthy." Of the Min river--which had not
then been subdivided to the same extent as at present into artificial
channels for irrigation--he says: "The multitude of vessels that
navigate this river is so vast that no one who should read or hear
the tale would believe it. The quantities of merchandise also which
merchants carry up and down this river are past all belief."[9]

[Sidenote: CH'ÊNG-TU]

Ch'êng-tu is a city of less importance now, but it is still one of the
greatest and most prosperous in China. Its population is much smaller
than that of Canton, but its general appearance is more attractive as
well as far more imposing. Its streets are broad and clean, and its
wall exceedingly well preserved. In mediæval times it was a frontier
city of great political and strategic importance, for the Tibetan
principalities extended then as far east as the lofty mountains that
flank the Ch'êng-tu plain on the west. Even now large numbers of
Tibetan traders are often to be seen in the streets of Ch'êng-tu,
though most of their commercial transactions are carried on at the city
of Kuan-hsien, about 30 miles away, a place which is also remarkable
for the sluices which regulate the waters of the Min and divert them,
as occasion demands, into the irrigation canals. The governor-general
of Ssuch'uan, whose yamen is in Ch'êng-tu, is more like a real viceroy
than any other provincial ruler in China, for he it is who, on behalf
of the emperor, holds sway over, and receives the embassies of, the
various Tibetan princes and tribal chiefs of the extreme west. There
is at present a project to connect Ch'êng-tu by rail with a point on
the Yangtse, probably in the neighbourhood of K'uei-chou-fu, a town
which I passed on my way from Ichang to Wan-hsien. The provincial
government--for the railway project is entirely a Chinese one--is at
present actively engaged in trying to raise the funds necessary for
so large an undertaking, one method being--so I was told--to compel
every local official to take a definite number of shares, the number
to vary according to the official's rank and reputed wealth, each
shareholder being permitted to get rid of his shares in the best way
possible by distributing them among the well-to-do people subject to
his jurisdiction. In passing through the towns and villages of eastern
Ssuch'uan, I noticed many Chinese proclamations giving the people an
outline of the railway scheme, pointing out the great benefits to
the trade and prosperity of the province that would result from its
fulfilment, and inviting or commanding popular co-operation. It may be
that this railway will offer one solution of the problem of the Yangtse
rapids: in any case, the enthusiasm with which the scheme was being
discussed in both official and commercial circles was another proof of
the gradual breaking-down of the old Chinese prejudice against railways.

Though so remote from the sea-board, the people of Ch'êng-tu--or
perhaps I should say the officials--are among the most progressive and
enlightened in China. This is especially so in the matter of education.
The city possesses a Provincial College, where about three hundred
young men are now being educated in Western as well as in Chinese
branches of learning. There is an Englishman who lectures on chemistry
and physics, there are several Japanese lecturers, and a staff of
Chinese teachers who have a knowledge of European languages. I have
heard of an enterprising Chinese schoolmaster who once advertised that
in his establishment English was taught "up to letter G." They are
more ambitious than that in the college of Ch'êng-tu. Among the local
industries the most important is that of silk-weaving. For this, as
well as for other industrial purposes, foreign machinery and Western
methods are being gradually imported and adopted.

[Sidenote: BABER'S MONOLITH]

Those who are acquainted with Baber's charming descriptions of
Ssuch'uan and Yunnan[10]--descriptions which can never be superseded,
though they are often neglected nowadays--will remember that he was
much interested in a curious circular monolith which he discovered on
the side of an artificial hill or mound in Ch'êng-tu. He was unable to
get any satisfactory account of its history, though tradition said that
it marked the grave of an emperor's son. It is, indeed, not improbable
that the mound, which is oblong in shape, with a depression in the
middle, and resembles, as Baber remarked, a half-buried dumbbell, was
raised in memory of some distinguished prince or leader of old times,
perhaps when the Ch'êng-tu plain was still occupied by the so-called
Man-tzŭ. I visited the spot, and found that the stone was still lying
in the position in which he saw it. The portion that appears above
the soil presents something of the appearance of the tilted end of a
huge stone barrel, badly damaged at one corner. The diameter of the
circular face--of which barely half can be seen--I found to be about
17 feet. The greatest length of the visible body of the barrel is only
about 2 feet 3 inches, but it is impossible to say how much of it is
underground. An excavation of the mound at the spot where the stone
lies might lead to some interesting results: but Baber was assured that
any attempt to dig would cause the sky to darken and goblins to appear,
so he left it alone, and I decided to follow his example.

Something of the grandeur of Ch'êng-tu in its most palmy days may be
realised by a reference to extant Chinese books, as well as from the
eulogies of Marco Polo. From the _Shu Hua Shih_[11] we learn that
under the T'ang dynasty (618-905 of the Christian era) it was a great
art centre, and a long list of paintings and frescoes relating to the
Buddhist religion are mentioned in that work as hanging on the walls
of the palaces of Ch'êng-tu. Some of the temples are worthy of a long
visit, though the finest in the district is not in the city itself but
in the neighbouring town of Kuan-hsien, where Li Ping and his son,
the deified founders of the great irrigation system of the Ch'êng-tu
plain, have had raised in their honour a temple that is said to be the
most beautiful in China. But as has been well remarked of Li Ping by
a recent English traveller,[12] the perennially fertile fields around
Ch'êng-tu are his finest monument.


FOOTNOTES:

[7] For Itinerary, see Appendix B.

[8] The word _fu_ attached to so many Chinese place-names is usually
translated "prefecture," which is an administrative division including
several _hsien_ or district-magistracies. _Chou_ also signifies an
administrative division or "department," smaller than a _fu_.

[9] Yule's _Marco Polo_, edited by Cordier, vol. ii. pp. 36-37.

[10] First published in the Royal Geographical Society's _Supplementary
Papers_, vol. i.

[11] 書畫史.

[12] Clive Bigham, in _A Year in China_, p. 125.




CHAPTER V

CH'ÊNG-TU TO OMEI-HSIEN


My next objective after leaving Ch'êng-tu was the sacred summit of
Mount Omei, one of the most famous of the many historic mountains
of China. I left Ch'êng-tu on 1st March in a small, leaky, and most
uncomfortable craft, which took me down the Min river to Chia-ting
in four days, the total distance being slightly over 130 miles. The
Kuan-hsien sluices having not yet been opened to give the great plain
its spring flooding, there was very little water in the stream till
we reached Chiang K'ou[13] on the morning of the third day, and in
some places it was necessary to pull the boat over some mud shoals. At
Chiang K'ou the various subdivided waters (of which the branch that
brought me down from the east gate of Ch'êng-tu was one) reunite and
form a river which is broad and deep enough at all seasons of the year
for cargo-junks of a considerable size. This is the Min river, which,
as already stated, is regarded by the Chinese of central Ssuch'uan as
the true Upper Yangtse. The far greater but unnavigable stream which
rushes impetuously from the Tibetan mountains in the north-west and is
joined by the Min at Hsü-chou-fu,[14] is known by the Chinese for a
great part of its course as Chin Ho (Gold River) and as the Chin Sha
Chiang[15] (the River of Golden Sand). The name Min being apparently
unknown to the Chinese, Baber suggested that it had been invented
by the early Jesuit geographers.[16] If so, it was no doubt derived
from the range of mountains known to the Chinese as the Min Shan (岷山)
in the north-west of the province, for it is there that the river
rises. But all the rivers of China have a multitude of names; in fact
the Chinese do not appear to be endowed with a proper sense of the
continuity of rivers, and the country people who dwell on the banks of
a stream from which they derive their livelihood are seldom aware of
where it comes from or whither it goes. This circumstance has been a
source of embarrassment to many European travellers, whose passion for
geographical exactness is incomprehensible to the rustic mind in China.

The scenery of the Min is always picturesque. The river flows for the
most part through richly cultivated districts, broken only here and
there by low hills. Nearly opposite the town of P'êng-shan-hsien, on
the third day from Ch'êng-tu I visited a fine twelve-storied pagoda
(the So Chiang T'a or Lock-River Pagoda), which, unlike most buildings
of the kind, is in sufficiently good repair to enable one to ascend
it by a spiral staircase. The pagoda is built of hard brick and the
staircase is of sandstone blocks. The scenery on the river becomes
finer as one approaches Chia-ting. Well-wooded hills come close to the
water's edge, and broken cliffs covered with verdure reveal openings
into fairy vistas of greenery and mysterious grottoes that would have
delighted the soul of a Keats.

[Illustration: A CHINESE WALLED CITY.   [_To face p. 44._]

[Sidenote: CHIA-TING-FU]

The town of Chia-ting, which I reached on the evening of 4th March,
is beautifully situated on the right bank of the Min, just above its
junction with the T'ung (more generally known as the Ta Tu) and Ya
rivers. From this point onwards the three streams flow in a broad,
navigable river for a distance of about 130 miles, when they join the
Yangtse at Hsü-chou-fu. My river-journey, however, ended at Chia-ting.

Apart from its proximity to the sacred mountain of Omei, Chia-ting
is interesting for its temples, its prehistoric cave-dwellings, its
sericulture, and for the white-wax industry. High on a rocky hill on
the left bank of the river is a remarkable monastery known as "The
Monastery of the Voice of the Waters." It was founded in the T'ang
dynasty, nearly twelve hundred years ago, and restored in 1667 by
the munificence of a Provincial Judge. It bears the alternative name
of "The Great Buddha Monastery," the reference being to a huge image
which has been carved out of the face of a cliff that overhangs the
waters of the Min. The story goes that a holy monk named Hai T'ung came
to this locality in the eighth century of our era and determined to
perform some act of religious devotion which would save the surrounding
country from the ruin and desolation caused by the overflowing of the
three neighbouring rivers. He therefore spent nineteen years in hewing
out of the rock an immense image of Maitrêya Buddha. The carving,
which is in bold relief, must have been a work of immense labour and
considerable danger; but its artistic merits are obscured by the
partial decomposition of the rock and the growth of vegetation in the
fissures. Parts of the body are almost indistinguishable. The whole
figure is about 386 feet high. An exceedingly steep and rather perilous
scramble down a cutting in the precipice enabled me to study the great
figure from various points of vantage, and also to inspect some little
rock-shrines containing innumerable small Buddhas. It is doleful to
reflect that in spite of Hai T'ung's piety and extraordinary industry
the three rivers have not yet ceased to cause periodical floods.

[Sidenote: MAN-TZŬ CAVES]

Amongst other objects of great interest in the monastic grounds are
some of the prehistoric cave-dwellings which were first described by
Baber. One of these caves, in close proximity to the monastery, has
been diverted from its original uses (whatever they may have been), and
is now a Buddhist chapel, with altar, bell, and images all complete.
These caves, of which there are many in the neighbourhood of Chia-ting
and a great quantity in other parts of what is known as the "Red Basin"
of Ssuch'uan, constitute one of the unsolved problems of Chinese
archæology. I visited several of them during the two days I spent at
Chia-ting, but am not in a position to add much to the information
already available, or to offer any novel theory regarding their
origin. The caves are entirely artificial, and have been hewn out of
the sandstone by people who were evidently skilful in the handling of
their tools. There is little evidence of a strong artistic instinct,
but it is curious to note that the decoration, such as it is, bears no
resemblance to any Chinese work, and seems rather of Hindu type. The
square or oblong doors are generally on the face of a cliff, and the
majority are at the present time quite inaccessible without the use
of ropes and ladders. In some cases the cliffs are honey-combed with
caves, the insides of which have never been trodden by human foot for
untold ages. Other caves, however, are quite easily accessible. The
interiors vary in details, but in general design they are alike. The
door leads into a long room, which is in most cases connected with
other rooms, and there are holes and grooves in the walls which show
that there must at one time have been wooden partitions. Within the
rooms, which are quite lofty and broad enough for human habitation,
there are cistern-like troughs, deep recesses, bench-like seats, and
projections that may have been used as shelves: all of which are hewn
out of the rock and remain immovable. No one can now say definitely
whether the caves were used as strongholds, as tombs, as houses or as
places of worship. Arguments may be adduced in support of each and
all of these theories. The inaccessibility of the majority of the
cave-apertures lends support to the stronghold theory. Perhaps they
were reached by temporary ladders which were drawn up on the approach
of an enemy. Possibly the enemies to be feared in those remote days
were wild beasts as well as human beings. The narrow rooms, with their
immovable stone coffers and shallow recesses, suggest mausolea; yet
the existence in some cases of fire-places (without chimneys) and
stone projections that were evidently intended to be sat upon are more
suggestive of dwelling-places. As regards the temple theory, all that
can be said is that some of the more accessible of the caves have been
turned into Buddhist shrines, as in the case already mentioned; but
there is no evidence whatever that they were originally intended for
religious purposes. On the whole, it seems probable that the caves
were actually used as the ordinary dwelling-places of a primitive
people that lived chiefly by hunting and fishing, had attained a fair
degree of civilisation and social organisation, and found themselves
in constant danger of attack by hostile tribes, perhaps Tibetans, by
whom--if not by advancing Chinese--they were eventually scattered or
exterminated.

[Sidenote: CAVE-DWELLERS]

All I propose to add by way of comment is this. In the _Journal_
of the Royal Asiatic Society for July 1904 and January 1906, Mr E.
Crawshay-Williams described some mysterious rock-dwellings which he
discovered at Raineh, in Persia. Now from his description of those
caves I gather that they must be exactly similar in situation,
size, and general appearance to those which we are now considering.
Unfortunately, neither the Raineh caves nor those of Ssuch'uan contain
inscriptions. Whether the resemblance is purely accidental or has some
deeper significance is a question which I leave to archæologists. It
might, if we had corroborating evidence, tend to show that regions
so far apart as Persia and the Min valley of Ssuch'uan were once
inhabited by allied races, perhaps of Indian origin. As we shall see
later,[17] there is, indeed, some reason to believe that the Chinese
cave-dwellers were connected with the Vaggians or Licchavis, a race
that attained to great political strength in the extreme north-east of
India, and which--according to one authority at least--is identical
with the Yüeh-chi.[18] The latter, however, who after their disastrous
defeats by the Hiung-nu on the confines of China in the second century
B.C. migrated to western Asia, never seem to have penetrated so far
west as Raineh in Persia. Their empire was founded on the ruins of
the Græco-Bactrian dominion in Sogdiana and on the left bank of the
Oxus, and their ambitions led them south rather than west. It may
be that future explorers will discover in other regions caves of a
similar pattern to those of Persia and China, and in that case it may
be possible to trace the migrations of the cave-dwellers and so find
a clue to their identification. The caves noticed by the abbé Huc on
the fringe of the Mongolian desert, and those that exist near the
Yamdok lake on the road to Lhasa[19] have not been described fully
enough to justify our drawing many deductions. The rock-cut caves on
the Murghab near the Afghan frontier, and those of Bamian close to
the Indian Caucasus on the road between Kabul and Turkestan,[20] have
many characteristics in common with those of Ssuch'uan, but appear to
have served only religious uses. Professor Parker has discovered in
the records of the T'ang dynasty (seventh to tenth century A.D.) what
appear to be references to the existence of a race of cave-dwellers in
Ssuch'uan as late as that time, and a further reference to cave-chiefs
(one of whom was named T'ien Shih Ch'iung) in records corresponding
to the year 1012 of our era.[21] But there is nothing to prove that
these were the descendants of the original cave-dwelling race, and the
probabilities are rather against their being so.

What the Chinese themselves say is that the caves were inhabited by the
"Man-tzŭ" in prehistoric times; but Man-tzŭ is a term which has a very
elastic meaning, for, as we shall see below,[22] it has been made to
embrace Tibetan border tribes, Lolos and "savages" generally. It must
reluctantly be admitted that until a proper archæological enquiry has
been made into the subject and the more inaccessible caves have been
thoroughly searched for relics, the only theory with which no fault can
be found is the illuminating one propounded by Baber. "My own theory,"
he said, "which I offer with diffidence, is that these excavations are
of unknown date, and have been undertaken, for unexplained purposes, by
a people of doubtful identity."

[Sidenote: CHINESE INNS]

On 6th March I set out for Omei-hsien, the little city that lies at
the foot of Mount Omei. The distance from Chia-ting is only about 16
miles, and was easily covered during the day. My retinue consisted of
three chair-bearers, three baggage coolies and a useless "boy" whom I
had picked up at Ch'êng-tu and hoped to get rid of as soon as I could
find a suitable man to take his place. The road led us over the river
Ya and across a great plain almost entirely occupied by myriads of the
dwarf ash-trees which are used in connection with the production of
the famous white wax. The wax-insects, which are brought annually in
baskets from the Chien-ch'ang valley south of the Ta Tu, are placed on
the branches of this tree, and in due time proceed to cover themselves
and the branches with a thick coating of the wax. The branches are
then cut off and the wax carefully removed. The whole process has been
carefully described by Sir Alexander Hosie in several Foreign Office
reports and in his _Three Years in Western China_.

The inns of Omei-hsien are unusually good, and as the pilgrim season
had not yet begun I was able to select the best quarters that the city
could provide. Western readers must not suppose that even the best of
Chinese inns would meet with commendation in England or America. If in
China I am shown into a room that has been moderately well swept, and
possesses a wooden floor which does not give way, and walls without
holes; that contains a steady table, an unbroken chair, a window
recently papered, and that does not smell too offensively of stale
opium; and if the room is not next door to the stables and opens into
a yard that is reasonably clear of garbage and filth, and is not the
common resort of peripatetic pigs and diseased dogs,--I then consider
that good fortune has brought me to an inn that may be described as
excellent. The furniture is, of course, in all cases of the simplest
description, the principal guest-room generally containing only a
table and a couple of chairs. The walls are either of bare stone or
brick, or of mere lath and plaster. Sometimes they are adorned with
a few hanging scrolls containing "antithetical couplets" or crude
paintings--probably New Years' gifts to the landlord from his "foolish
younger brothers." Washing-stands, dressing-tables and side-boards
and similar luxuries are unknown, and the bed consists either (in
north China) of a _k'ang_, which is built of bricks, or (in the warmer
regions) of a couple of planks placed on trestles. For several reasons
a camp-bed is to Europeans an indispensable part of even the most
modest travelling equipment. If such are the good inns, what is to be
said of the worst? Earthen floors saturated with damp and filth and
smelling of decaying refuse; windows from which the paper (glass being,
of course, unknown) has been torn away; tables which collapse under
the weight of the traveller's frugal dinner unless they are propped
up by his portmanteau and gun-case; roofs from which hang trailing
cobwebs spun by spiders of a vanished generation; walls of mud through
which the village urchins make holes by the simple pressure of their
grimy fingers; wicked-looking insects of uncouth shapes that issue at
night-time from a hundred gloomy lurking-places and crawl over the
edge of one's rice-bowl; an entire lack of means of illumination except
a single sputtering wick protruding from a saucer filled with rancid
oil: these are but a few of the more obvious discomforts of many a
Chinese hostelry. The inns of the large towns are with a few exceptions
no better than those of the villages, and often much less comfortable
on account of the greater amount of noise and dirt. As a rule it is
preferable, if possible, to complete a day's march at a village rather
than in a town; not only for the sake of quietness and peace, but also
because one is less likely to be disturbed by inquisitive crowds if one
ventures outside the door of the inn.

[Illustration: CHILDREN OF CHINA.  [_To face p. 53._]

[Sidenote: OMEI-HSIEN]

The people of Omei-hsien, however, are unusually amiable. Many of them
earn their living by attending to the wants of pilgrims to the great
mountain, and vie with each other in their efforts to show civility
to the stranger within their gates. Not many Chinese venture to climb
Mount Omei so early in the year as March, as it is still covered with
snow for several thousand feet of its height; but I observed a large
number of Tibetan pilgrims on their way to and from the mountain,
and ascertained from them that there was no great difficulty in the
ascent. On the morning of the 7th March, therefore, I left my servant
(who was appalled by the mere shadow of the mountain) to look after my
baggage in Omei-hsien, and started the ascent in the company of the two
soldiers of my escort. The town of Omei-hsien lies at 1,500 feet above
sea-level: the summit of the mountain is about 9,500 feet higher.


FOOTNOTES:

[13] 江口.

[14] See Map.

[15] It will be observed by those acquainted with Chinese that here
and elsewhere I have, for the sake of uniformity, transliterated all
Chinese names according to the sounds of Pekingese, except in the case
of a few stereotyped words.

[16] It is used, however, in the official Annals of the province
(_Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih_).

[17] See chap. xv. p. 286 (note 1).

[18] S. Beal in the _Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society, January
1882, p. 39. His view does not seem to have attracted much attention.

[19] See Waddell's _Lhasa and its Mysteries_ (John Murray, 1905), pp.
289-290.

[20] See _Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society, January and July 1886.

[21] See _China Review_, vols. xv. and xix.

[22] See chap. xv.




CHAPTER VI

MOUNT OMEI AND CHINESE BUDDHISM


The forests and ravines of Mount Omei[23] teem with mystery and marvel,
for there are legends that carry its story far back into the dim days
when the threads of history meet together in the knots of myth. There
is hardly a peak un-garlanded with the flowers of romance, hardly a
moss-grown boulder that is not the centre of an old-world legend. The
many stories of wonderful visions and wizard sounds that have come to
the eyes and ears of the pilgrims to the shrines of Omei may raise
a smile of amusement at human credulity, yet they are easily enough
explained when we remember how strangely both sights and sounds may be
affected by mountain-mists; and it is seldom that the giant bulk of
Omei is bathed from peak to base in clear sunshine.

    "The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
    Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
    And loiters, slowly drawn."

[Sidenote: LEGENDARY ASSOCIATIONS]

It is, indeed, true that "many-fountain'd" Omei would lose a great
part of its spell if the mists were to melt away into garish daylight.
No more could the pilgrim pour into the ears of wondering listeners
tales of how, when ascending the mountain amid gloom and silence, he
had suddenly heard his own praises of the Lord Amitabha re-chanted by
spirit voices; how a rift in the curtain of white cloud had suddenly
disclosed landscapes of unearthly loveliness, with jewelled palaces
and starry pinnacles such as were never raised by the hands of men;
how he had caught glimpses of airy forms that passed him with a sigh
or a whisper, but left no traces in the forest or the snow and made no
sound of footfall; or how when approaching unwittingly the edge of some
terrible abyss he had felt the touch of a ghostly finger that led him
back to safety.

It is believed that the Lolos, who are not Buddhists, worshipped on
Mount Omei a triad of deities of their own, and it is at least certain
that men of that race are sometimes met on Omei's slopes. But the
earliest legendary associations of the mountain are in Chinese minds
naturally connected with those mythical progenitors of the Chinese
people--Fu Hsi and Nü Wo. This carries us back to the twenty-ninth
century B.C. Both these mysterious persons have their "caves" on Mount
Omei, but they are in such inaccessible situations that no mortal eye
has ever seen them. The first of the legendary hermits was a holy
man named T'ien Chên Huang Jên,[24] the Heavenly Sage and Imperial
Man. He lived in the age of phœnixes and unicorns; and on Mount Omei
he once received a visit from Huang Ti,[25] the Yellow Emperor, who
flourished in the twenty-sixth century B.C. Though one of the few of
the world's monarchs who appear to have lived long enough to celebrate
the centenary of their succession to the throne, Huang Ti wished to
attain the crowning distinction of immortality. It was to acquire
the elixir of life from the Heavenly Sage that Huang Ti paid him his
memorable visit. A short record of the conversation between the Sage
and his imperial disciple has been preserved, and we may gather from it
that Huang Ti derived from the interview a good deal of sound practical
advice, but the Sage seems to have skilfully evaded the main point. He
kept his secret, but made such excellent personal use of it that he is
supposed to have lived for at least a millennium or two, and indeed
his death has not yet been recorded. In order to keep count of time he
acquired the useful habit of changing his name with each successive
epoch,[26] and his name in the Chou dynasty--which occupied the throne
about a millennium and a half after the Yellow Emperor's time--was the
singularly appropriate one of The Old Man.

[Sidenote: THE MONK OF A THOUSAND YEARS]

Omei-shan--like other sacred mountains in China--has always been famous
for the medicinal value of its roots and herbs, and the monks still
derive no little benefit from their sale. Perhaps it was among these
herbs that The Old Man found his elixir of life, and if so he did not
remain in exclusive possession of the secret. The records of Omei are
full of accounts of recluses and others whose span of life extended far
beyond the normal. One of them is known to legend as Pao Chang,[27] but
more popularly as Ch'ien Sui Ho Shang,[28] or "The Monk of a Thousand
Years." The period of his long and useful life is given in the records.
He was born in the twelfth year of Wei Lieh Wang of the Chou dynasty,
and died in the eighth year of Kao Tsung of the T'ang dynasty at the
ripe old age of precisely one thousand and seventy-one. He was a native
of India, but came to China in the Chin dynasty (265-419 of our era)
and went to worship at the shrine of P'u Hsien Bodhisattva on Mount
Omei, where he spent the declining centuries of his life. According
to another account his arrival at Omei was a good deal earlier than
the Chin period, for his name is connected with the most famous of all
the Omei stories--one which refers to the reign of Ming Ti of the Han
dynasty.

This story relates to the foundation of what may be called the
Buddhistic history of Omei and the beginning of its long religious
association with its patron saint, P'u Hsien Bodhisattva. We are told
that in the reign of Ming Ti (58-75 of the Christian era) a certain
official named P'u[29] happened to be on Mount Omei looking for
medicinal herbs. In a misty hollow he suddenly came upon the footprints
of a deer. They were shaped not like the footprints of an ordinary
deer but like the flower of the lotus. Amazed at the strange sight, he
followed the tracks up the mountain. They led him continually upwards
until at last he found himself on the summit, and there, at the edge of
a terrible precipice, they disappeared. As he gazed over the brink he
beheld a sight most strange and wonderful. A succession of marvellous
colours, luminous and brilliant, gradually rose to the surface of the
vast bank of clouds that lay stretched out below, and linked themselves
together in the form of a glorious iridescent aureole. P'u, full of
wonder at so extraordinary a spectacle, sought the hermitage of the
famous "Monk of a Thousand Years" and told him his strange story. "You
are indeed happy!" said the monk. "What you have seen is no other than
a special manifestation to you of the glory of the great Bodhisattva
P'u Hsien: fitting it is, therefore, that this mountain should be the
centre from which his teachings may be spread abroad. The Bodhisattva
has certainly favoured you above all men." The end of the whole matter
was that P'u built, on the spot from which he had witnessed the sublime
manifestation, the first of the Buddhist temples of Mount Omei, and
dedicated it to P'u Hsien Bodhisattva; and the present monastic
buildings known as the Hsien Tsu Tien and its more modern neighbour
the Chin Tien occupy in the twentieth century the site chosen for the
original P'u Kuang Tien, or Hall of Universal Glory,[30] in the first
century.

[Sidenote: LEGENDS]

This story is interesting as carrying back the Buddhistic traditions of
Omei to the very earliest days of Buddhism in China. My readers will
probably remember that it was in the same epoch--the reign of Ming
Ti--that the emperor had his famous vision of the Golden Man, which is
supposed to have led to the introduction of Buddhism into China under
direct imperial patronage. The story is also of interest as embodying
the first record of the remarkable phenomenon known as the Glory of
Buddha, which has always been one of the principal attractions of the
mountain and may well have been the real cause--as the story itself
indicates--of its special sanctity.

The other curiosities of Omei are so numerous that most of them cannot
even be referred to. Near the foot of the mountain is a scooped-out
rock which is said to have once formed a bath in which pilgrims were
required to go through a course of purification before ascending
the mountain. This, if true, is curious and suggestive. There is a
spot shown where a miraculous lotus-plant--the lotus is sacred to
the Buddha--used to blossom in every season of the year. There is a
flying bell, the tolling of which has been heard in many different
parts of the mountain, though it is never moved by human hands.
There are rock-inscriptions written by emperors and empresses and by
the great Sung dynasty poet, Su Tung-p'o. Not far from the Wan-nien
monastery--perhaps the second oldest on the mountain--is a stream
called the Black Water. In the T'ang dynasty a wandering monk, looking
for a home, came to this stream and wished to cross it, for he espied
on the further bank a spot which he thought would make an excellent
site for a hermitage. But the stream was turbulent and violent and he
could not cross. Suddenly out of the midst of the torrent came a huge
tiger. The tiger looked at the monk, and the monk, unabashed, looked at
the tiger. The wild beast recognised a teacher of the Good Law, and lay
down at his feet, tamed and obedient. The monk mounted on his back and
was carried safely across the water. The tiger has gone and the monk
has gone, but the story must be true, for a bridge was built to span
the Black Water at the spot where the miracle occurred, and it is known
as the Tiger Bridge to this day. In another place there is a great
split rock inside which a mighty dragon slumbered for untold ages.
One night in a terrible thunderstorm the rock was cleft asunder by
lightning. The dragon flew away and was never seen again, but the story
is true, because the sundered rock is still there and can be touched.

[Sidenote: FAMOUS CAVES AND TREES]

The numerous caves on the mountain have endless stories connected
with them. One is supposed to be the haunt of nine great demons. Once
upon a time some audacious monks determined that they would probe
its mysteries. They advanced some distance into the interior without
accident, when suddenly they were met by a prodigious bat that breathed
fire. The monks turned round and walked away, wiser and sadder.
Another cave--the Thunder Cavern--is the haunt of a ghostly dragon, who
lurks in the depths of a gloomy tarn. This cave, with its lake, has
probably a very ancient history, for it seems to be associated in some
way with animistic worship, of which there are many traces on Omei.[31]
In seasons of drought it is or was formerly the custom to go to the
cave with offerings of rich silks. If rain did not speedily fall as a
result of the offerings, the correct procedure was to insult the dragon
by throwing into his cave a dead pig and some articles of a still more
disagreeable nature. This infallibly raised the wrath of the dragon,
who immediately issued forth from his damp and gloomy home and roared.
This meant thunder, and then the rain fell and all was well.

Mount Omei has several famous trees. Of one of them this story is told.
In the Hui Tsung period (1101-25) of the Sung dynasty there was a very
old tree, which about the year 1112 was torn open by a violent storm.
Inside it was found a Buddhist monk, alive, in a state of ecstatic
trance. The whole of his body was covered with his long hair and
whiskers, and his nails were so long that they encircled his body. The
emperor having heard of this living relic of the past, directed that
he was to be carefully conveyed to the capital. Having with difficulty
induced him to emerge from his tree, the messenger asked him his name.
"I am the disciple," he replied, "of Yüan Fa-shih of Tung Lin. My name
is Hui Ch'ih. I came to Omei on pilgrimage and entered into meditation
in this tree. How is my master Yuan? Is he well?" "Your master Yuan,"
said the imperial emissary, "lived in the time of the Chin dynasty,
and died seven hundred years ago." Hui Ch'ih answered not a word,
but turned his back and resumed meditation in his tree. A somewhat
similar story is as follows. In the fourteenth century of our era
there was a monk who had chosen for the scene of his meditations the
hollow interior of an ancient decayed tree. There he sat cross-legged
in silent contemplation until he was about eighty years of age. His
piety apparently communicated some mysterious vitality to the tree, for
suddenly it underwent an extraordinary change: the withered branches
put forth fresh shoots, green foliage reappeared, and the gaping
fissure in the trunk closed up, leaving the contemplative monk inside.
The chronicler goes on to remark with ill-timed levity that the monk
had begun by taking possession of the tree, but the tree had ended by
taking possession of the monk. It is understood, however, that the
accident by no means interrupted his meditations, and that he is still
sitting cross-legged in the darkened interior of his sylvan retreat,
wrapped in profound reverie.

There is a legend that the Buddha himself visited Mount Omei, and his
footprint in a rock is still shown near the summit, though in this age
of little faith its outline is scarcely recognisable. As one of the
monasteries also possesses an alleged Buddha's tooth it is clear that
the fame of Omei ought to be as far-reaching as that of Adam's Peak and
Kandy combined; but Ceylon and China are not the only countries that
rejoice in the possession of footprints and teeth of the Buddha.

[Sidenote: MYTHS OF THE PATRON SAINT]

The local myths that have gathered round the name of the patron saint
of Omei, P'u Hsien[32] Bodhisattva, who is said to have brought
the sacred books of Buddhism from India to China on the back of an
elephant, and deposited them on the mountain, are quite devoid of
historical foundation, for P'u Hsien was merely one of the numerous
figures invented by the Mahayana Buddhists to fill up the broad
canvas of their vast symbolical system.[33] He represents, or rather
is, the Samanta Bhadra of Indian Buddhism, and figures as such in
that great Chinese Buddhist work, the _Hua Yen Ching_,[34] one of
the voluminous productions of Nāgārjuna.[35] The monks of Omei have
invented the famous elephant-ride simply because Samanta Bhadra is
always associated with an elephant in such authoritative Mahayana works
as the Saddharma-Pundarîka. The third last chapter of that work (in
Kumarajiva's translation) deals with P'u Hsien, who is represented as
declaring to the Buddha that he will "mount a white elephant with six
tusks" and take good monks under his special protection, shielding
them from gods, goblins and Mara the Evil One. The monks of Omei
say that having come to the mountain on his elephant he established
himself there as a teacher of the Law of Buddha, and attracted
three thousand pupils or disciples. It is quite possible that one of
the original Buddhist hermits or monks of Omei acquired so great a
celebrity that he became identified in the popular imagination with P'u
Hsien. Something of the kind certainly happened in the case of other
Bodhisattvas--Manjusri and Avalokiteçvara, for instance. But all trace
of historic truth soon vanished in myth. In a Buddhistic work that
relates to Omei, P'u Hsien is described as the eldest son of the Buddha
himself. "The Tathâgata (Buddha) sits on a great lotus consisting
of 1000 leaves. Each leaf has 3000 Universes. Each Universe has a
Buddha to expound the Law, and each Buddha has a P'u Hsien as eldest
son (_changtzŭ_)." This is not an attempt to identify P'u Hsien with
Rahula, the son of the historical Buddha; it refers to the Mahayana
doctrine that Samanta Bhadra or P'u Hsien is the spiritual son or
reflex of the celestial Vairocana, one of the five mythical Buddhas,
just as Gautama Sakyamuni (the historical Buddha) was supposed to be
the earthly embodiment of the celestial Bodhisattva Avalokiteçvara,
the spiritual son or reflex of the celestial Buddha Amitabha. As
regards the significance of the elephant, it need only be mentioned
here that in Indian Buddhistic mythology this animal (apart from its
sacred association with the well-known dream of the Buddha's mother) is
symbolical of self-control.[36]

[Illustration: CHINESE BUDDHIST MONKS IN "UNDRESS."  [_To face p. 65._]

[Sidenote: CHINESE BUDDHISM]

The earliest religious buildings on Mount Omei were no doubt solitary
hermitages, erected by recluses whose religious enthusiasm impelled
them to find in the deep recesses of its forests and gorges a welcome
retreat from the noise and vanity of a world that they despised. As
time went on, richly-endowed monasteries--nobler and more splendid
than any now existing--rose in its silent ravines and by the side
of its sparkling water-courses, and opened their doors to welcome
those whom spiritual ecstasy or longing for a life of philosophic
contemplation, or perhaps the anguish of defeated ambition, drove from
the haunts of men. But gradually as religious fervour died away, the
mountain recluses and solitary students of early days were succeeded
by smaller men, distinguished neither for piety nor for scholarship.
It must, indeed, be confessed that no tradition of sound learning
has been kept up in the Buddhist Church in China. To some extent the
lack of scholarship among Chinese Buddhists may perhaps be traced not
too fancifully to the practice and teaching of Bodhidarma,[37] the
so-called twenty-eighth patriarch of the Indian Buddhists, and the
first of the patriarchs of China. He it was who, having landed in China
early in the sixth century of our era, at once made it his business
to discourage book-learning in the monasteries and to inculcate the
doctrine that supreme enlightenment or mystical union with the Buddha
can only be achieved by disregarding all exoteric teaching and by
passive contemplation. By the recognition of all phenomena, including
one's own personality, as illusory, the mind was to be maintained in
a condition of intellectual quiescence and receptivity, whereby it
would be in a fit state to enter into communion with the Absolute.
Of Bodhidarma the story is told that he sat for nine years in one
position looking at a wall, which is a crude way of explaining that he
was a contemplative mystic. In China his teachings have undoubtedly
had a sterilising influence on thought, somewhat similar--though for
different reasons--to the baneful influence exercised in Europe by
the too-exclusive devotion of the mediæval schoolmen to Aristotle and
Thomas Aquinas.

It may seem a far-fetched hypothesis to attribute part of the present
degeneracy of the Buddhist monkhood in China to the teachings of a
wall-gazing recluse who died nearly fourteen centuries ago. It might
be urged that in searching for the cause of the present state of
decay one need only point to the low orders of society from which the
monks are recruited, the disfavour with which Buddhism is and always
has been regarded by the orthodox Confucian, and the contempt which
the thoroughly practical and worldly-minded Chinese layman almost
invariably feels and expresses for the monastic profession. That these
causes have powerfully assisted in accelerating the corruption that
we witness to-day is unquestionably true; but there is a good deal of
historical justification for the view that they are results rather
than causes of Buddhist decay, and that the first and third would
never have come into existence if Buddhism in China had not sunk into
a state of intellectual torpor. If it had retained sufficient vigour
and independence to reject all esoteric teachings and alien dogmas,
even the great controversies with Confucianism would probably never
have assumed the bitterness they did. Unfortunately, the extravagances
of the later Mahayana doctrines and the foolish eclecticism which led
the Buddhist Church to admit into its own system the crudities and
banalities of corrupt Taoism, rendered the Buddhist position liable
to attack at indefensible points, and compel us to admit that the
controversial victories gained by Confucianism over its rival were
the victories of light over darkness. It is strange that the repeated
defeats and persecutions of Buddhism in China have not had the effect
of bringing about either extinction or reform.

Chinese Buddhism is _sui generis_, and without a qualifying adjective
it can scarcely be said to be Buddhism at all. This is no place to
attempt a sketch of the history of that great religion in either its
orthodox or its heretical aspects, but a few words may be necessary
to enable the general reader to judge for himself whether Buddhism
in China--quite apart from its present stagnant condition or the
corruption of the monkhood--is entitled to the name it bears.

[Sidenote: KARMA]

If there is one tenet of real Buddhism--by which I mean the doctrines
on religious, philosophical and ethical subjects taught or sanctioned
by the historical Buddha--which is more characteristic of that system
than any other, it is the doctrine of the non-existence of the _attā_
(_âtman_) or "soul." It was this doctrine, among others, which
made Buddhism a Brahmanical heresy, for it involved the rejection
of the Vedas as the final and supreme authority on matters of
religion. The crude impression of some people that Buddhism teaches
the "transmigration of souls" is absurd, for the simple reason that
in the Buddhist system "souls" in the Western sense do not exist.
What survives the death of the individual and transfers itself to
another living being is not his soul but the cleaving to existence, a
_tanha_ or thirst for life, an unconscious--or semi-conscious--"will
to live"; and with this _tanha_ is inevitably associated _karma_,
the integrated results of action or character. Buddhism regards the
cleaving to existence as the outcome of the worst kind of ignorance
or delusion--the mistaking of the phenomenal for the real, the false
for the true; and until this delusion has been completely removed
and the character purified from all lusts and all evil tendencies,
the reintegration of karma in a world of pain, sorrow, sickness and
death cannot by any possibility be avoided. Karma,[38] apart from its
technical connotation, signifies "action" or "deeds." In the Buddhist
sense it represents the accumulated results of the past actions and
thoughts which every individual has inherited from countless multitudes
of dead men, and which he will hand on, modified by the newly-generated
karma of his own life-span, to countless generations yet unborn. It is
karma which forms the character of each individual, and determines the
condition of life in which he finds himself placed. The man dies, and
his conscious individuality ceases to be; but his karma continues, and
determines the character and condition of life of another individual.
Each individual may make or mar the karma that he has inherited: if he
spoils it he may literally sink lower than the beasts; if he improves
it he may literally rise higher than the gods. But to the Buddhist
the final goal to be aimed at was not a continued personal existence,
either in this world or elsewhere: it was the total extinction of
reproductive karma by the attainment of Arahatship or Nirvana, and
final release from the ever-circling wheel of existence, with its
endless rotation of birth, disease, sorrow and death.[39]

[Sidenote: NIRVANA]

On the question of a _primum mobile_--the force which produced the
conditions under which arose the will-to-live with its illusions, and
which brought into being the first appearance of karma --Buddhism
is agnostic or silent,[40] just as it is on the question of the
existence of a supreme God. What Buddhism emphatically teaches is
that karma once produced, continues ceaselessly to reproduce itself,
carrying with it the modifications impressed upon it by the successive
individuals through whom it has "transmigrated"; that the only way to
release karma from the wheel of phenomenal existence is to eradicate
the desire for a continuance or renewal of conscious personality; and
that this end can only be attained by following the Noble Eightfold
Path,[41] leading to Nirvana, which was pointed out by the Buddha.
Mystical and fanciful interpretations of the meaning of Nirvana were
forthcoming at an early date, but the canonical scriptures know nothing
of such interpretations. It is quite clear that Nirvana was not the
infinite prolongation of individual existence in a state of spiritual
beatitude nor an absorption into a pantheistic Absolute; nor was the
word intended to be a euphemism for death. It was simply a release from
the thraldom of sense and passion; a "blowing-out" of personality and
selfishness, of ignorance and delusion; an enfranchisement which in
this present life would confer the boon of "the peace which passeth all
understanding," and after this life would prevent rebirth, or rather
reintegration of karma, in a world of pain and sorrow. To the Buddhist
the whole world of sense, in which while subject to karma we live and
move and have our being, is an illusion and unreal,--far more so than
to the Platonist, to whom the phenomenal world is the reflexion,
though an imperfect one, of an ideal archetype; and as the early
Buddhist believed that the idea of self or personality was closely
interwoven with the net of illusion, he was quite consistent when he
held that the destruction of the one must involve the destruction of
the other, and that release from the net is a desirable consummation.
Nirvana may thus be described as full enlightenment as to the unreality
and impermanence of phenomena, the removal of delusions about the self,
and the eradication of the cleaving to life. Those who attained this
enlightenment were the saints or "arahats" of primitive Buddhism.[42]
The Buddha himself, it must be remembered, never laid any claim to
godhead or even to personal immortality. His disciples reverenced him
as the Fully Enlightened Sage, the Blessed One, the Teacher of gods and
men, and he was the expounder of truths by the grasp of which men would
be enabled to realise the condition of arahatship; but in the last
resort it was to themselves and not to Buddha that men must look for
salvation. "Therefore, O Ananda," said the Buddha in one of his last
discourses, "be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves.
Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a
lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the truth. Look not for refuge to any
one besides yourselves."[43]

[Sidenote: AMITABHISM]

How vastly different are the teachings of Chinese Buddhists from
those of the simple creed promulgated by the Buddha is obvious to all
who have visited a Chinese monastery, or glanced at the wearisome
sutras, in which the unorthodox dogmas are so elaborately set forth.
The Brahmanical belief in the _âtman_ or "soul" is practically
reintroduced; arahatship is no longer the ideal to be aimed at by the
virtuous man; Nirvana ceases to have any intelligible meaning; faith
takes the place of works as a means to salvation. Celestial (Dhyâni)
Buddhas are invented as heavenly reflexes of the various human Buddhas
that are supposed to have lived on earth, and some of them receive
worship as immortal gods; arahats are regarded as inferior to a class
of mythical Bodhisattvas, who purposely refrain from entering into
the state of Buddhahood in order that they may continue to exercise
a beneficent influence among the beings who are still bound to the
wheel of existence; the most glorious lot attainable by the ordinary
man is held to be not a release from delusion and the pains of birth,
sickness, and death, but a final rebirth in the glittering Paradise
of the West. In this Paradise reigns the Lord of Eternal Life and
Boundless Light, the great Dhyâni Buddha Amitabha; on his right and
left are enthroned the Bodhisattvas Mahâsthâma and Avalokiteçvara,[44]
the lords of infinite strength and pity, the saviours of mankind.
To win utter happiness in Sukhâvatî, the Western Paradise, is the
object of the longings and prayers of the devout Chinese Buddhist.
The name of Sakyamuni Buddha means little to him, and he may even be
ignorant of who the Buddha was, and where he lived; but the names
of "O-mi-to-fo" (Amitabha Buddha)[45] and of Kuan Yin P'u Sa (the
Bodhisattva Avalokiteçvara) stand to him for everything that is
holiest and most blissful. To such an extent have Amitabha and his
attendant Bodhisattvas taken the place of the "Three Refuges"[46] of
orthodox Buddhism that one almost feels justified in suggesting that
the prevailing (though not the only) form of Buddhism in China should
once and for all be differentiated from that of Burma and Ceylon, by
the adoption of the name of Amitabhism, just as the corrupt religion of
Tibet has rightly been given the special name of Lamaism.

If the Mahayana teachers in China had been satisfied with substituting
the doctrine of a more or less sensual heaven for that of the orthodox
arahatship or Nirvana on the ground that it was more suited to the
comprehension of the ordinary layman, and would be more effective
in teaching the people to lead virtuous lives, their distortion of
the early teachings might, perhaps, to some extent be justified;
but unfortunately the form which the new doctrine took at a very
early stage shows that no such theory was in their minds. Instead of
exhorting to strenuous lives of virtue and good works, they went out of
their way to teach that nothing was really necessary to salvation but
loud and frequent appeals to the name of Amitabha Buddha and zealous
repetitions of the appropriate sutras. One of the principal sutras
of this class contains the following emphatic statement:--"Beings
are not born in that Buddha country of the Tathâgata Amitâyus as a
reward and result of good works performed in this present life. No,
whatever son or daughter of a family shall hear the name of the blessed
Amitâyus, the Tathâgata, and having heard it, shall keep it in mind,
and with thoughts undisturbed shall keep it in mind for one, two,
three, four, five, six or seven nights,--when that son or daughter of
a family comes to die, then that Amitâyus, the Tathâgata, surrounded
by an assembly of disciples and followed by a host of Bodhisattvas,
will stand before them at their hour of death, and they will depart
this life with tranquil minds. After their death they will be born in
the world Sukhâvatî, in the Buddha country of the same Amitâyus, the
Tathâgata. Therefore, then, O Sâriputra, having perceived this cause
and effect, I with reverence say thus, Every son and every daughter
of a family ought with their whole mind to make fervent prayer for
that Buddha country."[47] Numerous Buddhist tracts are in existence and
widely circulated among the people, in which it is explicitly stated
that if a man calls sufficiently often on the name of Kuan Yin, he will
be delivered from any danger or difficulty in which he may be placed,
quite regardless of his deserts. There are popular stories in which it
is told that even if a man be guilty of grave crimes for which he has
been imprisoned and condemned to death, the knife of the executioner
will break in pieces and do him no hurt provided only he has, with a
believing heart, summoned to his aid the "Goddess of Mercy." Stories of
this kind, even if educated men do not believe in them, can hardly have
a beneficent effect upon morality, and hardly redound to the credit of
the monks who invented them.

[Illustration: CHINESE PLAN WITH AMITABHA BUDDHA AS CENTRAL FIGURE.
  [_To face p. 74._]

[Sidenote: KUAN YIN]

To blame the Chinese Buddhists, however, for failing to preserve
their religion from corrupt influences is hardly fair: for it must be
admitted that the stream of Buddhist literature and tradition that
flowed for centuries into China from Northern India and Nepal issued
from a source that was already tainted. Sakyamuni Buddha probably
died in the fifth century B.C. Buddhism did not obtain a foothold
in China till five or six centuries later, and it was not till the
fourth century of our era that native Chinese began in large numbers
to take the vows as Buddhist monks. By this time primitive Buddhism
had already been cruelly distorted. Where it was at all possible,
the Mahayana dogmas were read into the simple scriptures that formed
the Asokan canon; where the utmost ingenuity failed to find the germs
of these dogmas in the canon, the doctors of the Mahayana school
deliberately set themselves to compile a series of colossal forgeries
by putting forth new sutras, purporting to have been uttered by the
Buddha himself, but containing an entirely new book of doctrine.[48]
Part of it was probably brought from Persia and Arabia, and nearly all
was totally inconsistent with the primitive doctrine of the Buddha.
Like the founder of the Mormons in after-ages, the pious forgers--let
us hope they were unconscious of their guilt--pretended to be merely
the "finders" of the new sutras. Sometimes they were said to have been
discovered in caves guarded by demons. Nāgārjuna, for instance, who was
one of the worst offenders, is supposed to have found in "the palace of
the Dragon" the great Hua Yen sutra, already referred to, a work which
justifies us in regarding Nāgārjuna as one of the principal inventors
or adapters of the Mahayana doctrines, or at least as one of those who
grafted them on the original Buddhistic stock. The Chinese admire him
so much that they have elevated him into the position of a Bodhisattva,
and celebrate his birthday on the 25th day of the seventh moon. Among
the principal speakers in the Hua Yen sutra are the Buddha himself and
the mythical Bodhisattvas P'u Hsien and Manjusri.

[Sidenote: THE MAHAYANA]

The Mahayana doctrine concerning this order of being is, as I have
said, totally unknown to early Buddhism; and out of or beside this
central doctrine of the Mahayana system grew up a cluster of dogmas
which, like some parasitic weed, could only have the effect of choking
and killing the original plant of which the Buddha himself had sown
the seed. The Chinese "fathers" were not primarily responsible for all
this. The vast mythology that culminates in the doctrine of Amitabha's
heaven was accepted in China only too readily, but it was not a
Chinese invention. If the history of these fanciful dogmas can be more
readily traced in China and Tibet than elsewhere, it is only because
Buddhism practically ceased to exist in the country of its origin.
What Chinese Buddhism might have been if it had sought to establish
itself upon the Asokan canon instead of upon a bundle of crude myths
and grotesque allegories may be realised easily enough by comparing it
with the Buddhism of Burma and Siam, which--in spite of their tolerance
of a system of animistic worship alien to Buddhism--have preserved
almost intact the body of doctrine that they inherited through Ceylon
from the orthodox Church. What with the growth of the mystic schools
derived from Bodhidarma, the Tantra schools with their magic spells and
incantations, the Lin Tzŭ school that teaches religion in the form of
enigmas, the Wu Wei school with its doctrine of a Golden Mother, the
hideous demonology introduced into Buddhism by a debased wonder-working
Taoism, and the innumerable schools that unite in their praises of the
bejewelled Western Heaven which can be attained merely by repeating
the name of Amitabha Buddha or Kuan Yin P'u Sa, it is no wonder that
Buddhism in China has fallen a victim to the fangs of its own grotesque
offspring.

[Sidenote: CHRISTIAN MISSIONS]

In the following chapter some further remarks on Mount Omei will, I
trust, serve to emphasise the observations already made, and will
perhaps help the European reader who has not visited China to form
some conception of the theory and practice of Chinese Buddhism at
the present day. I hope I may be excused if I depart so far from the
usual practice of travellers in China as to refrain from entering
into a discussion of the general question of religion, especially in
connection with Christian propaganda. For my own part, I may perhaps
venture to express the hope and belief that the missionary question
is one which time will solve at no very distant date. As soon as a
reformed China has earned for herself--by the reform of her legal codes
and judicial procedure--the right to demand the total abolition of
foreign consular jurisdiction within Chinese territory, missionaries
will cease to be a thorn in the flesh of Chinese officialdom. They may
obtain fewer converts, but they will at least have the satisfaction of
knowing that such converts as they may then gain will not be actuated
by the desire to secure foreign protection against the laws of their
own country; whereas the official classes will no longer have cause to
regard missionaries as a political danger. There is no doubt that many
of the outbreaks of fanatical hatred against foreigners are directly
or indirectly traceable to the missionary question.[49] In spite of
this fact it will be generally conceded that, like most Orientals, the
Chinese are, in purely religious matters, inclined to be extremely
tolerant: far more so, needless to say, than Western peoples usually
are. History proves that the Chinese people are not hostile to foreign
religious doctrines as such, but only when foreign religions tend to
introduce disintegrating forces into the social fabric. Similarly the
official classes are not inimical to foreign religions as such, but
only when foreign religions threaten the stability of the political
fabric and the independence of the State. These dangers will no longer
operate when foreign missionary enterprise absolutely ceases to have
even the semblance of a connection with international politics, and
foreign missionaries become in all respects amenable to the courts of
the country in which they live and work.

[Sidenote: RELIGION IN CHINA]

Whether the change will tend to spread the doctrines of Christianity in
China with greater rapidity, or will, on the other hand, bring about
its ultimate extinction, is a question regarding which it would be rash
to prophesy. Given fair field and no favour it might well seem that the
disorganised forces of a corrupt Buddhism would be ill fitted to cope
with such strenuous and well-equipped adversaries as the Churches of
Christendom: yet perhaps it is more likely that the ultimate victory
will rest with neither. The clashing of forces that must assuredly
result from the weakening of the hold of Confucianism on the educated
classes and the introduction of new political and social ideals may
lead to an intellectual upheaval tending to the destruction of all
religion. Even to-day, the only vigorous element in the heterogeneous
religious systems of China consists in that expansion of the ideal
of filial piety which takes the form of the cult of ancestors: a
cult which has done so much in the past to preserve, consolidate and
multiply the Chinese people and make them peaceful, law-abiding and
home-loving, and which has nevertheless been condemned as idolatrous
by the two great branches of the Christian faith. It was this rock
of Chinese orthodoxy that shattered the power of the Church of Rome
in China, and that rock is still a danger and an obstruction in the
troubled waters through which glide the frail barks of the Christian
missions. On the whole, it seems improbable that the dogmas, at least,
of any of the Christian Churches will ever find general acceptance on
Chinese soil. The moral and spiritual regeneration of China is more
likely to be brought about by the growth of a neo-Confucianism frankly
accepting such adaptations as the social and political conditions of
modern times may render necessary; and if this is insufficient to
satisfy the spiritual aspirations of the people, there may arise a
reformed Buddhism drawing its inspiration either from the simple faith
of Burma, Siam, and Ceylon, or--far more probably--from one of the
complex systems (near in kinship to those of China but with a vitality
of their own) that have evolved themselves upon the soil of Japan.


FOOTNOTES:

[23] 蛾眉.

[24] 天真皇人.

[25] 黃帝.

[26] 隨時易名.

[27] 寶掌.

[28] 千歲和尚.

[29] This name (蒲) is not to be confused with the P'u (普) of P'u Hsien.
The sound is the same but the Chinese characters are different.

[30] The word P'u, which means Universal, is also the first character
in the name of P'u Hsien.

[31] See Note 1 (p. 411).

[32] 普賢.

[33] He must not be confused with the Adi-Buddha or primordial deity of
Red Lamaism, though the name is the same.

[34] 華嚴經. See especially _chüan_, 7-10.

[35] 龍樹 (_Lung Shu_) in Chinese.

[36] See _Dhammapada_, chap. xxiii. _S.B.E._ vol. x. p. 78.

[37] See Note 2 (p. 412).

[38] The Pali word is _Kamma_, which, like the Sanskrit, simply means
"doing; action; work; labour; business." See Childers' Pali Dictionary,
_s.v. Kammam_. Mr A. E. Taylor, in his admirable work _The Elements of
Metaphysics_, describes the Buddhist karma as "the system of purposes
and interests" to which a man's "natural deeds give expression."

[39] Cf. Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 719-721:

    "O pater, anne aliquas ad caelum hinc ire putandumst
    Sublimes animas iterumque ad tarda reverti
    Corpora? Quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido?"

The whole passage from 703 to 751 is of great interest to those who
like to trace Buddhistic thought in non-Buddhistic literature. Lines
66-68 of the Third Georgic are equally striking in this respect:

    "Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi
    Prima fugit, subeunt morbi tristisque senectus
    Et labor et durae rapit inclementia mortis."

It was just such reflections as this that filled the heart of the
Sakya prince with pity and love for mankind. _Sunt lacrimae rerum et
mentem mortalium tangunt_, the beautiful utterance of "the chastest
and royalest" of poets, expresses the feeling that prompted the Great
Renunciation and gave to the world a Buddha.

[40] See Note 3 (p. 412).

[41] The Chinese 八聖道分.

[42] See Note 4 (p. 413).

[43] The Mahâ-Parinibbâna Suttanta, translated by Rhys Davids (_Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xi. p. 38).

[44] Avalokiteçvara is the Chinese Kuan Yin, generally represented in
China (where temples to this divinity are exceedingly numerous) as a
female, and known to Europeans as the "Goddess of Mercy." The change of
sex is due to an identification of this Bodhisattva with a legendary
Chinese princess, who devoted herself to saving human lives, especially
from the dangers of the sea. She has thus become in a special sense the
guardian deity of sailors; but she is also worshipped by women as the
goddess who grants male offspring. Mahâsthâma is the Chinese Ta Shih
Chih, the Bodhisattva of Great Strength. Eitel, in his _Handbook of
Chinese Buddhism_, says that this Bodhisattva is perhaps the same as
Maudgalyâyana; but this is a mistake, as is quite clear from the fact
that, in certain sutras, such as the Amitâyur-Dhyāna Sutra, they figure
as separate personalities.

[45] The Japanese Amida.

[46] "The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Samgha": _i.e._ the Buddha, the
law and doctrine of the Buddha, and the Church or Community of Brethren
established by the Buddha.

[47] The Smaller Sukhâvatî Vyûha, translated by Max Müller (_Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xlix.).

[48] See Note 5 (p. 414).

[49] Any one who is not hopelessly narrow-minded can thoroughly
sympathise with the missionary position. The missionaries as a body are
men of religious enthusiasm. They believe they have been summoned by
their Master to preach to non-Christians a faith which they believe to
be the only true faith; and some of them believe that an acceptance of
this faith is "necessary to salvation." From their point of view, all
missionary work is entirely justified; and from any point of view the
work the Christian missions have done in alleviating sickness and pain
in China is wholly admirable. As regards the purely religious aspect of
the question, I am glad to refrain from expressing a personal opinion.
It is a subject which requires to be handled with extraordinary
delicacy, for many people are unable to discuss it dispassionately, and
it gives rise to endless arguments which from the nature of the case
are and must be utterly devoid of persuasive power. Now that Religion,
as distinct from any systematised Creed, has taken its place among the
recognised subjects of philosophical investigation (and psychological
also, as in Professor James's brilliant book, _The Varieties of
Religious Experience_), we may expect to hear missionary work discussed
(at least by educated persons) with less bitterness and strong language
than has sometimes disgraced the controversialists on both sides. A
short and incomplete but very interesting discussion of the missionary
question from an obviously impartial point of view may be found in
Professor Knight's _Varia_, pp. 31-35. (John Murray: 1901.)




CHAPTER VII

MOUNT OMEI

[Sidenote: BUDDHIST MONASTERIES]

Very few of the buildings now existing on Mount Omei can boast of
antiquity, for a damp climate and the ravages of fire have in the past
made short work of their fragile timbers. The monasteries are humble
structures, being simply one-storied bungalows of wood. Compared with
the richly-carved teakwood _wats_ of Siam and _kyaungs_ of Burma, they
are unpretentious buildings with little decoration, and what there is
possesses small artistic merit. Over the doorways and under the eaves
hang sundry massive wooden boards, resplendent with richly-gilded
characters, giving the name of the monastery and brief quotations from
the Buddhist scriptures. Most of the tablets containing inscriptions or
quotations have been presented by devout pilgrims, but the periodical
regilding of the characters is paid for out of the corporate funds. The
interiors are generally more imposing; for every monastery on Mount
Omei is also a temple, and the decoration of the halls containing the
images of the Buddha and his saints is generally on a fairly lavish
scale. The larger temples have a series of such halls one behind
the other, with courts or quadrangles intervening, the sides of each
quadrangle being occupied by the monks' living quarters. There are also
spacious quarters for visitors. The office in which the financial and
other secular affairs of the monastery are administered is generally a
small room on the left side of the first hall of images, corresponding
to a room on the other side which is used as a kind of porter's lodge.
In the latter room the monks spend a great deal of their time in the
cold weather, and sit huddled round a charcoal brazier. From the
middle of the room they can see, through the open door, every one who
enters and leaves the temple by the main entrance; and one of them is
generally deputed to attend on every group of visitors or pilgrims.
All pilgrims bring their own food with them--the Chinese their rice,
and the Tibetans their _tsamba_; but those whose appearance entitles
them to respect, or who have given a substantial donation to the funds
of the establishment, are invited to drink tea and eat sweetmeats, and
warm themselves by the charcoal fire. The Buddhistic injunction to
avoid taking life is rigorously obeyed on Mount Omei by visitors as
well as residents, all of whom conform to a strictly vegetarian diet.
The only persons who ever disregard this rule are some inconsiderate
Europeans. Small subscriptions--generally in the form of copper
"cash"--are placed on an offertory plate, or on the altar table in
front of one of the principal images, and are deposited there by the
pilgrims after they have finished their devotions. Those who wish to
leave a permanent record of their visit, or whose donation exceeds
a _tael_ (say three shillings), inscribe their names or paste their
cards in the subscription book, with a statement of the amount of their
donations. An ingenious plan has been devised to relieve pilgrims of
the necessity of carrying large quantities of coin up the mountain, and
at the same time to invalidate excuses of want of money. In the town
of Omei-hsien, where every pilgrim spends the night before beginning
the ascent, he is visited by a banker or broker, who offers him little
paper notes or chits called _fei tzŭ_, bearing various face-values from
ten taels down to one hundred cash (about twopence). They are printed
from wooden blocks, and in many cases the amount of money represented
is inserted in writing. The pilgrim selects as many _fei tzŭ_ as he
thinks he may require or can afford, and pays over their face-value to
the banker. The notes are handed as occasion requires, or benevolence
prompts, to the temple treasurers, or are deposited on the altars, and
are received in the temples as readily as coin. When a considerable
collection of them has been made in any monastery they are sent down
to the banker, who deducts his very small commission and settles
the account either by sending silver in return, or by crediting the
monastery with the amount in his books.

[Sidenote: MONASTIC ENDOWMENTS]

The monasteries naturally vary in size. Some of them are the homes
of a score or more of monks and acolytes, while the smaller ones
shelter but three or four. When a monastery is destroyed by fire
or other cause, its elderly or infirm inmates lodge themselves
temporarily in one of the neighbouring religious houses, while the
more energetic go forth on a pilgrimage--sometimes as far as the
Eastern sea-board--carrying with them a donation book for the purpose
of collecting funds for rebuilding. When the monastery arises again
from its ashes it is practically a new foundation with new endowments,
even its name being sometimes altered. In spite of the apathy
concerning religious matters that strikes every European observer as
characteristic of China to-day, it is a significant fact that large
subscriptions for religious purposes can always be obtained from the
Chinese layman notwithstanding his protestations of contempt for the
monastic ideal and for the idle and useless lives led by the vast
majority of Chinese Buddhist monks.

Passing by the Pao-ning monastery, which is situated on the plain
between the city and the mountain-base, I visited the monasteries of
the White Dragon (Pai Lung Ssŭ), and the Golden Dragon (Chin Lung Ssŭ),
and stopped for the night at the Wan-nien Ssŭ, formerly the White Water
Monastery of P'u Hsien. This is one of the largest establishments on
the mountain, and its written history goes back to the third century,
if not further. It contains many objects of interest, the chief of
which is the life-size bronze elephant discovered, or rather first
described, by Baber. The very curious spiral-roofed brick building
in which it stands--believed by Baber to have been erected by Hindu
Buddhists not later than the sixth century of the Christian era--is
unfortunately so small and shut in that it is impossible either to
photograph the elephant or to view it from a proper standpoint. Baber
believed that this edifice was, next to the Great Wall, the oldest
building in China of fairly authentic antiquity, and he considered that
the elephant was the most ancient bronze casting of any great size in
existence,--perhaps fifteen centuries old. I have some reason, however,
to doubt the alleged antiquity of both building and elephant.[50] Upon
the animal's back is a bronze statue of P'u Hsien P'u Sa (Samanta
Bhadra Bodhisattva), who, as I have said, is supposed to have come from
India to Mount Omei on an elephant. Among modern curiosities at the
Wan-nien Ssŭ is a small alabaster image of Gautama Buddha, which was
recently brought from Burma by a Chinese Buddhist monk who had been on
pilgrimage to the shrines of Mandalay and Rangoon. The same pilgrim
presented a coloured print of the great Shwe Dagon pagoda at Rangoon,
which is regarded by the monks of Wan-nien as a precious work of art,
though its intrinsic value is, of course, trifling. There is also, in a
separate building called the Hai Hui T'ang,[51] a supposed tooth-relic
of Buddha, which is treated with strange lack of reverence.[52] But it
is only an elephant's molar, and the monks know it.

[Sidenote: FLORA OF MOUNT OMEI]

Wan-nien Ssŭ is situated at a height of about 3,500 feet above the
sea-level. The summit of the mountain (11,000 feet[53]) is therefore
still a long way off; but as I succeeded in reaching it on the evening
of the day on which I left Wan-nien Ssŭ, in spite of the fact that
the path was often obliterated by snow and ice, I satisfied myself
that the difficulty of the climb has often been much exaggerated. In
dry weather, indeed, there is no reason why a healthy man of average
physical vigour should not accomplish in one day the whole climb from
base to summit: though such a feat of endurance would prevent him
from paying much attention to the objects of interest on the way. The
mountain sides are luxuriantly wooded, and it is only when the path
approaches the edge of a precipice or a steep slope that any extensive
view can be obtained during the greater part of the ascent. The silver
fir, evergreen-oak, pine, cypress, laurel, birch, chestnut, spruce,
_nan-mu_, maple (several species) and _camptotheca acuminata_ are all
to be met with, and there are innumerable flowering plants and ferns;
but the character of the flora naturally varies a great deal at the
different altitudes. On the exposed parts of the summit there is little
but dwarf bamboos, junipers and rhododendrons, though in sheltered
places I noticed the silver fir, liquidambar, yew, willow, pirus, and
several kinds of shrubs. Other trees, like the alder, Chinese ash,
and banyan, are confined to the plain or to the lower slopes. The
banyans[54] of the Omei plain are magnificent trees, some of them of
enormous girth.

Below Wan-nien Ssŭ I left behind me spring warmth and sprouting
vegetation. By the time I had reached a height of 4,000 feet there were
patches of snow on the roadside; 2,000 feet higher all visible trace of
the path was gone, icicles hung from the leafless trees, while small
acolytes from the monasteries, clad in their wadded winter garments,
were busily sweeping away the snow in front of the gateways. When I
left Omei-hsien my thermometer registered 64° Fahr. At Wan-nien Ssŭ the
temperature had sunk to 49°; on the summit of the mountain there were
13 degrees of frost after sunset.

The next temple to Wan-nien Ssŭ is the Kuan Hsin Ting,[55] a poor
building which was apparently in sole charge of a child of nine. The
next is the Hsi Hsin So.[56] These words may be interpreted as "The
Haven of the Tranquil Heart," but they also mean "The Pilgrim's Rest,"
for _hsi hsin_ are the words used to translate or explain the Sanskrit
term _sramana_,[57] an ascetic or monk. The records of the mountain
explain the name by saying that when the pilgrim reaches this place, he
can no longer hear the growlings and mutterings of the "dusty world":
his heart therefore becomes as peaceful as his surroundings. In the
building is a large image of Maitrêya, the "Buddha of the Future," who
is supposed to be in the Tushita heaven, awaiting incarnation.

[Sidenote: ARAHATSHIP]

Passing by the Ch'ang Lao P'ing[58] temple, the next is the Ch'u
Tien,[59] otherwise known as the Tsu Tien. _Tsu_ is a kind of red-eyed
duck, and the allusion is to the duck-like shape of a neighbouring
rock. The temple contains rather life-like images of the eighteen
_lo-han_.[60] These Chinese words represent the Sanskrit _arhat_ or
_arahat_, "venerable" or "worthy." We meet with arhats in the oldest
Buddhist scriptures. They were the worthiest and most enlightened
of Buddha's disciples; men who fully understood the doctrine as it
was delivered to them by their master, and accepted it as a final
statement of truth. Arahatship, as we have seen in the last chapter,
is the goal aimed at by all true Buddhists, and implies a release from
all delusion, ignorance and sorrow. In technical language the arahat
is the man who has acquired the "four distinctive qualifications"
(_patisambhidâ_) and has attained the state of "final sanctification."
In the hands of the Mahayanists the arahats come to be persons
possessing magical powers,[61] such as that of moving without support
through space, in which respect they are the nearest approach to the
mysterious Tibetan beings invented by the self-styled "theosophists":
but arahatship as an ideal becomes altogether subordinate to that
of Bodhisattship, the state of the holy man who, having arrived at
the stage next preceding that of Buddhahood, voluntarily refrains
from taking the final step, in order that he may remain as a teacher
and saviour among men. In the Chinese Buddhistic system there are
several classifications of the arahats or _lo-han_: we find them in
groups of twelve hundred, five hundred, eighteen and sixteen. The
twelve hundred are only met with, so far as I am aware, in books; but
many large temples in China contain images of the five hundred. In
Canton, for example, there is what Europeans have rather foolishly
named the Hall of the Five Hundred Genii. Some wag once fancied he
saw a resemblance in one of the figures there to Marco Polo, and for
some reason or other the idea struck the professional Canton guides
as such a happy one that for many years past they have been in the
habit of deluding thousands of European and American travellers with
the belief that Messer Marco has been turned into a Chinese "god." The
mistake assumes a somewhat grotesque character when we remember that,
according to the Chinese belief, each of the five hundred lo-han is
destined at some remote period to become a Buddha.[62] In the majority
of Chinese temples--as in those of Mount Omei--the number of lo-han
represented by images is only eighteen; but there is a difference of
opinion among the followers of different schools as to the identity
of two of these. In Korea and Japan the temples generally contain
sixteen lo-han, while Tibetan Lamaism sometimes recognises sixteen and
sometimes eighteen.[63] The two extra ones seem to have been added as
an after-thought by Chinese Buddhists in comparatively modern times.

[Sidenote: LOTUS-FLOWER]

Above the Temple of the Red-eyed Duck comes the Hua Yen Ting.[64]
As already mentioned, the name _Hua Yen_ is that of a famous sutra
"discovered" by Nāgārjuna. The temple contains the eighteen lo-han and
figures of Sakyamuni Buddha and the two Bodhisattvas P'u Hsien and
Manjusri.[65] Behind these three central figures is a small Kuan Yin
(Avalokiteçvara). On leaving this temple the road strikes downwards for
a short distance, and, soon after recommencing the ascent, we arrive
next at the monastery known as the Lien Hua Shih[66] ("Lotus Flower
Stone"), where there is a holy relic consisting of the curiously
shaped stone from which the place derives its name. I found a number
of Tibetan pilgrims rubbing coins on it; the coins to be afterwards
carefully preserved as charms. The stone is said by the monks (on
no authority that I can discover) to have been brought up from deep
waters by miraculous agency, and to have floated on the surface like
the flower of the lotus. The lotus myth in Buddhist cosmology is based
on a very picturesque allegory, with which most of my readers are
probably acquainted. Its meaning has been accurately described in the
following words by E. J. Eitel, who, though he possesses the usual
bias against "heathendom," is a fairly sympathetic writer on Buddhist
subjects. "The idea conveyed in this flowery language of Buddhism is of
highly poetic and truly speculative import, amounting to this: that as
a lotus flower, growing out of a hidden germ beneath the water, rises
up slowly, mysteriously, until it suddenly appears above the surface
and unfolds its buds, leaves, and pistils, in marvellous richness of
colour and chastest beauty of form; thus also, in the system of worlds,
each single universe rises into being, evolved out of a primitive germ,
the first origin of which is veiled in mystery, and finally emerges
out of the chaos, gradually unfolding itself, one kingdom of nature
succeeding the other, all forming one compact whole, pervaded by one
breath, but varied in beauty and form. Truly an idea, so far removed
from nonsense, that it might be taken for an utterance of Darwin
himself."[67] Visitors to Buddhist temples cannot fail to observe how
frequently the lotus allegory has been made to subserve religious and
artistic purposes, and we have seen in the last chapter how it has
been associated with the story of the beginning of P'u Hsien's worship
on Mount Omei. The images of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are nearly
always represented as sitting or standing in the centre of a huge open
lotus, and even P'u Hsien's elephant stands on the same sacred plant.

As regards the stone in the Lien Hua monastery, I may add that it does
not bear the smallest resemblance to a lotus or any other plant, and
apparently it is not supposed to do so. Its original crude shape has
evidently never been tampered with, though its surface has been worn
smooth by constant rubbing.

[Sidenote: "OM MANE PADME HOM"]

Into the same temple another stone--not a sacred one--has found its
way. It is a huge boulder, many tons in weight, that was brought down
the mountain side some years ago by an avalanche, and crashed into the
back of the main hall, where, for superstitious reasons--and perhaps
because its removal would be a matter of immense difficulty--it
has been allowed to remain. On a hanging scroll above the central
images I noticed a Chinese transliteration[68] of the well-known
Tibetan formula, "_Om Mane Padme Hom_ (or _Hung_),"[69] generally
translated--but this is a controversial matter--"Hail! The Jewel in the
Lotus." The first word _Om_ or _Aum_ is the well-known sacred syllable
of Brahmanism; practically it is simply a _syllaba invocationis_.
The Jewel may mean the Buddha, or his Law (Dharma), or the Buddhist
Church (Sangha), or all three combined, or more probably signifies
Avalokiteçvara (the Chinese Kuan Yin and Japanese Kwannon), who in
Lamaism is supposed to be incarnated in every successive Grand Lama.
But, as a matter of fact, very few of the Tibetans who mutter the
sentence as they walk or turn it in their prayer-wheels, or carve it on
stones and rocks by the wayside, can give any clear idea of what they
mean by it. Like the Chinese _Nam-Mo_ (or _Nan-Wu_) _O-mi-to-Fo_[70]
("Praise be to Amitabha Buddha"), it is regarded as a kind of _dhâranî_
or mystic spell, the constant repetition of which will lead the
believer to a life of bliss in Sukhâvatî, the Western Paradise. The
only Chinese whom I met on the mountain besides the residents were
Buddhist monks on pilgrimage, and the invocation to Amitabha was
constantly on their lips; the other was repeated with equal persistence
by the Tibetan pilgrims. During part of my climb the mountain was
enveloped in a thick mist, which muffled the sound of footsteps; but
there was seldom a moment that I did not hear one or other of these
mystic sentences floating weirdly in the air above me or below.

[Sidenote: WHITE CLOUDS MONASTERY]

A steep climb soon brought me to the Hsi Hsiang Ch'ih[71] ("The
Elephant's Bath"), where a temple has been built close to a pool
of water where P'u Hsien's famous elephant is said to have bathed
after his long journey. The temple contains images of Sakyamuni
Buddha, P'u Hsien and Manjusri. Behind them, in the same hall, are
three beautifully gilded figures, larger than life-size, representing
Amitabha Buddha attended by Kuan Yin and Ta Shih Chih[72] Bodhisattvas.
These are the three beings who are supposed to preside over the Western
Paradise; their images are therefore frequently found together,
Amitabha always in the centre. In another hall is an image of Kuan Yin
unattended.

The next temple is known as the Great Vehicle[73] or Mahayana
monastery. Here are images of Sakyamuni, Manjusri and P'u Hsien,
who are also constantly associated in this manner; and behind them,
facing in the opposite direction, is a large Maitrêya, the Coming
Buddha. After a fairly steep ascent thence and a short descent the
path rises to the Pai Yün Ku Ch'a[74] ("The Old Monastery of the
White Clouds")--which at the time of my visit I found to be a most
appropriate name. Here there is a colossal sedent image of Chang
Liang,[75] a warlike hero who died in the second century of our era,
after he had made an ineffectual attempt to achieve immortality by
starving himself. He was subsequently canonised by the name of Wên
Ch'êng.[76] In another hall are Sakyamuni Buddha, Manjusri and P'u
Hsien, supported by the eighteen lo-han. In ascending to the next
temple, the Lei Tung P'ing,[77] all pilgrims are expected to preserve
absolute silence. The Lei Tung or Thunder Cavern is that which shelters
the irascible Dragon of rain and thunder, to whom I referred in the
last chapter. An inscription that hangs in the temple apparently refers
to his controlling powers over lightning and rain-clouds.[78] The
slightest sound of the human voice, either in laughter or in speech, is
liable to produce a terrific whirlwind and thunderstorm.

[Sidenote: TEMPLE OF THE PRINCE ROYAL]

Next above this perilous locality comes the Chieh Yin Tien[79]--the
Temple of Amitabha. The words _chieh yin_ mean "to receive and lead,"
and are applied to Amitabha because he it is who is supposed to assist
the faithful to reach the Western Heaven in which he reigns. The
first hall contains a richly-gilded colossal statue of this Buddha,
standing upright. Behind him is a figure of Wei To[80] (_Vêda_), a
Bodhisattva who is regarded as a _vihârapâla_, or tutelary deity of
the Buddhist monkhood. He is responsible for seeing that the recluses
do not suffer through lack of nourishment, and that the monastery
is properly supplied with necessaries. The second hall contains the
eighteen lo-han in bronze. There are also the usual images of Sakyamuni
and his attendant Bodhisattvas, and a colossal gilded P'u Hsien sitting
on a lotus on the back of a white elephant. In the right-hand corner
of this well-populated hall is another triad of divinities: Yo Shih
Fo,[81] a mythical Buddha who dwells in an eastern world, with Ti Tsang
and Kuan Yin Bodhisattvas on his left and right. This is a favourite
Buddha in China, and is supposed to hold in the East a position
somewhat analogous to that of Amitabha in the West. In the popular
imagination he has replaced the Motionless (_wu tung_) Buddha Akchôbhya
(A-ch'u-p'o) and is worshipped as the healer of sickness. Ti Tsang[82]
is one of the great Bodhisattvas, like P'u Hsien, Ta Shih Chih and
Manjusri. The principal seat of his worship in China is in the province
of Anhui. He is the benevolent being who seeks to save human beings
from the punishments of hell. His prototype is said to have been a
Siamese prince.

A steep ascent from this interesting monastery leads to the Ku T'ai
Tzŭ P'ing,[83] the "Ancient Temple of the Prince Royal." It is said
that this building is named after a prince of the Ming dynasty, but
the monks of to-day prefer to regard the T'ai Tzŭ as Sakyamuni Buddha
himself, in the character of Prince Siddharta, son of the king of
Kapilavastu. The figure representing him is attired in real robes,
richly embroidered. On his right is P'u Hsien, seated on a white
tuskless elephant. As already mentioned, P'u Hsien's elephants are
generally characterised by their six tusks. On the prince's left is
Kuan Yin; and behind these three central figures are images of Ti
Tsang, Ta Shih Chih, Wên Ch'êng (Chang Liang) and Manjusri, all of whom
have been described.

[Sidenote: TAOIST DIVINITIES]

The next is the Yung-ch'ing Ssŭ[84] or Eternal Happiness monastery.
Here a many-armed Kuan Yin faces the entrance, and behind him (or
her) is an Amitabha. The only new figure among the rest is that of
Bodhidarma or Ta-mo, the St Thomas of the Catholic missionaries.[85]
He sits cross-legged with the first finger of the right hand raised.
A small P'u Hsien is seated on an elephant with four tusks, the other
two being lost. In this hall I observed some heaps of broken statues
in bronze and iron, the remains of a ruined temple. From here a level
path leads to the K'ai Shan Jou Shên Tsu Shih Tien,[86] which, as the
name partly indicates, contains a gruesome relic in the shape of the
mummified body of a former abbot, attired in the robes he wore in
life. The dried shrunken face has been lacquered with great care, and
no one would guess that the figure was not made of clay or bronze.
It is not the only mummy on the mountain. From here a short steep
path leads to the Eagle-wood Pagoda,[87] a monastery named after a
miniature nine-storied bronze pagoda, the gift of a Ming empress. The
next temple bears the imposing inscription of "The August Guard of
the Gate of Heaven,"[88] where there is a large Sakyamuni with the
usual attendant Bodhisattvas. Next comes the Ch'i T'ien Ch'iao[89]--The
Bridge of the Seventh Heaven--where there is a small temple in which
the three Bodhisattvas--P'u Hsien (in the middle) and Manjusri and
Kuan Yin (on the right and left)--sit in a row in front of a solitary
image of Sakyamuni. The next temple is the P'u Hsien Pagoda,[90] where
the patron saint of Mount Omei, as is natural, occupies the place of
honour in the middle of the hall facing the entrance. Behind him is
Amitabha, and at the back of the hall, right and left, are Sakyamuni
and Kuan Yin. On the left side of the hall is an image of one of the
favourite personages in the Chinese theogony--Ts'ai Shên, the "God of
Wealth."[91] This god is so popular in China that Buddhism could not
afford to neglect him, but as he is really a Taoist divinity he is only
allowed to appear in a Buddhist temple as an act of grace. The same may
be said of Kuan Ti,[92] the God of War, Lung Wang[93] the Dragon Raja
or Naga-king, and the San Kuan.[94]

From this temple a short walk over a wooden-paved path, kept clear
of snow by sedulous sweeping, leads to the Hsi Wa Tien[95]--the
Pewter-Roofed Hall. At one time there were three "halls," with roofs of
pewter, bronze and iron respectively. The metal roofs have vanished,
though the names remain. "Pewter-roof" is specially appropriate to a
Buddhist monastery, for pewter is the only metal that Buddhist monks
may--in theory--possess. Each monk is supposed to carry a pewter-headed
staff when he goes on pilgrimage or on his begging-rounds; and when he
lodges at a monastery he is said to _kua hsi_, which literally means
"to hang up the pewter." In south China there is a spring called the
Pewter Spring, because it bubbled up at the bidding of a thirsty monk
who struck the ground with his staff.

Another short climb brought me at last to the summit of Mount Omei,
where, at a height of about 11,000 feet, I found welcome and rest in
the spacious monastery that proudly describes itself as "The Golden
Hall of the True Summit."[96]

Though I was not expected by the monks--for my two soldiers had failed
to keep up with me in spite of my efforts to send them on as my
ambassadors--I was at once made comfortable in a large, clean apartment
on the first floor; and when my hosts heard that I was a humble student
of their religion they soon provided me with as ample a vegetarian
banquet as I could have desired, and treated me with great kindness.

[Sidenote: "THE GLORY OF BUDDHA"]

An hour after my arrival I stood outside the temple gateway watching
the sun set below a wild white ocean of clouds that laved the mountain
side about 2,000 feet below me and turned the summit of Mount Omei
into a snow-draped island. The air rapidly grew bitterly cold, and I
was glad to seek warmth indoors by the side of my charcoal fire. My
dilatory escort, carrying my modest baggage, came wearily in just as it
began to grow dark.

The next morning held in store a wonderful surprise. The vast ocean of
white clouds had entirely disappeared, and the wide country that lay
far below me was bathed in the glory of brilliant sunlight. The sun
rarely reveals himself in his full splendour in Ssuch'uan--so rarely
that when he does so the dogs are said to bark at him[97]--and on
Omei's summit sunshine is rare even for Ssuch'uan; but by good fortune
it was on one of those exceptional occasions that I spent there the
whole of one memorable day.

There are several monasteries on or near the summit. The one in which I
lodged for two nights is crowned with a gilded ball that scintillates
on its roof. Just behind the various buildings of this monastery is the
tremendous precipice from the edge of which fortunate pilgrims witness
the phenomenon known as the "Glory of Buddha."[98] As mentioned in the
last chapter, this is the appearance of a gleaming aureole floating
horizontally on the mist a few thousand feet below the summit. This
beautiful phenomenon, to which is probably due the special sanctity
of Mount Omei, has not yet been quite satisfactorily explained. It
has been likened to the famous Brocken Spectre, and to the Shadow of
the Peak in Ceylon, but the brilliant and varied colours of "Buddha's
Glory"--five colours, say the Chinese--give it a rainbow-like beauty
which those appearances do not possess.[99] The pious Buddhist pilgrim
firmly believes that it is a miraculous manifestation of the power and
glory of the Buddha--or of his spiritual Son P'u Hsien--and is always
much disappointed if he has to leave the mountain without catching
a glimpse of it.[100] The necessary conditions of its appearance
are said to be a clear sky above and a bank of clouds below, and as
those conditions were not fulfilled for me I must sorrowfully confess
that I cannot describe the spectacle from personal experience. But
the circumstance that deprived me of that privilege enabled me to
have a superb view of the surrounding country. Nearly 10,000 feet
below me to the north and east lay the rich rolling plains of central
Ssuch'uan; to the south the silver streak of the Ta Tu river and the
wild mountains that enable the mysterious Lolo races to maintain their
solitary independence; slightly to the south-west appeared the huge
mass of the Wa mountain, with its extraordinary flat summit and its
precipitous flanks; and, grandest sight of all, clear and brilliant
on the western horizon stood out the mighty barrier of towering peaks
appropriately known by the Chinese as the Ta Hsüeh Shan--Great Snow
Mountains. Those are the peaks--some of them 20,000 feet high, and
more--that keep watch and ward over the lofty Tibetan plateau on the
one side and the rolling plains of China on the other: the eastern
ramparts of the vast Himālayan range, whose icy fingers seem ever to
grope outward into the silent abyss of space as if seeking to grasp the
fringe of a mightier world than ours. Even at a distance of nearly 100
miles as the crow flies the pinnacles seemed too lofty to be real; but
it was pleasant to know that a few weeks hence I should be in the midst
of the great mountains, perhaps learning something of their hidden
mysteries.

[Illustration: "JIM" ON THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT OMEI.   [_To face p. 102._]

[Sidenote: THE OMEI PRECIPICE]

The narrow gallery behind the monastery from which one watches for
a manifestation of Buddha's Glory is carefully railed, for a fall
from this spot would mean a sheer drop of more than a mile down the
face of a precipice which, as Baber has remarked, is perhaps the
highest in the world. Many are the stories told by the monks of men
and women who in moments of wild religious exaltation have hurled
themselves down to win death and paradise in one glorious instant by
throwing themselves into the bosom of their Lord Buddha: true stories,
which have well earned for this terrible precipice the name of "The
Rejection of the Body."[101] Less sinister names which have been given
it are the Diamond Terrace and the Silvery Boundary,--the latter[102]
perhaps because Mount Omei is regarded as the eastern buttress of the
Great Snow Mountains; or perhaps the words refer to the view of those
mountains on the western horizon. Near the edge of the cliff are the
remains of a once famous bronze temple, which was several times struck
by lightning and has never been restored since the date of the last
catastrophe. Some of the castings are exceedingly fine and well worthy
of preservation. A Chinese proverb says that Heaven grants compensation
for what the lightning has destroyed,[103] but in this instance it
seems to have failed of fulfilment.

The temple at which I stayed harbours about twenty monks and acolytes,
and visitors both lay and monastic are constantly coming and going. I
observed there the performance of an interesting custom, whereby the
monks who come on pilgrimage from distant monasteries produce papers
of identification and have them stamped with the seal of each of the
monasteries they visit. As their journeys are made that they may "gain
merit," not only for themselves but also for the religious communities
which they represent, it is important that on their return they should
be able to produce duly authenticated certificates that they have
actually attained the objects of their pilgrimage. In many cases
the establishment visited also grants Buddhist tracts or plans of its
own buildings. One such crude plan--representing the mountain of Omei
with its principal religious houses--is reproduced here on a reduced
scale. The monastic seal (in red in the original) appears at the top.
Some yellow-robed monks from a large monastery near Pao-ning-fu in
north-eastern Ssuch'uan, and a small group of lamas from Litang, on
the Tibetan border, were having their papers sealed at the time of my
arrival at the Golden Summit.

[Illustration: CHINESE PLAN OF MOUNT OMEI, SURMOUNTED BY THE SEAL OF
THE MONASTERY OF THE GOLDEN SUMMIT.  [_To face p. 105._]

[Sidenote: BUDDHIST MATINS]

During my day's rest I attended two religious services, besides a
"choir-practice" of young boys who had not yet become fully-fledged
monks. The services were well intoned, and, considering one's strange
surroundings, had a singular impressiveness. The ordinary daily prayers
are very simple, consisting in little more than repeated invocations
of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas: they are "praises" rather than prayers.
The ordinary Morning Service or Matins (Tsao K'o)[104] begins with a
procession of monks into the principal hall or chapel--_Ta hsiung pao
tien_,[105] "The Precious Hall of the Great Lord (or Hero")--where,
after circling round the central figure of Sakyamuni, keeping one bared
shoulder towards the image, they take their seats on low benches on
left and right. In front of Sakyamuni are lighted candles and burning
sticks of incense. The service then begins by the general invocation,
_Nam Mo Pên Shih Shih Chia Mou-ni-Fo_:[106] "Praise to our Lord
Sakyamuni Buddha." This is followed by _Nam Mo Tan Lai Mi Lei Tsun
Fo_:[107] "Praise to the Honoured One Maitrêya, the Buddha that is to
be." The Buddhas of the past and future having thus been honoured, a
bell is sounded to announce a change in the manner of address, when
somewhat similar phrases of adoration, interspersed with short hymns
of praise, are sung in honour of some of the great Bodhisattvas,
those selected at the service attended by me being the following,
in the order named: _Wên Shu Shih Li_[108] (Manjusri, the Lord of
_Ta chih_,[109] Great Wisdom); _P'u Hsien_[110] (Samanta Bhadra, the
patron saint of Mount Omei); _Hu Fa Chu T'ien P'u Sa_[111] (all the
Bodhisattvas, Defenders of the Faith); _San Chou Kan Ying Hu Fa Wei
To Tsun T'ien P'u Sa_[112] (the Honoured Bodhisattva Wei-To,[113] the
Distributer of Rewards and Punishments throughout the three Continents,
Defender of the Faith); _Jih Kwang Pien Chao_ and _Yüeh Kuang Pien
Chao_[114] (the Bodhisattvas of the Far-Shining Light of the Sun and
of the Moon--who are regarded as attendant on Yo-Shih Fo, the Healing
Buddha of the East); _Tsêng Fu Ts'ai Shên_[115] (the Bodhisattva who
increases happiness and wealth--the Chinese "God of Wealth"[116]); and
finally _Shih Fang P'u Sa_[117] (the Bodhisattvas of the Ten Quarters
of the Universe).

[Sidenote: BUDDHIST VESPERS]

The most interesting part of the service consists in the short
"lections" of extracts from the scriptures, which take the place
of the lessons and sermons of Christian churches. The lections are
followed by short hymns, some of which have been specially composed
for liturgical purposes and are not to be found in the sacred books.
Several processions and prostrations take place during the service. The
intoning when heard from some distance is often not unlike a Gregorian
chant, but the words are uttered rather too quickly, especially in the
constantly-repeated invocations.

The Evening Service or Vespers (Wan K'o[118]) begins with a solemn
invocation to the mythical Buddha of the Western Paradise, the sublime
Amitabha.[119] Then follow the praises of Yo Shih Fo, the Healing
Buddha, who "averts calamity and lengthens human life."[120] Two
Buddhas, as in the Morning Service, having thus been invoked, the
next to be lauded are a new selection of the great Bodhisattvas, in
the following order: _Kuan Yin_ or _Kuan Shih Yin_, the "Goddess of
Mercy," and _Ta Shih Chih_, the Bodhisattva of Great Strength,[121] the
two who under Buddha Amitabha preside over the Western Paradise; _Ti
Tsang Wang_,[122] who saves men from the terrors of hell; _Wei To_,
Defender of the Faith--the only divinity whose name is included in both
Morning and Evening Services; _Chia Lan Shêng Chung P'u Sa_[123] ("the
holy Bodhisattvas, Protectors of the Monasteries," of whom Kuan-Ti,
the Taoist "God of War," is one); _Li Tai Tsu Shih P'u Sa_[124] (the
Patriarchs, the Bodhisattvas of Successive Ages); _Ch'ing Ching Ta Hai
Chu P'u Sa_[125] (all the Pure Bodhisattvas of the Great Ocean: _i.e._
of life and death or continual metempsychosis).

"Buddha's Glory" is not the only marvel that the fortunate pilgrim
may hope to behold when he reaches the Golden Summit. Night, on Mount
Omei, has its treasures hardly less glorious than those of day. These
take the form of myriads of little lights, moving and glimmering like
winged stars in the midst of an inverted firmament. They are known as
the Shêng Têng (Holy Lamps),[126] and have been described to me--for
alas! I saw them not--as brilliant specks of light darting hither
and thither on the surface of the ocean of mist on which in daytime
floats the coloured aureole. A fanciful monk suggested to me that they
are the scintillating fragments of the "Glory of Buddha," which is
shattered at the approach of night and reformed at the rising of the
sun. Foreigners have supposed that they are caused by some electrical
disturbance; but the monk's explanation, if the less scientific of the
two, is certainly the more picturesque.

[Sidenote: DESCENT OF MOUNT OMEI]

The monastery in which I was entertained is probably the largest on
the summit, but by far the most famous is its neighbour, the Hsien Tsu
Tien,[127] which is believed to occupy the site of the original temple
to P'u Hsien that according to the legend was built by P'u Kung in
the Han dynasty after he had tracked the lily-footed deer to the edge
of the great precipice and had beheld the wonderful sight thenceforth
known as the "Glory of Buddha." The temple contains a large sedent
image of the patron saint, and behind it is a terrace from which may
be seen the manifold wonders of the abyss. Not far from this building
is the Monastery of the Sleeping Clouds,[128] and further off are the
temples of the Thousand Buddhas (Ch'ien Fo) and the White Dragon.[129]

I regretfully left the summit of Mount Omei on my downward journey
early on the morning of 10th March, and, after many a slip and sprawl
on the snow, reached the Wan-nien monastery in the afternoon. Here I
spent a night for the second time, and continued the descent on the
following morning. Just below the temple of the Pai Lung (White Dragon)
which I had already visited, the road bifurcates; and as both branches
lead eventually to Omei-hsien, I naturally chose the one that was
new to me. By this time I had left far behind me the snow and icicles
of the higher levels, and had entered a region of warm air and bright
green vegetation. The change was startling, as though by some magic
power the seasons had been interchanged.

  "I dreamed that as I wandered by the way
  Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
  And gentle odours led my steps astray,
  Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring."

Shelley's dream would have been realised on the slopes of Mount Omei.

Between the bifurcation of the roads and the foot of the mountain there
are a number of monasteries, few of which possess any feature calling
for special remark, except the romantic beauty of their situations. The
most conspicuous are the Kuang Fu Ssŭ,[130] or "Monastery of Abounding
Happiness"; the Lung Shêng Kang,[131] or "Mountain Ascending Dragon,"
from which there is a splendid view of the Golden Summit; the Kuan Yin
Ssŭ,[132] or "Monastery of Avalokiteçvara"; the Chung Fêng Ssŭ,[133]
"Half-Way Monastery"; and the Ta O Ssŭ,[134] the "Monastery of Great
O" (_i.e._ Omei Shan, Mount Omei), which is a spacious building, often
visited by holiday-making Protestant missionaries from Chia-ting. After
passing this building the downward path leads across a small bridge,
called the "Bridge of the Upright Heart" (Chêng Hsin Ch'iao[135]),
to the monastery named Hui Têng Ssŭ[136] ("The Spiritual Lamp"), from
the neighbourhood of which the view of the mountain summit is of
exceptional beauty. A charming road leads thence past several other
monasteries, down to the level plain, whence the walk to Omei-hsien is
easy. Before I reached the city the great mountain had vanished from my
sight and I never saw it again: from peak to base it had disappeared
into impenetrable mist. There was only the soft sound of a distant
monastery bell to assure me that somewhere in the clouds the sacred
mountain might still be looked for not in vain.

[Sidenote: DEPARTURE FOR YA-CHOU-FU]

I have dwelt long upon the Buddhistic associations of Omei; and perhaps
the reader is wearied by an account of temples and of forms of belief
that he considers grotesque and uncouth. I should be sorry if I were
to leave him with the impression that Omei possesses no interest
beyond the glimmer that is shed upon it by the Light of Asia. If every
monastery were to crumble into dust, if the very memory of Buddhism
were to be swept utterly away from the minds of men, Omei would still
remain what it was before the first Buddhist recluse had built there
his lonely hermitage--it would still be a home of portent and mystery,
the abode of nameless spirits of mountain and flood, the source of
inspiration to poet and artist, the resort of pilgrims from many lands,
each of whom--whatever his faith--would find, as he gazed from the edge
of the Golden Summit into the white abyss below, a manifestation of the
Glory of his own God.


FOOTNOTES:

[50] See Note 6 (p. 414).

[51] 海會堂

[52] See Note 7 (p. 417).

[53] This is the usually accepted estimate; but Sir A. Hosie has
recently stated it to be only 10,158 feet.

[54] _Ficus infectoria._

[55] 觀心頂.

[56] 繫心所.

[57] Literally, "the quelling of the passions."

[58] 長老坪.

[59] 開山初殿. See Note 8 (p. 418).

[60] 阿羅漢.

[61] In the early Buddhist scriptures we learn that super-normal powers
were even then supposed to be characteristic of the arhats, but it was
generally considered undesirable to put such powers to the test.

[62] See the Saddharma-Pundarîka, translated by Kern in the _Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xxi. The Chinese version is known as the Miao
Fa Lien Hua Ching (妙法蓮華經).

[63] See an article on this subject by T. Watters, in the _Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society_, April 1899. See also Edkins, _Chinese
Buddhism_, pp. 249 and 394-395.

[64] 華嚴頂.

[65] Manjusri (文殊師利) is a Bodhisattva who in China is practically
worshipped as the God of Wisdom. Like Ti Tsang, Kuan Yin and others,
he is supposed to have had a human prototype, or rather to have been
incarnated in the body of a historical personage. But the truth
probably is that any person of superlative wisdom was liable to be
identified by his admirers with Manjusri. There is an interesting
reference to him in I-Tsing's _Records of the Buddhist Religion_,
translated by J. Takakusu (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), p. 169. The
translator comments on the fact that Manjusri was even by the people
of India supposed, at one time, to be somehow connected with China,
and the actual place of his residence was identified as Ping Chou in
Chih-li.

[66] 蓮花石.

[67] _Three Lectures on Buddhism_, pp. 60-61.

[68] 唵嚤呢叭□吽.

[69] ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ

[70] 南無阿彌陀佛.

[71] 洗象池.

[72] 大勢至.

[73] 大乘寺. See Note 9 (p. 418).

[74] 白雲古剎.

[75] 張良.

[76] 文成.

[77] 雷洞坪.

[78] 掣電飛雲.

[79] 接引殿.

[80] 韋陀 or 護法韋陀: _Veda Fidei Defensor_--a Hindu deity who was
regarded as one of the protectors of the four "Continents" of the world
or Universe.

[81] 藥師佛, whose common title _Lui Li Fo_ (琉璃佛) translates the
Sanskrit _Vaidūrya_, _lapis lazuli_. This precious stone seems also to
have been associated with a favourite Assyrian deity, Ênu-rêstū.

[82] 地藏.

[83] 古太子坪.

[84] 永慶寺.

[85] See above, p. 66.

[86] 開山肉身祖師殿.

[87] 沉香塔. The aloes or eagle-wood is so-called because it sinks
(_ch'ên_) in water. It is supposed to be the aloes-wood mentioned in
the Bible.

[88] 威鎮天門.

[89] 七天橋.

[90] 普賢塔.

[91] 財神 or 財帛星神.

[92] 關帝.

[93] 龍王.

[94] 三官.

[95] 錫瓦殿.

[96] Chêng Ting Chin Tien (正頂金殿). There is another Chin Tien or
Golden Temple on the summit of a range of mountains north-east of
Tali-fu in Yunnan (the Chi Shan) which is also a noted centre for
Buddhist pilgrimages. A short account of the temples of this mountain
is given in a Foreign Office Report by the late Mr Litton. (China, No.
3: 1903, pp. 4-6.)

[97] 日出則犬吠.

[98] 佛光.

[99] A somewhat similar phenomenon, described as an "anthelia," may
be witnessed in Ceylon. Sir James Emerson Tennent, in his _Ceylon_
[Longmans: 1859, 2nd edition], states that phenomena of this kind
may have "suggested to the early painters the idea of the glory
surrounding the heads of beatified saints." He adds this description:
"To the spectator his own figure, but more particularly the head,
appears surrounded by a halo as vivid as if radiated from diamonds.
The Buddhists may possibly have taken from this beautiful object their
idea of the _agni_ or emblem of the sun, with which the head of Buddha
is surmounted. But, unable to express a _halo_ in sculpture, they
concentrated it into a _flame_."--Vol. i. 72 _seq._

[100] See Note 10 (p. 419).

[101] 捨身崖. There is a similar Suicide's Cliff near the summit of T'ai
Shan. _Shê shên_, it may be remarked, has a double meaning.

[102] 銀色界.

[103] 雷打天補.

[104] 早課.

[105] 大雄寶殿. The first two characters, rendered Great Lord or Hero,
represent the Sanskrit Vîra, used as the epithet of a Buddhist saint.

[106] 南無本師釋迦牟尼佛.

[107] 南無當來彌勒尊佛.

[108] 文殊師利.

[109] 大智.

[110] 普賢.

[111] 護法諸天菩薩.

[112] 三洲感應護法韋陀尊天菩薩.

[113] 韋陀.

[114] 日光 and 月光遍照菩薩.

[115] 增福財神.

[116] See above, p. 99.

[117] 什方菩薩.

[118] 晚課.

[119] 極樂世界阿彌陀佛.

[120] 消災延夀藥師佛.

[121] 大悲觀世音 and 大勢至 (Avalokiteçvara and Mahâsthâma: see footnote,
p. 72).

[122] 地藏王.

[123] 伽藍聖衆菩薩. The two first characters represent the Sanskrit
Sanghârâma, the park or dwelling-place of monks, equivalent to a
_vihara_ or monastery.

[124] 歷代袓師菩薩.

[125] 清淨大海諸菩薩.

[126] See Note 11 (p. 419).

[127] 先祖殿. See Note 12 (p. 420).

[128] 峰頂卧雲庵.

[129] 白龍池.

[130] 廣福寺.

[131] 龍昇岡.

[132] 觀音寺.

[133] 中峰寺. See Note 12 (p. 420).

[134] 大峨寺. See Note 12 (p. 420).

[135] 正心橋.

[136] 慧燈寺.




CHAPTER VIII

OMEI-HSIEN TO TACHIENLU


An easy journey of four days from Omei-hsien brought me to the
prefectural city of Ya-chou-fu. During the first day the road lay
through the northern portion of the same well-cultivated plain that
stretches to the south-east as far as Chia-ting. Large areas were
devoted to the cultivation of the small ash-tree which is used to
assist in the production of the insect-wax. The yellow blossom of
the rape was everywhere in bloom, and pervaded the air with the most
delicate of perfumes; while the wheat-fields were just beginning to
wear their spring raiment of bright green. Towards evening my road lay
across the river Ya to the small magisterial town of Chia-chiang, where
I spent the night. Next day, soon after starting, we again crossed
the Ya in a ferry-boat and thence proceeded for a few miles along the
right bank. Near the ferry-crossing I noticed on the left bank numerous
shrines and small caves hollowed by nature and by art out of the face
of a cliff. Sticks of incense were burning in front of several of the
miniature images contained in them. From this point onward the road lay
through a very picturesque district studded with groves of fine trees
and two or three good pagodas, and beautified by the fresh blossom
of peach and cherry and by wild primroses that seemed to grow out of
the solid rock. In the afternoon we again crossed to the left bank of
the river in order to reach the magisterial town of Hung Ya, the main
street of which we passed through. Another six miles brought us to
the poor village of Chih-kuo-chên. The accommodation was very bad, as
I had passed beyond the ordinary stage. The whole river-valley from
Chia-chiang upwards is the resort of great numbers of wild-duck, a few
of which fell to my gun, though the season was late, and they were not
at that time plentiful.

[Sidenote: BASKET-BRIDGES]

A curious feature of the shallower waterways of this district is the
basket-bridge. Large wicker baskets are filled with loose stones and
deposited in the bed of the river at even distances of about 10 feet.
Planks of that length are placed on the top of them and constitute
the bridge. This device has the merit of cheapness, but as soon as
the basket is rotted by the action of the water, the stones gradually
subside, and the planks are submerged. The Ya river, here as elsewhere,
is too full of rocks and rapids for navigation. Long timber rafts,
however, make the journey from Ya-chou to Chia-ting at all seasons
of the year, except in the height of the rainy season, and serious
accidents are rare.

Next day the road led tortuously through the river-valley and crossed
the stream several times. After one ferry-crossing I was faced by a
stiff climb of about 800 or 1,000 feet leading to a pass where there
is a primitive tea-house. A corresponding descent on the other side
soon led us back to the river's edge, at a point where the stream
is very turbulent. We crossed by a bridge called the "Bridge of the
Goddess of Mercy" (Kuan Yin Ch'iao), formed of long slabs of stone, and
immediately afterwards passed through the village of the same name.
Another 4 or 5 miles brought me to the small town of Ts'ao Pa, where I
spent the night. This town lies in a plain surrounded by hills in every
direction except the east and north-east. It lies on the left bank of
the river at a point where the current is gentle and the bed very broad
and shallow.[137]

On the morning of the following day, 14th March, I reached Ya-chou-fu,
the seat of government of a taotai, whose jurisdiction extends to
the Tibetan border. The town is important as being on the "mandarin"
road from Peking to Lhasa, and also as being the centre of a great
tea district.[138] It is in the plains surrounding Ya-chou that the
inferior tea which is considered good enough for the Tibetan market is
grown, and from here it is carried in long, narrow bundles on the backs
of coolies to Tachienlu. There it is cut into cakes or bricks, packed
in yak-hides, and carried by Tibetans all the way to Lhasa, and even to
the borders of India.

[Sidenote: AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSION]

At Ya-chou I was most hospitably entertained by the members of the
American Baptist Mission, who, judging from the friendliness with which
they were greeted in the streets, were evidently on excellent terms
with the people. The Mission has established a dispensary and a school,
and at the time of my visit was engaged in the construction of a large
hospital. To make invidious comparisons between different missionary
bodies in China is unbecoming for a traveller who has been treated by
all with every possible courtesy; but if I venture to refer to the
American Baptist Mission with special praise, it is only because the
members of that Mission whom I have had the good fortune to meet happen
to have been persons of broad sympathies and more than ordinary culture
and refinement.

The hospitalities of Ya-chou induced me to break my journey here for
one day, which I spent in exploring the town and neighbourhood. It
is situated in a rather confined plateau nearly surrounded by hills,
including one mountain, the Chou Kung Shan, which, as a place of
pilgrimage, is a humble rival of Omei.[139] At Ya-chou I paid off the
somewhat uncouth "boy" whom I had engaged at Ch'êng-tu, and found a
successor to accompany me to Tachienlu. I also engaged a new set of
coolies. A sedan-chair which I had bought on leaving the Yangtse at
Wan-hsien had been with me the whole way, but I very seldom used it,
except when entering and leaving large towns. At Ya-chou I might as
well have left it behind, and so reduced the number of my coolies
by half; for I did not enter it after the day I left that city. I
abandoned it finally at Tachienlu.

Almost immediately on leaving Ya-chou on the next portion of my journey
I entered into the mountainous region that fringes the Tibetan plateau.
Marco Polo evidently passed through the Ya-chou plain on his journey
from Ch'êng-tu to Yunnan-fu _viâ_ the Chien-ch'ang valley. In his day
Ya-chou must have been a frontier town on the extreme west of Cathay,
for all the mountainous region beyond belonged to Tibet. Like most
border regions this district was the scene of constant warfare, and
Messer Marco draws a pitiful picture of its utter desolation. It was
infested, apparently, by wild beasts, as well as by wild men. But
since his day the political boundary of China has been moved steadily
westwards, and the province of Ssuch'uan now nominally includes a
vast tract of country that was once, and still to a great extent is,
inhabited by Tibetans or allied tribes.

[Sidenote: GREAT ELEPHANT PASS]

On 16th March, a few miles' walk from Ya-chou brought me to the Flying
Dragon Pass (Fei Lung Ling), about 3,600 feet high. Hosie, describing
this road, says that "a long pull over a frightful road brought us
to the summit";[140] but the weather must have been against him, for
I experienced no difficulty, and found the road no worse than roads
in China usually are. About 65 _li_ (barely 20 miles) from Ya-chou
brought me to the village of Shih-chia Ch'iao, where I spent the night
in a rather good inn. Next day I went up the right bank of a stream
that flows north-east to meet the Ya, and after twice crossing it
reached the small district town of Jung-Ching, in the streets of which
I smashed a carved Buddha-headed mountain-pole that I had bought on
Mount Omei, in my efforts to beat off a dog that presented every
appearance of insanity. Late in the afternoon I reached the end of
the stage at Huang-ni-p'u, a small straggling village on the slopes
of the mountain range that was to be crossed on the following day.
The pass, which is known as the Great Elephant (Ta Hsiang Ling) is
9,200 feet high--less than 2,000 feet lower than the summit of Mount
Omei. Huang-ni-p'u lies at a height of about 3,870 feet; so the actual
climb that faced us on the 18th March was about 5,330 feet. The pass,
according to one interpretation, derives its name from the elephant on
which P'u Hsien rode from India to Mount Omei; but that legend, as we
have seen, has no basis in fact.[141] I started the ascent early in
the morning, amid the glorious weather that had smiled upon me ever
since I entered Ssuch'uan; and my dog Jim and I climbed the pass amid
slush and snow with a rapidity which entirely baffled the efforts of
the two soldiers who formed my escort to keep up with us. I reached
the summit about midday, and rested in one of the numerous refreshment
shanties that cater for the tea-coolies, of whom I passed many hundreds
during the journey from Ya-chou to Tachienlu. The weights that these
men carry on their backs are enormous. A single man carries as much
as 300 and sometimes 400 pounds weight.[142] They receive twenty or
thirty cents a day each, according to the weight carried, and spend
about three weeks on the journey. An unburdened traveller traverses
the same distance in eight days. The coolies walk very slowly, as a
slip might have dangerous consequences. My own greatest difficulty in
making the ascent of the Ta Hsiang Ling was to pass these people on the
narrow path, especially when a string of them stood sideways to rest
their burdens on their wooden props: for they never unload themselves
on the road, owing to the great difficulty of getting the burden on to
their backs again. I saw only one man meet with an accident. He was
passing under an overhanging ledge of rock, and tried to dodge a long
ice stalactite. This unbalanced him, and he fell on the path with his
huge load uppermost. Till we had extricated him I saw nothing but his
legs; but he rose up smiling, and some friendly hands assisted him in
replacing his burden.

The temperature at the summit was not lower than 43° in the shade,
according to my thermometer, but that was at midday. The snow was
melting fast under a hot sun. The view from the ridge was on both
sides magnificent. There was no mist, and the bright sunshine made the
distant peaks with their white caps stand out with marvellous vividness
against the deep-blue sky.

[Illustration: TEA-CARRIERS ON THE ROAD TO TACHIENLU.]

[Illustration: APPROACH TO TACHIENLU.   [_To face p. 118._]

[Sidenote: BORDER WARFARE]

Having descended from the snowy heights of the Great Elephant Pass,
and so having left the plains of China out of sight for many weeks to
come, I found myself in the little city of Ch'ing-ch'i-hsien, which in
spite of its diminutive size and remoteness from Western influences
is so far advanced in civilisation as to possess a girls' school.
There is also a temple dedicated to Kuan-Ti (the so-called "God of
War"), which was an appropriate circumstance, as soldiers and military
supplies were being duly hastened through the town in connection with
the border warfare that was being carried on between the Chinese and
Tibetans south of Batang. I noticed a versified proclamation in the
streets warning the people not to be alarmed at the sight of the
soldiers, and promising that all supplies required for their use would
be paid for at current market rates. I passed several small bodies of
troops between Ya-chou and Tachienlu, and as far as I could observe
they were very well-behaved. There were no foreign-drilled troops
among them, and they carried the old-fashioned firearms that China is
now rapidly learning to discard. What was perhaps a more noteworthy
circumstance was the fact that the troops were being regularly paid,
and that the commissariat arrangements worked without a hitch. I heard
few details of what was actually taking place at the front until I
reached Tachienlu, but it was evident that the provincial authorities
were dealing with the trouble in a thoroughly energetic manner. The
difficulties of sending military supplies and munitions of war from
Ch'êng-tu to the borders of Tibet must have been enormous. Ta Hsiang
Ling was only one of a number of great passes that had to be crossed
before the scene of warfare could be reached. The dragging of field
artillery over a succession of wild mountains where the highest of the
passes rises to more than 15,000 feet, is a feat which can perhaps be
best appreciated by those who helped to perform a similar one during
the British march to Lhasa.

Ch'ing-ch'i-hsien was at one time a city of great strategic importance,
and was the scene of many a fierce struggle between the Chinese and the
Lolos--who have now retired many miles to the south. At other times,
too, the Chinese have been hard put to it to defend themselves against
the quasi-Tibetan tribes and Mantzŭ who still inhabit the mountains
to the west. Its natural position, at the edge of a ravine or natural
moat, is a very strong one, and a besieging force armed with primitive
weapons would have very little chance of taking it by storm unless they
first secured the Great Elephant Pass: for on that side only the city
has no natural protection except the mountain range itself.[143]

Immediately on leaving Ch'ing-ch'i by the west gate we descended
into the ravine which protects it on the west and south, and crossed
the sparkling mountain stream from which the city derives its name.
The road then gradually ascends along the flank of some bare hills,
picturesque but with little cultivation. It then descends and passes
between high hills, issuing thence into a broad valley in which flows
the stream Liu Sha ("Shifting Sands"). On its left bank is the village
of Fu Chuang.[144] A little further on the valley gradually contracts,
leaving only an insignificant area for cultivation. What there is of it
is said to be very rich, chiefly owing to the periodical inundations,
which render it suitable for rice. The hills are mostly bare, and trees
are few except in the neighbourhood of houses. The next place of any
importance is known as Ni (or I) T'ou Courier Stage, which is a large
village of comparative importance, and contains excellent inns. Here we
spent the night to recuperate our energies in anticipation of the pass
that lies just beyond.

[Sidenote: THE FEI YÜEH LING]

Ni T'ou lies about 4,900 feet above the sea-level, and the summit of
the Fei Yüeh Ling is 9,000 feet high, only slightly less than the
Great Elephant. For a considerable part of the way the path led up the
valley of the Liu Sha, which rises in the mountains on the east side
of the pass. Above Ni T'ou it is simply a turbulent mountain stream
rushing downwards through a picturesque gorge.[145] The final climb of
1,500 feet is very steep, but the dangers and difficulties of the pass
have been much exaggerated not only by the Chinese chroniclers--who,
like all the _literati_ of their country, are sure to have been bad
pedestrians--but also by at least one European. The _Hsi Tsang T'u
K'ao_ quite unnecessarily describes it as "the most dangerous place in
China."[146] The view from the top--which is a narrow ridge--is less
grand than that from the Ta Hsiang Ling, owing to the proximity of
other lofty ranges.

One of the poets of the present dynasty (Hsü Chang) has declared in a
pleasant poem that the ascent of this mountain is like the soaring of
a swan, the descent like the swooping of a hawk. This is a picturesque
description, but it could hardly be applied with appositeness to a
certain Buddhist monk who was met on the pass some years ago by a
Western traveller.[147] The monk was doing a pilgrimage from P'u T'o
(Chusan) to Lhasa, and had already been seven years on the road. His
somewhat slow progress was accounted for by the fact that at every
two steps of his journey he prostrated himself at full length on the
ground. He was quite cheerful, and anticipated that in two or three
years more he would reach Lhasa. Without assuming that there was
anything either swanlike or hawklike in my movements I may claim to
have crossed the Fei Yüeh Ling rather more rapidly than the monk, and I
reached the end of the day's stage--the village of Hua-lin-p'ing--early
in the afternoon.[148] Shortly before arriving there I turned off the
road to visit a picturesque temple which I espied embowered in a grove
of trees on the right bank of a mountain torrent. It is dedicated to
Kuan Yin, but the Guardian Deity of the Kao Shan ("Lofty Mountain")
also has a shrine in the temple grounds. Behind the main hall, which
contains the eighteen lo-han in miniature, and a cast-iron bell dated
the second year of Tao Kuang (1822), there is a timber-built monastery
in which a few monks reside. Higher up is a pavilion which contains
among other things a black wooden tablet recording the names of those
who had subscribed towards the restoration of the building after its
destruction by wind and rain. The grounds of the temple are well laid
out, and there is a fine view.

[Sidenote: MOUNTAIN SCENERY]

Hua-lin-p'ing is a village of two streets, one of them broader and
cleaner than is usual in Chinese villages. Most of the inhabitants,
however, are not pure Chinese. A proclamation on the walls stated
that a large number of coolies were being employed by Government on
transport service, in connection with the border war, and that if any
such coolie used any military supplies for his own purposes or sold
them to civilians he would be punished with relentless severity; and
that a like fate would befall any civilian who bought such goods from
him.

There is great abundance of coal in the hills about Hua-lin-p'ing,
and it is freely used by the poorest peasants for heating and cooking
purposes. Judging from the coal which was brought to me in a brazier
it appeared to be of excellent quality, for it burned well, and gave
out considerable heat with hardly any smoke. The temperature in
these mountain villages was generally low enough to make artificial
warmth very desirable; but the fumes of charcoal are not conducive to
cheerfulness or to health, and coal was a welcome surprise.

For the remaining three days of my journey to Tachienlu the scenery
was of great beauty and grandeur. I have seldom seen anything more
magnificent than the view of mighty mountains that greeted me as I
left Hua-lin-p'ing, and continued to face me nearly all the rest of
the way. The lustre of the snow, the rich azure of the sky and the
sombre shadows of the gorges and ravines combined to make a series
of pictures which no words can describe, and which time can never
efface from the memory. There are scenes which an artist could never
be weary of painting, a poet never weary of describing: yet both would
assuredly fail to communicate the secret of their loveliness to those
who had never seen. There are times, of course, when the glories of
the scenery are hidden by clouds or dimmed by rain and mist, and many
a traveller must have gone through this country with very little idea
of the wonderful sights that were hidden from him; but the good fortune
that accompanied me to the summit of Mount Omei did not forsake me for
even half a day during my long walk to Tachienlu, for the sun was never
eclipsed by a cloud, and the lustrous peaks that towered skyward never
once robed themselves in fog.

[Sidenote: LU TING BRIDGE]

From Hua-lin-p'ing the road descends steeply till it reaches the
beautiful valley of the Ta Tu. This great river I had not seen since I
left Chia-ting, where it joins the Min. Like the Ya river, its current
is too swift and the rapids are too dangerous to admit of navigation.
Between Lu Ting Ch'iao (which I reached the same day) and the junction
with the Min the fall of the river is no less than 3,750 feet.[149]
The road to Lu Ting keeps to the left bank of the river, sometimes at
a height above it of several hundred feet, and sometimes (as at the
village of Lêng Chi) close to the river bank. Lu Ting, which gives
its name to an important suspension bridge, is about 20 miles from
Hua-lin-p'ing. Shortly before reaching it I passed safely over a
somewhat dangerous section of the road, where from a steep bank rocks
and stones frequently crash down over the path and into the river,
with disastrous results to unwary passengers. Hosie describes how a
large stone the size of his head narrowly missed striking him, and how
he saw the body of a man who had been struck dead, his weeping wife
and friends trying to remove the corpse without endangering their own
lives. The vicinity of Lu Ting must be beautiful at all seasons, but
it was particularly so at the time of my arrival there, on account
of the wonderful display of myriads of fruit-tree blossoms. Had I
come at a later season I should no doubt have been able to endorse
Rockhill's verdict as to the excellence of the peaches.[150] The
town itself is small and dirty, but its position renders it of some
commercial importance, for through it all the trade that follows this
main route between China and Tibet must pass. The iron suspension
bridge towards which all the streets of the town converge affords the
only means of crossing the Ta Tu. This fine bridge, which has been
several times repaired since its construction more than two hundred
years ago, is about 120 yards long. It may now be regarded as the
iron chain that connects China and Chinese Tibet.[151] Geographically
and ethnologically the Ta Tu river is the eastern boundary of Tibet,
for, though the steady advance of Chinese influence has caused the
political boundary to be moved further and further west, the races
that inhabit the western side of the Ta Tu are still predominantly
Tibetan, Mantzŭ, or Hsi Fan,[152] and the tribal chiefs are still left
in complete control of their mountainous territories. The Chinese have
indeed driven a wedge into this region as far as Tachienlu in order to
maintain control over the high-road to Lhasa; but they interfere very
little with the government of the country. Beyond the Ta Tu the country
is not divided into magisterial districts, and the jurisdiction of the
Ch'ing-ch'i magistrate extends only as far as Lu Ting. Recent maps of
China make the province of Ssuch'uan extend further west even than
Batang, but the whole of the region I have referred to should properly
be marked on the maps as Chinese Tibet,[153] or as Tibetan Ssuch'uan.
There is, of course, an extraordinary mixture of races and languages
in this wild border region, but the prevailing type is anything but
Chinese; and in religion, history and social customs the people who
inhabit this territory obviously belong to one of the numerous allied
races of which Tibet is composed to-day.[154]

[Sidenote: TIBETAN PILGRIMS]

After crossing the bridge the road leads along the right bank of the
Ta Tu for a distance of nearly 20 miles. Villages are few and the
population is scanty. In the hamlet of Ta P'êng Pa I rested in an
eating-house kept by a Chinese, who, to my surprise, greeted me in
Pekingese. As I sipped my tea he cheerfully informed me that he had
been a Boxer, and had left Peking immediately after the allies had
entered it. I fancy he must have done so under a cloud; but I did not
press the subject, and amiably accepted his assurance that, in spite
of troublesome political estrangements, he was sentimentally attached
to all foreigners. After Ta P'eng Pa there is a long upward climb,
followed by a short and sudden descent to a wooden bridge crossing a
mountain stream. From here there is a magnificent view of the snowy
mountains in the south-west.

As this road is frequently tramped by Tibetan pilgrims on their way to
Mount Omei, I was not surprised to find a number of wayside shrines.
If the name of Thomas Atkins is--I hope it is not-scribbled over the
walls of the Lhasa cathedral, it is satisfactory to know that Tibetan
feelings cannot have been outraged thereby; for no more inveterate
wall-scribbler exists than your Tibetan pilgrim. I found abundant
evidence of this in the shrines just referred to, as well as in the
temples of Chia-ting and Mount Omei.

Twenty-five _li_ beyond Ta-P'êng Pa the road suddenly branches off
to the left, leaving the valley of the Ta Tu, and entering that of
its tributary the Lu, or, as the Tibetans call it, the Do river. A
steep descent soon led us to our resting-place, the village of Wa
Ssŭ Kou ("The Ravine of the Tile-roofed Monastery"). It consists of
one street, behind which are a few small maize-fields, orchards and
walnut trees in the level ground between the village and the water's
edge. A small temple, presumably that from which the village is named,
overlooks a rather cranky iron suspension bridge. This bridge crosses
the Lu to a steep path which climbs along the opposite mountain side
in the direction of the valley of the Ta Tu, or Chin Ch'uan ("Gold
Stream")[155]--as the Ta Tu is called above the junction with the Lu.
The path leads into the territory of a tribal chief, subordinate to the
Tibetan prince who rules at Tachienlu. Hosie states that respectable
Chinese settling there are allowed to take unto themselves temporary
native wives, on payment to the chief of three taels (less than half a
sovereign) per wife. "They are free," he adds, "to leave the country
when they choose, but the wives and children must remain."[156] I spent
an afternoon exploring the fringe of this region, the northern part of
which was in the eighteenth century the scene of a long and terrible
struggle between the imperial troops and the Chin Ch'uan chiefs. Near
the summit of the steep path that creeps along the precipitous face
of the cliff opposite Wa Ssu Kou, there is a small shrine dedicated
to Kuan Yin, who is here regarded as the protectress of a road which,
without her protection, might subside into the turbulent river hundreds
of feet below.

[Sidenote: ARRIVAL AT TACHIENLU]

The next day I walked the remaining distance --about 15 miles--to
Tachienlu.[157] The road keeps to the right bank of the river the whole
way, and gradually ascends from 5,300 feet at Wa Ssŭ Kou to 8,400 feet
at Tachienlu. This is sufficient to indicate that the Lu river is a
wild torrent with many waterfalls. In summer, after the melting of the
snows, it must present the appearance of a continuous white cascade;
even in spring its waters are turbulent enough. I reached Tachienlu
early in the afternoon about five hours in advance of my sluggish
followers, and found a warm welcome in the hospitable house of Mr and
Mrs Moyes, well known by name to those who have studied the interesting
history of missionary enterprise among the Tibetans.[158]

Tachienlu is a long, narrow little city which has had to adapt its
shape to that of the mountains by which it is hemmed in. The summits of
these mountains are covered with snow all the year round, and some are
very lofty. According to Bretschneider's map, one of them is estimated
at 25,592 feet, and another at 24,900 feet. Outside the walls of the
city there is hardly a foot of level ground, except along the banks of
the river, which, on entering the city, cuts it into two parts. It is
the great emporium of trade between China and Tibet, being the point at
which Tibetans and Chinese come from west and east, respectively, to
exchange the produce of the two countries.[159] The contribution of
China to this trade is chiefly tea, with limited quantities of tobacco
and cotton; that of Tibet mainly consists of musk, gold-dust, skins
and various mysterious concoctions used for medicines. The population
of the town is predominantly Tibetan, there being about seven hundred
Tibetan families to about four hundred Chinese.[160] In addition to
the Tibetan families, however, must be reckoned a great number of
lamas, most of whom live in large lamaseries outside the city walls.
Many of the houses--especially the large inns--are of the well-known
two-storied Tibetan type, and on their flat roofs flutter innumerable
prayer-flags giving to the winds the universal Tibetan hymn of praise,
_Om mane padme hom_. The streets are generally noisy with the sounds
that always accompany buying and selling in Eastern countries; but
rarely so noisy as to stifle the pious murmurings of red-frocked lamas.
For Tachienlu, like all Tibet, is priest-ridden. Even the Chinese seem
to succumb, after a few years of residence there, to the wiles of
priest-craft, and constantly seek the assistance of lamas in exorcising
demons and invoking the protection of the saints of lamaism. Many of
the lamas make a good deal of money by securing temporary engagements
as domestic chaplains; and the deep, sonorous voices (assiduously
cultivated from youth upwards) in which they intone their dirge-like
spells and unintelligible prayers, penetrate far beyond the walls of
their improvised chapels.


FOOTNOTES:

[137] From here a road leads direct to the capital, Ch'eng-tu, which
can be reached in three stages.

[138] See Note 13 (p. 421).

[139] See Note 1 (p. 411).

[140] _Three Years in Western China_, p. 95.

[141] See Note 14 (p. 421).

[142] Baber mentions an instance of a coolie who "must have had, at the
lowest computation, more than 400 English pounds on his back."

[143] See Note 15 (p. 422).

[144] Also known as Man Chuang (蠻庄).

[145] See Note 16 (p. 422).

[146] 內地第一險阻也.

[147] Rockhill, _The Land of the Lamas_, p. 305.

[148] See Note 17 (p. 422).

[149] See Note 18 (p. 423).

[150] _Land of the Lamas_, p. 304.

[151] See Note 19 (p. 423).

[152] See chap. xv.

[153] I observe that it is so marked in Waddell's map attached to his
recent book on the British expedition to Lhasa.

[154] For a brief discussion of the ethnology of this country, see
chap. xv.

[155] Gold-washing is carried on here to a considerable extent, as in
nearly all the rivers of western Ssuch'uan.

[156] _Journey to the Eastern Frontier of Tibet_, pp. 24-25.

[157] See Note 20 (p. 424).

[158] Mrs Moyes (then Mrs Rijnhart) is the well-known author of the
book, _With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple_, in which she ably
describes the life of adventure and hardship which she led in the far
interior of Tibet, where she lost both husband and child.

[159] See Note 21 (p. 425).

[160] Hosie, _Journey to the Eastern Frontier of Tibet_.




CHAPTER IX

TACHIENLU


I remained in Tachienlu, where I found excellent quarters in a Tibetan
inn, from 23rd March to 15th April. During this period of more than
three weeks I exchanged visits with the Chinese prefect and the Tibetan
chief or "king" of Chala, and made excursions to various places of
interest in the vicinity. My main object in staying so long in one
place was that I might devote some attention to the Tibetan language,
of which I had previously acquired a very rudimentary knowledge.
With this end in view I engaged a native teacher, a pleasant and
mild-mannered old gentleman, who, in the approved Tibetan fashion, put
out his tongue at me most respectfully whenever I chanced to pronounce
or spell a word correctly. He officiated at the king's court as a
kind of soothsayer. I hoped that my acquaintance with him might lead
me to endorse the opinion of Marco Polo, that among the Tibetans are
to be found "the best enchanters and astrologers that exist in all
that quarter of the world." They, he goes on to remark, "perform such
extraordinary marvels and sorceries by diabolic art that it astounds
one to see or even hear of them."[161] Ser Marco was more fortunate
than I was, for no blandishments on my part could wring any necromantic
secrets from my soothsayer. But perhaps he had none to impart.

The climate of Tachienlu, as might be expected at an altitude of over
8,000 feet, is very bracing. The temperature sometimes sank to the
freezing point, and snow often fell during the night, but the days
were almost uniformly bright and sunny. There was a slight shock of
earthquake on 30th March, and I was told that the occurrence was
a common one; certainly it caused no consternation. The people of
Tachienlu are generally healthy and vigorous, but the annual recurrence
of typhus fever is a great scourge. The poorer class of Tibetan house
is exceedingly dirty, and it can only be the fine climate that prevents
Tachienlu from being frequently devastated by terrible epidemics.

[Sidenote: THE LHASA AMBAN]

I have already observed that west of the river Ta Tu the country is
ruled by tribal chiefs, and is not under the direct rule of China. The
chiefs are never interfered with so long as they abstain from political
intrigues, and are punctual in the payment of their small tribute to
the Chinese Government. The Chinese, however, fully recognise the
importance of controlling the main road into Tibet proper; they have,
therefore, stationed an officer of prefectural rank (_chün liang fu_)
at Tachienlu, and his duty it is to protect Chinese interests, and
keep a watch over the movements of the Tibetan chiefs and kings. He
exercises jurisdiction over the Chinese of the district--there are very
few outside the town itself--but has no judicial or administrative
control over the rest of the population. His official duties are
chiefly connected with transport and commissariat arrangements, and
in keeping up regular communications between the governor-general in
Ch'êng-tu and the amban[162] or _ch'in ch'ai_ at Lhasa. At the time
of my visit his hands were full owing to the frontier war, and he was
also burdened with the responsibility of looking after the new amban,
who arrived in Tachienlu shortly before me on his way to Lhasa, and
was still there when I left three weeks later. His predecessor, it may
be remembered, was brutally murdered at the instigation of the lamas
on the Tibetan frontier; and it was freely admitted by the new amban's
numerous retinue that his courage, which had steadily diminished as he
proceeded westwards, had vanished altogether when he reached Tachienlu.
When it appeared that the frontier war showed no signs of coming to
an end he applied, I understand, for leave to proceed to Lhasa by way
of India; but this request was promptly refused by his superiors at
Peking. Some yak-loads of his baggage started for the west shortly
before I left the city, and I presume he had made up his mind to make a
start soon afterwards. The turbulent condition of the tributary states
which had culminated in the murder of some French missionaries and the
assassination of the amban seems to have forced the Chinese Government
to give its serious attention to the problems of the frontier. As
usually happens in China, the policy determined on was one of ruthless
severity. Two large lamaseries were destroyed by the Chinese troops,
several of the leading lamas were put to death, and the rest driven
westward at the point of the sword. Two tributary Tibetan chiefs, of
rank nearly equal to that of the king of Tachienlu, were found guilty
of treasonable intrigues, and promptly executed. All these persons, if
the stories told of them were true, seem to have deserved their fate.
The events had occurred some time before my arrival in Tachienlu, but
as the war was still in progress, and the lamas of the extreme west
were known to be the implacable enemies of China, future possibilities
still agitated the minds of Chinese and Tibetans alike.

[Sidenote: POLITICS IN TACHIENLU]

The loyalty of the chief or king of Chala was probably above question,
and he was quite powerful enough to control any restlessness that might
show itself among the lamas of his own principality; but there was
some reason to believe that pressure was being brought to bear on the
Chinese Government from an unknown source to induce it to abolish all
the territorial chieftainships, and parcel out the whole country into
regular magistracies under Chinese officials right up to the nominal
frontier of Tibet proper. It was rumoured that Tibet itself was to be
turned into a Chinese province, and furnished with the usual hierarchy
of Chinese officials--the main object probably being to frustrate
the supposed designs of England on that country--and that Ssuch'uan
was to be divided into two separate provinces. In view of all these
possibilities, it is clear that the position of the tributary princes
of Ssuch'uan was, and probably still is, a somewhat precarious one;
and that the king of Chala, who could at any moment be placed under
lock and key by the prefect at Tachienlu, would probably be the first
to suffer from the change of policy. It would not be difficult for an
unscrupulous Chinese official to trump up vague charges of treason
which might quickly lead to the king's overthrow. Among other rumours
I heard that the Ya-chou taotai was expected to move his headquarters
temporarily or permanently to Tachienlu, and that the king's palace had
already been selected as a suitable residence for him. The king had not
apparently been consulted in this little matter. How the local politics
of Chala have developed since I left that distracted kingdom I have
had no opportunity of learning; but if in another five years the king
is still swaying the fortunes of his little monarchy he will deserve a
good deal of credit for his skilful manipulation of affairs during a
very trying period.

The territory of this potentate, including that of the small chiefs
subordinate to him, extends from the Ta Tu river on the east to the
Yalung on the west, and for about seventeen days' journey from north to
south. The name of his principality is spelt in Tibetan _Lchags-la_,
but, as usual in Tibetan words, it is not pronounced as it is written.
Lchlags (pronounced _cha_) is the Tibetan for "iron," and _la_ means a
mountain-pass. The Chinese transliteration[163] of the word would in
the Pekingese dialect read Chia-na: but in western Mandarin the _i_
is elided, and the _n_ is sounded like an _l._ The king's own name in
Chinese is Chia I Chai.[164] His Tibetan title, _gyal-po_, which means
"king" or "ruling prince," sufficiently well expresses the nature
of the authority which he exercises.[165] Rockhill describes him as
"one of the most powerful chiefs of eastern Tibet, for among them he
alone demands and obtains obedience from the lamas dwelling in his
principality."[166] He rules by hereditary right, and has absolute
power over the lives and fortunes of his subjects. The Chinese in his
territory are exempt from his jurisdiction, but they are so few in
number, except in the city itself, that the exemption counts for little.

[Sidenote: ULA]

Beyond the periodical payment of a small tribute, the only concession
which he is obliged to make to the suzerain power is the privilege of
_ula_. This word is neither Chinese nor Tibetan, but is in universal
use in Mongolia and Tibetan countries.[167] _Ula_ is a system whereby
all Tibetans living in the neighbourhood or within a certain distance
of a caravan route are compelled to furnish Government officials
(Chinese and Tibetan) with men, baggage-animals, and food, either free
of all cost or for a very small fixed sum. The system has given rise to
great abuses, and has in some places caused so much distress among the
people that whole villages have been abandoned and rich valleys left
uncultivated. The subjects of the king of Chala were groaning under
the weight of the _ula_ system at the time of my visit, and I heard
the king himself lamenting the sufferings which--owing to the greed
and harshness of Chinese military officials--it caused his people.
The burden at that time was more than usually heavy, for the Chinese
Government insisted on exacting its full rights of _ula_ in connection
with the carriage of military supplies to the scene of warfare.

The only three official buildings of any importance in Tachienlu are
the residences or yamêns of the king, the prefect or _chün liang fu_
and a Chinese colonel (_hsieh-t'ai_). Of these by far the largest
is the king's. I visited him a day or two after my arrival, and was
received very cordially. He is a man of about forty years of age, of
rather delicate appearance, but active and vivacious. He speaks Chinese
(with a strong Ssuch'uan accent) in addition to his own language,
and has adopted Chinese dress. His position in Tachienlu cannot be
a very pleasant one, owing to the peculiar nature of his relations
with the Chinese Government. The prefect appears to regard him as a
kind of enlightened savage, and apparently considers that the most
effective method of demonstrating the superiority of the suzerain
power is to treat the vassal with the least respect possible. The
Chinese regard all Tibetans much as they used to regard Europeans--as
barbarians outside the pale of true civilisation. I heard it stated
that if a Chinese in Tachienlu kills a Tibetan he is merely mulcted in
two packets of tea, but that if a Tibetan kills a Chinese the lives
of three Tibetans must pay the forfeit; I cannot, however, vouch for
the truth of this. The king would be glad to remove the centre of his
government to another part of his territories and leave Tachienlu to
the absolute control of China; but this he is not allowed to do. A few
years ago a lama versed in magic spells prophesied to the king that
if he spent any one of the next three consecutive New Year seasons in
Tachienlu great misfortunes would fall upon him, but that if he spent
them elsewhere all would be well. The king, who like all Tibetans is
prone to superstition, lent a willing ear to the wisdom of the lama,
and spent the last and first months of the next two years in one of
his mountain retreats. When the third New Year season came round the
frontier war had commenced, and the king's presence was urgently
necessary in Tachienlu in connection with the transport arrangements;
but his superstitious dread of unknown calamities again decided him to
retire to the mountains. He came back in due course to find that he was
in trouble.

[Sidenote: "SWORN BROTHERS"]

The _ula_ arrangements had suffered by his absence, and the Chinese
officials held him to blame. Since then he has been zealously
endeavouring to regain the confidence of his Chinese masters, with
only partial success. His friendly intercourse with the few Europeans
he has met is regarded somewhat suspiciously by the Chinese as well
as by the lamas; and it is possible that when the days of trial and
tribulation come to him he will look--I fear he will look in vain--to
his European friends for protection and support. With two or three of
his Protestant missionary friends he has actually entered into "sworn
brotherhood,"[168] an old Chinese custom whereby close friends enter
into a mutual compact which creates between them a kind of fictitious
relationship. This may explain a not quite accurate passage which
occurs in Waddell's recent book, _Lhasa and its Mysteries_.[169] He
says that "the Tibetan chief of Dartsendo (Tachienlu), the king of
'Chala,' is especially well-disposed towards foreigners; and when the
Dalai Lama threatened to punish him on this account, he is reported to
have become 'sworn brothers' with the Protestant Christian _Tibetans_."
Colonel Waddell adds that the king of Chala was said to be building
forts in his country, and could put ten thousand fighting men in the
field; but I know no reason for supposing that the king's intentions
are other than entirely pacific.

A few weeks' residence in Tachienlu served to open my eyes to the
fact that scandal and gossip are not confined to Western societies.
Even the Tibetan is sufficiently civilised to take an intelligent
interest in his neighbour's sins. One story which caused much hilarity
among the Smart Set of Tachienlu concerned the wife of a certain court
official. A distinguished person of royal lineage (not the king) is
a man who is known to be of an amorous disposition, and has been the
hero of several pathetic romances. He gazed upon the court official's
lady and saw that she was fair. Steps were immediately taken to send
the husband on a mission to a far country, he having been assured that
his domestic interests would be carefully protected in his absence.
The lady, reluctantly or otherwise, speedily bestowed her caresses on
her exalted lover. For some time all went well; but, unlike the less
fortunate Uriah in the Biblical story, the official returned to his
family in safety, discovered the intrigue, and promptly repudiated his
lady. The tragedy of the situation consists in the fact that she was
also repudiated by her "royal" lover, his fickle affections having
meanwhile found another object. The lady subsequently consoled herself
by marrying a Chinese merchant, and is said to be still carrying on a
monotonous existence within the curtained recesses of that gentleman's
private house. The episode is one which might perhaps be commended to
Mr Stephen Phillips for dramatic treatment.

[Sidenote: TACHIENLU GOSSIP]

Court intrigues have given rise to incidents more sombre than this. The
last king, elder brother of the present one, is said to have had the
date of his death foretold to him by a certain lama. When the date was
close at hand, the king took ill and died, after two days' illness,
exactly on the date prophesied. For some dark reason the lama--who
should probably have been tried for murder--succeeded in acquiring such
potent influence over the dead man's successor, the present king, that
he persuaded his Majesty to adopt his daughter. Quite apart from the
fact that lamas have no right to possess daughters at all, it does not
seem to be quite clear what the lama stood to gain by this proceeding.
The king was at that time childless, but he has since acquired a
daughter of his own. I saw both the lama's child and the king's during
a visit to the Summer Palace in the mountains, and was astonished
to find that the lama's daughter--a little girl of eight--was being
brought up as a boy, and was attired in boy's clothes. There was some
mystery connected with the whole affair which I failed to fathom. As
may be gathered from stories of this kind, the lamas do not enjoy a
good reputation. Their private morals are not above reproach, and they
are too fond of meddling in mundane affairs; but they do not wield the
great political power of which in other Tibetan states the lamas have
gradually possessed themselves.

The heir to the "kingdom" is the king's younger brother, a very amiable
man whose love of outdoor sports would endear him to the heart of
many an Englishman. He does not meddle with questions of _la haute
politique_, and loves to spend his time in the delightful mountain
residence to which I have just referred as the Summer Palace, a place
known in Chinese as the Yü Lin Kung. I was invited to spend a few
days there as the king's guest, and was received and most hospitably
entertained by his brother. It is a large, rambling building,
beautifully situated in a lonely spot among the mountains about 8 miles
from Tachienlu. One of the greatest attractions of this place is a hot
sulphur spring, the water from which is made to flow into a capacious
tiled bath. The Tibetans are said to be an unclean race--and I will
not gainsay it--but they delight in hot water when they can get it.
The neighbouring forests are strictly preserved for sporting purposes,
and afford splendid cover for pheasants and other game. Our "bag"
was an insignificant one; but I was filled with admiration for the
zeal of the king's brother, who was armed only with an old-fashioned
muzzle-loading weapon of venerable appearance and doubtful efficiency.
He deserved success, if he failed to command it. Behind the palace
are some of the tombs of the royal family. They are surrounded by
clusters of prayer-flags--strips of white cloth tied to the top of
sticks or slender poles and bearing the usual prayer formulas. Close
by is a rivulet in which there is a large prayer-wheel: a large wooden
cylinder, appropriately inscribed, placed perpendicularly in a strong
framework of timber. Through the cylinder runs a fixed wooden pin, and
the whole structure is so arranged that the lower end of the cylinder
is always in the water. The flow of the stream causes it to revolve
unceasingly, and each revolution is supposed to be equivalent to a
single utterance of the words, _om mane padme hom_. The prayer-flags
and prayer-wheels may thus be regarded as continually engaged in saying
masses for the souls of the dead princes. In my subsequent travels
through the Tibetan states I found wheels and flags of the same kind
in great abundance; and they are, of course, well known to all who
have travelled anywhere in Tibet. As a rule, a cluster of flags is all
that marks a Tibetan graveyard, especially in places where cremation
is the general method of disposing of the dead. Prayer-wheels may
be found wherever there is flowing water; and I observed that the
Tibetans--who have not as much objection as the Chinese to imbibing
cold water--would often stop to drink just below a prayer-wheel, as if
under the impression that the water, which had performed the pious act
of turning the wheel, had acquired thereby some mysterious sanctity. In
connection with this I may mention that holy water is not a monopoly of
Roman Catholic countries, for it is quite commonly used for ritualistic
purposes in lama temples. As every reader knows, this is not the only
respect in which there are resemblances or coincidences--sometimes
startling enough--between the ceremonial usages of lamaism and
Catholicism.

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE "SUMMER PALACE" NEAR TACHIENLU.
  [_To face p. 142._]

[Sidenote: PRAYER-WHEELS]

Prayer-wheels[170] may be turned either by water or by hand. The
ordinary small hand-wheel is constantly seen in the hands of both lamas
and laymen. Old men, especially, who are anxious to devote their
slender remnant of life in acquiring new merit or destroying bad karma,
hardly ever go out of doors without their wheels. They twirl them with
their fingers as they walk, and years of practice enable them to do
it without any conscious effort: indeed, I fancy that many old men
would twirl an imaginary wheel if the reality were taken from them.
It is curious to note that the older a wheel is--that is, the more
it has been twirled--the more valuable it becomes; for few Tibetans
will exchange an old wheel for a new one, and only the direst poverty
will induce them to sell this most precious of all their possessions
to a curio-hunter. Another form of hand-wheel is similar in size
and appearance to a water-wheel. It is inserted perpendicularly in
specially-constructed recesses, and may be twirled round its pin by any
devout passer-by. Sometimes it is found in the wall of a temple, and
not infrequently in a private house. In the latter case it is generally
found inside the house on the right-hand side of the main doorway
as one enters. Every one who goes in or out gives it a revolution
or two. The stranger on entering thus confers a kind of benediction
on his host, and at the same time accumulates a little merit for
himself. The custom is an amiable one, and certainly does no one any
harm. Not content with flags and prayer-wheels, the Tibetans are also
very fond of erecting piles of stones on which are loosely-placed
innumerable flat slabs, of varying shapes and sizes, each bearing
the _om mane_ formula in large, carved letters. These are variously
termed _obo_,[171] _mani-drombo_ and _mani-dong_. They were specially
numerous in the country through which I passed after leaving Tachienlu,
but there are many of them also in the immediate neighbourhood of
that town. Lamaism shares with other forms of Buddhism the rule that
sacred objects should, as far as possible, be kept on the right-hand
side. Where an obo or mani-drombo occurs, therefore, the road always
bifurcates so as to enable the devout traveller to keep it on his right
whichever way he is going. The inscribed slabs are the pious gifts of
pilgrims, or of any person who wishes to conciliate or show his respect
to the unseen powers. Every lamasery has among its inmates one or two
masons who are employed by such persons in carving the inscriptions.

[Sidenote: CHOICE OF ROUTE]

Before reaching Tachienlu I had purposely left undecided the route
to be followed thereafter, as I was only too well aware of the
obstructions which the authorities would be certain to put in my way
when I attempted to leave the main routes. I had a vague idea of making
an effort to cross the frontier into Tibet proper, and so proceeding
to Lhasa by the route which no European has traversed since the
days of the abbé Huc; but it soon became obvious that this would be
impossible--at least so long as a state of war existed on the border.
The Chinese prefect had no doubt acquainted himself with the fact that
I was engaged in the study of Tibetan, and when I called upon him he
showed considerable anxiety and curiosity as to my intentions. The new
amban showing no eagerness to avail himself of a unique opportunity to
add a British adviser to his staff, and the undertaking being otherwise
impossible in the face of Chinese and Tibetan opposition, I was obliged
to give up the idea of a ride to Lhasa, and had to fall back on my
original intention of travelling through the Sino-Tibetan states of
the Yalung valley to the north-west of Yunnan. If I were prevented by
official opposition from following this route as well, I decided to
return to the Ta Tu river, and find my way down the Chien-ch'ang valley
to Yüeh-hsi and Ning-yuan-fu, the route which has been made famous by
the journey of Marco Polo, and has been in recent years traversed by
E. C. Baber and Sir A. Hosie. With regard to this route I was told
that the road was much infested by robbers--Lolos and others--and that
many of the inn-keepers had entered into a league with them to drug
and rob, and, if necessary, murder their visitors. There was only one
way to avoid molestation, and that was by the discovery and use of the
robbers' password. The utterance of this word on appropriate occasions
would not only ensure safety, but would remove all difficulties about
transport and supplies. The person (a Chinese in Government employment)
who gave me this information, and who may, for all I know, have had
personal dealings with the gang, was so obliging as to give me the
password itself, which consisted, he said, of the single word _Ku_
("old"). As I did not, after all, follow this interesting route, and
therefore had no opportunity of testing the efficacy of the word, I can
only express the hope that the timely information now given will be of
service to future travellers.

[Sidenote: THE YALUNG VALLEY]

The Yalung valley is one of the least-known portions of the Chinese
empire. In 1895-96 M. Bonin, a French Colonial official, travelled from
Tali-fu to Tachienlu by a route which to a certain extent coincided
with that taken by myself, and three years later a Swedish missionary,
Mr E. Amundsen, travelled in the reverse direction by a road which
was evidently almost the same as my own. But no Englishman[172] had
traversed the same route before me, and as I had no opportunity of
reading the narratives published by either M. Bonin or Mr Amundsen
until my return to civilisation, I unfortunately derived no benefit
from their previous experience: but their accounts, though interesting,
are very meagre in detail and of tantalising brevity.[173] A glance
at the map will show that my route lay across the mountains to the
south-west of Tachienlu. On crossing the Yalung it enters the Muli or
Huang Lama, and thence it crosses the Yunnan frontier a few miles north
of Yung-ning-fu. Short as the total distance appears on the map, the
series of great mountain ranges over which the road passes makes the
journey a long one and arduous. A few Yunnanese merchants[174] choose
this route to Ssuch'uan in order to avoid the likin-stations in the
Chien-ch'ang valley; but the great difficulties of arranging for the
safe transport of merchandise over snowy passes and unbridged rivers
have given it a bad reputation.

[Sidenote: OFFICIAL OBSTRUCTION]

Even at Tachienlu I was unable to gather much information about the
country. The king himself appeared to have a very scanty knowledge of
the southern part of his own territory. As soon as he and the Chinese
prefect heard of my intention--and it was impossible to conceal it from
them--the strongest objections were immediately raised. The road was
impassable, the mountains were covered with snow that never melted, the
lamas were hostile, the whole country was infested with robbers and
wild beasts, and I should find neither food nor means of transport. I
had already satisfied myself by private enquiry among the Tibetans and
some Yunnanese merchants that the route was feasible, and that nothing
was to be feared beyond the ordinary difficulties and hardships of
travelling in a very wild region sparsely populated. I felt that if
the road were safe and easy enough for an occasional trading caravan,
it should also be safe and easy enough for an Englishman burdened
with little beyond clothes and gun. I therefore declined to put faith
in the exaggerated descriptions with which the officials endeavoured
to frighten me, and insisted upon the right conferred upon me by my
passport to travel where I chose. We exchanged several messages on
the subject, and in personal interviews I made it as clear as possible
that none of the difficulties which they had mentioned seemed to me
sufficiently imposing to justify me in altering the route on which I
had determined. The prefect, however, was particularly strenuous in his
efforts to dissuade me from my purpose, and pointed out that he would
be powerless to grant me any protection during the journey, and that
the risks and dangers would be considerable. I need hardly say that his
concern was not for me personally, but was due to his fears of what
might happen to himself in the event of my coming to grief. From this
point of view his attitude was reasonable enough. The upshot of a long
discussion was that the king of Chala and the prefect allowed me to set
out on my consenting to sign declarations in English and Chinese to the
effect that all responsibility for my safety was to rest with myself.
The first of these declarations ran as follows:

 "This is to certify that I have been fully informed by the Ming Chêng
 Ssŭ (king of Chala) that the road by which I intend to travel from
 Tachienlu to the borders of Yunnan, _viâ_ the southern portions of his
 territory and the country known as Huang Lama, is beset with great
 difficulties, and that my journey will be very arduous and possibly
 dangerous. Having been fully assured of these circumstances, and
 having nevertheless decided to traverse the country in question, I
 wish it to be understood that I undertake the journey at my own risk
 and on my own responsibility, and that the king of Chala is not to
 be held responsible for any delay or accident that may occur in the
 course of such journey so far as it lies within his territory."

This document was handed to Mr Moyes, to be used by him to save the
king from blame in the event of an accident. A similar declaration,
containing the name of the Chinese prefect instead of that of the king,
was handed directly to that official before my departure. I perhaps
created an unwise precedent; but as the prefect seemed determined to
prevent my departure unless I relieved him of all responsibility, I was
left with no option. The British Consular authorities, I knew, would do
nothing: they had already declined to countenance my travelling by this
route.

[Sidenote: TIBETAN BORDER-LAND]

The fears of the officials with regard to possible dangers were in some
respects justifiable. A great part of the country between the Yalung
and the borders of Tibet proper was and is under the direct or indirect
control of lamas, who show very little respect for Chinese suzerainty.
It was only recently that two French missionaries were cruelly
butchered by the lamas somewhere near the Tali-Batang trade route;
and a young Scotsman named Forrest, who had been collecting botanical
specimens in the same locality, only escaped with his life after being
hunted by the lamas with dogs, and suffering extraordinary privations.
The country into which my road should lead me after crossing the
Yalung was also directly ruled by lamas; and while I was in Tachienlu
there were rumours to the effect that the lama-prince of that region,
though far from the scene of actual fighting, was not only secretly
supporting the rebels, but had caused the roads in his territory to
be torn up and blocked in order to prevent the advance of Chinese
reinforcements from Yunnan. The war, indeed, was not progressing
altogether favourably for the Chinese. It was whispered that on one
occasion a whole regiment had been cut to pieces during a night attack.
The Tibetans had eluded the sentries, who were probably asleep, rushed
the camp, put out the fires, slaughtered many defenceless soldiers, and
then quietly vanished, leaving the Chinese to shoot and stab each other
in the extremity of their panic. Other rumours stated that five hundred
Chinese troops had joined the Tibetans, and were receiving from them
twelve _tiao_ (about thirty shillings) a month each--much larger pay
than they drew from China; and that the tributary prince of Litang--the
state that adjoins Chala on the west--was only waiting to hear of
another serious reverse to the Chinese troops before throwing in his
lot with the rebels. Probably these rumours were much exaggerated, but
they caused much uneasiness to the Chinese of Tachienlu, who for a long
time past had been living in constant dread of a massacre. I heard that
some time before my arrival the Tibetans were expected to attempt a
great _coup_ by making a sudden descent on Tachienlu itself, and any
Tibetan in the city who was suspected of treasonable dealings with
the rebels was imprisoned or closely watched. The principal Chinese
merchants sent the bulk of their goods to Wa Ssŭ Kou or Lu Ting Ch'iao,
and were ready to start for the east themselves at the first signs
of serious trouble. The worst of the panic had passed away before
my arrival, chiefly owing to the vigour and severity with which the
Government was dealing with the insurrection and the large numbers of
Chinese soldiers that almost daily passed through Tachienlu on their
way to the front.

Whether the prefect was sincere in his apprehensions regarding my
safety if I insisted on crossing the wilder parts of the eastern
Tibetan states I have no means of knowing; at any rate, he appeared
to regard the written declaration already quoted as sufficient to
relieve him of all responsibility in the matter; and as soon as that
question was settled, both he and the king showed themselves ready to
give me every reasonable assistance, and placed no further obstacles
in my way. The king deputed a man of his own--a Tibetan who spoke a
little Chinese--to act as my guide to the boundary of his territory on
the Yalung river, and the prefect and colonel ordered three soldiers
to escort me as far as the town of Yung-ning, just within the Yunnan
frontier. I had also previously engaged a young man, whose father was
a Chinese and his mother a Tibetan from Lhasa, to act as my personal
servant, and this youth accompanied me almost as far as the frontier
of Upper Burma. As a speaker of both Tibetan and Chinese, he proved
a useful member of my party. The king was also obliging enough to
accord to me the valuable privilege of _ula_, which would (within his
territory) obviate all difficulties about transport. The _ula_ was in
this instance no hardship for the people, as I undertook to pay more
than double the ordinary rates for all animals required for my use.

[Illustration: 1. CHINESE HALF-RUPEE AND TIBETAN COINS.

2. REDUCED FACSIMILE OF SILVER PLAQUE WORN BY WOMEN IN THE YALUNG
VALLEY.

3. CLAY VOTIVE TABLETS FROM MULI, WITH MINIATURE BUDDHAS.

4. EAR-RING WORN BY MO-SO WOMEN OF YUNG-NING.

  [_To face p. 152._]

FOOTNOTES:

[161] Yule, _Marco Polo_ (Cordier's edition), vol. ii. p. 49.

[162] The word _Amban_, now so well known to Europeans, is Manchu, and
is applied to many high Chinese officials serving in the Mongolian and
Tibetan dependencies of China, besides the Resident at Lhasa.

[163] 甲哪.

[164] 甲宜齋.

[165] See Note 22 (p. 425).

[166] _Land of the Lamas_, p. 276.

[167] The Chinese is 烏拉, which is merely phonetic. The word _ula_ is
Mongolian. Rockhill observes that _ula_ (_oulâk_) was known in India in
mediæval times.--(_Land of the Lamas_, p. 52.)

[168] _Huan-t'ieh_ (換帖), literally "the exchange of cards."

[169] See p. 358 of that work.

[170] For the origin of the Prayer (or perhaps rather _Praising_)
Wheel, see Rhys Davids' _Hibbert Lectures_ (1881), p. 138 (4th ed.).
See also Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, ii. 372-373 (4th ed.)

[171] A Mongolian word which the Chinese have naturalised as _o-pu_
(阿卜).

[172] Major H. R. Davies, whose admirable survey and exploration work
are well known, visited the Muli lamasery before me, but our routes
only touched at that point. He has unfortunately published no account
of his journey from Mien-ning-hsien to Chung-tien.

[173] For M. Bonin's see the _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie_,
1898, pp. 389 _seq._ For Mr Amundsen's, see the _Geographical Journal_
for June and November 1900.

[174] How few, may be judged from the fact that I met only one caravan
in the course of a month's journey.




CHAPTER X

TACHIENLU TO PA-U-RONG, YALUNG RIVER

I set out from Tachienlu on 15th April. My caravan consisted of three
mules to carry my baggage and silver[175] (very light loads which in
level country might have been carried by a single mule), two riding
mules for myself and my servant, and four for my escort. Half a mile
beyond the city I crossed the stone bridge known locally as the Gate
of Tibet, close under the walls of a gloomy lamasery, and entered the
long defile that leads into the heart of the great mountains. The road
gradually rose to a height of about 2,250 feet above Tachienlu, and at
the hamlet of Chê-to--about 10,650 feet above sea-level, and about 40
_li_ from Tachienlu--I found a haven for the night in a ruinous hut.

As far as Chê-to my route followed the Litang-Batang road that leads
into Tibet proper, and I met several yak caravans bringing goods to
Tachienlu. Outside my quarters at Chê-to hung a proclamation in Chinese
and Tibetan informing the people that the insurrection of the I-jên
(barbarians) gave all good men a favourable opportunity for proving
their loyalty to Government by ready compliance with the regulations
about _ula_; but the dead bodies of no less than four yaks lying by the
road-side between Tachienlu and Chê-to offered a grim comment on the
results of those regulations.

[Illustration: "THE GATE OF TIBET."  [_To face p. 154._]

[Sidenote: CHÊ RI PASS]

At Chê-to my road left the caravan-route and led into a wild region
where during a day's march I passed only one lonely house, near which
we encountered the only representative of the local population--a
sad-faced old woman sitting astride a mottled yak. The day's journey
(the second stage from Tachienlu) was long and arduous. The road from
Chê-to rose steadily, but not steeply, through a confined valley,
following the left bank of a stream. About midday we were picking
our way laboriously through deep snow, and early in the afternoon we
reached the summit of the pass of Chê Ri La, 17,400 feet above the
sea-level.[176] The pass is a double one, the two summits being divided
by a long valley which appears to have been at one time the bed of a
glacier.[177] High as we were, there were peaks in the north-east that
still towered several thousand feet above us, and to the south and
south-west we saw nothing but a vast ocean of billowy mountains with
innumerable trough-like valleys. The descent was a difficult one on
account of the snow, which was almost too deep for our mules, one of
which fell never to rise again. A fertile valley opened before us as we
descended, and we soon struck the right bank of a stream flowing down
from the snows of the range we had just crossed. A beautiful forest of
firs covered the slopes on the eastern side. About 3,000 feet below
the summit we came upon the first signs of human habitation--a herd of
yak. Five _li_ further we came to a few cultivated fields and a large
two-storied house, which proved to be the beginning of the straggling
hamlet of A Te, where we spent the night. In this valley the high
peaks are all hidden, and though its elevation is about 13,000 feet
the gently-sloping hills are well forested. Here for the first time I
caught sight of the great white pheasant known as the machi.[178]

[Sidenote: CHINESE TIBET]

This day's march was a fair sample of our daily toil for the next few
weeks. It was a continuous march up and down the snowy or forest-clad
slopes of the loftiest mountains in China; and no doubt the journey
would have been monotonous and arduous enough had it not been for the
magnificence of the ever-changing scenery. The food which I shared
with my followers was of the roughest and plainest. We lived almost
entirely on _tsamba_--parched barley-meal, mixed with yak butter and
the peculiar concoction which the Tibetans believe to be tea, and
kneaded by one's own fingers into a thick paste. Occasionally--for I
had to be very sparing of my cartridges--I contributed a pheasant to
the table, and in two or three places we were able to buy goats. The
goats trotted along with our caravan until we were hard up for food,
and then they trotted no longer. White pigeons were numerous in the
deeper valleys. Villages were very few--we seldom passed more than two
in a day, and sometimes none at all, and as a rule they were nothing
but the sorriest hamlets. We were generally able, however, to arrange
our stages in such a way that we could spend the night under cover. We
had no tent, and the nights were always too bitterly cold for sleeping
out of doors. I was clothed in thick Peking furs, and wore boots lined
with sheep-skin. During the day I wore smoked glasses to protect my
eyes from snow-blindness. A couple of extra pairs I lent to two of my
escort, and the rest wore the yak-hair eye-shade which the Tibetans
call _mig-ra_. We found the villagers friendly and hospitable, and we
never had any difficulty in getting accommodation when we came to a
hamlet; and as we paid well for all supplies--a matter which sometimes
caused evident surprise--we were always given the best that the village
could produce or could spare. I did not meet a single Chinese between
Chê-to and Li-chiang in Yunnan[179]--a journey that occupied about a
month--and the Chinese language was entirely unknown.

Tibetan houses are gloomy stone buildings with small windows, and
the rooms are both dark and dirty. I was sometimes grateful to the
darkness for concealing some of the dirt, but my sense of smell
unfortunately remained painfully acute. The windows are necessarily
small, as paper is too scarce to be used as a protection against the
wind, and glass is of course unknown. The apparent size of the houses
is deceptive. A building that presents the outward appearance of a
substantial two-or three-storied dwelling-house with many rooms,
shrinks into a dismal and draughty collection of stables, courtyards,
and dungeon-like living-rooms, when one gets inside. As often as not,
the greater part of the ground-floor is used as a cattle-shed, and off
this a short passage leads into the family common-room. The upstairs
rooms--reached by clambering up a block of wood, with carved notches to
serve as steps--are generally only granaries and barns, full of beasts
that crawl and bite. In some cases I was provided with the luxury of
a room to myself; but more often I had to share the living-room with
men, women, children, and disagreeable animals that love the night.
My slumbers would certainly have been unpleasantly disturbed if I had
been less worn out at the end of each day's journey. There are no
fire-places or chimneys. The fire is kindled in the middle of the room,
and the smoke escapes by the door and windows or through holes in the
wall, but much of it does not escape at all, and the effect is trying
to the eyes; while the black streaky soot, that clings to the walls
and hangs on spiders' webs dangling from the roof, adds to the general
effect of gloom and discomfort.

[Sidenote: TIBETAN TEA]

On arriving at our destination each night, we all crowded round the
fire and consumed our _tsamba_, while our hostess exercised a pair of
muscular arms in vigorously stirring up our tea and butter in a big
wooden churn,[180] whence she ladled it out into a big pot, from which
each of us poured what he wanted into his own bowl. Tibetan tea--made
of the twigs of the tea-plant, and its coarsest leaves--has been much
maligned: I always found it drinkable if one added plenty of butter
and forgot it was meant to be tea. If as tea it is horrible, as a soup
it is almost agreeable. The yak-butter, taken by itself, is insipid
and unpleasant; but the Tibetans can make a kind of cream-cheese out
of it, and I found this fairly good when I could get nothing better.
Conversation with my kind hosts was apt to be stilted, even with the
assistance of my semi-Tibetan boy. Fortunately my bull-terrier formed a
topic of never-failing interest. His three simple tricks had delighted
the genial monks of Mount Omei and the village children of central
Ssuch'uan, and indeed his mere appearance--so different from that of
Chinese dogs--had filled them with wonder; but when the simple herdsmen
of the Yalung valley saw the strange foreign beast lying down at the
word of command, or sitting on his hind legs and balancing a lump of
_tsamba_ on the end of his nose, the prevailing feeling seemed to be
something not very far removed from religious awe.

Every valley seemed to have a dialect of its own, and occasionally my
servant found it hard to make himself understood. As none of my hosts
appeared to have heard of England, it was difficult to satisfy their
curiosity about myself, and I fear they often failed to understand
what I meant by saying that my country was outside the Chinese empire,
and that it had an emperor all to itself. On the whole, I was far less
troubled by the inquisitiveness and curiosity of the people than in
China proper: and, indeed, I was glad to find that the three soldiers
who formed my Chinese escort were often regarded with greater curiosity
than I was myself. The children appeared to look upon us as a new kind
of wild beast, and I fear we often unwittingly brought tears to their
eyes. Our mules were changed, under the rules of the _ula_ system,
at nearly every village. A riding-mule was generally procurable for
myself, though as a rule I performed at least half the day's journey
on foot. When mules were unobtainable we employed yaks, and if yaks
were not to be had my baggage was carried by Tibetan men, and still
more frequently by women. This last circumstance was a source of great
gratification to my three soldiers, who hardly knew more Tibetan than I
did myself, but were never at a loss in exchanging lively banter with
the damsels who accompanied us. Once or twice I was seized with the
unworthy suspicion that the village patriarchs were careful to entrust
us with only the least attractive of their women-folk: otherwise, I was
at a loss to account for the circumstance that whereas every Tibetan
village possessed several good-looking girls, the women who carried
our baggage were almost invariably plain.

[Sidenote: THE PEOPLE]

The people of eastern Tibet are totally unlike the Chinese in
appearance, though the extraordinary mixture of races produces a large
variety of types. As a rule, the men are tall, very well made, with
well-marked features, noses of European shape, and eyelids that are
often quite free from the peculiarity which produces in many Eastern
races the well-known appearance of an obliquity of the eyes. As
specimens of vigorous, stalwart manhood they are much more noteworthy
than the people of Lhasa and Central Tibet. They are born mountaineers
and have healthy, well-bronzed faces. Sometimes, indeed, they are as
dark in complexion as the Burmese.[181] They wear goat-skin or yak-skin
clothes, and well-lined leather boots, reaching nearly to their knees,
that protect their feet from snow and frost-bite. Most of them are
attired in a garment that might be regarded as the prototype of the
Scots kilt. The women wear skirts, and, as their feet are of course
unbound, they do not walk with the mincing gait of the lily-footed
lady of China. I have been told by persons who take an interest in
the human form that the average woman of Chinese Tibet is decidedly
handsome. It is unfortunate that she does not often wash her face. She
is certainly more genial and vivacious than the quiet and timid Chinese
woman. She climbs mountains as nimbly as her husband, and the loads she
carries are just as heavy; nor does she hesitate to join in amiable
conversation with her husband's male friends when she meets them on the
road.

Marco Polo, who only touched the fringe of the Tibetan countries,
describes in his naïve way some of the peculiar social customs of
the people of those lands "as a good story to tell, and to show what
a fine country that is for young fellows to go to";[182] and a much
later traveller--Cooper--amusingly describes how he unexpectedly found
that he had gone through a ceremony of marriage with a Tibetan damsel
when he innocently thought that he was merely having a picnic under a
grove of walnut trees.[183] No such hymeneal experience fell to my lot,
though walnut trees were common enough in the deep valleys. Nor am I
able to endorse Marco Polo's somewhat hasty criticism that the Tibetans
are "an evil generation, holding it no sin to rob and maltreat: in fact
they are the greatest brigands on earth." I took no special care of my
money and baggage, yet I never met a robber, and never--so far as I
am aware--lost even a handful of _tsamba_. "These people of Tibet are
an ill-conditioned race. They have mastiff dogs as big as donkeys."
This further remark of Messer Marco's is nearer the truth if we take
"ill-conditioned" to mean "unclean," and allow for a considerable
exaggeration about the size of the dogs. No Tibetan household is
complete without one or two of those uncouth animals. The breed has
changed since Marco's day, for the dogs are not mastiffs (though these
are still well known throughout Tibet proper), but a large long-haired
dog that somewhat resembles a collie. They are exceedingly savage
towards strangers and of great value as watch-dogs. Their physical
strength is enormous. The usual custom is to allow them to go loose at
night and to chain them up in the yard or in front of the house during
the day, the theory apparently being that any one who wanders out of
doors after nightfall must be a knave, and deserves any ill-fate that
may befall him. Their bark is most peculiar: not sharp and crisp like
that of most European dogs, but with a sepulchral and "far-away" sound
as if each dog kept his own ghost in his stomach and it was only the
ghost that barked.

[Sidenote: MOUNTAIN FLORA]

The villages are surrounded by fields which--considering the great
elevation of even the deepest valleys--are wonderfully productive. In
many cases, where the valleys are very narrow, the cultivated land
has all been reclaimed from virgin forest. Up to 10,000 feet, and in
some places at greater elevations, there is a good deal of wheat and
maize; in sheltered valleys, buckwheat, oats, beans, peas and barley
are cultivated with considerable success up to over 13,000 feet. The
mountain flora surprised me immensely by its richness and variety.
Wild-flowers--many of them quite unknown to England and perhaps to
Europe--grew luxuriantly in the deep ravines into which we dipped
between the parallel ranges, and the mountain slopes up to 14,000 feet
at least were generally covered with immense primeval forests of pine
and fir. In the great forests the pine was the first to die out on the
higher levels; the fir asserted itself to 2,000 or 3,000 feet higher,
and the hardiest of all was the tree-rhododendron, which I have seen
growing at a greater height than 16,000 feet. There is some variation
in the line of perpetual snow on the different ranges and even on the
two sides of the same range; on an average it was not below 16,500
feet, though there were several passes at a lower elevation on which
I was told the snow only disappeared for two or three months in the
summer.[184] Next to the pines and firs the commonest trees are other
coniferæ such as the spruce and juniper, and evergreens such as the yew
and cypress. Among deciduous trees the poplar,[185] horse-chestnut and
wild cherry are common at heights varying from 8,000 to 12,000 feet.
The Chinese oak (_quercus sinensis_), which has evergreen leaves, is
also to be met with very frequently. Besides the rhododendron there
are many hardy shrubs to be found at elevations almost as great, such
as brambles, _aucuba_, the viburnum, artemisia, a kind of hydrangea,
the clematis, and wild-gooseberry. The wild-flowers are naturally not
numerous on the summits of the lofty ranges, but in the neighbourhood
of the banks of the Yalung and other rivers and in the warmer valleys
I found innumerable flowering plants to which, had I been a botanical
expert, I should have been glad to put names, but which were, after
all, quite as beautiful nameless. The familiar plants included wild
roses, edelweiss, gentian, spiræa, and several varieties--some almost
certainly unknown to botanists--of the primula.

[Sidenote: BIG GAME]

Had my principal object in visiting these remote mountains been to
study their fauna or to shoot big game, I should no doubt have been
amply rewarded for my toil; but, as it was, I cannot say much of the
country from a sportsman's point of view, for I carried no rifle, and
shot only to supply the needs of my frugal table. Most of the wild
animals kept well out of my way, and I did not go in search of them.
The musk-deer and horned stags are common denizens of the mountains,
and there are also the wolf, fox, antelope, bear, panther,[186]
wild ass, wild goat and wild sheep. Sometimes, when camping in the
forest--which we had to do several times after crossing the Yalung--my
followers insisted upon keeping up a big fire all night, and begged me
to discharge my gun once at least to frighten away the beasts of prey.
This precaution was judged necessary on account of the mules, which on
such occasions were turned loose to find their own fodder. Instinct
apparently prevented them from wandering far from the camp, for we
never had the least difficulty about catching them in the morning.

The heights of the passes which we crossed varied between 12,000 and
17,500 feet, and some of them were above the line of perpetual snow.
The climbing was sometimes very steep work, but it never became really
difficult except on the few occasions when we experienced high winds
and snow-storms. The cold was then so intense that the thickest furs
did not afford adequate protection. The rarefied air made rapid motion
impossible, and prevented one from getting warm through exercise. The
mules stopped to recover breath at intervals of a hundred yards, and
though I never suffered from the least trace of mountain-sickness I
often found walking strangely laborious. We made slow progress, of
course, sometimes not more than 10 or 12 miles in a day, but nearly
every stage took us from dawn to sunset to accomplish. The tops of
the passes were generally sharp ridges, in some cases culminating in
a sheer wall of frozen snow and ice through which my men had to dig
out a path for the mules and for ourselves. Stone cairns (_lab ch'a_)
surmounted by sticks and rags crown the summit of every pass; they
were always greeted by my men with shouts of joy, and sometimes they
added a stone to the cairn or tied an extra bit of rag to one of the
protruding sticks.[187] But the steep descents were sometimes quite
as arduous and dangerous as the upward climbs, especially when it was
necessary--owing to the excessive steepness--to descend in zig-zags, or
when a miniature avalanche tore down in our direction bringing stones
and boulders in its frozen clutches.

[Sidenote: PLEASURES OF TRAVEL]

But, on the whole, I found the difficulties of this almost unknown
route by no means so serious as I had been led to expect. I never for
a moment regretted that I had so obstinately declined to be guided by
the timid officials at Tachienlu, and never found myself without a
good reserve of strength and energy at the end of every day's march.
I should be indeed sorry if my description of the route should deter
others from undertaking the same journey. Granted health, strength, a
first-rate digestion, and an average fund of cheerfulness, there is no
reason whatever why any of my readers who longs to behold Nature in her
supreme glory should not forthwith pack up his hand-bag--he should take
little else--and follow in my steps with a light heart. Would that I
could bear him company: for the spirits of the mountain and the forest
never cease, in hours of solitude, to haunt the mind of him who has
known them once and learned something of their spell.

The reader who does not propose to undertake any such expedition may be
recommended to glance but lightly at many of the pages that follow. The
details of my daily march through the mountains of Chinese Tibet to the
borders of Yunnan will hardly be of interest to any but those who are
themselves travellers or are contemplating a journey of a similar kind.

My route from Tachienlu to the frontier of Yunnan may be divided for
descriptive purposes into three sections: the first, from Tachienlu
to the village of Pa-U-Rong, on the banks of the Yalung or Nya Ch'u,
occupying eleven days; the second, from the west bank of the Yalung to
the lamasery of Muli, seven days; and the third, from Muli to Yung-ning
in north-western Yunnan, three days.

[Sidenote: OCTAGONAL TOWERS]

Of the first section, the two first stages from Tachienlu have already
been described. On the third day from Tachienlu (17th April), my road
led in a most tortuous manner through three long valleys, fairly well
populated and sprinkled with villages. The first village, about 3
miles from A Te, is Du Sz Drung, situated at the point where the road
emerges from the first and turns into the second valley--the direction
as far as Du Sz Drung being south-west, and thereafter almost due west.
Opposite the next village of Dza Ri K'u is a conspicuous conical hill;
a little further on the valley (lying N.N.E. and W.S.W.) becomes very
much broader, and is dotted with several isolated houses and a village
named Ring I Drung. Here we changed _ula_. Immediately afterwards, we
struck off to the south into the third valley, keeping to the left bank
of a stream named the Dja Ki Ch'u. In the villages of these valleys
I observed several cases of goitre, a complaint which is common in
the highlands of Ssuch'uan and the lofty tableland of Yunnan. Curious
octagonal stone towers, now seen for the first time, are a conspicuous
feature in the landscape of both these valleys. The towers which
are described by Gill[188] as existing further north in the country
explored by him are evidently of the same pattern. Baber, who knew of
them only from Gill's account, has made the following observations
on the subject. "What the use of these buildings may have been is
unknown, but the presumption is that they were watch-towers; for the
present purpose it is enough to know that they are universally said to
have been erected by the Menia, and that there is nothing resembling
them west of the Yalung on the main road."[189] My own observation
corroborates the information given to Baber. I passed a large number
of the towers, but none further west than Ri Wa, which was still five
days' journey from the Yalung by my route. All were built on the same
plan, and have eight corners, as shown in the ground plan on the
following page. That they were used as watch-towers and beacon-stations
is highly probable, for they are generally placed in positions from
which the watchers would have an uninterrupted view up and down the
valleys; but as I observed several of them close together, when
one would have been sufficient according to the watch-tower theory,
it is probable that they must have been used also as fortresses. At
the advance of an enemy the tribesmen very likely drove their cattle
and other animals into the large room on the ground floor,[190] and
used the upper stories for their own protection. Missiles could be
discharged from the roof and from the narrow holes that served also as
windows: just as was the case with the old peel-towers of the Scottish
border. I explored several of the towers, but found no inscriptions.
They are nearly all in a dilapidated condition, but some have been kept
in good preservation and are used as granaries and store-houses. In one
case at least the tower has been made to serve as the wing of a modern
house of the ordinary Tibetan type, and the interior has been partially
reconstructed.

[Illustration: Plan of Watch-tower]

[Illustration: OCTAGONAL TOWER AT RI WA.  [_To face p. 170._]

Two or three miles of easy riding through the third valley brought us
to a curious wooden bridge by which we crossed the Dja Ki Ch'u, which,
having been joined by several tributaries at the intersection of the
valleys, was now a fairly large river. It joins the Yalung, but its
valley is apparently impracticable for travellers, for our road soon
left its banks. We had changed _ula_ for the second time at Ring I
Drung,[191] and we did so again at a place called Ba Lu, where there
is a single hut. At last, after a march of about 16 miles for the
day, we put up at a solitary house named P'un Bu Shi. The valley here
lies N.N.E. and S.S.W. Just beyond our quarters, on the left bank of
the river, a small tributary descended from a valley, containing some
houses, in the south-east. Leaving this valley on our left we continued
the next day to keep to the valley of the Dja Ki Ch'u, which, however,
twice changes its name during the day's march. We soon passed a
conspicuous ruined tower a couple of hundred feet above the road on our
(the right) bank of the river. The lofty mountains were all invisible,
and the hills that bounded our valley were smooth and low, with plenty
of pasturage and a fair amount of forestation. In one small area I
noticed sheep, goats, yak, ponies and pigs all pasturing together, and
all apparently on the most amiable terms with one another.


[Sidenote: DEFORESTATION]

A second tower, higher up than the first, stands about 2 _li_ beyond
the latter. About a mile beyond this the valley narrows to a gorge,
where cultivation ceases. The name of the river at this point was given
to me as A-mi-chi-ts'a, which is also apparently a name of the people
who inhabit the westerly end of the valley. In the gorge the lower
slopes were well wooded, but a good deal of tree-felling was going on.
The abundance of timber makes the people wasteful, for they selected
their trees with an obvious disregard of their age or condition. For
about 20 _li_ we went through the forest by a winding path and then
crossed the river by a well-made wooden bridge of the same peculiar
construction as that crossed on the previous day. This brought us to
the left bank of the river, which in this locality is known as the
Li Ch'u. Very soon afterwards, emerging from the gorge, we came to a
solitary house at the entrance to a valley which lies approximately
south-east and north-west. We took our frugal midday meal of _tsamba_
in the cottage, then, leaving the Li Ch'u, which we never saw again, we
proceeded in a south-easterly direction up the new valley, down which
flows a rather large stream, the Tsa Ch'u. A rough road wound in and
out amid well-wooded and picturesque scenery for a distance of about 5
miles, till we found ourselves opposite a large house on an eminence
overlooking our valley, and at the entrance to another valley lying
in a south-westerly direction. The house we found to be the residence
of a _t'u pai hu_, or sub-chief, who received us very cheerfully and
provided us with comfortable quarters for the night.

[Illustration: HOUSE OF _T'U PAI HU_.]

[Illustration: THE AUTHOR'S CARAVAN.  [_To face p. 172._]

[Sidenote: TAN GA PASS]

For two days our route had been an easy one, lying as it did through
a series of river-valleys. The next day our toils began again. We
left the hospitable headman's house on a brilliantly fine but cold
morning. There had been hard frost during the night, and the still
waters were coated with ice when we started. Proceeding up the new
valley towards the south, we gradually ascended for a few miles till
we reached a beautiful level glade from which we had a fine view of
dense pine forests that covered the hills on both sides almost to
their summits. Another short climb brought us to a point from which we
began the ascent of the pass of Tan Ga La.[192] We changed _ula_ at
the hamlet of Sho Ti Ba Dze at its foot. After another 3 miles or so
the hills began to close us in on every side and the ascent began to
be steep. The mountain is wooded up to the summit of the pass (15,000
feet), which we reached about midday. The descent began at once and
abruptly, and was at first very steep. We descended about 3,000 feet
into a wooded gorge where machi and other game-fowl abound. We then
entered a valley of which the direction (E.N.E. and W.S.W.) was at
right angles to that through which we had descended. A large brook
flowed through it in a westerly direction, and, rather to my surprise,
our road led us along its right bank towards the east. A walk of half a
mile brought us to the hamlet of Tu or Lu Li, where we spent the night.
I found lodging in a barn. The people seemed more afraid of us than
was usually the case, and did not greet us with open arms; but they
made up for their cold reception of us by increased friendliness later
on. The valley is broad and fertile enough for cultivation. As usual,
the principal grain is the Tibetan barley (Chinese _ch'ing k'o_), from
which _tsamba_ is made. The dialect spoken differed considerably from
that we had heard spoken in the morning only a few miles away. The
valleys in this wild region are so sharply separated one from another
that their inhabitants must always have formed more or less isolated
communities; thus the rapid changes of dialect are not surprising.

[Illustration: A RUSTIC BRIDGE.  [_To face p. 174._]

[Sidenote: DJI DJU LA]

Starting at daylight next morning a few hundred yards' walk brought us
to the end of the cultivated part of the valley. We followed the right
bank of a stream, the road gradually turning S.S.E. We then crossed to
the left bank by a wooden bridge. After proceeding for 3 miles through
a gorge we entered a plain several miles broad, and the road turned due
south. Half a mile's further walk brought us through the hamlet of Dro
Dze Drung (or San Chia-tzŭ) to that of Na K'i (or Hsia Ch'êng-tzŭ),
where we changed _ula_. On the hillside on the right of the road I
noticed some small caves. They are artificial, but bear no resemblance
to those of the Min river, and are said to be used as herdsmen's
shelters. Near these two villages are clusters of prayer-flags marking
the site of a graveyard. The people of this region frequently--as
already mentioned[193]--dispose of their dead by cremation. The scenery
now becomes much wilder and the forest almost ceases, giving place
to rugged rock. After going S.S.W. for 2 miles, we reached the village
of Dra Shê, where we again changed _ula_. This village is very poor and
semi-ruinous. The longest obo or _mani-dong_[194] I had yet seen lay
between the villages of Na K'i and Dra Shê. Another mile or so brought
us to the dilapidated hamlet of Ri Wa (Chinese Wu Chia-tzŭ[195]), where
I saw the last of the octagonal towers.[196] Soon afterwards we reached
the end of our stage at a hamlet of three houses named Ko Ri Drung
(Chinese Chung Ku). The stage was a short one, but I learned that no
shelter was to be obtained further on. This I ascertained to be the
case next morning, when we commenced the ascent of the great pass of
Dji Dju La. Our path, lying S.S.W., climbed the right bank of a stream
by the side of a gaunt and jagged range of precipitous mountains. The
only vegetation consisted of a few stunted trees near our path, and not
a shrub was visible on the black flanks and snow-crowned summits of the
hills. But as we ascended the lower slopes of the pass, the path wound
into one ravine after another, and in their sheltered depths I noticed
large numbers of coniferous trees and rhododendrons. The last few
hundred feet of the pass were deep in snow, and along the ridge of the
summit (at a height of about 17,500 feet) we were faced by a pointed
wall of ice. From Ko Ri Drung to the summit--a climb that kept us
busily occupied for the greater part of the day--there is no house and
no cultivation. From the pass there was a grand view of snowy summits
on both sides, and I was told by our yak-drivers that the pass itself
is never free from snow. An icy west wind met us as we reached the
top: so cold that it seemed as though it must have swept over all the
frozen mountain-tops of eastern Tibet. The first part of the descent
is steep. Lower down it becomes easier, and for about 10 miles we went
south and south-west through a forest of firs. The weather changed for
the worse as we descended, and for four hours we had to grope our way
through a blinding snow-storm. After a very arduous day's march of over
twelve hours' duration we were glad to find a resting-place at last in
the comparatively large village of Dur (Chinese Hei Lao), where I found
roomy but draughty quarters in the house of a sub-chief or _t'u pai
hu_, who had gone to Tachienlu. I was told by his wife, who entertained
us, that he had gone to prosecute a lawsuit which had already been
dragging on for two generations.

[Illustration: TIBETANS OF WESTERN SSUCH'UAN.]

[Illustration: MOUNTAIN SCENERY NEAR SIN GO LA.  [_To face p. 177._]

[Sidenote: THREE PASSES]

The upland valley in which this village lies is known as Dji Dju Rong.
Part of it, if I mistake not, is the bed of an extinct glacier. It
was still snowing when we set out next morning. For about 3 miles we
retraced our steps of the previous day, then crossed and left the
stream that comes down from the Dji Dju La range and found ourselves
in a beautiful open glade. It is a small flat plain, affording good
pasture-land for a herd of yaks, and surrounded on all sides by forests
and enormous mountains. It contains three log-cabins. From here our
road lay W.S.W., and we struck up into the mountains again to the pass
known as Wu Shu (or Shih) La. The forest accompanied us nearly all
the way to the summit, the height of which is about 15,500 feet. The
ascent is steep at first, then very gradual, and finally steep again
near the top. The forest met us again on the other side, and through
it we descended to the village of Wu Shu. The stage was a short one,
probably not more than 11 miles. The scenery about Wu Shu is extremely
beautiful. Close by the village are the remains of a ruin on a mound.
It may have been an octagonal tower but it was impossible to identify
it as such.

The ground was covered with snow and it was still snowing heavily when
we started next day (23rd April) on what proved to be on the whole
the severest day's march which I experienced throughout the whole of
my long journey. We began a stiff climb almost immediately, and going
south and south-west reached the summit of the first pass (Sin Go
La), after a straight pull of about 5 miles. The elevation was about
15,000 feet. Before we reached the top the snow ceased to fall, and
the weather for the rest of the day was brilliantly fine. From the
summit we had a glorious view of lofty peaks towering far above the
highest limit of the thick forests. We descended about 2,000 feet into
a shallow ravine, from the further side of which we mounted about 3,000
feet to the second pass, Nai Yu La, about 16,000 feet. On the further
side of this pass we descended very gradually to a confined valley,
where we crossed a frozen brook and started to climb a third pass, Hlan
Go La, the height of which is about 17,200 feet. This was the longest
and most arduous climb of all.

[Sidenote: "FAIRIES' SCARF"]

I observed that on the sloping sides of the ravines dividing these
three ranges hundreds of acres of forest-land had been cruelly
devastated by fire. During my journey from Tachienlu to Yunnan nothing
puzzled me more than the extraordinary frequency of the forest fires,
which must have destroyed many thousands of acres of magnificent
timber. The natives say they are caused by careless travellers, who
leave the glowing embers of their camp fires to be scattered by the
wind; but, as many of the fires commence and burn themselves out in
pathless regions where neither natives nor travellers ever set foot,
the explanation was obviously unsatisfactory. Serious as the fires
are, the forests have to contend with an enemy even more dangerous. No
traveller in this region can fail to notice the pale green moss that
swathes itself round the trunks and branches of firs and pines, and
hangs in graceful festoons from tree to tree. This is the parasitic
lichen known to botanists as _usnea barbata_, and popularly as the
"fairies' scarf," which dooms any tree once caught in its pendulous
net to gradual decay and ignominious death. In many places I saw
hundreds of fine trees--the parasite attacks young trees as well as
old--stark and dead, stripped of their bark, as if they had been struck
by lightning, but still draped with the vampire-like lichen that had
sucked them dry. It seems to spread rapidly from one tree to another;
its streamers are sometimes several yards long, and in a dense forest
it only requires a moderate breeze to blow the loose end of a streamer
from a tree that is already dying to its still vigorous neighbour;
and so the disease spreads. Apparently the only way to protect the
forests would be to cut a "fire-belt" round every group of trees that
had been attacked, and so isolate it from the rest. But forestry is an
unknown science in the Chinese empire, and the Government does not seem
to realise the value of its neglected forests. For want of a better
explanation of the forest fires I hazard the suggestion that they
may be caused spontaneously by friction between the dry branches of
adjoining trees that have been killed by the "fairies' scarf."

The descent from the pass of Hlan Go La into the ravine below was steep
and long. A large level plain occurs during the descent, and it is
after traversing it that the descent becomes steepest. We found shelter
for the night, after a very arduous march, in Gur Dja (Chinese Yin
Cho), a hamlet of log-huts. Clearances have been made in the valley
just below (for the hamlet is perched on the side of a ravine), and
there are a few fields of barley and buckwheat.

Next day we again retraced our steps to a distance of 2 or 3 miles.
Then we crossed the ravine and commenced a climb on the opposite side.
As usual our climb lay at first through forest, then we plunged into
the snow, and found it deeper and more troublesome than on any of
the other passes. At about 16,500 feet we reached the summit of the
pass known as Ri Go La. The descent was sudden and steep, not without
its exciting moments, and we lost a mule. We proceeded downwards in
a southerly and south-westerly direction and re-entered the forest.
Thence we descended several thousand feet into a deep ravine. By
the afternoon we had left the snows behind us and entered into a
region characterised by a luxuriance of vegetation that was almost
tropical. Among other plants and grasses there were great clusters
of bamboo--fragile and feathery, and so thin that it could be bent
between two fingers. It was also pleasant to come upon beautiful beds
of primroses and flowering shrubs. As we neared the end of the stage
we met with a light shower of rain--a sure sign that we were at a
comparatively low elevation and drawing near the valley of the Yalung.
The village of Pei T'ai, where we spent the night, lay at an elevation
of about 10,000 feet. Just before reaching it we had a short climb of
800 or 1,000 feet over the small pass of Pu Ti La, which gave us no
trouble. The village of Pei T'ai is the proud possessor of three gilded
pinnacles which adorn the roof of a miniature lamasery. The headman's
house, in which I was entertained, almost adjoins it.

[Sidenote: PA-U-RONG]

The next day's march was the last stage to the Yalung. We began by
descending a rough path from the eminence which is crowned by the
village. Our road then led up and down the south side of a deep
ravine, with many tortuous windings. The path--such as it was--had in
some places been torn away by recent landslips. Wild-flowers and wild
fruit-trees were in blossom, and the young vegetation was delightfully
fresh and green. Squirrels were common, and we caught sight of some
beautiful long-tailed green parrots. A steep path led us down to a
confined valley named Lan Yi Pa, and outside its solitary hut we
stopped for our midday meal. The woman of the house, with a nose quick
to scent the proximity of untold wealth, hastened to offer me, on
bended knee, a present of three eggs. From here the road led steeply
to the crest of a hill, and after turning several corners we found
ourselves in full view of the noble waters of the Yalung.

When we reached a projecting corner of the road at a spot called Hsin
Yi La, I was requested by the _ula_ people to fire a shot from my
gun in the direction of the village of Pa-U-Rong, which now lay at
our feet and was in full view. This I did, on learning that it was a
custom with which all travellers approaching Pa-U-Rong were expected
to comply. The village, with its comparatively rich fields, has often
been the prey of mountain robbers, and any travellers who approach
without giving a warning signal are presumed to be coming with no good
intent, and may find all the inhabitants of the valley fully clad in
the panoply of war, ready to give them a hostile reception. From the
spot where I fired the warning gun the road again descended steeply,
but after crossing a deep gully we found ourselves in the large village
of Pa-U-Rong, and were received by the people with friendly faces.

The valley slopes gradually towards the river, and, though it is of
small area, it is thoroughly well cultivated with wheat, barley and
other grain, and several kinds of vegetables. The actual banks of the
river are very steep, and on them there is no cultivation. The level of
Pa-U-Rong is about 7,700 feet, and the river, which has a considerable
rise and fall, is on an average about 200 feet lower. The village--with
two or three scattered suburbs in other parts of the valley--contains
a population of perhaps two thousand, and was the largest and most
prosperous centre of population we had come across since leaving
Tachienlu.

[Sidenote: MOUNTAINS AND SNOW]

We had now descended, for the time being, from the icy heights of the
Chinese Alps, and were in a region of green vegetation and tranquil
beauty. But the snowy peaks and passes were still in full view, and
amid the rich scenery that now surrounded me it was the wild splendour
of the mountains, and the snow, and the dark primeval forests that
haunted me still. The scenery through which I had passed was not of
the kind that could be looked at, admired and then forgotten. The
purple crags and jewelled peaks rising in sombre majesty from the white
slopes of the sun-lit snow-fields were sights upon which one might
gaze from dawn till dark and ever find new treasures of beauty, and
which, when the eye had once seen, the mind could never forget. Surely
our great prose-poet--never more full of enthusiasm and spiritual
insight than when describing the glories of his beloved Alps--spoke
with truth when he told us that in the whole range of inorganic nature
there could perhaps be found no object "more perfectly beautiful than
a fresh, deep snow-drift, seen under warm light."[197] But, as Ruskin
well knew, it is the dark setting of rock and crag that lends so rare
a beauty to wide stretches of untrodden snow. The wild and desolate
aspects of nature have indeed a charm that is different in kind from
that which belongs to sylvan or merely "pretty" scenery, for they
touch profounder depths in our nature than can be reached by the faery
beauty of dale and wood and running water. The feelings they excite
can only be compared to the deepest religious emotions of which our
nature is capable. "Surely, if beauty be an object of worship," said
Tyndall, "those glorious mountains, with rounded shoulders of the
purest white--snow-crested and star-gemmed--were well calculated to
excite sentiments of adoration."[198] Thus it is that in the presence
of Nature's holiest shrines it is generally best to be alone. If we
have companions, all we ask of them at such times is that they should
be silent. The wonders of mountain and snow, ocean and sky, need not
the explanatory or descriptive notes of any commentator when we have
the reality before our own eyes. The man to whose deeper nature they
do not at once appeal will not learn their secrets any the better for
listening to the ecstatic ejaculations of the noisy friend who is for
ever at his elbow telling him how lovely are those purple mountains, or
how rich the colours of that splendid sunset. It is better to acquire
the reputation of being insensible to all beauty than to force oneself
to listen patiently and respond cheerfully to such well-meant chatter.
The feelings that such aspects of Nature produce within us are not
feelings that any man has ever yet learned to put into words. Speech,
after all, can only interpret the thoughts that lie on the surface of
our natures; the deeper thoughts and the nobler emotions elude the
grasp of mere human language. The mystic well knows, and the poet well
knows, that their sublimest visions cannot be adequately rendered, even
by the use of the most splendid imagery and allegory, in the terms of
written or spoken language. And similarly it is known to every lover of
Nature, though he be no poet, that the deepest mysteries of Nature's
loveliness are only revealed to him who possesses, in the unsounded
depths of his own soul, the key that can unlock them. And what he has
learned he can no more communicate to others than a Saint Teresa or
a Saint Ignatius can describe in fitting words the visions that were
shown to them in their mystic trances.

[Sidenote: LONELINESS]

Each of us, after all, must act as the pilot of his own soul in its
solitary voyage through the unknown. The loneliness of the individual
human soul is one of the saddest facts of human experience, but there
are divine moments in the lives at least of some of us when by the
contemplation of the supremely beautiful in Nature or in Art, or by the
stirring of some profound emotion, we feel that our loneliness is a
mere appearance that will pass away: moments in which we feel that we
are in communion and fellowship with the perfect beauty and white truth
that lie beyond the fleeting shadowland in which we daily move. And
though our splendid visions may not be always present to fill us with
rapture, we feel that the spiritual wisdom they have given us can at
all times be drawn upon to help and guide us through the darker hours
of our lonely daily life.


FOOTNOTES:

[175] The complications and variations in currency and money values
constitute one of the greatest vexations to a European traveller in
China. As is well known, the ordinary medium of exchange in China
for small purchases is the "cash" (_t'ung ch'ien_) of which about
1,000 (sometimes more and sometimes less) are equivalent to a dollar
(Mex). In larger transactions silver sycee or "broken" silver is
used, in which case payments are made by weight and according to the
"touch" or fineness of the silver. The ingots are cut up by the use
of sycee-shears into small or large portions as required. The larger
ingots--which in Ssuch'uan are generally of the approximate value
of ten taels each (equivalent to nearly two pounds)--usually bear
the guarantee "chops" of bankers and large merchants. In the west of
Ssuch'uan the Indian rupee became many years ago a well-known and much
appreciated coin, and very largely took the place of broken silver.
Its convenient size and shape specially commended it to the Chinese
and Tibetan merchants who had trade relations with Burma, Tibet and
India: and as its exchange-value in and about Tachienlu was in excess
of its face-value many Yunnanese merchants used to bring mule-loads of
rupees to that city from Tali-fu, thereby making a very considerable
profit. The coin was generally known as the _lama-t'ou_ or Lama's
Head--Queen Victoria's head being supposed to be that of a lama--and
also as _yang ch'ien_ or "foreign money," the same term that is often
applied in other parts of China to the Mexican and British dollars.
Recently the provincial Government prohibited the circulation of Indian
rupees in Ssuch'uan, and began to issue a similar coin of its own at
the Mint in Ch'êng-tu. The new coin is almost exactly equivalent in
value to the Indian rupee, and resembles it in size and appearance:
but it bears the head of the emperor of China instead of that of the
emperor of India. It is interesting as being the first Chinese coin, so
far as I am aware, to bear the sovereign's head. Probably had it borne
no head at all it would have been regarded with suspicion and dislike
by those who had for years been accustomed to the Indian rupee. One
of the Ssuch'uanese coins (a half-rupee) is illustrated in the text,
along with the obverse and reverse of a Tibetan coin also in common
use about Tachienlu and western Ssuch'uan. I found the new Ssuch'uan
rupee was accepted fairly willingly by the people between Tachienlu
and Pa-U-Rong, less willingly by those of the Muli country. South of
Yung-ning I again had recourse to broken silver; but west of Tali-fu
the Indian rupee is generally accepted, and at the town of Hsia Kuan,
near Tali-fu, Indian rupees can be bought in any quantity by travellers
and merchants bound for Burma. The Indian rupee is now a rare coin
in Ssuch'uan, but sometimes it is treated like broken silver, being
cut into pieces and sold by weight. I have in my possession several
mutilated rupees which were weighed out to me as small change. The
late queen-empress's head has been treated with small respect by the
silver-merchants.

[176] See Note 23 (p. 428).

[177] It has been pointed out by Griesbach that the central Himālayan
glaciers are receding, and once extended much lower than at present.
Apparently the same is the case in the "Himālayas" of Tibetan
Ssuch'uan. I saw few living glaciers; but in many ravines there were
evident traces of lateral and terminal moraines.

[178] This I take to be the _crossoptilon Tibetanum_. It is quite
unknown in China proper.

[179] See Note 24 (p. 428).

[180] The Tibetan _ja-ndong_.

[181] See Note 25 (p. 428).

[182] Yule's _Marco Polo_ (Cordier's edition), vol. ii. p. 45.

[183] _Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce_.

[184] It is now well known that in parts of the Himalāyas which form
the watershed of the great Indian rivers the line of perpetual snow is
as high as 18,000 or even 20,000 feet.

[185] There is a fine poplar grove close to Tachienlu, fringing the
"royal" parade-ground. Sarat Chandra Das (_Journey to Lhasa and Central
Tibet_) mentions a poplar at Lhasa which is supposed by the Tibetans to
have sprung from the hair of the Buddha.

[186] The _felis fontanieri_, besides other members of the Cat tribe.

[187] Customs of this kind seem to exist or to have existed all over
the world. For Tibet, see Sarat Chandra Das's _Journey to Lhasa and
Central Tibet_, and several recent works. Frazer, in the _Golden Bough_
(2nd edn. vol. iii. pp. 4-6), has an interesting note in which he
mentions the same or similar customs in the Solomon and Banks Islands,
Nicaragua, Guatemala, Central and South Africa, Bolivia, Burma and
Korea. He says: "The act is not a religious rite, for the thing thrown
on the heap is not an offering to spiritual powers, and the words
which accompany the act are not a prayer. It is nothing but a magical
ceremony for getting rid of fatigue, which the simple savage fancies
he can embody in a stick, leaf, or stone, and so cast it from him."
Gipsies have a custom of leaving heaps of stones and bits of stick at
cross-roads, to guide members of their band who have fallen behind.
I do not propose to argue from this fact that the gipsy race was
originally a Tibetan tribe, in spite of the facts that both gipsies and
Tibetans love a wandering life, and that the gipsies of Persia and the
Tibetans use almost the same word for "tent," which is _guri_ in Persia
and _gur_ (གུར་) in Tibet.

[188] _River of Golden Sand_, vol. ii. p. 136.

[189] Royal Geographical Society's _Supplementary Papers_, vol. i. p.
96.

[190] Sometimes, however, the door is several feet above the level
of the ground, so that ladders of some kind must have been used for
entrance and exit.

[191] The word _Drung_ or Dr'ong (གྲོང་) is the Tibetan word for
Village.

[192] _La_ is the Tibetan word for a Mountain Pass. _Ri_, which often
occurs in the names of villages and passes, means Mountain, and _Rong_
Valley.

[193] See above, p. 143.

[194] See above, p. 145.

[195] Many of the villages between Tachienlu and Yung-ning have been
given Chinese names by the Yunnanese, who occasionally send merchandise
by this route. The Chinese name, as a rule, has no connection with the
Tibetan or Man-tzŭ name. _Wu Chia-tzŭ_, for instance, means a "Village
of Five Families"; _San Chia-tzŭ_ a "Village of Three Families."

[196] See illustration of this tower, which is a fair sample of the
rest, _to face p. 171_.

[197] _Modern Painters_, I. II. chap. iv. p. 2.

[198] See John Tyndall's description of his ascent of the
Finsteraarhorn (_Glaciers of the Alps_).




CHAPTER XI

PA-U-RONG TO MULI


The Yalung river forms the western frontier of the dominions of the
king of Chala. Across the river lies the country generally known as
Huang Lama, which is governed by its own lama-prince. The guide whom
the king had deputed to accompany me thus far, and who had proved
himself a sturdy, honest fellow, had now to return to Tachienlu,
leaving me to the care of the three Chinese soldiers who had been
instructed to follow me all the way to the borders of the province of
Yunnan. Before leaving me, the king's man was obliging enough to cross
the river in order to explain to the people of the other side that I
was a harmless traveller and deserving of their assistance. This was a
necessary precaution, for the _ula_ privilege had been extended to me
only as far as the king of Chala's frontier.[199]

[Sidenote: LOLOS]

The king's brother had told me in Tachienlu that on the banks of the
Yalung I should find a colony of "White-bone" Lolos. The Lolos--to
whom I have already referred--were once a powerful non-Chinese race
inhabiting a great part of southern Ssuch'uan and the greater part
of Yunnan. A large remnant of them still maintains its independence
in the mountainous country between the Chien-ch'ang valley and the
Upper Yangtse. The so-called _Hei-Ku-t'ou_ or "Black-bones," are the
aristocrats of the race, the _Pai-Ku-t'ou_ or "White-bones" the "tame"
ones, who do what they are told by any one who has authority over
them, whether of their own race or not. The Lolos are an interesting
people from the European point of view on account of their obstinate
self-reliance, their dislike for the Chinese, and their mysterious
history. The 12,000 square miles or so of mountain-land which still
belong to them comprise one of the least-known corners of the Chinese
empire;[200] but this is only owing to the jealousy of the Chinese,
who object to Europeans going where they cannot and dare not go
themselves. A well-conducted European able to satisfy his hosts that
he had no hostile intentions would probably be well received in
Lolo-land, for the people seem to be as hospitable as those of Laos
and the Shan States, with whom, indeed, it is just possible that they
are ethnologically connected. The European students of their language
could be numbered on the fingers of one hand, and no one has yet
given a comprehensive account of it. It is evident from Paul Vial's
little hand-book[201]--which deals with some of the Lolo tribes of
Yunnan--that there are several dialects, which probably represent
several broad tribal cleavages. It is doubtful, indeed, whether
many of the Yunnan Lolos would be able to carry on an intelligent
conversation with the independent Lolos of the Ta Liang Shan.[202]
During the day's holiday which I gave my men at Pa-U-Rong--for I
remained there two nights--I made enquiries about the isolated Lolo
colonists of whom I had heard, and discovered that the information
given me was accurate. I had great difficulty in persuading one of
them to come to me and tell me something of their history; and the one
who finally accepted the bribe which I held out was not a brilliant
specimen of the attractive race to which he belonged. He was afflicted
with deafness, stupidity and extreme nervousness, had no knowledge
of Chinese, and was only partially acquainted with the local dialect
of Tibetan. I managed, however, to take down a small vocabulary from
him[203] and extracted hesitating answers to a few of my questions.
In Pa-U-Rong and its suburb villages there are some twenty-three
families of Lolos. They came from the independent Lolo country, east
of Yüeh-hsi, about the year 1850, the migration being due to a tribal
feud. They were well received by the local _t'u pai hu_, and lands
were allotted to them for which they pay an annual rent. In or about
the year 1864 they addressed a petition to the king of Chala in which
they begged to be enrolled among his subjects. The answer to this
petition was favourable, and they have since been treated with every
kindness, for which they are grateful. They use the Tibetan alphabet in
transcribing their language,[204] but only a few of them can read and
write. They call themselves _Drü_, which has the meaning of "comrades."
They worship a deity called Ba Le Nim Bu and another called San To. The
latter is supposed to reside on the top of one of the high mountains
overlooking Pa-U-Rong on the north-east. They neither bury nor burn
their dead: they tie a white veil over the dead man's face, swathe him
in a shroud, and throw him into the Yalung. The poorest among them
go barefooted and scarify the soles of their feet with a hot iron in
order to make them hard. When the head of a family dies his property
goes to his eldest son; if there is no son the widow adopts a boy, who
then takes the family surname and succeeds to the property--much as is
done in China. If there is no heir, the property goes to the lamas, in
accordance with Tibetan custom.

[Illustration: A HALT ON THE ROAD TO MULI.  [_To face p. 188._]

[Sidenote: RELIGION AMONG LOLOS]

The statement regarding the deity on the mountain-top is interesting
as showing that when the Lolos migrate they take their gods with them
and give them a new residence in a locality convenient for acts of
worship. It seems to be an established fact that the Lolos have never
been converted to Buddhism. Mount Omei is to them a sacred mountain,
but it is to worship gods of their own and not Buddhas or Bodhisattvas
that they go thither on pilgrimage.[205] Considering their fondness
for mountains as religious centres, it does not seem rash to hazard the
prophecy that when their country has been explored the highest point
of the Ta Liang Shan will be found to be the Olympus of their gods.
The little colony of emigrants has no doubt been obliged to conform to
most of the social customs of those among whom they live, and this is
sufficient to explain why among them the lamas are regarded as _ultimus
haeres_ of their property. As time goes on it is probable that their
descendants will gradually forget their own language and the history of
their race.

An old man--not a Lolo--who said his name was Shou Ji Tseri, paid
me a visit in order to tell me that he was a Roman Catholic. He had
been converted by a French missionary in Tachienlu over twenty years
before, and though he had long since migrated to Pa-U-Rong, he and his
family had remained steadfast in the faith. He assured me that he was
not persecuted, and suffered no social disabilities through being a
Christian.

The landlord of my house was the _t'u pai hu_,[206] and he was
evidently a devout Buddhist, or rather lamaist. The room in which I was
quartered was a kind of private chapel, containing a small library of
Tibetan books grimy with age. More numerous than the books were bundles
of charms supposed to ward off disease and ill-fortune. They consisted
of small stiff cards, not unlike playing-cards in size and appearance,
covered with writing on one side, and crudely-painted pictures of
horses and other animals on the other.

On the eve of my departure from Pa-U-Rong I gave my returning guide a
letter in which I informed the king of my safe arrival at the limits of
his territory. The lack of startling adventures was perhaps a little
disconcerting after all that I had been told of the perils of the way,
but I was glad to know that I had not contributed to the collapse of
that amiable monarch's already rather insecure throne.

[Sidenote: ROPE-BRIDGE]

I made my exit from the kingdom of Chala by the undignified expedient
of sliding down a rope. The Yalung[207] is one of the greatest
tributaries of the Yangtse, but it is full of rapids and cascades, and
is unnavigable. At Pa-U-Rong it is about 70 or 80 yards broad, and the
current is very swift and strong. I heard that till recently it could
at the season of slack water be crossed by a raft;[208] but at the
time of my visit there was no raft or boat of any kind on the river
(the last one had been wrecked and lost), and a single stout cable of
twisted bamboo, stretched from bank to bank, afforded the only means of
crossing. The frontispiece to this book, which reproduces a photograph
taken by myself, shows one of my followers in the act of making the
passage. Bridges of this kind are common in Tibet, and in the Himālayan
gorges, but it is not often that the stream to be crossed is so wide
as the Yalung. The main roads--such as the highroad from Tachienlu to
Lhasa--are generally provided with good bridges or ferries; and, as a
rule, it is only when travelling by the "small roads" and by-ways of
Tibet that one is compelled to cross rivers and gorges by single ropes.
The abbé Huc admits that in the course of his long journey to Lhasa and
back he never ventured on bridges of this kind, though he frequently
saw them. Captain Gill[209] remarks that "this is a method of crossing
a river that must require a considerable amount of nerve"; but he too,
apparently, evaded the necessity of putting the matter to personal
test. In my case there was no possibility of evasion.

The first view of this primitive substitute for a bridge certainly does
not inspire one with confidence. There is one rope for crossing from
the left to the right bank, and another--some 30 yards off--for the
reverse proceeding. The banks on either side are high and steep, and
each rope-end is firmly bound round an immovable rock or boulder. The
arrangement is shown in the accompanying diagram.

[Illustration: Sketch of bridge substitute]

[Sidenote: CROSSING THE YALUNG]

On crossing from the left bank (Pa-U-Rong side) one starts at the point
A, reaching the right bank at the point B. Crossing in the opposite
direction one starts at C, reaching the left bank at D. The points A
and C are about 120 feet above the level of the water. B and D are
about 40 feet lower. The native of the district, when about to cross
the river, places a semicircular piece of tough wood, with two grooves
for the fingers, on the bamboo rope, clutches it with both hands and
lets himself go. He is not tied to the movable cylinder or to the rope,
and he has nothing to sit on. He simply holds on with his hands, his
legs hanging in the air. He descends with terrific speed to the point
where the rope sags or hangs lowest (the points E and F); and having
safely arrived there, he is only a few yards from the further bank,
and quickly hauls himself along the remaining distance. In this manner
the crossing is only a matter of a few exhilarating seconds. With us,
however, the operation was a longer one. Unfortunately, the proper rope
for leaving the left bank was old, and had been condemned as unsafe;
all my party, therefore, were obliged to use the rope that was only
intended for crossing in the opposite direction. The rope-end at the
point C, however, had been temporarily brought down to the point G, as
it would otherwise have been necessary for us to haul ourselves along
nearly the whole length of the rope in an ascending direction, which
would have been a task requiring great strength and endurance. Even
as it was, instead of a rapid rush through the air across almost the
whole width of the river, the weight of our bodies only took us about
two-thirds of the total distance, and from that point we had to proceed
by throwing our legs over the rope and pulling ourselves upwards inch
by inch, hand over hand. The work was exceedingly laborious. All my
party went across in this manner one by one, starting at D and arriving
at G. The point H represents the place at which we had to commence
hauling. In view of the fact that we were all novices at rope-climbing,
each of us submitted, before starting, to having a leather thong tied
under the arms, and made fast to the sliding cylinder, so that if loss
of nerve or other cause had made us let go we should not have fallen
into the river, but hung limply on the rope until rescued. There
was, therefore, no actual danger provided that nothing gave way. In
some places where these primitive bridges are in use, passengers are
provided with a swinging rope-seat which hangs from the cylinder. This,
of course, must relieve the strain on hands and arms very considerably.
But we were furnished with no such luxury. My dog Jim was sent across
by himself, his body being firmly tied up with strips of cloth
suspended from the cylinder, from which the unhappy beast hung like
a squirming fish at the end of a line. When he reached the point at
which upward hauling became necessary, one of the natives--who seemed
to delight in performing acrobatic feats above the swirling waters of
the Yalung--clambered along from the right bank with an extra rope
and tied it round him. He did this while he was hanging upside down
with his legs round the rope-bridge. The loose end of the spare rope
he took back with him to the right bank, and the dog was safely pulled
by several willing hands along the remaining distance. My baggage was
sent across in the same manner. I found the experience interesting and
somewhat exciting. The whole village turned out to watch us cross the
river, and I must confess that when I was being trussed up with the
leather thong my feelings were perhaps only comparable to those of
a condemned criminal who is being pinioned before execution. A fall
into the river would mean almost certain death. The water seethes and
bubbles in innumerable whirlpools, and is nearly as cold as ice, for it
largely consists of frozen snow.

[Sidenote: YALUNG RIVER]

I never heard the Yalung given that name by the natives. The word is a
Chinese approximation to the Tibetan Nya Rong ("Valley of the Nya").
The Tibetans all know the river as the Nya Ch'u or Nya river; but the
Chinese, so far as my experience goes, never give it any other name
than _Kin_ [_Chin_] Ho, which means "Gold River,"--so that "Yalung"
is really only a book-word. The number of rivers in western China, of
which the word "Gold" forms part of the Chinese name, might almost fill
a page. The Ta Tu river above Wa Ssu Kou[210] is the Chin Ch'uan ("Gold
Stream"), the Yangtse for hundreds of miles of its course is the Chin
Sha Chiang [Kin Sha Kiang], or "River of Golden Sand," and many streams
of less importance bear similar names. The reason of the popularity of
the name is not far to seek, for gold in larger or smaller quantities
is well known to exist in nearly all the rivers that take their rise
in eastern and northern Tibet, and the Tibetans--especially the
lamas--derive therefrom a very considerable profit.

Baber pointed out that the upper Yangtse, from its junction with the
Yalung to about P'ing-shan (above the mouth of the Min), is "never
called locally by any other name than _Kin-_[_Chin-_] _Ho_, or 'Gold
River.'" M. Cordier, in quoting this passage in his sumptuous edition
of Marco Polo's travels,[211] says that he imagines Baber to have made
a slight mistake in saying that this part of the great river is named
a _ho_, and that the word actually used is probably _kiang_. As both
words mean "river" the point is of small importance, but as a matter of
fact Baber is perfectly right. Not only is the Yangtse from the mouth
of the Min to the mouth of the Yalung called the Kin [Chin] Ho, as
Baber said, but it seems obvious that the natives regard the Yalung as
the main upper stream of the same river, just as they regard the Min as
the main upper stream of the Yangtse hundreds of miles lower down.[212]
Baber was no doubt unaware that the Yalung was known as the Kin Ho, or
he would have seen why it is that its junction with what we know as the
Yangtse effects a change in the name of the latter.

[Sidenote: RIGHT BANK OF YALUNG]

In official publications, however, the local names are disregarded.
In such works the Yangtse is given one name from its entrance into
Ssuch'uan down to Hsü-chou-fu, where it comes to an untimely end by
entering the Min:[213] and that one name is the Chin Sha Chiang.[214]
As regards its Tibetan course, the Chinese geographical authorities
attempt after their usual cumbrous fashion to give the sounds of
the various Tibetan names--they write of the _Mu-lu-ssŭ-wu-su_ for
instance--but they recognise it as the same river. In explanation
of the local idea that the Yalung is the principal stream it may be
mentioned that at the point of junction the Yalung has the appearance
of being larger than the Yangtse.[215]

We did not proceed far on our journey during the day on which we
accomplished the feat of crossing the Yalung. We clambered up the steep
slope to a height of about 1,500 feet and remained for the night in the
poor hamlet of Dju Mu. We were still well within sight of Pa-U-Rong,
having travelled only about 12 _li_. A change of language or dialect
perplexed my servant as soon as we had crossed the river, and though
it is rash to generalise from the appearance of the inhabitants of a
few isolated villages, there seemed to be racial changes as well. The
Tibetan-Man-tzŭ population of the kingdom of Chala seems to give place
to a race-group which might be described as Tibetan-Mo-so. The men are
shorter than those of the eastern watershed of the Yalung, the women
plainer and stouter and of heavier build. There is no great change
in the dress of the men, but the women--perhaps recognising their
deficiency of personal attractiveness--show an exaggerated fondness for
jewellery and trinkets, which make a ceaseless jingle as they walk.

[Sidenote: CHARMS AND AMULETS]

Many of the people--men as well as women--wear large earrings
consisting of plain circles of silver, from which, in the case of
girls, are suspended long strings of coloured beads. On both sides of
the Yalung--but not far from its banks on either side--the women also
wear curious silver plates or plaques which are fastened to their hair.
Unmarried girls wear one and married women two of these ornaments. Some
of the plaques--which vary in size from about 5 inches to more than a
foot in diameter--are adorned with dainty filigree work, which would do
credit to the silversmiths of any country, but the majority are simple
and of rude workmanship, such as the specimen which with difficulty I
succeeded in purchasing.[216] In the middle of each plaque is a silver
tube containing some red substance that from a distance looks like dark
coral. These little plates are regarded as ornaments, but they are also
charms to ward off a certain dread disease. From a description of the
ailment it would appear to be something like bubonic plague. I saw no
cases of it, but I was told that it devastates the valley of the Yalung
every autumn, and kills every one who does not wear a charm. It is
curious to note that nearly all the great trough-like river-valleys
of south-western China have acquired a similar reputation of extreme
unhealthiness. The Red River of Tongking and Yunnan is so much dreaded
by the Chinese on account of its deadly fevers that nothing will
induce them to spend a night on its banks.[217] The Salwen, the valley
of which forms a yawning chasm from north to south of the Yunnan
plateau, has an even worse reputation, as is well known to all who
have travelled from Talifu to Bhamo.[218] Charms against disease are
worn by the men of the Yalung valley as well as by the women, but they
do not take the same form. The men and boys carry a small charm-box
(_ga-u_[219]) hung round their necks like a locket by a string or
chain, and in the box they place little amulets[220] which they have
received from the lamas. The efficacy of the charms is supposed to be
impaired if they are removed from the person or put into the hands of
a stranger, so it is not often that one has an opportunity of close
examination.

[Sidenote: YAK AND BUFFALO]

The next day (28th April) we travelled a very short distance--about 6
miles. The path wound round the edge of a defile and up the mountain
side west and south-west through a pine forest. We halted at a place
called Tê Ben, a single house belonging to a headman, situated near
the edge of a bluff that commanded a fine view of the Yalung valley,
now far below us. Difficulties about transport prevented our making
a longer stage. Next day, these difficulties having been overcome,
our path led us over innumerable undulations, in the course of which
we gradually ascended another 2,000 feet. At the hamlet of Pa Sung,
which we reached during the morning, there were no animals to be
hired, and our baggage was carried for the rest of the day's march by
three women and a yak. One of my Chinese escort--not in love with his
mountaineering experiences--was much perturbed at the discovery that he
was expected to walk, and made himself so disagreeable to the villagers
that they had to bribe him to calmness by making him a present of a
live fowl. He accepted the fowl, and made one of the village damsels
carry it for him. This incident was not discovered by me until our
arrival at our destination that night, when I punished my soldier for
the impropriety of his conduct by paying for the fowl and eating it
myself. The yak caused us some trouble by losing itself in the forest
while we were having our midday _tsamba_. It was finally discovered by
its driver--a very little boy--and brought back by him triumphantly at
the end of a rope. The incident pleasantly recalled to my memory the
only poem in the English language, so far as I am aware, which sings
the exclusive praises of the yak, an animal which, however useful to
man, is indeed hardly of the kind that would naturally inspire a poet
to a lyrical outburst.[221] Tibetan and Man-tzŭ children seem to be
able to manage the clumsy beast with the same ease and dexterity as
are shown by Chinese children in controlling the cumbrous movements
of the water-buffalo; and the European who may prod a yak without the
least effect in accelerating its motion, and whose mere proximity
often rouses the water-buffalo to dangerous fury, can have nothing but
jealous admiration for the Oriental child whose lightest touch reduces
one or the other to complete docility.

From the hamlet of Pa Sung we dropped down to a deep ravine at the
bottom of which is a sparkling mountain stream spanned by a rustic
bridge. The ravine was full of wild-flowers--pink, red, purple and
white in a setting of rich green. I noticed also that ivy--not so
common a sight in the Far East as in England--clambered in great
profusion round the trunks of trees and over a small obo; and some
exquisite ferns, including maiden-hair, covered the steep banks of the
stream and fringed our path. After climbing up the further side of
the ravine our path again wound up and along the mountain-side, and
brought us finally to the hamlet of Ten Ba K'a, where we lodged in
the local chiefs house. Our host was a fine-looking man, whose long
black hair hanging down on each side of his face gave him an appearance
of ferocity that was belied by the gentleness of his manners. I was
accommodated in the family chapel--a large room on the first floor.
Close by was a small lamasery. The village is situated at the head of
a small valley which runs north-east and south-west, and from it we
had a magnificent view of the snowy mountains we had left behind us on
the other side of the Yalung. The valley itself--when one looks down
upon it from above--is of very peculiar formation, being split up by
a series of clearly-defined ridges. I could see nothing to indicate
that they were glacier moraines. Next morning we climbed one of the
ridges that lies immediately behind the village, and from its summit
we descended into a thickly-wooded ravine, bounded on the left by
lofty and picturesque cliffs. After descending a thousand feet or more
we emerged from the ravine into a small partially-cultivated valley
containing a village. After leaving this village, where we took our
midday rest, we began a long and rather wearisome up-hill climb past a
plantation of birches and through a thin forest. From the top of the
pass we made a gradual descent through similar country, and struck
into the valley of a large stream--the Dja Ch'u--issuing, apparently,
from some high snowy peaks visible in the distance.[222] This river
accompanied us from this point practically all the way to Muli. Our
path led us hundreds of feet above the river's left bank, and brought
us to our night's lodging in a solitary house. Other scattered houses
were visible some distance off, and I was told that they all bear the
collective name of Hu Dra. Our hostess brought me as a present the best
Tibetan cheese I had tasted.

[Illustration: MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY ON THE ROAD TO MULI.
  [_To face p. 202._]

[Sidenote: A QUARREL]

The next day, 1st May, we left our quarters at Hu Dra just as the sun
rose, on a beautiful fresh morning that reminded one almost too vividly
of early summer in England. Even the cuckoo was not wanting. The road
led us at first in a south-easterly direction high above the left bank
of the Dja Ch'u for about 3 miles, then turned with that river into
a valley running south-west. A mile or so beyond the bend I observed
a village on the right bank, but we kept to the left, still high
above the river. Nearly opposite that village we came to a couple of
tumbledown huts. While we were resting here, two of my soldiers took
the opportunity to disgrace May Day by indulging in a violent quarrel.
For the sake of cacophony I had previously given one of these men the
unmelodious name of Bloggins, owing to the singular irregularity of his
features. Certainly no one could have mistaken him for a reincarnation
of Plato's Charmides. To the other, for a different reason, I had given
the surname of Hoggins. Before I could learn the cause of the dispute
and settle it by friendly arbitration, Hoggins drew his sword and began
laying it about him in a manner suggestive of slaughter and blood. The
effects were not serious, as the blade of the sword, not being intended
for actual warfare, broke off at the hilt. Bloggins took shelter behind
a mule. The quarrel arose and subsided like a thunderstorm, for in half
an hour the combatants were again on the most amiable terms with each
other and drowning the memory of their disagreement in a bowl of tea.

From the scene of this bloodless combat the road continued to lead us
high above the left bank of the river-valley, giving us occasional
glimpses of the many windings of the stream. One has to ride with
caution, as the path frequently lies along the edge of a precipice.
The surface is sometimes very rough and rocky, and the road undulates
a great deal as it has to cross a number of deep ravines. After riding
about 65 _li_ from our starting-place we reached the neighbourhood
of an important lamasery, named Wa-chin Gompa,[223] well hidden in a
wooded dell. The lamas objected to receiving us here, so we went on to
a scattered hamlet called Ta K'oa. The Dja Ch'u here changes its name
to the Ya-Rong Ch'u.

[Sidenote: WILD-FLOWERS]

A great authority has told us that among the losses brought upon us
by the fury and vulgarity of modern life, one of the saddest is the
loss of a wish to gather a flower in travelling.[224] Perhaps it was
because I was so far from the beaten tracks of civilisation that on
that beautiful May morning the wish to gather flowers still asserted in
me its vigorous vitality. The wild-flowers during that day's journey
were indeed so numerous and beautiful that all the members of my party
yielded to the temptation of decking themselves out in blossoms pink
and white and blue. The dainty freshness of our summer garlands only
served, I fear, to throw into stronger relief the dirt and dust of our
travel-stained garments. Though there were three flower-bedecked women
among my party, I was moved by no impulse to crown any one of the three
as our Queen of May. It would be ungallant to give the reasons. But if
none of them was conspicuous for beauty of figure or feature, I think
it only fair to call to grateful remembrance the fact that one was the
possessor of an alluring smile and a not unattractive dimple.

On 2nd May a pretty road lined with "English" hedgerows bursting into
bloom, led us after a ride of 4 miles to a point from which we obtained
a fine view of the river--a long stretch of smooth water shining in the
sun, a rather violent rapid, and a series of graceful curves. From the
village of Dje Ru we descended for the first time to the river-bank and
crossed the stream--now called the Tong Yi--by a substantial wooden
bridge about 50 yards long. I have already referred to the variety of
names possessed by the rivers of this region. The stream which we knew
first on 30th April as the Dja Ch'u had changed its name at least seven
times before we finally left its banks three days later; but as in the
case of many other Tibetan rivers, the different names often represent
merely the tribal names of the various village communities that dwell
on its banks, or even the names of the valleys through which it flows.
In the interests of geography it would no doubt be more satisfactory if
every river were given one name only, by which it could be universally
known throughout the whole length of its course; but the convenience
of so doing would hardly appeal to people who never saw a map, and
never travel, and know nothing of their rivers except the short
stretches that flow by their doors. I did not meet a single inhabitant
of the Yalung watershed who was able to tell me whence any of their
rivers came, or whither it went. Such questions seemed to them merely
frivolous, the answers being regarded as beyond the range of possible
human knowledge.

[Sidenote: VALLEY OF LITANG RIVER]

About a mile beyond the wooden bridge the river becomes the Wo Pu
Tsong, and later on the Mi Ch'u. Not far beyond, a fairly large
tributary--the Ba Tsam Ch'u--enters by a valley in the east, and joins
the main stream at a point where, after flowing for some miles due
south, it turns sharply to the south-west. Our path, following the
right bank of the river, now turned into a narrow valley through which
we travelled for the rest of the stage, and from which we did not
emerge till the middle of the following day. This valley possesses,
perhaps, the most beautiful riverine scenery met with anywhere
throughout my journey, though it is not on the same grand scale as
the scenery of the Yangtse gorges or the valley of the Ta Tu. After
travelling along an undulating road for about 5 miles, we came to a
place which possesses the abrupt name of Wu, where--on the flat roof
of one of the two huts forming the hamlet--we had our midday meal. Just
before reaching this spot we passed a place where two landslips, one
on each side of the river, had very recently taken place. Part of the
subsiding banks having fallen into the water, a violent rapid had been
formed across the river.

[Illustration: A--Recess with miniature Buddha, on the S.E. side.

B--Conventional lions in relief, two on each of the four sides.]

In this extremely beautiful valley the river is known as the Li Ch'u.
It is an unnavigable stream containing a considerable body of water
sometimes nearly 100 yards broad, but occasionally narrowed to 30. An
easy walk through the most charming sylvan scenery brought us, a few
miles beyond Wu, to a wooded glade, where--as the moon had already
risen and there was no sign of a village--I decided to camp out. There
is here an obo covered with the usual inscribed slates; and close by
stands a square stone building with a wooden roof. This building serves
as a kind of canopy for a _ch'o-ten_[225] (ch'orten), or small lamaist
pyramid, which occupies the whole space inside. My sketch of this
ch'orten, which is of a type very common in Tibetan lands, will convey
an idea of its appearance.

The stone canopy--a plain, unpretentious building[226]--faces the
south-east. It has four doorways, one on each side. The ch'orten itself
is of stone, covered with plaster, and whitewashed, and stands about 20
feet high.

[Sidenote: TIBETAN CH'ORTEN]

Rockhill, describing similar structures met with elsewhere, remarks
that the word "ch'orten" means "offering-holder." "Great numbers" he
says "are built in the vicinity of lamaseries, and serve to point out
the roads leading to them. They are also something like the stations
in the Catholic 'Path of the Cross,' as pilgrims, when journeying to
a shrine, perform prostrations before each ch'orten met on the way
thither."[227] Colonel Waddell has an interesting note to explain the
symbolical character of this type of building. He says that ch'ortens
are "symbolic of the five elements into which a body is resolved upon
death: thus ... the lowest section, a solid rectangular block,
typifies the solidity of the _earth_; above it _water_ is represented
by a globe; _fire_ by a triangular tongue; _air_ by a crescent--the
inverted vault of the sky; and _ether_ by an acuminated circle, the
tapering into space."[228] The Tibetan ch'ortens may thus be regarded
either as the tombstones of dead lamas or as chambers for preserving
the relics of Buddhist saints. In the latter case they are analogous to
the far more imposing pagodas of China or the dagobas of Burma and of
Anuradhapura in Ceylon.

[Illustration: THE AUTHOR'S CAMP, 2ND MAY.  [_To face p._ 208.]

Outside the stone building containing the ch'orten I spent the night
of 2nd May. We were now in a sheltered ravine and in a fairly warm
latitude. We were therefore independent of walled shelter, and, as
we carried with us our own _tsamba_, we were in no want of food.
The spot we had chosen was indeed an ideal resting-place. The utter
peacefulness of our beautiful valley, the murmur of the stream only
a few yards away, the soft shimmer of moonlight interwoven with the
network of fresh foliage that curtained mysterious fairylands beyond,
combined to create an earthly paradise that might almost make one cease
to long for a heavenly one. If Shakespeare had visited the Far East,
he would surely have chosen just such a spot as this for the scene
of a new Midsummer Night's Dream. It was sad to reflect that until
æroplanes come into general use it could never be made accessible to
lovers of nature except those who were willing to cross the vast
ranges of snowy mountains that hem it in; but I could not restrain a
feeling of exultation at the thought that never--I hope this is no rash
prophecy--would the shriek of a steam-engine disturb here

    "The silence that is in the starry sky,
    The sleep that is among the lonely hills,"--

and that our boisterous civilisation would be content to leave this one
nook of beauty for ever undefiled. If any of my readers is yearning
to seek in some quiet hermitage rest and release from the pains and
feverish joys of modern life, some home of ancient peace amid lovely
scenery, let him turn his pilgrim steps towards the far lands of the
Tibetan border, for his ideal would be surely realised in some such
valley as this.

[Illustration: RUSTIC BRIDGE CROSSING LITANG RIVER ON THE ROAD TO MULI.
  [_To face p. 210._]

[Sidenote: ARRIVAL AT MULI]

It was with regret, not shared, I fear, by my unemotional companions,
that I left my camping-ground on the morning of the next day. For half
the day, however, our path still lay through the southern portion of
the same beautiful valley, and amid scenery no less charming than that
of the day before. A short distance beyond our camp a turn in the
path brought us opposite to a ravine opening towards the east, on the
river's left bank. The sun rose behind it as I passed, and shed a rich
glow on rocks and cascades and masses of pure green foliage. A walk
of 5 or 6 miles brought us to a crazy wooden bridge[229] over which
we crossed with some trepidation to the left bank, and about 3 miles
further on we again crossed to the right. Beyond this the scenery
becomes wilder, and the river-valley gradually opens out into a region
where rocks and hills lie about in fantastic confusion. Passing oboes,
prayer-flags and prayer-wheels in great numbers, we climbed up a steep
and winding path that gradually led us far away from the Li Ch'u and
brought us to a scattered mountain village named Ku-Dze, where we
rested. One of my men had gone in advance of us in order to arrange for
new means of transport; and when I arrived at the village I found that
the hospitable headman had converted four tumbledown, roofless walls
into a delightful arbour with a thick, soft carpet of green leaves and
walls of pine-branches, and a doorway festooned with feathery bamboo.
In this Arcadian retreat I was provided with an appropriate repast of
milk and eggs.

From this village to the lamasery of Muli--the capital, if it may
be called so, of the Huang Lama territory--is a distance of about
14 miles through pleasant undulating country and over an easy road.
At one point, however, we found the main path blocked by a huge
landslip, and for a distance of several miles we were obliged to take
a rough and rocky path that gave us a good deal of trouble. We did
not arrive at Muli till after sunset. There is nothing to show that
one is anywhere near a human habitation until suddenly, after turning
a corner, one comes in full view of a mass of white walls only a few
hundred yards away. This is the lamasery of Muli. To all appearance
it is a compact, unwalled town composed entirely of white-plastered
houses. In reality it is a large monastery and nothing else, for all
the buildings that look like ordinary houses are only the separate
cells or dwelling-places of the lamas. Two or three of them, in their
dark-red gowns, were waiting to receive me. These were the people who,
I had been led to understand, were fanatically anti-foreign, and whose
hostility rendered it a dangerous experiment to travel through their
country. If their feelings were of a hostile nature, they certainly
evinced a wonderful power of self-control, for their reception of me
was altogether courteous and friendly. They lodged me in a comfortable
two-floored building only a few yards from the lamasery, and sent me
presents of fuel and food.


FOOTNOTES:

[199] See Note 26 (p. 429).

[200] See Note 27 (p. 429).

[201] _Les Lolos_, by M. Paul Vial, Catholic missionary (Shanghai,
1898).

[202] See chap. xv. below, on the ethnology of the Lolos and other
border tribes.

[203] See Appendix A.

[204] There is, however, a system of written characters peculiar to the
Lolos. It appears to be unknown among these colonists.

[205] See above, p. 55.

[206] See Note 28 (p. 429).

[207] See Note 29 (p. 430).

[208] Mr Amundsen states that he crossed by a raft made of two pieces
of timber, with a plank in the middle to stand on.--(_Geographical
Journal_, vol. xv. p. 621).

[209] In Captain Gill's _The River of Golden Sand_ (John Murray), p.
121, where there is a good illustration of the single-rope bridges.

[210] See above, p. 128.

[211] Yule's _Marco Polo_, edited by Cordier. [London: John Murray.]
See vol. ii. p. 67.

[212] See above, pp. 43-44.

[213] 流入岷江. Similarly we read of the Han River (which flows into the
Yangtse at Hankow) _joining the Min_ (合岷江).

[214] See Note 30 (p. 430).

[215] This is on Mr Amundsen's authority. See _Geographical Journal_,
Nov. 1900, p. 534.

[216] See illustration, p. 152 (No. 2). The plaques may also be seen on
the women's heads, p. 188.

[217] I travelled up the valley of this river in 1902, and heard much
of its deadliness. Rocher, in his excellent history of Yunnan, remarks
that the only people who could live on the banks of the Red River
with comparative immunity were some indigenous non-Chinese tribes and
Cantonese merchants. As regards the Cantonese, the jealous Yunnanese
supposed that their immunity was derived from the fact that they
possessed a sovereign remedy for the disease, but kept the secret of
it to themselves so that they alone should obtain the benefit. Some of
the Yunnanese told Rocher that they would go into battle rather than
brave a visit to the banks of the Red River.--(_La Province Chinoise du
Yunnan_, vol. i. pp. 229, 230, and 286.)

[218] See below, pp. 305 _seq._

[219] གའུ་.

[220] Tibetan brTen (བརྟེན་) pronounced _ten_, or Srung-ba (སྲུང་བ་)
pronounced _sung-wa_, the original meaning of which is simply
"protection."

[221] The reader will not, I hope, require to be reminded of "The Bad
Child's Book of Beasts," in which the poem to which I refer finds an
honourable place.

[222] It would appear from the recent Indian Survey map prepared by
Major H. R. Davies, that this must be the Litang River, and therefore
starts its course much further north.

[223] See p. 216.

[224] Ruskin, _Proserpina_, II. IV.

[225] Spelt in Tibetan mCh'od-rTen.

[226] See illustration, p. 207.

[227] _Land of the Lamas_, p. 63.

[228] _Lamaism in Tibet_, pp. 263-264.

[229] See accompanying illustration.




CHAPTER XII

MULI TO YUNG-NING


The territory ruled over by the lama-prince of Muli[230] is to
Europeans, as it is to the Chinese themselves, almost an unknown corner
of the Chinese empire. One may search in vain through books of history
or travel for any description of it. Even the _Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih_--a
work that describes the province in nearly two hundred volumes--devotes
to it only a single page. Baber does little more than refer to it by
name. He describes it as "a country of which almost nothing is known,
lying south of Litang and west of the Yalung. I can only learn," he
adds, "that the language of its inhabitants is unintelligible to
Tibetans. The Chinese call it the 'land of the Yellow Lamas.' The Mili
of D'Anville's map is probably its chief monastery."[231] Hosie, in
his recent report of a journey through Litang and Batang to the border
of Tibet proper, refers to it as "the State of Mili, or Muli--better
known as Huang Lama ('Yellow Lama')." As regards this name "Huang
Lama," there appears to be some confusion of ideas, either on the part
of the natives of the state or on the part of the Chinese. _Huang_
means "yellow," but another word of identical sound though differently
written means "imperial,"[232] and I was assured by the lamas
themselves--who may have been deliberately misleading me--that the
_huang_ which is applied to their territory or its rulers is the second
of these. According to this theory, the state of Muli is the land of
the Imperial Lamas (or Lama), not the land of the "Yellow Lamas." The
Muli lamas do, however, belong to one of the Gélupa or reformed sects,
and therefore wear the "yellow hat" in religious ceremonials.

[Sidenote: KING OF MULI]

Unfortunately, the lama-prince was not at Muli at the time of my
arrival there, and three or four subordinate lamas, who called upon
me and with whom I conversed in Tibetan with the assistance of my
servant, were either disinclined or unable to impart much information.
But as far as I could gather, it appears that "a long time ago"[233]
the principal lama of this country rendered valuable services to the
Chinese Emperor, and received as a reward the title of "Huang Lama,"
and was confirmed in the spiritual and temporal sovereignty of the
whole principality of Muli. It is evident, however, that Muli has for
centuries past been regarded as a debatable land: sometimes the kings
or Grand Lamas of Tibet and sometimes the emperors of China have been
regarded as suzerains. According to one story which was told me by a
lama, Muli-land was at one time an integral part of the "monarchy" of
Tachienlu, and was ceded to a certain lama by one of the kings of Chala
as a reward for having cured the king of a painful disease. However
this may be, the dignity of prince-lama is now, and long has been, the
exclusive monopoly of one family. The system of succession is therefore
totally different from that generally in vogue in Tibet proper, where
the prior of a lamasery is either selected by the Dalai Lama or by the
whole body of lamas, or--in the case of the greater establishments--is
chosen as an infant to fill that high office because he is believed
to be the reincarnation of the prior or abbot last deceased.[234] The
ecclesiastical title of the lama-prince of Muli is _k'an-po_,[235] a
word which may be translated lord-abbot or bishop--and it is by that
title that he is familiarly known in his own territory; but in virtue
of his civil powers he is also a _gyal-po_ or "king," and is just as
powerful within his own limits as the king of Chala. The Muli _gyal-po_
being a lama cannot marry, but when he dies his successor is chosen
from among his brothers or nephews. If an otherwise eligible heir is
under the age of eighteen or thereabouts, he is passed over in favour
of any suitable elder relative who may be a lama. Notification of
the death of the _k'an-po_ or _gyal-po_ must be sent to the emperor
at Peking, and at the same time the name of a suitable heir, selected
from the eligible members of the "royal" family, is submitted for
the imperial consideration. His succession is as a matter of form
ratified by the emperor, and he forthwith enters upon his duties and
honours. News of the _k'an-po's_ death and the accession of his heir
is also sent to Lhasa, but the approval of the Dalai Lama is not now
essential to legalise the succession. Subject to the suzerainty of
China the _k'an-po_ is invested with full ecclesiastical and civil
powers in virtue of his double position, but in practice he generally
confines himself to civil and judicial administration, and leaves the
management of ecclesiastical affairs to lamas of lower rank. He has
three centres of government, all of which are also lamaseries: their
names are Muli, Lha-k'ang[236] and Khon.[237] Muli, the chief lamasery
and headquarters of the government, contains about four hundred and
fifty lamas; Lha-k'ang and Khon between one and two hundred each. At
these centres the _k'an-po_ resides alternately, generally remaining a
year at each. I was told that this custom was originated in order that
the _k'an-po_ might acquire a thorough knowledge of the different parts
of his territory, and that his ear should always be open to receive his
people's complaints.

[Sidenote: OFFICIALS OF MULI]

Important lawsuits are decided by the _k'an-po_ himself, but smaller
suits and petty criminal cases are dealt with by officials of
lower rank. The government is emphatically a hierarchy, for every
official--executive and judicial--is a lama. The only apparent
exceptions to this rule are the _Bei-ze_, village headmen, who,
however, hold no official rank, and are merely the patriarchs or most
substantial landholders of the different villages. The _bei-ze_ is
empowered to settle simple local disputes, but he has no prestige
outside his own village. His rank is inferior to that of any one who
has donned the robe of a lama or novitiate (_tra-pa_). The highest
officials after the _k'an-po_ are the _ch'an-dzö_,[238] a kind of lord
high treasurer, the _ku-ts'ab_[239] or "commissioner," and finally
the _nyer-ba_, whose chief duties appear to be connected with the
food-supply. All these dignitaries are appointed by the _k'an-po_, and
hold office during his good pleasure.[240]

In matters affecting Chinese interests the _k'an-po_ is expected to
communicate with the district magistrate of Yen-yüan, the prefect of
Ning-yüan, or the taotai of Ya-chou. If one of the parties to a lawsuit
is an independent Chinese, the case is sent to the Yen-yüan magistrate,
who deals with it according to ordinary Chinese procedure, or passes
it to his superiors. But such cases hardly ever arise in practice,
as the only people in Muli-land who call themselves Chinese are a
few half-castes who as dependents of one of the Huang Lama lamaseries
are subject to the _k'an-po's_ jurisdiction. The _k'an-po_ himself is
expected to proceed at least once in twelve years to Wu T'ai Shan,[241]
the sacred mountain of Shansi, whence, after the performance of
certain religious duties, he is supposed to go to Peking to do homage
to the emperor. His presents to the Court on such occasions take the
form of gold and skins. Within his territory he has complete control
of finances, but he pays a small annual tribute to China. All local
revenue is said to be paid in kind, and, as in China, mainly consists
in a land-tax assessed according to the productive capacity of the
land. In addition to ordinary taxation the people whose holdings adjoin
the main roads are subject to the same system of _ula_ that presses so
hardly on many of the subjects of the king of Chala. The _k'an-po_ also
derives considerable revenue from the gold-workings in his territory.
Gold-washing and mining rights are vested in the lamas, who exercise a
jealous control over the output of the metal and exact large royalties.
The gold is generally disposed of in the markets of Litang and
Tachienlu. The only remaining tax of importance is levied on tea, which
in the Muli territory is very expensive and beyond the means of many of
the inhabitants.

[Sidenote: MULI LAMASERY]

The present _k'an-po_ (whom, owing to his absence at Khon, I did
not meet) was in May 1906 a man of about thirty-seven years of age,
and had presided over his little state for about seventeen years. He
succeeded his elder brother. His full designation as given to me was
Ha-ba-de-li-gyal-po.[242] The permanent rank of the _k'an-po_ in his
capacity of Barbarian Chieftain is that of an _An Fu Ssŭ_.[243] His
territory is said to be larger than that of the king of Chala, but it
is poorer and has a smaller population.[244]

Within the Muli lamasery the rules of the reformed sects of Lamaism
are observed with fair strictness, and no woman is allowed under any
pretence to enter its coenobitical precincts. This is very different
from the lax state of affairs that prevails in the large lamaseries at
Tachienlu and further west. The houses or cells are for the most part
buildings of two stories. In spite of their clean whitewashed exteriors
they have a somewhat forbidding aspect, as, like all Tibetan buildings,
the windows are small and have neither glass nor paper. Boarded windows
are apt to give an impression of desolation to which it takes a long
time to become accustomed. The lamasery is built on the slope of a
mountain on which the various buildings rise above one another tier
upon tier. The first view of it is very striking, for the configuration
of the hill conceals it from sight until one is within a very short
distance of its walls, and then almost every separate building becomes
simultaneously visible.[245] To a traveller approaching from the
south-west the view is even more remarkable; for the whole mass of
buildings is entirely hidden from sight until he is within a stone's
throw of its nearest walls, and then it appears suddenly to rise out of
the ground before him in a blaze of whiteness. Nearly all the buildings
face east and north-east, with their backs to the mountain. In front
of the lamasery there is a gentle slope down to a valley running
north-east and south-west, through which flows a small stream, the Rong
Ch'u or "Valley Water." This stream flows to swell the waters of the Li
Ch'u, which is visible from Muli at a distance of about 3 miles, and
which flows in a south-easterly direction to join the Yalung. On the
slope in front of the lamasery are terraced fields of wheat, barley and
buckwheat, and pasture-lands for goats and yak. Behind and above the
lamasery is a forest, consisting mostly of oak-trees and coniferæ. It
is full of pheasants, but, as shooting is prohibited in the vicinity
of the lamasery, they are of no use to a hungry sportsman. Above the
forest is a precipitous range of crags. On the south side of the valley
are sparsely-wooded hills. Two buildings in the lamasery stand out
conspicuously, one above and the other below the lamas' dwellings.

[Illustration: LAMASERY OF MULI.  [_To face p. 220._]

[Sidenote: LAMAISM AT MULI]

The lower one, with not very conspicuous gilded pinnacles, may
be regarded as the cathedral, for it is there that the ordinary
services taken from the Kah-gyur and Tang-gyur--the scriptures of
Lamaism--are daily celebrated. I attended one of the services in the
company of two of my lama hosts, but was requested not to go beyond
the threshold of the open door. A large choir of lamas and acolytes
were on their knees, intoning the usual chants in a manner that would
not discredit the choirs of some English churches. The singers had
evidently been well and skilfully trained, and though the music had
none of the magnificent harmonies of European music, it was by no means
unpleasant to the ear, and once or twice I was vaguely reminded of
Palestrina. As the interior of the building was shrouded in deep gloom,
I asked if I might enter and look round when the service was over,
but was told that it would continue without intermission for eleven
days and nights, during which time different choirs of lamas would
successively relieve each other. This surprising assertion was probably
merely designed to prevent my unsanctified feet from desecrating
the sacred floor; or perhaps my hosts, who may have been told that
Europeans were noted for their predatory instincts, feared that I might
take advantage of the darkness to purloin some of the sacred utensils.
The other conspicuous building to which I have referred stands on an
elevation overlooking the rest of the lamasery, and was closed up
when I arrived at Muli. It is the residence of the _k'an-po_, and in
it special services are held during one month in each year, from the
middle of the fourth to the middle of the fifth Chinese "moon," roughly
corresponding to July. During that month no animal may be slaughtered,
and the lamas are restricted to a purely vegetable diet. This is the
only time that the Buddhist injunction to destroy no living animal is
observed at Muli. Smoking, however, which is nowhere referred to, so
far as I remember, in the Buddhist scriptures, is at all times strictly
prohibited.

Muli is much smaller than some of the huge lamaist establishments in
other Tibetan states, where there are sometimes as many lamas collected
in one lamasery as there are undergraduates at Oxford. Muli has only
four hundred and fifty, and this number includes the _tra-pa_[246]
or novices, who are not, strictly speaking, entitled to be called
lamas. Most of the lamas have been to Lhasa, and all must go there on
pilgrimage before they can be allowed to hold high office. One of my
hosts informed me that the journey to Lhasa occupied three months, but
that the difficulties of the road were less serious than those which I
had myself met with during my journey from Tachienlu.

[Sidenote: RACE-TYPES OF MULI]

Tibetan is the official language of the state, and most of the lamas
can speak it; but they have also a language of their own, of which I
attempted to compile a small vocabulary.[247] It certainly appears to
be allied to Tibetan, but would be unintelligible to any one acquainted
with that language only. It seems to show a considerable admixture of
Mo-so, and perhaps of other less-known tribal dialects. The Tibetan
alphabet is used for the transcription of sounds. When I asked what
different races inhabited Muli-land I was only given a little vague
information which may be far from accurate. Unfortunately the
dialect of Tibetan spoken by the lamas who visited me was not always
intelligible to my servant, far less to myself, and I am by no means
satisfied that my questions were always clearly understood, or that the
replies given me were properly interpreted. The Njong, I was told, are
the predominant race, and it is of their language that I have given a
few words in the Appendix. I have suggested in another place[248] that
they may be more or less closely connected with the Mo-so of to-day.
Less numerous are the Man-tzŭ (always a vague term), Lolos, Pa-No,
Po-Nyi and Pa-Chi. The Pa-No and Po-Nyi, whoever they may be, appear to
have languages of their own. The Pa-Chi are said to be of mixed Chinese
and Man-tzŭ descent, and speak a dialect which my servant could make
nothing of. Finally there are a number of Miao-tzŭ, an aboriginal race
of which we still find vestiges in Kwang-si, Yunnan, Kuei-chou and
other parts of China. It was curious to find representatives of that
race or tribe so far west as the borders of Tibet,[249] and it would
be interesting to ascertain if they have preserved any traditions of
their origin. Unfortunately, it does not seem likely that there are
any educated men among them. Even in Muli-land they are a despised
race, and are the only people who are debarred from becoming lamas. The
names of other race-types of Muli given in the _T'ung Chih_[250] are
somewhat puzzling, and I can make little of them.

The lamas themselves are by no means well educated, and apart from
the lamas no one can read or write. As in all countries where lamaism
has established itself, laymen are allowed and indeed expected to
remain in complete ignorance of letters. In Burma and Siam, where a
far purer form of the Buddhist religion is observed, the monks are
the schoolmasters of the people, and the monasteries are the village
schools; but no such scholastic work is undertaken by the lamas of
Tibetan countries, who believe that nothing is worth studying except
what is in their sacred books, and that only lamas are worthy to study
them. It is no wonder that the people of Tibet are the most ignorant
and superstitious of any semi-civilised race in Asia.

[Sidenote: DEPARTURE FROM MULI]

In manners and customs there does not seem to be any particular in
which Muli-land stands alone. The dead bodies of both lamas and laymen
are disposed of by cremation. In the case of lamas the ashes are
carefully collected from the funeral pyre, ground into fine powder
and preserved in urns. The cremated bodies of laymen are treated
with less respect, for the ashes are merely thrown over precipices
or into mountain caverns.[251] In some parts of the eastern Tibetan
states--including those which like Chala and Muli have been annexed
to the Chinese empire--the bodies of the dead are left exposed on the
mountain sides until every particle of flesh has been torn off the
bones by vultures and beasts of prey;[252] and elsewhere--especially
in the case of the very poor, who cannot afford the expense of
cremation--the corpses are simply thrown into the nearest river,
without any ceremony.

I rested at Muli from the 3rd of May--the day of my arrival--till
the morning of the 6th, when I resumed my march towards Yunnan. From
Muli to Yung-ning, which is situated a few miles beyond the border,
is a journey of three stages, and up to that point--or rather to the
frontier of Yunnan--my path continued to lie through the territory
of Muli. The lamas did everything possible to render this part of
my journey pleasant. They granted me the privilege of _ula_ (for
which I paid the same rates as in the territory of Chala), sent an
_avant-courier_ to warn the villagers to give me proper treatment,
and deputed one of their probationers or _tra-pa_ to escort me to
Yung-ning. Our first stage was a short one. We began by going up the
valley of the Rong Ch'u towards the S.S.W. About 4 miles from Muli we
descended to the bed of the river, and crossed to the right bank. A
winding path led us up the steep slope of the south side of the valley,
and while we were still not more than 7 miles from Muli we halted. The
prospect of a steep climb over a pass on the following day seemed to
break the spirit of my followers, as they declared it was impossible to
proceed further that day. The pass is apparently a notorious haunt of
robbers. There was a solitary farmhouse at the place where we halted;
but as it was rather more squalid and filthy than usual, I decided to
camp out of doors. Towards evening a thunderstorm drove me into the
house, but I was speedily expelled again by the smoke and charcoal
fumes, and established myself under an improvised awning on the roof.

[Illustration: THE AUTHOR'S MULETEERS, NEAR YUNG-NING.
  [_To face p. 226._]

On the following day we had a long and somewhat arduous march over the
pass of Shi Li La, the height of which is about 15,500 feet.[253] The
path bears at first towards the east and south-east, and gradually
ascends to a ridge, which is separated from the true summit by a narrow
valley running north-east and south-west. From this point to the summit
the climb would be easy in dry weather, but the thawing snows made the
path slippery and disagreeable. From the summit we found the descent at
first steep and rocky, but, as soon as we had left the snow behind us,
we found ourselves descending an easy road through a forest containing
many magnificent firs. Some of them measured 15 feet in circumference,
5 feet above the ground. Between 3,000 and 4,000 feet below the
summit of the pass, we crossed a stream, and went uphill for a few
hundred feet, thereafter descending into a broken and very picturesque
valley, in the middle of which we found the first inhabited spot we had
seen in the course of a 30-mile ride. This was the hamlet of Li She
Tzŭ, the inhabitants of which are Mo-so, a race of which I shall have
more to say below.[254] From this point to Yung-ning, and some distance
beyond it, we found every village inhabited almost exclusively by
people of this race.

[Sidenote: FRONTIER OF YUNNAN]

Leaving Li She Tzŭ at dawn on 8th May, we rode over an undulating road,
generally wooded, and at about 5 miles changed mules at the village
of Li Rang Tzŭ. This proved to be the last village of Muli-land, and
of the province of Ssuch'uan, for a march of barely 4 miles beyond it
led us across the boundary of the province at the top of a low range
of wooded hills. We were then in Yunnan. The descent into the next
plain was steep, and the road execrable. There we entered the first
of the Yunnanese villages--Djo-Dji--where I was received by the local
headman. Though a Mo-so, he was acquainted with Chinese, as well as
his own language, and was attired in a Chinese long coat with bright
brass buttons that had once adorned the uniform of a British soldier.
From a metal case which he held in his hand he drew one of his cards.
As he presented it to me, he told me that he was well acquainted with
Western foreigners, for he had seen two besides myself. They, he
added, were two Frenchmen, who had passed through the village quite
recently, and who--judging from his description--must have been engaged
in surveying.[255] He spoke of them with great warmth of feeling, for
it appeared that they had presented him with a valuable memento in the
shape of an empty sardine-tin. This was the metal box which he had
converted into a card-case, and of which he was evidently very proud.
The district in which this village is situated is fairly rich and well
populated. A series of cultivated plains, divided from each other by
rounded hills, extends the whole way from the frontier of the province
to the town of Yung-ning, which we reached after passing through a
number of prosperous villages, inhabited by Mo-so, of which the largest
were Wo La, Yi Ma Wa, A-ko Am-ni Wa, and A-gu Wa. In these villages
the houses were nearly all mere cabins, built of pine-logs, the roofs
being thin wooden boards weighted with heavy stones to keep them from
blowing away; but the dress of the women is in striking contrast with
the poverty of their dwellings. Their hair, which is roped round the
head, is lavishly adorned with strings of beads and silver ornaments,
and their skirts are brilliantly coloured.[256] But while wife and
daughter are allowed to array themselves in all the finery that the
family possesses, the husband is content to wear the meanest sack]
cloth, and carries no ornaments. Some of the men, in imitation of the
Chinese, shave the front of their heads and wear queues.

[Illustration: YUNG-NING.  [_To face p. 229._]

[Sidenote: RULER OF YUNG-NING]

Yung-ning, in spite of the prominence given to it on the maps, is a
large straggling village rather than a town. It has no walls, its
houses are humble structures mostly built of wood, and its only
conspicuous building is an imposing lamasery. Its population is
purely agricultural. The people are of mixed Mo-so and Tibetan race,
and the prevailing religion is Lamaism. The town--if it must be so
called--is the capital of a district bounded on the north and east
by the provincial frontier, on the south by the Yangtse or River of
Golden Sand, and the Chinese sub-prefecture of Yung Pei, and on the
west by the tribal district of Chung-tien. The district of Yung-ning
is ruled by a hereditary native chief, a personage of less importance
than the "kings" of Chala and Muli, but still of considerable rank
and influence. Like many other tribal chiefs who, during the last few
centuries have been brought by cajolery or force of arms under the
dominion of China, the Yung-ning chief holds the hereditary rank of
a Chinese official. In China proper, as I need hardly say, official
rank is not hereditary; but in subduing the wild "barbarian" districts
of Ssuch'uan and Yunnan the Chinese Government found their task
facilitated by making an ingenious compromise with the chiefs. Each
chieftain who placed himself and his territory under the suzerainty
of China, and undertook to be guided in all matters of political
importance by Chinese advice, was not only confirmed in his position
as tribal ruler, but received the title and rank of a Chinese official
to be borne by his heirs and successors in perpetuity. The ruler of
Yung-ning thus bears the hereditary rank and title of prefect, and
it is for this reason that in the maps his capital is marked as a
_fu_ or prefecture. In all matters affecting Chinese interests he is
practically the subordinate of the sub-prefect of Yung Pei, a Chinese
official whose rank is nominally inferior to his own. Yung Pei is a
small city lying about six days' journey south of Yung-ning, forming
the centre of a Chinese administrative subdivision.

The day after my arrival at Yung-ning I received a call from the chief.
As he knew no Chinese we had to converse through the medium of his
Chinese secretary. The chief was a young man of about twenty-eight,
amiable enough, but intensely shy and ill at ease in the presence of a
foreigner. He wore the uniform of his Chinese rank, and showed himself
well acquainted with the Chinese rules of ceremony and etiquette.

The plain of Yung-ning is situated about 9,500 feet above sea-level,
in a warm latitude, and produces a great variety of crops. Part of
it is given up to the cultivation of rice, for it is well watered
by a considerable stream, which bisects the town and flows through
the middle of the plain. I saw here, for the first time since I had
left central Ssuch'uan, that patient and indispensable partner of the
Chinese ploughman in the rice-field, the water-buffalo. The stream is
named the K'ai Chi[257] and is spanned by a handsome stone bridge
which, according to the inscription on a tablet close by, was rebuilt
as recently as the thirtieth year of the present reign (1905). The
stream produces excellent fish.

[Sidenote: POLYANDRY]

The town contains, besides quasi-Tibetans and Mo-so, a considerable
number of Li-so (Leesaw), who speak a language of their own. During
the day and a half I spent in Yung-ning I took the opportunity to note
down a list of Li-so words, in order that I might compare them with the
Mo-so words I had picked up during the three days' march from Muli. The
vocabularies will be found in Appendix A.

In many respects the social customs of the Mo-so are identical with
those of eastern Tibet. Polyandry, for example, prevails among them to
a great extent. It is quite common for a woman to have three or four
husbands, or even more. With regard to the prevalence of this practice
in Tibetan countries, Baber[258] has observed the curious fact that
polygamy is the rule in the valleys while polyandry prevails in the
uplands, the reason apparently being that women are numerous in the
valleys, where the work is light and suitable to their capabilities,
but form only a small minority of the population of the mountains,
where the climate is severe and the work of the herdsmen not suited
to females. "The subject," he says, "raises many curious and by no
means frivolous questions, but I cannot help thinking it singular that
the conduct of courtship and matrimony should be regulated by the
barometrical pressure." In the Mo-so country, however, the practice
of polyandry seems to be almost, if not quite, as prevalent among the
people of the plains as among those of the mountains; it exists, for
instance, in the villages situated on the banks of the upper Yangtse,
less than two days' journey south of Yung-ning. The children of a woman
who has several husbands are apparently regarded as the legitimate
offspring of all of them: an arrangement facilitated by the fact that
the husbands are generally closely related to each other,[259] and
that the Mo-so, like the Tibetans, have no regular surnames. In one of
the Sino-Tibetan states north-west of Tachienlu the sovereign power is
said to be always in the hands of a woman. This is the principality of
Sa-mong (so spelled in Tibetan) in the north-east of Derge. If this
"regiment of women" is not connected with an ancient matriarchal custom
it may be the result of ages of polyandry, though I am not aware that
the queen of Sa-mong takes to herself more than one prince-consort.[260]

[Sidenote: DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD]

The funeral ceremonies of the Mo-so are much the same as those of
the Tibetans and the people of Muli. The dead are generally cremated
or left to the vultures and beasts of prey. In case of cremation,
the ashes are scattered or thrown into a ravine or river. Such
rough-and-ready methods of disposing of the dead seem to point back to
a time when the people that practise these customs were nomads, having
no fixed habitation and unable to raise permanent memorials to their
dead. The Mo-so, who have settled close to the banks of the Yangtse,
hold the richest lands, and are perhaps the most civilised members of
their race. They, perhaps influenced by the example of the Chinese,
seem to be gradually modifying the national customs with regard to the
disposal of the dead. After cremation they carefully wash the ashes in
the waters of the Yangtse, and then deposit them in artificial caves
roughly hewn by themselves out of the loose crumbling soil of the
river's right bank. But the ashes are not inurned, and no record of the
deceased is preserved on tablets or monuments.


FOOTNOTES:

[230] See Note 31 (p. 431).

[231] Royal Geographical Society's _Supplementary Papers_, vol. i. p.
96. The conjecture about the monastery was correct.

[232] 黃 (Yellow) and 皇 (Imperial).

[233] Judging from the dates in the _T'ung Chih_, it cannot have been
earlier than 1729.

[234] "Nearly every great monastery," says Waddell, "has its own
reincarnate Lama as its chief."--(_Lamaism in Tibet_, p. 230. For the
numbers of these reincarnated saints, see _ibid._, p. 243.) These are
the personages generally known by Europeans as Living Buddhas. One of
them presides over the great lamasery in Peking.

[235] Spelt mk'an-po (མཁན་པོ་)

[236] This word literally means the "house of a god, or shrine" (ལྷ་ཁང་)
It is the same lamasery as that otherwise known as Wa-chin, referred to
on p. 204.

[237] See Note 32 (p. 431).

[238] ཕྱག་མཛོད་ (ch'ag-mDzod), literally the "treasury-hand."

[239] སྐུ་ཚབ་ (sku-ts'ab), literally "vice-gerent" or "lieutenant."

[240] See Note 33 (p. 431).

[241] Known by the Tibetans as Re-wo-tse-nga. The monastery there is
said to be the oldest in China, and is visited annually by thousands of
pilgrims, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese.

[242] Spelt Ha-dBar-bDe-Ligs(ཧ་དབར་བདེ་ལིགསརྒྱ་ལ་བོ་).

[243] See Note 34 (p. 432).

[244] For further information regarding the position of the ruler of
Muli and the history of his state, see Note 34 (p. 432).

[245] Travellers to Mecca have recorded the same fact with regard to
that city.

[246] གྲྭ་པ་·

[247] See Note 35 (p. 433).

[248] See pp. 280-281.

[249] Major H. R. Davies informs me that he found some Miao-tzŭ between
Mien-ning-hsien and the Yalung on the way to Muli, but that is much
further east.

[250] See Note 34 (p. 432).

[251] Cf. Marco Polo's description of the burial customs of certain
Yunnan tribes, vol. ii. pp. 122-123. (Cordier's edition, 1903.)

[252] See Rockhill, _Land of the Lamas_, pp. 286-287. See also p.
81, where he states that "the remains of the dead are exposed on the
hillsides in spots selected by lamas; if the body is rapidly devoured
by wild beasts and birds of prey, the righteousness of the deceased
is held to be evident, but if it remains a long time undevoured, his
wickedness is proved." See also the _Zend-Avesta_, _Sacred Books of
the East_, vol. iv. pp. 74-75 and 97-98. It is interesting to note
that Friar Odoric's account of "Tebek" is almost literally true, if we
except the remark about the tusked ladies.

[253] See Note 36 (p. 434).

[254] See below, chap. xv.

[255] From information obtained later I gather that these travellers
were the Count de Marsay and the Count L. de Las Cases.

[256] One of their earrings is illustrated at p. 152.

[257] 開基.

[258] See Royal Geographical Society's _Supplementary Papers_, vol. i.
p. 97.

[259] "In Ceylon the joint husbands are always brothers, and this is
also the case among the tribes residing at the foot of the Himalaya
mountains." (Lord Avebury's _Origin of Civilisation_, 6th ed. p. 153.)
A fuller account of polyandry in Ceylon may be found in Tennent's
_Ceylon_ (Longmans, 1859, 2nd ed. vol. ii. pp. 428 _seq._). Tennent
points out that polyandry can be traced back to very ancient times.
It "receives a partial sanction in the Institutes of Manu," and is
referred to without reproach in the Mahabharata. Herbert Spencer
(_Principles of Ethics_, pt. ii. ch. 13) says that in Tibet, "polyandry
appears more conducive to social welfare than any other relation of
the sexes. It receives approval from travellers, and even a Moravian
missionary defends it: the missionary holding that superabundant
population, in an unfertile country, must be a great calamity and
produce 'eternal welfare or eternal want.'" See also _Principles of
Sociology_. Polyandry is forbidden in the Shan States, though polygamy
is sanctioned. (See _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt. i. vol. i. p. 325.)

[260] See Note 37 (p. 434).




CHAPTER XIII

YUNG-NING TO LI-CHIANG


At Yung-ning I parted with some regret from my three Chinese
soldiers--including Hoggins and Bloggins--who had acted as my escort
all the way from Tachienlu. They had carried out their orders to the
letter in seeing me safely into Yunnan, and in many ways had rendered
me faithful and valuable service. Attended by such men a traveller in
the wilds of Chinese Tibet has indeed but little to complain of. They
were always cheerful, obedient and respectful, never once grumbled
at the hardships of the road or the difficulties that we sometimes
had about obtaining food, and at the end of a day's journey were
always busy about my personal requirements before they looked after
themselves. I rewarded them with treble the pay I had promised them at
Tachienlu, and still felt that I was in their debt. They started off on
the return journey in the company of the lama who had acted as my guide
from Muli, and I was glad to learn some months afterwards that they had
arrived safely at Tachienlu. The lama, of course, left them at Muli.
The Tibetan servant whom I had engaged at Tachienlu remained in my
service for some weeks longer, until I had arrived at T'êng-yüeh near
the frontier of Burma.

[Sidenote: DEPARTURE FROM YUNG-NING]

I started from Yung-ning on 10th May, with an unusually large retinue.
The mountain pass that separates the Yung-ning plain from the Yangtse
was said to be one of the most dangerous roads in western China, owing
to the presence of large bands of Lolo robbers. The Yung-ning chief
was therefore kind enough to send no less than twelve armed men to
escort me to the banks of the river. Two of the twelve were soldiers in
uniform; the rest were honest rustics who were probably less afraid of
the Lolos than of their borrowed firearms, which on their own admission
they had never been taught to use. Our general direction during the
morning was W.S.W., over an undulating road that at first led us
through cultivated fields and afterwards gradually ascended the side
of a wooded mountain. Early in the afternoon we reached, after a long
climb, the summit of the Ge Wa pass or Ge Wa Ya K'ou, the height of
which is about 13,000 feet. From the summit there was no view towards
the south as it was hidden by forests, but a backward glance afforded a
beautiful view of the Yung-ning plain, the afternoon shining brightly
on its many shades of green. We descended the west side of the pass
by a bad road, and all distant views were concealed until we had gone
down about 3,000 feet. Then a panorama of very lofty mountains, crowned
with snow, opened out before us in the south-west. After passing one
or two log cabins and a few fields of scanty vegetation we reached
our night's quarters in a sorry hut. The whole of the next morning
was occupied in continuing the long descent to the Yangtse valley.
The road is not very steep, but the surface is crumbling and rocky.
We first caught sight of the great river when we were between 2,000
and 3,000 feet above it. The glimpse revealed to us a tortuous channel
of which the general direction was from north-west to south-east. The
mountains slope almost to the water's edge on both sides, but there
are several small villages perched above the banks, and there is a
considerable amount of cultivation. Yet it is curious to observe that
the Chinese, as distinct from the natives, are convinced that this
broad valley--like all other river-valleys in the west--is dangerous
to the health of "civilised" beings. We had our midday meal outside
a solitary house called Lan Ga Lo, not far from which is a village.
Thence we descended, always in full view of the river, to the village
of La Ka Shi, which lies close to a small stream called the Si Dji or
Si river. From there we proceeded along the left bank of the Yangtse,
two or three hundred feet above it, for a distance of half a mile, then
descended to the water's edge by a very steep zig-zagged path.

[Illustration: THE YANGTSE RIVER, NEAR YUNG-NING, ABOVE THE FERRY.
  [_To face p. 236._]


[Illustration: THE YANGTSE RIVER, NEAR YUNG-NING, ABOVE THE FERRY.
  [_To face p. 236._]

The crossing of the river was effected by means of a ferry-boat; but,
as there was only one boat and we had mules to take across, it was not
till two hours afterwards that we were all safely deposited with our
baggage on the right bank. It was difficult work to get the animals
into the boat. The second boat-load (consisting of two of them)
nearly found a watery grave, for a mule became panic-stricken when the
boat was only a third of the way across, and stamped about so much that
the rather crazy craft sprang a leak and had to be hurried back. The
current was much less swift than that of the Yalung, and we were not
carried down stream more than about 30 yards during the passage; but
we were told by the ferryman that the water had only recently begun
to rise above the usual winter level. The melting snows in summer
naturally make a great difference in the speed of the current and the
level of the water. Where we crossed, the river was more than 100 yards
broad, but just above that point it forces its way through a narrow
channel formed by some jutting rocks.[261] The rapids render the river
quite unnavigable. The height of the Yangtse above sea-level at this
point is about 5,200 feet. A local Chinese name for this portion of the
river is Pai Shui Ho ("White Water River"), but, like all rivers fed by
melting snows and glaciers, it was very brown and muddy when we crossed
it. The Mo-so name is Gi Dji, which simply means "The River."

It is only within the last ten years that geographers have known
anything about the great bend in the Yangtse that brings it to within
a day's journey of Yung-ning. The bend is, of course, caused by the
vast mountain range that extends to the north of Li-chiang--a range
that proved impenetrable even to the turbulent waters of the greatest
river in China, and forced it to take a northerly course that added
scores of miles to its total length. M. Bonin was, I believe, the
first traveller to make this discovery, and his observations were
subsequently confirmed by Major Davies and Major Ryder.[262]

On reaching the right (south) bank of the Yangtse, we at once commenced
a stiff uphill climb. Close to the river's edge I noticed some of the
small artificial caves or recesses mentioned above,[263] in connection
with the burial customs of the Mo-so. Not far from these, but not quite
so close to the river's edge, were a number of holes, large enough to
admit a man, and partly covered by loose planks. These, I was told,
were the shafts of gold-mines, but I could get no information as to the
output, and no doubt the methods of working are exceedingly primitive.
When I asked my guides whether the gold of this district had not
attracted Chinese miners, they told me a naïve story of how some years
ago some Chinese "from the east" came and set up a mining establishment
there, ruthlessly driving the natives to the neighbouring mountains.
Soon afterwards the Chinese miners found themselves harassed day and
night by continuous showers of stones and rocks, which killed not a few
of their number and wrecked their huts. After patiently enduring these
calamities for a few days, without hope of being able to retaliate,
they picked up their belongings and quietly fled away, doubtless
regretting their foolhardiness in tampering with the prescriptive
rights of the quarrelsome barbarians.[264]

[Illustration: THE YANGTSE RIVER AT THE FERRY.   [_To face p. 238._]

[Sidenote: MO-SO AND LI-SO]

Several hundred feet above the gold-mines I passed some old
graves--not unlike a type of grave often seen in China proper. One
of my mule-drivers, a Mo-so, could only tell me that they were the
tombs of _pên-ti-jên_, which means nothing but "the natives," and
is therefore not a very enlightening expression to use in a country
inhabited by three or four different races, none of which has any
exact knowledge of how it came there. The predominant races between
the Yunnan frontier, north of Yung-ning, and the town of Li-chiang are
undoubtedly Mo-so and Li-so, but that there are tribal differences
among them seems to be evident from the fact that the Mo-so north of
the Yangtse are under the rule of the chief whom I met at Yung-ning,
while south of that river they are subject to another chief who resides
at Li-chiang. At one time, indeed, it is well known that all the Mo-so
were governed by a king whose capital was at Li-chiang, but the present
Li-chiang chief--whose influence is gradually waning owing to Chinese
encroachments--is not the representative of the ancient Mo-so king.

After climbing about 2,000 feet above the river, we halted for the
night in the flourishing village of Fêng K'o, where I found excellent
quarters in the upper story of an empty house. Next day we crossed
the little upland valley in which Fêng K'o is situated, and gradually
ascended along the mountain-side in a south-westerly direction,
following to some extent the course of the river now far below us.
About 3 miles from Fêng K'o we turned west into a defile, having in
front of us, to the south and south-west, a range of rocky mountains
with snowy peaks probably over 18,000 feet high. Another 2 or 3 miles
brought us to a brisk, clear stream, which we followed up to a little
temple or shrine close by which the water bubbles out of a fountain in
a rock. The water is excellent, and there is good camping-ground for
a small party. I strongly recommend travellers who may traverse this
route hereafter to make this a stage if possible. Lightly-equipped
travellers might make it the second stage from Yung-ning, and
heavily-laden caravans might make it the third. From this attractive
spot we marched steadily uphill for a few miles and rested outside a
couple of cottages. Thence, after a luncheon of eggs, we resumed our
upward journey for several hours, finally following an undulating track
along one of the mountain ridges. It began to cloud over about this
time. The tops of the neighbouring mountains were hidden in mist, and
towards evening rain fell heavily. This part of the country is a dreary
waste of wild mountains without a trace of human habitation. We went
on till nightfall, then camped in the forest. As we had no tent, and
were sheltered only by the gaunt arms of fir-trees, the prospects of a
comfortable night were somewhat dismal; but fortunately the rain ceased
to fall before midnight and we were troubled only by the dripping
branches. In one respect the rain was useful, as it afforded us all the
water we required for drinking and cooking purposes. We had found no
spring-water in this part of the forest.

[Sidenote: CAMP IN THE FOREST]

The rain began to fall again next day while we were at breakfast, and
continued off and on all the morning. In the afternoon it cleared up,
and for the rest of the way to Li-chiang the weather was perfect.
Our road gradually led us uphill, and took us over the pass known by
the Mo-so as Go Ka A, the height of which is about 15,000 feet. The
descent is steep and rocky. Both sides of the pass are well wooded.
All the afternoon we continued to descend, and towards evening reached
a cultivated valley surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills. Here
there was a scattered hamlet named T'o Ko Sho--the first village we
had seen since we left Fêng K'o. While we were resting outside one of
the cottages I saw a man going out to shoot pheasants with a bow and
arrows.[265] As we did not await his return I am unable to give any
opinion as to his skill. A few miles beyond T'o Ko Sho we camped in the
forest at the end of a marshy meadow, which gave pasture to our beasts
and supplied (from a brook) good water for ourselves. The forest is
said to be infested with panthers; but they gave us no trouble. I was
somewhat disturbed, however, by a very large and obstinate species of
mosquito. Next day the road undulated in a southerly direction through
the forest. We soon caught sight of some lofty and magnificent snowy
peaks to the south-west--the mountains that tower some 10,000 feet
above the Li-chiang plain which itself lies at an elevation of over
8,000 feet. A few more miles brought us to the village of Ming Yin
Chi,[266] which with its almost-Chinese architecture, its likin-station
and familiar official notices (the first seen since the first day's
journey from Tachienlu), reminded us that we were entering a country
where the direct influence of China succeeded in making itself felt.

[Sidenote: ON THE ROAD TO LI-CHIANG]

The houses of Ming Yin Chi are mostly built of wood, but there are a
few tiled roofs. The dress of the people is hardly distinguishable
from that of the Chinese, except in the massive ear-rings and other
ornaments worn by the women. Their feet, of course, are unbound.
Outside the village likin-station I saw a versified proclamation
in Chinese, referring to the dangerous state of the roads of the
neighbourhood owing to the prevalence of brigandage, and offering
rewards for the capture of the robbers. Leaving this village behind
us we soon passed again into the forest, the road lying through a
fairly level park-like country studded with noble pines. We continued
our journey till sunset and again camped in the forest. So still and
peaceful was the night that my candle burned with as steady a flame
as if it were inside a lantern. Next morning we began by climbing
uphill out of the hollow in which we had camped to a _col_ rather
over 10,000 feet in elevation. The road then led rapidly downhill for
about 3 miles and brought us to a narrow valley through which flows a
stream called the Hei Shui ("Black Water"). Here I observed a sight
which unfortunately is only too rare in China--the building of a new
bridge. It was in fact one of three new bridges crossed during this
day's journey. A party of workmen was busily engaged in top-dressing
the surface of the bridge, which was almost finished, and as it is
considered unlucky in China to use a new bridge before it is opened
to traffic, I crossed by a temporary wooden structure a few yards
lower down. The inevitable tablet commemorating the erection of the
bridge and the names of the givers--for it had nothing to do with
Government--was already in position on the right bank of the river.
Beside this tablet is a smaller one dedicated to the Spirit of the
Road. Soon after crossing the Black Water the road turns to the right,
southwards.

Another road, which looks like a continuation of the old one, descends
through the valley of the stream, and as I was then on foot and far
ahead of my caravan I followed this road for some _li_ without guessing
it was the wrong one. So I had to retrace my steps, to find that the
road to Li-chiang climbs over three successive small passes, divided
from each other by a series of ravines. I expected when I reached each
summit--the highest being about 11,000 feet in elevation--to find the
city of Li-chiang lying at my feet, but I beheld only forests and the
great snowy peaks. The descent from the third pass led into a barren
stony valley which was once, in all probability, the bed of a glacier.
If appearances are not very deceptive the shrunken glacier can still be
seen high up on the mountains, some distance below the snow-line. The
stony valley is the northern section of the Li-chiang plain, but though
we had no more climbing we had a long and rather wearisome march of
between 10 and 20 miles before we reached the city. The first section
of the valley--absolutely bare and uninhabited--is approximately rather
less than 2 miles broad, and on each side are scantily-wooded hills.
The snowy summits towered above us on our right. The valley seems
almost level, and one can gaze over its whole extent from almost any
point, but it has a gentle slope towards the south. After traversing a
belt of shrubby wilderness the desert gradually transformed itself into
a delightful garden. The principal crop in the cultivated part of the
Li-chiang plain is opium, and the pure white flower of the poppy-plant
was in full bloom. Among the most attractive features of the plain are
its hedges and wild-flowers--especially its luxuriant white wild-roses,
the most beautiful I have ever seen. The air was deliciously fresh
and warm and laden with the scent of flowers, and it was only when we
caught sight of the huge wintry mountains gazing icily down upon us
from the sky that we were forced to remember that "it is not always
May."

[Sidenote: ARRIVAL AT LI-CHIANG]

An excellent broad road--one of the very best I have seen in
China--traverses the greater part of the cultivated portion of the
valley. A dogcart might be driven over it with perfect safety, and
in many places it is broader than a good English country road. It is
lined on both sides with luxuriant untrimmed hedges, beyond which lie
beautiful Gardens of Sleep--acres of white poppy. Villages are numerous
in the plain, but our road did not take us through many of them.
One--the village of Pei Sha--through which we rode just as the sun was
setting, was very picturesque with its wild-flowers and palm-trees. The
road degenerated as we approached the city. It had once been paved and
was no doubt an excellent causeway in time past; but as usual in China
the paving-stones had sunk crookedly and had not been repaired. It was
dark before we arrived at the end of our unusually long day's journey,
and in the hedges of the suburbs glimmering glow-worms took the place
of the wild-roses that night had rendered invisible.

Li-chiang is a small unwalled town, only dignified by the name of
a city because it is the administrative centre of a prefecture and
a district magistracy. As the capital of the old Mo-so kingdom its
situation was well chosen, for in the days of border warfare the
strategic importance of its position must have been considerable.
It stands on a small hill commanding the greater part of the plain,
and is within comparatively easy reach of the Yangtse ferries, both
on the east and on the west. No doubt the Mo-so, in the days of
their strength, made a point of holding the crossings at both places.
Li-chiang is still the residence of a Mo-so or Nashi (Lashi) chief, but
his influence is steadily waning. The great majority of the inhabitants
are of mixed race, the predominating types being Mo-so, Li-so, Lolo and
Min-chia.[267] There is also a pure Chinese element, which is gradually
tending to increase. Li-chiang is a considerable centre of trade, and
is visited by large numbers of Tibetans and "Ku-tsung" from Atuntzŭ and
the valley of the Mekong, and also by traders from Tali-fu, Yunnan-fu,
Yung Pei and the Chien-ch'ang valley. There is a broad marketplace
in the middle of the town, almost constantly occupied by loquacious
crowds of buyers and sellers of many races. There is a good deal of
green foliage in the outskirts, and much deflected water which flows
through some of the streets like little canals. To a casual observer
the streets are not very unlike those of an ordinary town in China: the
shops have much the same outward appearance, and the same charactered
sign-boards hang above their doors.

[Sidenote: REST AT LI-CHIANG]

The morning after my arrival at Li-chiang, where I found accommodation
in a very bad inn, I heard the surprising and welcome news that there
were two Englishmen staying in the town, one of them being a consular
official and the other a railway surveyor. As I had no idea that the
British Government of Burma had any present intention of extending
their railway system to northern Yunnan I decided to call upon my
compatriots and ascertain if such were the case. In the course of my
enquiries into their place of residence I discovered that one of the
Englishmen had left the town some days before, and that the other was a
Frenchman! It finally turned out that the former was a Mr Forrest, the
adventurous botanist to whose narrow escape from torture and death at
the hands of the lamas I have already referred.[268] He had been making
a short stay in Li-chiang, and had just left on a botanical expedition
to the neighbouring hills. The Frenchman was M. Gaston Perronne, a
merchant, who was engaged in the purchase of musk. He had taken a
Chinese house in Li-chiang for the period of his residence there, and
when I called upon him he most kindly insisted upon my staying with
him until I left Li-chiang. Instead of leaving on the following day,
therefore, as I had intended, I remained in Li-chiang from the evening
of the 15th May to the morning of the 18th.


FOOTNOTES:

[261] See illustration _to face page 236_.

[262] A similar great bend, only recently discovered, occurs in the
course of the Yalung. In travelling between Mien-ning-hsien, north of
Ning-yuan-fu, and Muli, the Yalung must, on account of this bend, be
crossed no less than three times. The bend was discovered by Major H.
R. Davies.

[263] See page 233.

[264] A similar story, apparently, was told to Mr Amundsen with
reference to a locality in the Muli territory.

[265] This is, I have been told, a common practice among the people of
the Upper Mekong valley, especially about Atuntzŭ.

[266] 鳴音汲.

[267] See Note 38 (p. 435).

[268] See above, p. 150.




CHAPTER XIV

LI-CHIANG TO TALI-FU


I was now bound for Tali-fu, having bargained with a new set of
muleteers to take me there in five days. I was anxious to press on as
rapidly as possible, not only because I was now on ground that had
several times been traversed and described by other Europeans, but also
because the rainy season was just beginning, and might seriously hamper
my movements in crossing the mountains and rivers beyond Tali-fu. I had
not yet decided whether to proceed to Burma by the T'êng-yüeh-Bhamo
route or to attempt to reach Lashio (the terminus of the British Shan
States railway system) by Yün-chou and the Kunlon Ferry. My host, M.
Perronne, was a thorough believer in the deadly unhealthiness of the
Salwen valley in the rainy season, and assured me that it would be
madness to attempt to cross it till the autumn. I decided, however, to
wait till I reached Tali-fu before coming to a decision.

[Sidenote: SHOOTING A MUD-DEVIL]

From Li-chiang my road lay in a westerly direction over a portion of
the plain that I had not yet traversed. Roses, meadow-sweet, primroses
and other wild-flowers made the hedges smell of England. We left
the plain behind us by crossing a low range of hills from which we
descended into another plain called the Lashi-Pa, in which there is
a small lake. Here I was shown a path that leads west towards the
Ashi Ferry on the Yangtse, only a few miles distant, and so leads
to Chung-tien and Atuntzŭ.[269] The last-named place, I may mention
incidentally, is said to exist no longer, part of it having been
destroyed by a gigantic landslip, and the rest having been demolished
in the recent war between the Chinese and the lamas. The landslip
appears to have been an extraordinary occurrence, and was perhaps
caused by an earthquake. Torrents of mud and stones tore like an
avalanche down the side of the mountain at the base of which Atuntzŭ
was situated, demolishing houses, destroying all growing crops, and
burying alive whole families. The local officials dealt with the
catastrophe in an interesting and characteristic manner. Possessed,
apparently, by the idea that the moving masses of mud were directed
and controlled by a malevolent devil, they armed themselves with
muzzle-loading guns and bows and arrows, and went out and shot the mud.
In due time the torrent ceased to flow, and no doubt it was universally
believed that the devil had been slain by arrows and bullets. The harm
already done, unfortunately, was irreparable, and what remained of the
town has since, as I have said, fallen a prey to warfare.

My road instead of going west to the Yangtse bore away southwards
to the left of the lake, and brought us about midday to the village
of Shang La Shih or Upper Lashi, where I lunched. The plain contains
several other villages, but its soil seems hardly so rich as that of
the plain of Li-chiang. In the afternoon, after crossing a pass of no
great elevation, we dropped down to a third valley and stopped for the
night at the hamlet of Kuan Hsia, also called P'o Chiao.[270] About
here I observed a good deal of ruddy soil, which reminds one of the
red sand-stone basin of Ssuch'uan. There is also a small lake or tarn.
During the whole of the next day we traversed the same valley, passing
through many prosperous and populous villages. The valley is indeed
only a narrow strip of fertile land between more or less barren ranges
of hill, but what there is would be amply sufficient to support a very
large population. The road is very fair, and at one time was probably
an excellent highway. There are the remains of drinking-fountains
along the road, and many of the bridges are still admirable and
substantial pieces of work. It would I think be a mistake to say that
all the decay is traceable to the ravages of the Mohammedan rebellion
of the seventies. The decay had probably set in--here as elsewhere in
China--long before that lurid episode had drenched the province of
Yunnan in seas of blood.

[Sidenote: MIN-CHIA]

On leaving the Li-chiang plain we had left behind us the country of the
Mo-so or Lashi, and had entered a district that is perhaps chiefly
inhabited by a race known to the Chinese as _Min-chia_,[271] which
simply means "the people" or "the families of people." The mystery that
surrounds the origin of all the tribes I have mentioned clings no less
obstinately to the Min-chia. They are a very interesting and amiable
people, fair in face, and with clear bold eyes that do not shun to
meet the gaze of a stranger. The women, if less handsome and imposing
than the tall women of eastern Tibet, have a grace and prettiness of
their own, that would, I feel sure, be found exceedingly attractive by
impressionable Europeans. Two days north of Tali-fu I saw a Min-chia
child who would be considered beautiful in any western country. She was
standing alone in a poppy-field, singing a song in a language that was
certainly very different from Chinese.

    "Will no one tell me what she sings?
      Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
    For old, unhappy, far-off things
      And battles long ago."

But the subject of the song mattered little. The child made as pretty a
picture as I had ever seen in China.

My second day's journey from Li-chiang took me through a large
number of villages, of which the names of the most important will
be found in the itinerary. At midday we reached the departmental
city of Chien-ch'uan-chou, a small town which sits among a crowd of
small centres of population, like a hen among her chickens. It is
surrounded by a battlemented wall of the usual type, which gives it
an appearance of compactness, but in origin it was probably merely an
agglomeration of villages. Its population is mainly employed in tilling
the surrounding fields. A few miles further we passed near the shores
of a small shallow lake, from which flows a small river called the Hai
Wei.[272] Just beyond the village of Han Têng, where a market was being
held, we crossed the river by a handsome bridge, and almost immediately
afterwards arrived at the last village of the long valley through which
we had been riding all day. This was the village of Tien Wei, where we
spent the night. Good quarters were provided for us in a hostelry which
was quite new and therefore comparatively clean.

[Sidenote: TALI-FU MOUNTAINS]

Since leaving the high mountains north of Li-chiang we seemed to have
entered a new climate. Riding and walking during the day under a
blazing sun, and with a shade temperature of 80° F., proved to be much
more exhausting than climbing snowy mountains. We were now on the high
Yunnan plateau, at an average elevation of about 7,000 feet; but we
were gradually approaching a tropical latitude, and the season--just
before the breaking of the rains--was the hottest of the year. I had
long since discarded the thick garments which in the mountains near
the Yalung had seemed none too warm. The nights and early mornings,
however, were always deliciously cool, and I was well aware that
in the steaming plains of Burma I should long for the comparative
coolness of the Yunnan plateau. At Tien Wei the temperature an hour
before our early start sank as low as 54°, and we made haste to get
well on the road before the sun rose high in the heavens. Out of the
valley our road lay over a picturesque range of low hills over-grown
chiefly with dwarf pines. On leaving these behind we found ourselves
in a small valley studded with a few villages, from which we ascended
another and a higher range. From its northern slopes I had a last view
of Li-chiang's snow-clad peaks, and half a mile further on we came
within sight of another range of snow-crowned hills to the south. This
was the lofty range--never perhaps absolutely free from snow in spite
of its latitude[273]--which forms the magnificent background to the
city of Tali-fu, now little more than two days distant. At the foot of
the hills from which we had this view we came to a small temple and an
eating-house, close to a stream crossed by a bridge called Hao Shou.
The first word is the Chinese for a crane, a bird which is emblematic
of longevity, and _shou_ is the ordinary word for "long life"; so it
is evidently intended that this bridge should last for ever. Here we
halted for lunch, I secluding myself from public observation within the
little temple.

About 8 miles further on we passed through the village of Niu Kai,[274]
which means Ox Village, just beyond which we passed close to a curious
hill which has the appearance of a truncated cone. It is flattened
at the top, and there is a small pagoda. Hot springs issue from the
base of this hill, which bears the name of Huo Yen Shan ("Fiery Flame
Hill"). Perhaps it was once a miniature volcano. I may mention, by the
way, that the valley through which we travelled the previous day has
within the last fifteen years suffered from a disastrous earthquake,
which is said to have destroyed many villages and dozens of lives.[275]
A short distance beyond the hot-spring hill we halted at a good inn in
the small market town of San Ying, the name of which (meaning Three
Camps) seems to indicate that it was once a military centre, perhaps
in the days of the Mongol invasions. In this town I bought myself an
umbrella for the sum of 600 cash--about one shilling. It professed
to be of English make, and to have come from Rangoon in Burma; but
the mis-spelling of the name of a well-known Anglo-Indian firm, and
the obvious inferiority of the manufacture, showed that it was only a
crude imitation. If this is the kind of article that passes current
for English goods in the west of China it is little wonder that the
trade between Burma and Yunnan is not showing the elasticity which is
desirable from the point of view of the material interests of both
China and Great Britain.

[Sidenote: THE WHITE SAND RIVER]

Next day we continued our march through the valley in which San Ying is
situated, passing numerous farm-houses and small villages surrounded
with rice and poppy-fields. The rosebushes which had so frequently
lined our path since we entered the Li-chiang plain had by this
time shed all their blossoms. The poppy-flowers, too, were rapidly
vanishing. Under the brilliant sunshine the country still looked very
charming; the landscapes being very often of the kind that would have
delighted the heart of a Corot. After passing through the village of
Ch'ang Ying (Long Camp) a few miles' ride brought us to the southern
termination of the valley, and thence the road wound gradually up the
slope of low hills, mostly consisting of barren moorland. We passed
a small lake or tarn, and after this the road turned south-west and
brought us to the large village of Ying-shan-p'u, situated in a
confined valley lying between two ranges of hills. We skirted the left
side of this village close under a temple and small pagoda. We then
went southwards into a ravine, near the entrance of which is a fine
single-arch bridge spanning a large stream called the Pai Sha or White
Sand. Our road did not lie across the bridge, but continued to lead us
along the stream's left bank. The scenery in the gorge is picturesque,
but the hills on both sides are barren. Little besides the prickly pear
seems to thrive on them. About 3 miles beyond the bridge we emerged
from the ravine into a plain. Here the Pai Sha flows with a much
slower current, and in size attains the dignity of a small river. Its
waters have been brought under complete control by the formation of
well-constructed embankments. For a distance of several miles, indeed,
the river becomes a canal, suitable for barge-traffic. Our road led us
along the embankment, and for a distance of over a mile--all the way to
the village of Chung So--the road is not unlike the Magdalen Walks at
Oxford. The foliage is thicker and the vegetation more luxuriant and
diversified than at Magdalen, but the road bears a general resemblance
to Addison's Walk, and the river is very similar to the Cherwell in
its width, in the laziness of its current, and--be it confessed--in
its colour.[276] At a poor inn in the village of Chung So we made
our midday halt. A plague of flies drove me away from it sooner than
was pleasing to my muleteers; but not before I had been cajoled into
entering my name in a subscription book as a contributor towards the
cost of rebuilding the Tê Yüan Bridge which spans the Pai Sha close by.

[Sidenote: THE PLAIN OF TALI]

After crossing this river and passing through or within sight of
several other villages we arrived at the small departmental city of
Têng-ch'uan-chou. Our road took us in at one gate and out at another.
It seemed to be a sleepy town and somewhat decadent. It lies not far
from the northern extremity of the famous Tali lake, the Erh Hai, a
great part of which came into view as soon as we had ascended some
rising ground, mostly consisting of red clay, a short distance beyond
Têng-ch'uan. The lake is said to be annually decreasing in volume, and
to judge from the appearance of the land beyond its northern extremity
this seems very likely to be true. Near Têng-ch'uan there are a number
of little isolated ponds which evidently once formed part of the
great lake, and there is a great deal of marshy land not yet fit for
cultivation.

We spent the night of 21st May in a good inn near the lake side in
the village of Sha P'ing. Next day we passed through Shang Kuan, the
fortified village, now partly in ruins, which once formed one of the
main bulwarks of the city of Tali-fu. Between the base of the high
mountains on the west and the waters of the lake on the east lies a
strip of land between 20 and 30 miles long, and about 3 miles broad.
At each extremity of this plain is--or rather was--a fortress. The
northern extremity is protected by Shang Kuan, the southern by Hsia
Kuan--the two words meaning the Upper and Lower Passes or Gates.
Tali-fu itself lies at the foot of the mountains about 18 miles from
the former and 7 miles from the latter, and used to be absolutely safe
from attack so long as those two fortified points remained intact. The
plain, which was once in all probability under water, is very rich and
grows every kind of grain that a beleaguered garrison could require. It
was always safe against starvation, therefore, in the event of a long
siege. It was only when artillery cast by Frenchmen in Yunnan-fu was
brought to bear upon the walls of the two "Kuans" that the Mohammedan
rebels were forced at last to yield the city.

The plain was not, when I rode through it on my last stage to Tali-fu,
devoted exclusively to cereals. Hundreds of acres were given up to
the opium-poppy, and thousands of men and women were at that time
employed in harvesting the drug. Much of the work was carried on by
Min-chia girls, who turn their healthy bronzed faces, shaded by great
straw sun-bonnets, to peer curiously at the novel sight of a Western
stranger. Some of the women in this district wear turbans of dark
blue cloth, the front band studded with silver knobs, which from a
distance make it appear as if their foreheads were crowned with some
kind of tiara. Beyond Shang Kuan the road lies at a distance of about
3 miles from the lake all the way to Tali-fu. Between the road and the
lake lies an endless series of cultivated fields, which even in this
dry season were plentifully irrigated by streams from the mountain.
The plain is dotted with villages which generally lie half buried in
foliage. On the right of the road[277] the cultivation is much more
scanty. There is a good deal of barren moorland, and much ground is
occupied by graves. Just before reaching Tali-fu we passed some lofty
thirteen-story pagodas. I entered the city by the north gate and found
good quarters on the upper floor of a quiet and commodious inn.

[Sidenote: THE TALI LAKE]

The city itself is neither more nor less attractive than dozens of
other Chinese cities. Its numerous ruined houses, however, have a
pathetic interest of their own, for they are just in the same condition
as they were immediately after the great siege. Even after thirty-five
years of peace Tali-fu has not recovered from the disasters of those
terrible days. I spent two days and three nights in Tali-fu, during
which time I explored the city, and wandered for miles beyond its
walls.[278] Late one afternoon I found myself by the lake side. The
view of those tranquil waters, overshadowed as they were by the great
mountain-barrier on the west, was very beautiful. The blue surface of
the lake was dotted with crowds of white sails rose-tinted with the
light of the setting sun. Nearer at hand crowds of wild-duck floated
in the midst of rippling circles, showing but little fear of the noisy
little boys who swam and dived as skilfully as themselves, and whose
splashing and glad laughter were almost the only sounds that broke the
utter peacefulness of a perfect summer evening. Very different was that
terrible scene which only a generation ago was enacted by the shores
of the Tali-fu lake, when its blue waters were incarnadined with blood
and its now peaceful shores rang with the despairing cries of thousands
of homeless women and children. For it was Tali-fu and the borders
of its lake that in 1873 witnessed the last and most tragic events
of the great Mohammedan rebellion.[279] Tu Wên-hsiu, the so-called
"Sultan," who had so long and successfully defied all the military
power of China, had fixed his court at Tali and had converted it into
what he believed to be an impregnable stronghold. The closing scene
of the great conflict which devastated the whole province of Yunnan,
and converted many of its most flourishing towns into blackened ruins,
has been several times described, but nowhere so graphically as in
the account by M. Emile Rocher,[280] the brilliant and sympathetic
Frenchman who was an eyewitness of much that took place during the
course of that terrible civil war. The following is a crude translation
of his account of the events that occurred when all hope of holding
Tali-fu against the imperial troops had been abandoned.

[Illustration: TALIFU.
(Photograph by Dr Clark, Missionary, Talifu).  [_To face p. 260._]

[Sidenote: DEATH OF THE SULTAN OF TALI]

"Tu Wên-hsiu ... awaited with resignation the hour that would deliver
him from his last agonies. His wives and several of his children, being
unwilling to survive him, poisoned themselves in his presence, and the
day before he left the palace he caused all articles of value that
he possessed to be destroyed, or, if they could not be broken, to be
thrown into the lake. On the 15th January 1873, Tu Wên-hsiu arrayed
himself in his handsomest robes of ceremony, and playing the part of
a sovereign to the very end of his career, ordered the preparation of
his yellow palanquin--yellow being a colour that none but the emperor
of China had the right to use. Before leaving his palace, he bade a
last farewell to the city in which the best years of his life had
been passed, and gazed for the last time on the chain of mountains,
the 'Azure Hills'[281] on which he had loved to ramble. Before leaving
his apartments he swallowed a ball of opium.... The road which his
retinue had to follow in order to reach the south gate was crowded
with people who came to prostrate themselves before their Sultan for
the last time. It was a solemn procession, and many people who had not
always had reason to praise the administration of the fallen Sultan
could not hide their emotion. Tu Wên-hsiu, whose senses the poison
had begun to paralyse, seemed to be little affected by what went on
around him. Arriving at the gate of the city he made a great effort
to get out of the palanquin in order to thank the people and the
leaders who had accompanied him, and his children were commended by
him to the care of Yang Wei.[282] An escort of soldiers, sent by Yang
Yü-k'o,[283] conducted him to the village occupied by that general. The
latter treated the vanquished chief with respect, and asked him several
questions, to which, however, Tu Wên-hsiu had difficulty in responding.
Seeing that he could only extract confused words out of the Sultan,
whose moments were numbered, the general sent him on to Hsiao Kuan-i,
where the Governor of Yunnan was residing, in order that the latter
might at least see him alive. He was already too late ... the Sultan
breathed his last shortly after his arrival, towards seven in the
evening.... The next day the Governor caused his head to be cut off,
and a courier specially charged with the burden was sent post haste to
the capital of the province, where the head was placed in honey for
preservation before being sent on to Peking."

Baber, who visited Tali-fu a few years after these events, adds a
graphic and pathetic touch, the truth of which was amply vouched for.
He says that when Tu Wên-hsiu was brought into the presence of the
imperialist general he begged with his last breath that the conquerors
would be merciful. "I have nothing to ask but this--spare the people."
This request--which Baber describes as perhaps the most impressive and
pathetic ever uttered by a dying patriot--was treated with disregard.
The real tragedy came later, and is described by M. Rocher in a
passage which I translate as follows: "The Governor, under pretext
of celebrating the surrender of the city, invited all the Mohammedan
leaders to a great banquet.... He received them very well, loaded them
with praises, and, just as they were going into the banquet hall,
the soldiers who had been placed in readiness for the event seized
upon the doomed guests. Seventeen heads simultaneously rolled on the
ground. The Governor then gave the order for six guns to be fired, the
signal already agreed upon for the commencement of the massacre in
the city. It was the eleventh day of the occupation. What followed is
indescribable.... After three days of this human butchery, Tali and
its environs presented a pitiable spectacle. Out of a population of
fifty thousand men, thirty thousand had perished during those fatal
days, and the rest were all dispersed."

[Sidenote: MASSACRE AT TALI-FU]

There is some reason to believe that the number of those said to have
been slain was largely exaggerated. Curiously enough the leaders of
the imperial armies who, according to our Western notions, should have
been zealous to hush up the whole grim episode, were the first to
spread abroad the news of the massacre and to magnify the numbers of
the slaughtered; not because they took any delight in the butchery for
its own sake, but because they wished to strike such terror into the
scattered bands of rebels who were still at large that they would no
longer have the heart to strive against the great emperor whose armies
they had defied for seventeen years. That the wholesale slaughter
cannot by any possibility be excused, goes without saying. But it is
only fair to remember that the great object which the imperial leaders
had before them was to inflict so terrible a chastisement on the rebels
that they would never again be able to threaten the stability of the
empire. That object was attained. Had any considerable body of men been
spared it is highly probable that they would merely have carried on
the warfare from another centre, and protracted, for another decade,
the strife and bloodshed which had already devastated the province of
Yunnan for nearly twenty years, and reduced the population--so it is
estimated--from eight millions to one.

Two years before the end, Tu Wên-hsiu made a great effort to prop up
his falling cause by securing the help of Great Britain. With this view
he despatched his son to England in 1871, and as a token of his desire
to become the vassal of the British Crown he sent Queen Victoria four
pieces of rock hewn out of the four corners of the great Tali mountain.
"Our unsentimental Foreign Office," as Baber says, "blind to romantic
symbolism, would not suffer them to be extricated from the bonded
warehouse of the Customs;" at any rate the Sultan and his unfortunate
followers were left to their doom, and the Dragon flag flew once more
over the walls of Tali. The mountain, if it could think and feel, might
perhaps console itself for the contempt shown to its corner-stones
with the reflection that since its history began nations have grown
up and passed away like the wild-flowers that live and die on its
green slopes, and that the great thrones and dynasties of to-day will
have become empty names, signifying nothing, long before its jewelled
fingers cease to traffic with the eternal stars, or to duplicate
themselves in the still waters of the Tali lake.


FOOTNOTES:

[269] Known to the Tibetans as A-jol (འཇོལ་).

[270] Both names are Chinese. The first means "Below the Pass," the
second "The Foot of the Hill."

[271] See below, pp. 289 _seq_.

[272] Literally "Tail of the Lake."

[273] Snow is said to exist in patches on the summit of the Tali
mountains all the year round; and is hawked in the streets of Hsia
Kuan, near Tali-fu, in the summer months.

[274] In Yunnan the word _chieh_ (which means either "street" or
"village") is always pronounced _Kai_, as in the Cantonese dialect.

[275] The official _Annals_ of Yunnan contain records of very many
disastrous earthquakes in this province.

[276] The Pai Sha (White Sand) river is no whit more entitled to that
appellation than the Cher would be.

[277] There are two roads from Shang Kuan to Tali-fu: one lying near
the lake, the other near the mountain. My road was the latter.

[278] Marco Polo's description of Tali-fu and the district of which it
was capital (Carajan) is well worth reading. The terrifying serpents
which he mentions as having "eyes bigger than a great loaf of bread,"
are said to have been crocodiles. (See Cordier's edition of Yule's
_Marco Polo_, vol. ii. pp. 76-84.)

[279] See Note 39 (p. 435).

[280] In his valuable work _La Province Chinoise du Yunnan_ (Paris,
1880).

[281] The Chinese name for the lofty mountains behind Tali-fu is Ts'ang
Shan (蒼山), "Azure Hills."

[282] Two young children survived the catastrophe. Yang Wei was the
Sultan's son-in-law and principal general of his army.

[283] 楊玉科, an imperialist general.




CHAPTER XV

ETHNOLOGY OF THE CHINESE FAR WEST


In the foregoing chapters I have attempted to give some account of a
portion of that wild border country which constitutes the Far West of
China, and most readers will perhaps agree that of all its striking
features it possesses no peculiarity so remarkable and so puzzling as
the number and diversity of the races by which it is peopled. At a
meeting of the Royal Geographical Society in 1904 a well-known Oriental
scholar, Sir George Scott, K.C.I.E., made the remark that "the country
north of Tali-fu is the place where we shall find, if we ever do find,
the solution of a great many of the puzzling questions of the different
races who inhabit the frontier hills." Those secluded ravines and icy
mountains have served as both the cradle and the death-bed of nations.
From that region have issued vigorous and ambitious tribes, bent on a
career of glory and conquest; and back to it the shattered remnants of
decaying races have crept home to die.

The preceding chapters may have revealed something of the nature of
the country from the geographical point of view. Fathomless chasms,
towering cliffs and gloomy river-gorges are to be found throughout
its length and breadth; and we need hardly be surprised to find that
the strange variations which characterise its climate, scenery, fauna
and flora, are faithfully reproduced in the vivid contrasts that exist
among its many-tongued peoples.

The comparatively short journey from Tachienlu to Tali-fu has
introduced us to some of these peoples, but these do not by any means
exhaust the tribal varieties of this remote part of the Chinese
empire. North of Tachienlu, up to the borders of Chinese Turkestan and
Mongolia, there are semi-independent races, some of which are perhaps
only remotely connected with any of those mentioned in this book; while
the wilder parts of the extreme north and east of Upper Burma and the
Shan States contain further ethnological problems of their own, which
scholars have so far indicated rather than solved.

Most of these tribes disclaim any connection with each other, but it
is impossible to believe that they are all of independent origin.
Probably the scattered threads of their history will never be gathered
up until scholars have found time and opportunity to study their
social, physical and linguistic peculiarities by prolonged residence
among them. Libraries cannot assist us much when historical records are
entirely wanting or are obviously unreliable, and travellers who move
rapidly from place to place can do little more.

[Sidenote: MIXTURE OF RACES]

Professor E. H. Parker sums up his remarks on the subject by expressing
the opinion that most of the far western tribes of China "will be
found to range themselves either under the Shan or the Tibetan
head."[284] This is probably true enough if we give a very wide
interpretation to the word "Tibetan," and also to the word "Shan." Our
knowledge of Tibet has till recently been of a very fragmentary nature,
and the veil of mystery that hung over that secluded land until it was
partially torn away by Lord Curzon's Lhasa expedition, and by such
enterprising travellers as Sven Hedin, has prevented us from realising
how far the Tibetans are from being a homogeneous race. No one who
has come across the people of eastern Tibet and has also read the
descriptions of western and central Tibet given us by recent writers
and travellers, can fail to see that in spite of all that they possess
in common the inhabitants of Tibet are a mixed people. "Long-heads" and
"broad-heads," swarthy faces, white faces and yellow faces, long noses
and flattened noses, oblique eyes and straight eyes, coal-black hair
and brown hair, and many other physical peculiarities differentiate the
people of one Tibetan district from those of another, just in the same
way as they differentiate the various races of India and Indo-China.
Nearly all the people of eastern Tibet have adopted the peculiar form
of Buddhism which as Lamaism we have learned to associate with that
country, and their languages and customs are saturated with Tibetan
influences. In spite of many dialectical peculiarities I found that
the people of the Yalung watershed were nearly always able to speak
and understand Tibetan. Yet many of them are bi-lingual, and their own
languages--as may be seen from the vocabularies in the Appendix--appear
to be nearly as distinct from Tibetan as they are from Chinese.

Who are entitled to be called pure Tibetans--if such people exist--and
who should be regarded as of hybrid or alien race, are therefore
questions not very easily determined. All the country west of the Ta
Tu river and the Chien-ch'ang valley may rightly enough be designated
Tibetan Ssuch'uan or Chinese Tibet, if the name does not mislead us
into supposing that the natives of the king of Chala's state, for
instance, are of the same type as the inhabitants of Lhasa. But as
these tribes are certainly not Chinese, what are we to call them if
Tibetan is, strictly speaking, a misnomer?

[Sidenote: MAN-TZŬ]

By the Chinese many of the western tribes are more or less
indiscriminately known as Man-tzŭ, Man-chia, Hsi Fan and T'u Fan.
Now the words Hsi Fan and T'u Fan[285] appear at first sight to mean
simply western Barbarians and aboriginal (or perhaps agricultural as
distinct from pastoral or nomadic) Barbarians; but, as is now well
known,[286] the old pronunciation of the second Chinese character in
T'u Fan was not _fan_, but something like _po_ or _p'o_, which is
simply the Tibetan word Bod,[287] pronounced Bö or Beu, the name by
which the Tibetans describe their own country and people, and from
which we derive the second syllable of our word Tibet. The character
_t'u_ was similarly a Chinese approximation to the Tibetan word _teu_,
meaning _upper_ or _superior_.[288] T'u Fan is then simply the Chinese
equivalent of our own word Tibetan, and means the Bö(d) of the Uplands;
and I assume that the name _Turfan_ (the oasis on the borders of
Turkestan and Sungaria, where some remarkable discoveries have recently
been made by exploring expeditions) has the same origin, though Turfan
itself happens to lie in a very deep depression. The combination Hsi
Fan, as Mr T. W. Kingsmill gives good reason for supposing, is in like
manner derived from the sound Shar-bar, the name of a tribe of eastern
Tibet still found near the town of Sung-p'an in north-western Ssuch'uan.

The word Man-tzŭ (蠻子)[289] is of very wide application, and at the
present time conveys the meaning of "Savage Fellows" or "Sons of
Savages," though it is not impossible that here too we have a rough
attempt at imitating the sound of a non-Chinese word. When the Chinese
had spread themselves over all northern China they used this term to
describe all the uncivilised tribes whose habitations lay to the south;
just as they described the "barbarians" beyond their western frontier
as Jung (戎), those beyond their northern frontier as Ti (狄), and those
of the east as I (夷). These terms all appear again and again in the
ancient Chinese classics, such as the _Shu Ching_ and _Shih Ching_,
and the references show that at the time to which they refer, that
is to say as far back as the third millennium B.C., the Chinese were
constantly at war with their less civilised neighbours, and by no means
met with uniform success in contending with them. In the _Shu Ching_,
for example, we read that "the invading barbarous tribes of the west
(Jung) have greatly injured our empire."[290] The _Man_ tribes are in
several places described as eight in number,[291] and we learn that in
the reign of the more or less mythical king Yu (2204-2197 B.C.) their
country was known as the Wild Domain,[292] and that Chinese criminals
were transported thither when sentenced to exile,[293] much as the
Russians send their convicts at the present day to Siberia. Sometimes
in the Chinese classics the name _Man_ is combined with _I_ or _Jung_
as a definition of barbarians in general,[294] and sometimes the word
_Nan_ (South) is prefixed to make the definition more specific. In
Mencius we hear of "this shrike-tongued barbarian of the south (_Nan
Man_), whose doctrines are not those of the ancient kings."[295]
Naturally enough they are often spoken of contemptuously. "I have
heard of men," says Mencius, "using the doctrine of our great land to
change barbarians, but I have never yet heard of any being changed by
barbarians."[296] Yet it is interesting to notice that Confucius was
liberal-minded enough to admit that even a "barbarian" might--if he
were truthful and honourable--be regarded as a gentleman.[297]

[Sidenote: MANZI AND CATHAY]

The name Man-tzŭ clung to the inhabitants of what is now southern
China long after the Chinese had themselves begun to spread over that
country, and no doubt many of the early Chinese immigrants and their
descendants writhed under the derogatory epithet. About Marco Polo's
time (in the second half of the thirteenth century) the southern
portion of the empire--in fact, the greater part of China south of the
Yellow River--was ruled by the emperors of the expiring Sung dynasty,
who, owing to the successful invasions of the Chin Tartars, had been
expelled from north China and had created a new capital for themselves
at Hangchow (Marco's Kinsay) in the maritime province of Chekiang. The
whole of their empire was known to the Venetian traveller as the land
of the _Manzi_ or Man-tzŭ, as distinct from the northern (Chin-Tartar
and afterwards Mongol) empire which he calls Cathay. He has handed down
a circumstantial account of the splendour and wealth of the so-called
Manzi capital, and he was an eye-witness of many of the stirring
episodes in that long series of campaigns which overwhelmed the Sung
imperial house and the Shan and Lolo princes of Tien, and established
the descendants of Genghis Khan on the throne of a united China as
emperors of the Yüan or Mongol dynasty.

In the Yunnanese Shan and so-called Lolo states, which were reduced to
obedience by the Mongol prince Kúblái (afterwards emperor of China,
and known to history as Kúblái Khan), the native tribes were too
powerful and numerous to be exterminated. Great numbers, disdaining the
Chinese yoke, migrated southward to Siam; some of those who remained
behind were allowed to retain their tribal organisations under Chinese
suzerainty, and to a limited extent they have retained it ever since.
But in other parts of southern China the "barbarians" were much more
harshly dealt with, for they were gradually broken up into small
bands and forced to find for themselves a scanty subsistence in the
rugged and mountainous regions of Kuang-si, Kuei-chou and Ssuch'uan,
and multitudes seem to have fallen back on Annam. The term Man-tzŭ,
as applied to all inhabitants of south China irrespective of race or
descent, was then gradually dropped, but a curious instance of its
survival in quite recent times is mentioned by Professor Parker,[298]
who found, in an official proclamation, the word used to describe the
Chinese of the Canton province.

[Sidenote: MAN-CHIA AND MAN-TZŬ]

Various notices of the Man-tzŭ and other hill-tribes are to be found in
the monumental work of the historian Ssŭ-ma Ch'ien (about B.C. 100),
and in the later dynastic and provincial records; but in none of them
do we find anything like a clear statement of the history and origin of
these tribes. The fact that they were all barbarians was sufficient,
in the Chinese mind, to justify their being left severely alone or
lumped together under some meaningless designation made applicable to
them all.[299] At Tachienlu we come in contact with representatives of
all the various tribes of western China and eastern Tibet, but they
are nearly all labelled either Man-chia or Man-tzŭ. The former term
means "barbarian families," and in practice is applied to the people
whom the Chinese choose to regard as true Tibetans as distinct from
the wilder denizens of the hills and forests. The Tibetan language is
_Man-hua_ ("the language of the barbarians"), and the Chinese language
is _Han-hua_ ("the language of the men of Han"). The term Man-tzŭ may
now for practical purposes be restricted to certain of the western
hill-tribes to whom both Tibetan and Chinese are foreign languages,
and who preserve distinct customs of their own in the matters of
dress, religion and social intercourse. A considerable proportion of
the people who inhabit the scattered villages of the kingdom of Chala,
through which lay my route to the Yalung, are Man-tzŭ, not Man-chia.
M. Bonin, who has travelled widely in western Ssuch'uan, identifies
the Man-tzŭ (using the term in the narrower sense) with the Lolos. In
common with many other Europeans he has observed that the word Lolo,
whatever it may mean, is an opprobrious epithet, which is not used
by the Lolos themselves and should never be used in their presence.
He considers that the word Lolo should be dropped altogether, and
that we should substitute Man-tzŭ as the designation of both peoples.
This word, he says, has the advantage of comprehending Mo-so, Hsi
Fan, Ku-tsung, Menia and Li-so, who are, he considers, all of the
same origin.[300] I venture to express a doubt whether we should gain
much by classing under one such designation a number of peoples who,
whatever their origin, have been so long separated from one another
that they refuse to acknowledge any mutual connection, and to some
extent have different customs and speak different languages.[301]

[Sidenote: LOLOS, MAN-TZŬ AND SHAN]

As regards the identification of the Lolos with the Man-tzŭ, however,
there is good ground for believing that it is justified. Probably
no one has a better acquaintance with the Lolos than the Catholic
missionary, M. Paul Vial. He has lived for many years among the Nyi
(or Ngi) Lolos of Yunnan, and has come to the conclusion that "Man-tzŭ
et Lolos ne sont qu'une seule et même race."[302] His historical sketch
is unfortunately too brief to be of much value. It would appear that
in his opinion the great ruling power in Yunnan up to the thirteenth
century was not Shan but Lolo. Indeed, his little book almost ignores
the Shans altogether, though he states that, judging from linguistic
evidence (which should always be accepted with very great caution)
the Lolos are "brothers of the Burmese and cousins of the T'ai"--who,
of course, include the Shans. Here, however, he seems to have gone a
little astray, as his remarks would imply a closer relationship between
Burmese and Shans than can be proved to exist; and when he says that
the Lolo language has no relationship with the Chinese--which seems to
be true--he overlooks the fact that the language of the Shans, whom
he claims as cousins of the Lolos, is generally recognised as being
related to Chinese.[303] He concludes that the Lolos, Shans and Burmese
all belong to the same stock and came originally from the unexplored
regions between the upper Mekong and the Brahmaputra; but he does
not account for the subsequent divergence of languages, customs and
traditions.

M. Vial has also some interesting notes on a Kuei-chou tribe called
the Chung-chia-tzŭ.[304] Their own tradition, he says, declares that
they came from the province of Kiangsi more than eight hundred years
ago, and conquered the Ke-lao. These latter are, perhaps, Marco
Polo's Koloman or Toloman, who Yule thought might have been a tribe
of Lolos.[305] The Chung-chia-tzŭ are different from any of the
hill-tribes round them, and are apparently related neither to Lolos nor
to Miao-tzŭ. According to Terrien de Lacouperie, they speak a dialect
"much resembling the Siamese, of whom they are undoubtedly the elder
brothers."[306] If that is so, the Chung-chia-tzŭ must be related to
the Shans, for both Shans and Siamese belong to the widely-spread T'ai
family. Mr Warry, it should be noticed, identifies the Chung-chia-tzŭ
with the Miao-tzŭ,[307] yet from M. Vial we learn that they differ in
manners, customs and language.[308]

[Sidenote: MIAO-TZŬ, MO-SO AND LI-SO]

Mr F. S. A. Bourne, a first-rate authority, classes the Miao-tzŭ by
themselves, for he believes that exclusive of the Tibetans (embracing
Hsi Fan, Ku-tsung and others) there are three great non-Chinese races
in south China: Lolo, Shan and Miao-tzŭ. Whatever their origin may
be, the Miao-tzŭ have succeeded in planting representatives of their
race in various widely-separated localities. We have seen traces of
them in Muli-land, west of the Yalung,[309] and they are also to be
found as far south as the Lao states and as far east as Kuang-tung.
They call themselves Mung, Hmung or Hmêng, and it has been suggested
that they are an Indo-Chinese race connected with the Môns, Peguans
or Talaings.[310] M. Vial says that the Miao-tzŭ of Kuei-chou believe
that they came "from the East," which is vague. In all probability no
surviving race has been settled in southern China for a longer period
than the Miao-tzŭ, and no attempt to connect them with the surrounding
races has yet been successful.

As regards the Mo-so and Li-so, the people of those tribes whom I
met between Yung-ning and Li-chiang denied there was any connection
between them, and both were strenuously opposed to the idea that they
were in any way related to the Lolos. Such denials, however, do not
go for much, especially in the case of people who are totally lacking
in any historical sense. The Mo-so of Yung-ning told me that they
were an immigrant race and originally came from Mongolia, but this
may be the result of confused reminiscences of their relations with
the Mongol armies between six and seven hundred years ago. It is a
well-ascertained fact that the Mo-so once occupied a large portion
of south-western Tibet, and indeed there is a kind of national epic
celebrating their wars with the Tibetans. At Li-chiang, as stated
above,[311] they founded a capital which was the centre of a powerful
principality, and they still have a prince near the Mekong river,
south of Tse-ku. At times under weak rulers they were subject to the
suzerainty of the great Shan kingdom of Nan Chao, the capital of which
was generally at Tali-fu or not far from it; but at other times they
were practically independent of any external control. It was not till
Kúblái brought his Mongol troops to Yunnan in order to break up the
Nan Chao kingdom as a preliminary to the overthrow of the Sung dynasty
in south China that the political power of the Mo-so was laid low.
Kúblái, in order to avert the possibility of being taken in the rear
by hostile tribes, turned aside from his direct march to Tali-fu in
order to reduce the Mo-so. He captured Li-chiang and broke up the Mo-so
power about the year 1253. He subsequently besieged and took Tali-fu.
The pacification of the newly-conquered province was entrusted by
Kúblái to his great Mongol general Uriangkadai, and was successfully
accomplished. The Mo-so, Lolos and Shans were never again able, with
any hope of success, to defy the power of the emperor of China.

[Sidenote: MO-SO]

The origin of the word Mo-so is unknown.[312] They call themselves
Lashi or Nashi (the _l_ and _n_ being interchangeable), and the
Tibetans call them Djiung.[313] Perhaps they are the descendants of the
Jung tribes which, as stated above,[314] are mentioned in the Chinese
classics as having frequently menaced the western frontier of China;
though it seems more probable that the Jung were the ancestors of the
Hiung-nu. In a recent geographical work on China[315] the Mo-so are not
referred to with much appreciation. They are described as deceitful
and shifty, and a proverbial saying is quoted to the effect that three
Chinese are necessary to deceive one Tibetan, and three Tibetans to
deceive one Mo-so. Most of the eastern Mo-so speak Chinese as well as
their own language, which bears various resemblances to Lolo. When I
pointed out to some Yung-ning Mo-so that many common words in their
language were identical with Lolo words conveying the same meaning,
they admitted the fact but vehemently denied that it betokened any
racial affinity. This attitude may be due to the fact that the Mo-so,
once a warlike race, have settled down quietly under Chinese rule
as peaceful tillers of the ground, while the Lolos have earned the
reputation of being lawless freebooters. The Mo-so resents being taken
for a Lolo, just as a sturdy Dumfriesshire farmer--whose ancestor may
have been an expert cattle-lifter--would resent being described as the
scion of a race of highway robbers.

The Yung-ning district, as we have seen, still enjoys a measure of
independence under a native prince on whom the Chinese long ago
conferred the hereditary rank of prefect.[316] The Li-chiang district
is now more directly under Chinese rule, but even there a Mo-so
official or noble acts as a kind of assessor to the local Chinese
mandarins, who are still regarded as the representatives of a foreign
power. The Tibetan name for Li-chiang is Sa-T'am,[317] by which it is
also known to the Mo-so.

[Sidenote: LI-SO]

The Mo-so under their different appellations (including Lashi or
Nashi[318] and Djiung) are still a very numerous though not a
homogeneous race, and perhaps deserve a more careful study than they
have hitherto received. I am strongly inclined to think that it is
this race which constitutes the predominant element in the population
of Muli-land or Huang Lama. We have seen above[319] that the people
of that region call themselves Njong, and I conjecture that this is
simply a thinly-disguised form of Djiung. The nasal prefix is a quite
frequent linguistic peculiarity in Chinese Tibet, and occurs in many
Tibetan words. The ordinary word _dro_, "to walk," for instance, is
almost invariably pronounced _ndro_.[320] It may be allowed, however,
that the people of Muli have identified themselves more closely than
their brethren of Yunnan with the predominant Tibetan race, and have
come more directly under Tibetan influences in respect of language and
religion. For the people of Muli-land are, as we have seen, Buddhists
of the Tibetan type, whereas with the Mo-so of Yunnan Lamaism is only
a veneer that covers an even more uncouth system of witchcraft and
sorcery, founded on the pre-Buddhistic Bon-pa.[321]

The Li-so,[322] judging from their language only, would appear to
be rather closer to the Burmese than to the Mo-so. In the Yung-ning
district, however, Li-so and Mo-so live together on amicable terms,
and both express contempt or hatred for the Lolos. The Li-so are quite
as widely scattered as the Mo-so, and may be found, apparently, in
the Shan States and the Kachin highlands as well as in Yunnan and
Ssuch'uan. They appear to be very closely related to the La'hu of the
British Shan States, and they evidently regard themselves as racially
distinct from the Shans, for they refuse to ally themselves in marriage
with that people.[323] The Li-so language was examined by Prince Henry
of Orleans, who found it like that of the La'hu or Muh-sö and that
of the Lolos. He records a tradition among the Li-so that they came
originally from Nanking, on the lower Yangtse, "which accorded with a
similar tradition among the Lolos."[324] The Li-so of Yung-ning, when
questioned by me, gave themselves the name of Lu-su.

[Sidenote: THEORY OF INDIAN ORIGIN]

A very interesting contribution has quite recently been made to
the literature that bears on the ethnology of China's Far West by
the researches of Mr T. W. Kingsmill.[325] That scholar presents
a formidable array of evidence from Greek as well as from Chinese
sources to prove that the _Sinae_ of the fourth century of our era
were the inhabitants of _India extra Gangem_, namely the west side of
what we call the Indo-Chinese peninsula, including Burma; that their
capital, Thinae, was on the banks of the Irrawaddy, between Bhamo and
Mandalay;[326] that they, "if not identical with the widely-extended
people of the Shans," had at least a close ethnological connection
with that race; that they and kindred races sprang from the great
Maurya family of north-western India; and that to them is due the wide
prevalence of Indian political influence and Indian art in the greater
part of south-western China as well as throughout the Indo-Chinese
peninsula and neighbouring islands. According to this view, which
certainly receives some support from history, tradition, philology, and
much miscellaneous evidence, the Man-tzŭ were originally of Mauryan
stock, but allied themselves with the Böd tribes or Tibetans, with whom
their migrations had brought them into close contact.[327]

An apparent difficulty in tracing Shans and Man-tzŭ and other tribes
to a common origin in north-eastern India consists in the generally
recognised affinity between the Chinese and T'ai peoples.[328]
According to the commonly-accepted view the Shans sprang from somewhere
in north-western China and were gradually pushed southwards as the
Chinese race extended itself. De Lacouperie considered that the cradle
of the Shan race was "in the Kiulung mountains, north of Ssuch'uan and
south of Shensi, in China proper."[329] Mr Kingsmill's theory would
perhaps gain more ready acceptance if we premised that the so-called
Indian people from whom he supposes the Man-tzŭ and others to have
sprung were themselves not of Indian origin but had entered India at
some remote period--probably before either Aryans or Dravidians set
foot in the peninsula--either as peaceful immigrants or as an invading
host, from the countries that lay to the north-east.[330]

[Sidenote: VESÂLI AND THE MAURYANS]

Our knowledge of the early history of the Maurya family is
unfortunately exceedingly scanty, and it is impossible to trace it to
its pre-Indian home. To confine ourselves to their Indian history, the
Mauryans seem to have sprung from the Licchavis, the strongest members
of the powerful Vaggian confederation that dwelt near the Lower Ganges,
north-east of the kingdom of Magadha. Just before the time of the
Buddha--about the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.--a fierce contest
for the mastery of northern India was waged between the kingdoms of
Magadha and Kosala. This contest, as Dr Rhys Davids points out, "was
decided in the time of the Buddha's boyhood by the final victory of
Magadha."[331] About 320 B.C. the Mauryan dynasty under Chandragupta
(Sandrakottos) overthrew that of Dhana Nanda and seated itself on the
throne of Magadha, which, under a strong ruler, became more powerful
than ever. From this time onwards till the extinction of Chandragupta's
dynasty about 190 B.C., the Licchavi or Mauryan element was the main
source of the strength of Magadha, which became the supreme power
in the Indian peninsula. The royal adventurer Chandragupta Maurya
was the contemporary and rival of Seleukos Nikator. Chandragupta
handed on to his son Bindusāra and his grandson Asoka (the famous
Buddhist "Emperor of India") the crown of one of the most powerful
monarchies the world had known.[332] The capital of the Licchavis
(as distinct from the Magadhans) was the city of Vesâli, which was
probably situated about 25 miles north of the Ganges, north-east
of Pataliputra (the modern Patna), which was the Magadhan capital.
Buddhist records give us some remarkable particulars about Vesâli. "A
triple wall encompassed the city, each wall a league distant from the
next, and there were three gates with watch-towers. In that city there
were always 7707 kings to govern the kingdom, and a like number of
viceroys, generals and treasurers."[333] In another place we are told
that these numerous royal persons were "all of them given to argument
and disputation."[334] Allowing for Oriental exaggeration, these
assertions certainly seem to imply that Vesâli, and the people whose
capital it was, occupied a unique position in the political system of
India.[335] There cannot have been many cities, even in that paradise
of philosophers, which, in pre-Buddhistic days, or indeed at any other
period, harboured thousands of disputatious kings. The so-called
"kings," however, were probably only the heads of the free families.
Vesâli was really the metropolis of a number of federated republics,
the influence of which extended far beyond the boundaries of Hindustan.

The Licchavis may well have pushed eastwards into China and Indo-China
long before the Mauryans gave India its first imperial dynasty; though
if we find traces of their influence in western China it seems not
improbable that this is due to the fact that after their migration
to India they succeeded in maintaining a friendly intercourse with
their Eastern kinsfolk. In either case, the Licchavis (and through
them the kingdom of Magadha[336]) must have possessed, in the days
of the struggle against Kosala, an enormous advantage over their
rivals in being able to draw an inexhaustible supply of strength from
Indo-Chinese countries to which the Kosalans had no access.

I have no space here to discuss the various arguments that Mr Kingsmill
adduces to prove that the Man-tzŭ, Lolos and allied tribes, and perhaps
the Shans, are the descendants of the Mauryas--some being more or less
mixed with the Böd and Kiang[337] elements of Tibet. Suffice it to say
that he traces the Maury an element in tribal names and place-names, in
decorative and architectural art,[338] in Chinese records and tribal
traditions, and by an analysis of the phonetic history of certain
Chinese characters.

[Sidenote: NAN-CHAO]

The fatal weakness of the Indo-Chinese tribes appears at all times to
have been their lack of cohesive power. At one time it must have seemed
as though their empire would rival that of their Indian kinsmen--if
kinsmen they were--in Magadha, and for centuries it might have seemed a
doubtful question whether they or the Chinese were to be the masters of
the vast country we now know as China. The great kingdom of Tien--which
included the greater portions of Burma and Yunnan--was for centuries
a formidable obstacle in the way of Chinese expansion towards the
south, and it is only within comparatively recent years that Chinese
suzerainty has been accepted by western and southern Ssuch'uan. The
Shan kings of Tien or Nan-Chao sometimes arrogated to themselves the
title of Huang-ti (Emperor), and frequently invaded Chinese territory.
In 859 of our era one of these emperors besieged Ch'eng-tu, the capital
of Ssuch'uan, and left "eighty per cent. of the inhabitants of certain
towns with artificial noses and ears made of wood."[339] To this day
there are thousands of square miles of nominally Chinese territory in
which Chinese law is unknown, and with the administration of which
no Chinese official dares to meddle. Had these various tribes--many
of whom have the right, according to Mr Kingsmill's theory, to claim
a common Mauryan ancestry--produced a few great rulers endowed with
a genius for organisation, their history might have been at least as
splendid as that of the Manchus and the so-called Mongolians, both of
which peoples have given emperors to China. It is indeed possible that
a dynasty of Mauryan blood did actually succeed for a few brilliant
years in seating itself on the Chinese throne, though the evidence to
this effect is far from conclusive. Mr Kingsmill, not content with
identifying the Sinae with a people belonging to the same race as
the Mauryans, has also found reason for identifying the Seres with
the Man-tzŭ: that is to say, with a race descended from Mauryans
and Tibetans. He conjectures that the people of the State of Ts'in
(Ch'in) were connected with "the Mans in the south" rather than with
"the Chinese in the north." He points out that we can trace the word
Ts'in[340] and its homologues to an ancient pronunciation _Ser_,[341]
and that when Virgil and other Roman writers mentioned the _Seres_
they were making use of a name which had become famous through the
brilliant achievements of the Ts'in or Ser, who through the genius
or good luck of Ts'in Shih Huang-ti had established a short-lived
supremacy over the other peoples of the Chinese empire.[342] That
ruler reigned from about 221 to 209 B.C., and therefore was almost a
contemporary of the great emperor Asoka, who died only about eleven
years before Ts'in Shih Huang-ti began to reign.[343] The famous
episode of "the burning of the books" is said to have taken place
about the year 213 B.C. It would be curious if it could be proved
that, during the same century in which the great Mauryan emperor of
Magadha was trying to inaugurate a new epoch of religion and peace by
spreading the doctrines of the Buddha throughout southern Asia, another
Mauryan ruler was sitting on the throne of China and inaugurating what
he believed to be a new era of progress in north-eastern Asia by the
destruction of the sacred books of China.

[Sidenote: HUNG WU'S EMPIRE]

The Min-chia, whose characteristic features seem to dissociate them
from the Mo-so in spite of their proximity of habitation, are probably
connected more or less closely with the Shans. M. Vial refers to them
in a passage which I translate as follows. "In 1394, Hung Wu, emperor
of the Ming dynasty, caused a map of the empire to be prepared in which
the Yangtse is made to form the southern limit of China. In 1400, Chien
Wên or Hui Ti, who was Hung Wu's successor,[344] was dispossessed by
one of his uncles and withdrew to Yunnan, where he lay hidden for
thirty years. A great number of Chinese followed him and established
themselves there. They now form the basis of this Chinese population
that we call _pên-ti-jên_ or Min-chia. They allied themselves to women
of the indigenous race.[345] All these _pên-ti-jên_ say that they came
from a place called Kao Shih Ch'iao of the province of Nanking."[346]
The war between Hui Ti and his rebellious but too successful relative,
the Prince of Yen, is a matter of history; and it is also stated in the
Chinese chronicles that when the emperor was overtaken by hopeless
defeat he escaped to Yunnan in the garb of a Buddhist monk. No doubt
a number of faithful followers accompanied him into exile, but I am
not aware of the evidence upon which M. Vial relies for his statement
that they are the ancestors of the Min-chia. The Min-chia type is
quite un-Chinese in appearance. That most members of the tribe speak
Chinese is no strong argument in favour of their Chinese descent. It
is a well-known fact that it was the deliberate policy of the Chinese
emperors--especially in the early years of the present dynasty--to
compel the conquered people of Yunnan to learn the language of
northern China; and this policy was so wonderfully successful that at
the present day nearly every one in Yunnan speaks a dialect which is
easily intelligible to any one who has learned Pekingese. "The natives
of Yunnan" as Baber said "were forced to learn the language of the
north on pain of death." That a strain of pure Chinese blood must have
mingled with that of the numerous races occupying Yunnan goes without
saying; the mere presence of large Chinese armies on Yunnanese soil
at times when campaigns lasted for a decade or more must of itself
have tended to rub off the sharp edges of racial distinctions; but the
special characteristics of the Min-chia are too well marked to justify
the hasty adoption of the theory that they are the descendants of
Chinese refugees from Nanking.

[Sidenote: TRADITIONAL EASTERN ORIGIN]

The number of different tribes who declare that they came originally
from Nanking or elsewhere in the east is surprisingly large. I have
already[347] referred to a tradition among the Chung-chia-tzŭ that they
came from Kiangsi. The Miao-tzŭ of Kuei-chou apparently believe that
they came "from the east." Prince Henry of Orleans records that the
La'hu and Lolos both declared to him that they "came from Nanking ages
ago,"[348] and mentions a similar tradition among the Li-so. That the
Chung-chia-tzŭ, Miao-tzŭ, Lolo, La'hu, Li-so and Min-chia should have
all come from the neighbourhood of Nanking seems scarcely credible, and
the tradition with regard to most of them, if not all, may be dismissed
as a fiction. But indeed I am aware of no theory about the Min-chia,
or about Lolos, Mo-so, Li-so, Shans and the rest, that settles all
difficulties and fits in with all the facts; and if one is tempted to
put faith in any of the numerous hypotheses that have been advanced, it
is only because a half-truth is not always "the worst of lies," and a
permanent suspension of judgment is a source of discomfort to the mind
that shuns the cheerless refuge of agnosticism.


FOOTNOTES:

[284] _China: Her History, Diplomacy and Commerce_, p. 9.

[285] 西番 and 土番.

[286] See Rockhill's _Life of the Buddha_, pp. 215-216, and T. W.
Kingsmill's article in the _Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society
(China Branch), vol. xxxvii. pp. 26-27.

[287] བོད་ The last letter of the Tibetan word is not pronounced, but it
modifies the phonetic value of the vowel sound. As regards the Chinese
character 番 of which the phonetic value in modern Chinese is generally
_fan_, we find several cases in which the sound is still _bo_ or _po_.
Mr Kingsmill mentions 鄱 _p'o_ (as in the characters used for the P'o
Yang Lake). The characters 嶓, 皤 and 播 are similar instances.

[288] སྟོད་ as opposed to སྨད་ (_smad_, pron. _ma_), meaning _lower_,
_inferior_.

[289] Often transliterated _Mantse_, and spelt by Marco Polo _Manji_.

[290] Vol. ii. p. 617 (Legge's ed.).

[291] As in _Shu Ching_, vol. ii. p. 345.

[292] 荒服.

[293] _Shu Ching_ vol. i. p. 147.

[294] _Ibid._ vol. i. pp. 42, 44.

[295] Mencius, p. 255 (Legge, 2nd. ed.).

[296] Mencius, pp. 253-254 (Legge).

[297] _Lun Yü_, pp. 295-296 (Legge, 2nd ed.).

[298] _China: Her History, Diplomacy and Commerce_, p. 310.

[299] See Note 40 (p. 437).

[300] _Comptes Rendus_, Société de Géographie, 1898. No. 8, p. 349. But
see M. Paul Vial (_Les Lolos_: Shanghai, 1898). If M. Vial's theory of
the origin of the word Lolo is correct, it was originally by no means
a disrespectful term. He considers that it is a Chinese reduplication
of a form of the word _No_ or _Na_, which was the special name of one
of the patrician tribes of the Lolos. He admits, however, that the term
is now regarded as impolite. He says that the Lolos have now no common
name for the whole race, but simply employ the various tribal names as
occasion requires. The Chinese characters for Lolo (generally 玀玀) are
merely phonetic. The constant use of the "dog" radical in the Chinese
characters employed to represent the names of barbarous tribes is an
instructive indication of the contemptuous Chinese attitude towards
such people. In the word _Man_ the radical is an insect or reptile.

[301] M. Bonin regards them all as of Tibetan origin; but as they
separated from the main branch, he says, before the adoption of
Buddhism they have preserved on Chinese soil their primitive
fetish-worship. "I consider them in consequence," he concludes, "as the
_avant-garde_ of the Tibetans."

[302] _Les Lolos_, p. 4. See also the _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_,
pt. i. vol. i. p. 615, where it is stated that the Man-tzŭ "have
undoubtedly been distinct from the Lolo for centuries, but the balance
of opinion seems to connect them with that tribe."

[303] See the _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt. i. vol. i. pp. 272
_seq._ "The relationship of the T'ai to the Chinese races seems
unmistakable.... The research, which has not been long begun, points
distinctly to the fact that the Chinese and the T'ai belong to a family
of which the Chinese are the most prominent representatives."

[304] 重家子, or 重甲子.

[305] Yule's _Marco Polo_ (Cordier's edition), vol. ii. pp. 122-123.
Cordier has, however, another explanation.

[306] Introduction to Colquhoun's _Amongst the Shans_, liv.

[307] See _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt. i. vol. i. p. 597.

[308] _Op. cit._ p. 35.

[309] See p. 223.

[310] See _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt. i. vol. i. pp. 597-601. There
are numerous settlements of the Miao-tzŭ in the British Shan States,
and the _Gazetteer_ says: "It may be hoped that more will come, for
they are a most attractive race."

[311] See pp. 239 and 245-246.

[312] The Chinese characters are 摩□. It is tempting, but rash, to
connect the word with _Mu-hsö_, which means "a hunter" in the Shan, Wa,
Palaung, Rumai and Riang languages.

[313] The Tibetans also call them Jang or Aj'angs (འཇངས་). Surely there
is some justification for tracing a connection between this word, as
spelt in Tibetan, with the name of the tribe _A-ch'angs_ mentioned in
the _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt. i. vol. i. pp. 618-619. But see Sir
George Scott's _Burma_, pp. 94-95.

[314] See p. 270.

[315] _Géographie de l'empire de Chine_, by Richards (Shanghai: 1905).

[316] See above, pp. 228-229.

[317] In Tibetan _Sa_ is "earth" or "land," and _t'am_ is "seal"
(_sigillum_) or "offering." Possibly the Tibetan is in this case the
transliteration of a Mo-so word.

[318] We have seen on pages 249-250 that the plain west of that of
Li-chiang is called Lashi-Pa, or Plain of the Mo-so, and that a village
therein bears the same name. M. Paul Vial mentions what he calls a
_Lolo_ tribe named Ashi, apparently dwelling in the south-east of
Yunnan (_Les Lolos_, p. 25). Now only a few miles west of Lashi-Pa, on
the road from Li-chiang to Chung-tien, there is a village called Ashi,
which gives its name to a ferry on the Yangtse river. It is possible
that the sound in both cases was once either Lashi or Nashi, for, when
we find from experience that the _L_ and _N_ are interchangeable, it
may well be that in some districts inhabited by Mo-so the initial
has been dropped altogether. I do not know the derivation of the
word Lashio, the British settlement near the Salwen valley, in the
North Shan States. There is also a district called Lashi, in British
territory, north-east of Myitkyina, the people of which appear to be a
connecting link between the Kachins and the Burmese. (See Sir George
Scott's _Burma_, p. 70.)

[319] See above, p. 222.

[320] As in the common expression, _ka-li ka-li ndro a_, "walk slowly"
or "there's no hurry."

[321] For some account of the Bon religion see Rockhill's _Life of the
Buddha_, pp. 205 _seq._, and Sarat Chandra Das's _Journey to Lhasa_.

[322] 力□.

[323] Mr G. C. B. Stirling, quoted in _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt.
i. vol. i. p. 588.

[324] _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt. i. vol. i. p. 616.

[325] _The Mantse and the Golden Chersonese_, and _Ancient Tibet and
its Frontagers_, by T. W. Kingsmill, in vols. xxxv. and xxxvii. of the
_Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society (China Branch).

[326] The name still survives in the province of Theinni and in the
classical name Tien (滇) for the Chinese province of Yunnan. The
connection between Tien and Theinni was pointed out by Terrien de
Lacouperie in his introduction to Colquhoun's _Amongst the Shans_, p.
xlviii.

[327] The fable is that a Mauryan woman was married to a Tibetan dog
and that their progeny were the Man-tzŭ.

[328] See above, p. 275 (footnote 2).

[329] Introduction to Colquhoun's _Amongst the Shans_.

[330] See Note 41 (p. 438).

[331] _Buddhist India_, p. 260.

[332] See Note 42 (p. 439).

[333] Introduction to _Jātaka_, No. 149. (Cowell's ed., vol. i. p. 316.)

[334] _Ibid._, No. 301 (vol. iii. p. 1).

[335] See Note 43 (p. 439).

[336] "The struggle between Kosala and Magadha for the paramount
power in all India was, in fact, probably decided when the powerful
confederation of the Licchavis became arrayed on the side of Magadha."
(Rhys Davids' _Buddhist India_, p. 25.)

[337] For the Kiang element, see Kingsmill, _Journal_ of the Royal
Asiatic Society (China Branch), vol. xxxvii. 29 and 34 _seq._ The Kiang
appear to have been a branch of the Yüeh-ti or Lunar Race, to which
reference is made on p. 49.

[338] It is to the "Mauryan" Man-tzŭ that Mr Kingsmill ascribes the
excavation of the caves of Ssuch'uan (see pp. 46 _seq._). He says that
they were evidently the work of a people who had made considerable
progress in the arts, and that the art in its predominant features
approaches more nearly to ancient Indian types than to Chinese
(_Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society, China Branch, vol. xxxv. p.
93). As I have already stated, there is not much evidence of a strong
artistic instinct in the decoration of the caves. I agree with Mr
Kingsmill, nevertheless, in ascribing the art, such as it is, to Indian
influences.

[339] _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt. i. vol. i. p. 267.

[340] 秦, pronounced Ch'in in modern Pekingese.

[341] In this connection Mr Kingsmill explains that the character
_hsiang_ (象), which means "elephant," was also originally pronounced
Ser. I have already mentioned a mountain-pass called the Ta Hsiang Ling
which is supposed to be named after either P'u Hsien's elephant or
Chu-ko Liang. (See p. 117 and Note 14.) To the south of that pass there
is another named the Hsiao Hsiang Ling, or Small Elephant Pass, which
must be crossed on the way to the Chien-ch'ang valley. Mr Kingsmill
would perhaps translate the names of these passes as the Great and
Small Passes of the Ts'in or Ser; in which case we may regard Ts'in
Shih Huang-ti as being a third claimant to the honour of giving a name
to this pass.

[342] See _Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society (China Branch), vol.
xxxvii. pp. 22-23.

[343] See Note 44 (p. 440).

[344] Hung Wu was the "reign-title" of the first emperor of the
Ming dynasty, who reigned from 1368 to 1398. His successor, whose
"reign-title" was Chien Wên, ruled from 1399 to 1402. With regard to
the Yangtse being taken as the southern limit of China, this statement
can only be accepted with an important modification, for all the
southern provinces of China, including Yunnan, were at this time
regarded as being within the empire, though the fact that they were
chiefly inhabited by non-Chinese tribes made it somewhat anomalous to
describe them as forming part of China proper. We have seen that Yunnan
was annexed to the empire by Kúblái Khan in the thirteenth century.
Towards the close of the following century the Yunnanese princes tried
to reassert their independence, and the province was again reduced to
complete submission by the generals of the emperor Hung Wu himself,
who, in spite of his maps, never for a moment intended to relax the
imperial hold on that distant province.

[345] By "indigenous race" M. Vial presumably means Lolos or Mo-so.

[346] That is, Kiang-su, the province in which Shanghai is situated.
Nanking was at that time the capital of China.

[347] See above, p. 276.

[348] _Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt. i. vol. i. pp. 585-586.




CHAPTER XVI

TALI-FU TO BHAMO


At Tali-fu I found it impossible to hire mules or coolies for a journey
to the Kunlon ferry, though during the cool weather the transport
question would have presented no difficulty. To travel from Tali to
Yün-chou, on the south of the Mekong, would have occupied, I was told,
only seven days, and another twelve days' march would have brought
me through the valley of the Nam Ting to the Salwen ferry at Kunlon,
the boundary of British territory. From there it is but four or five
easy stages through the jungle to the British post of Lashio,[349] the
headquarters of the Superintendent of the North Shan States, and from
that point I could have taken train to Mandalay. In summer, however,
and especially after the commencement of the rains, the Tali muleteers
regard a journey through the Nam T'ing valley and the Shan jungles of
the frontier as very deadly, and I found that even an offer of treble
the usual pay would not induce a single man to come forward. The
crossing of the Salwen valley on the way to Bhamo is also considered
a very dangerous performance in the hot season; but that, after all,
is a matter of a few hours only, and there is no superstitious dread
of any other part of the journey. I found it necessary, therefore,
to abandon all idea of travelling to the Kunlon ferry, and rather
reluctantly decided to take the well-known trade-route to Bhamo,
through Yung-ch'ang and T'êng-yüeh.

So many Europeans in recent years have traversed this route that it
is unnecessary for me to describe, in any detail, the characteristic
features of a road which we all know so well from the graphic accounts
of such experienced travellers as Baber, Colquhoun, Captain Gill and
Dr Morrison. South-western China bears much the same appearance to-day
as it did thirty years ago, and it may be doubted whether it was very
different in the days of Marco Polo, though probably the roads were
better. There is therefore very little need for me to describe this
part of my journey with any minuteness.

I left Tali-fu on 25th May, and passed through the southern
fortress-city of Hsia Kuan--where the trade is much brisker than at
Tali-fu itself--after an easy ride of 6 or 7 miles. There my road left
the lake and struck west into a ravine, and a few miles further on I
reached the village of Ho Chiang-p'u. Next day we passed through Yang
Pi, crossed a suspension bridge which was undergoing repair, and after
a fairly stiff climb spent the night in a hamlet near the summit of
a pass. On the 27th we crossed another pass of no great elevation,
rode through T'ai-p'ing-p'u and one or two other small hamlets,
and descended into a deep ravine in order to cross the Ch'ing Lien
river by a suspension bridge, which, according to an inscription, was
reconstructed in the eighteenth year of the present reign (1892), with
funds raised by the public.[350] A few miles beyond, we halted for
the night in the village of Huang-lien-p'u. Some arduous climbing the
next day brought us to the small town of Yung P'ing, which, a year
previously, had suffered terribly from the floods of a neighbouring
river. As no inn was habitable, I was given accommodation in a
schoolhouse.

[Sidenote: TOWARDS THE MEKONG]

On the 29th I left Yung P'ing by a new road, only recently opened
to traffic, passed the villages of Hsiao T'ien Pa situated amid
rice-fields, Hsiao Hua Ch'iao ("Little Flower Bridge"), and Ta Hua
Ch'iao ("Big Flower Bridge"). Above the last-named village and
overlooking it is a temple (the San Shêng Kung), in which I lunched.
In the afternoon we climbed a steep pass from which an equally steep
descent led to the village of Sha Yang, where we halted. Immediately
on leaving this village next day we ascended and crossed a low ridge,
and descended into a small valley cultivated with rice. We crossed a
stream by a three-arched bridge built in 1888, called the "Stone Bridge
of the Cry of the Phœnix" (Fêng Ming Shih Ch'iao). Beyond this is a
row of stone tablets, some commemorating the virtues of incorruptible
officials, and others recording the names of those who had subscribed
funds for building the bridge.

[Sidenote: CROSSING THE MEKONG VALLEY]

At the top of the next steep pass, which overlooks the deep trough
through which flows the Mekong river (called by the Chinese the Lan
Ts'ang Chiang[351]), there is a rather large temple much patronised
and enriched by successful traders. The descent to the river's edge
is very steep. "A series of short and dangerous zigzags," says Baber,
"leads down to a bold suspension bridge of 60 yards span, striding
the river at its issue from the darkest of gorges. The perpendicular
walls are not 100 yards apart; from our confined position we did
not venture to estimate their height."[352] Only the day before my
arrival a man had been killed by a boulder which fell on his head as
he was wending his way down to the river. One of my escort casually
mentioned this to me just after we had passed the fatal spot. The
man had been buried that morning close to the place where he was
killed. The boulder was supposed to have been dislodged by a deer
or a goat. On the east bank of the river, close to the bridge, is a
stone tablet or shrine dedicated to the Spirit of the Mountain, and
an inscription in which the bridge is described as the T'ai P'ing
Ch'iao ("Great Peace Bridge"). The bridge is covered by a wooden
arcade, from the roof of which are suspended several _pien_ or boards
bearing appropriate inscriptions in huge gilt letters. One of them has
the four words, _Shan Kao Shui Ch'ang_ ("The mountain is lofty and
the river is long")--which remark if wanting in imaginative insight
at least expresses an obvious truth concisely and to the point.
The cliffs on the west side of the river are likewise covered with
short inscriptions, carved deeply into the rock. One of the largest
of all consists of the four words, _Jên Li So T'ung_[353] ("Made a
thoroughfare by the labour of man"). The construction of this great
bridge is indeed an engineering feat of which any people might well be
proud.

On leaving the river we had a stiff climb over a fairly well paved
road to P'ing P'o, the inhabitants of which ought to be excellent
mountaineers. They cannot go out of doors in any direction without
having to ascend or descend a steep mountain-side. A further climb of
nearly 3 miles, partly beside the bed of a stream which in the rainy
season is said to be a foaming torrent but in dry weather is absolutely
non-existent, brought us to our destination for the night in the
village of Shui Chai. In the neighbourhood of this village I found some
tombstones of a kind I had not hitherto seen, though I met with many
similar ones thereafter. They are like stone drums or cylinders stuck
end-wise into the ground, but slightly convex on the top. On some of
the grave-tablets are inscribed the words, _Chia Ch'êng_ ("The City
Beautiful").

[Sidenote: ARRIVAL AT YUNG-CH'ANG]

So far throughout my journey I had been remarkably fortunate as regards
weather. The rainy season in western Yunnan usually begins early in
May, yet, except for some snow-storms, one day's rain at Li-chiang,
and two or three heavy showers after leaving Tali-fu, I had met with
nothing but the most brilliant sunshine. I knew, however, that once
the rains began in earnest they would continue incessantly for many
weeks to come, and for this reason I was anxious to reach Bhamo as
quickly as possible. What became of the weather after I had reached the
Irrawaddy valley was a matter of indifference: _après moi le déluge!_
The next stage after Shui Chai was the city of Yung-ch'ang, and as I
had to pay off my Tali muleteers there, and engage others to take me
on to T'êng-yüeh, I sent on my servant post-haste to Yung-ch'ang to
make the necessary arrangements in advance in order that I might not
have to waste a day. Following him more leisurely, I left Shui Chai
and rode along a winding road for about 6 miles to the summit of a
pass from which we had a good view of a portion of the Yung-ch'ang
plain. This range of hills separates the watershed of the Mekong from
that of the much-dreaded Salwen. Soon after crossing the pass our
road led us down the left side of a small mountain stream, and it was
interesting to reflect that its waters were destined, like myself, for
British territory. The first village on the west side of the pass was
Niu Chio Kuan. It consisted of two huts in Baber's time, and though it
has since then quintupled in size it is by no means an imposing centre
of population. A mile further down the slope we reached Kuan P'o, a
larger village, whence we descended to the edge of the Yung-ch'ang
plain, and passed by the side of the village of Shih K'o Ts'un, which
possesses a rather handsome and imposing temple, the Kuang Tsun
Ssŭ.[354] I may note here that as one enters western Yunnan a tendency
to over-decoration and ornateness in the architecture of temples is
observable, but on the whole the effect is generally rather pleasing
than otherwise, as carved and decorated doorways and fantastic gables
often relieve the sordid meanness of the village dwelling-houses. No
doubt the influence of non-Chinese races, akin to the Burmese or Shans,
has been at work here.

The next village was Pan Ch'iao, a prosperous-looking place with a
street of shops and many new buildings and ferocious dogs. One of
the dogs, however, came to sorry grief in a conflict with my own
bull-terrier, which--I will say it to his credit--seldom took the
trouble to fight unless his antagonists were at least two in number.
On leaving this village we were in full view of Yung-ch'ang city, with
its curious pyramidal hill in the background. We entered by the north
gate early in the afternoon. Within the city it almost seemed as though
we were still traversing country roads, for we passed many wide open
spaces, cultivated plots and a few isolated cottages, and the prickly
pear was flourishing where one might have expected to find shops and
paved streets. However, the whole city did not present this forlorn
appearance, for a turning to the right brought us to a busy and
populous quarter, and a further turn to the left led us into a lane in
which inns abounded, showing that the city fostered a certain amount of
trade.

I expected to find a fair assortment of foreign articles for sale here,
but there were few. Tinned pineapples from a Chinese firm in Singapore,
bearing a distinguished-looking label with the Royal Arms and the
British lion, were to be bought for the equivalent of ninepence a tin;
and "Finest Mineral Wax Candles, specially made for India," and sold by
a well-known Rangoon firm, were also to be had for about one shilling
per packet of five.

[Sidenote: COUVADE]

We have seen that the district of which Tali-fu is the centre, is the
Carajan of Marco Polo. Its western limit appears to have been the
Mekong river, and west of that was the old kingdom or state which Marco
calls the Province of Zardandan. To its capital he gives the name of
Vochan, and this city has been identified with Yung-ch'ang. This is the
"Golden-Teeth" country, so named because the inhabitants were said to
cover their teeth with thin movable plates of gold. Of this custom no
vestige remains, and it is uncertain whether the people are represented
by Shans or by some race connected with the Kachins. The inhabitants
of the district were evidently regarded by the Chinese till quite
modern times as an inferior race, for there is in the Chinese Penal
Code a law to the effect that immigrant Chinese, visiting Yung-ch'ang
for purposes of trade, must not ally themselves by marriage with
the "outer barbarians" of that neighbourhood. The extraordinary
practice known to us by the name (popularised by Tylor) of _Couvade_
apparently existed in Yung-ch'ang in Marco Polo's time; and as he was
doubtless unaware of its prevalence in many other parts of the world
his testimony on the subject may be regarded as trustworthy. "And when
one of their wives," says Marco, "has been delivered of a child, the
infant is washed and swathed, and then the woman gets up and goes about
her household affairs, whilst the husband takes to bed with the child
by his side, and so keeps his bed for forty days; and all the kith and
kin come to visit him, and keep up a great festivity. They do this
because, say they, the woman has had a hard bout of it, and 'tis but
fair the man should have his share of suffering."[355] Whether this
explanation of the custom is the true one is perhaps open to doubt.
It is hardly flattering to the kith and kin, who presumably did their
best to relieve the man's monotony, and make matters as pleasant as the
somewhat singular circumstances permitted.

The annals of Yung-ch'ang should prove of exceptional interest to
the student of Chinese history, for they cannot but throw a flood of
light on the relations between the various tribes and states that have
striven for the mastery of western Yunnan and the great valleys of the
Mekong and Salwen. Its first annexation to the Chinese empire may be
assigned to the year 1277, when a great battle--vividly described by
Marco Polo[356]--was fought in the Yung-ch'ang plain between the army
of the Great Khan and the ambitious king of Mien, or Burma, the main
strength of whose army consisted in a host of elephants. "Then might
you see swashing blows dealt and taken from sword and mace; then might
you see knights and horses and men-at-arms go down; then might you
see arms and hands and legs and heads hewn off: and besides the dead
that fell, many a wounded man, that never rose again, for the sore
press there was. The din and uproar were so great from this side and
from that, that God might have thundered and no man would have heard
it! Great was the medley, and dire and parlous was the fight that was
fought on both sides; but the Tartars had the best of it."

The population of Yung-ch'ang is still a very mixed one, but the
Chinese language is spoken and understood by all classes, and the
dialect differs little from that of the metropolitan province. The
observant Marco Polo noticed among the people of Zardandan the
prevalence of the custom of tatooing the body and legs: a custom which
to this day is universal among the Shans and Burmese and allied races.

[Sidenote: IN THE LION'S DEN]

On arrival at my inn I found that all arrangements for the next
stage of my journey had been duly made, and on the following morning
I set out with two new riding mules--one for myself and one for my
servant--and two baggage mules. The muleteers undertook to get us to
T'êng-yüeh in five days, and kept their word. Our road led through the
city past a temple dedicated to the God of Wealth and out of the south
gate. I noticed the date "Kuang Hsü xxvi" (1900) on some of the bricks
of the city wall, showing that a restoration had taken place recently.
Unfortunately the authorities take no steps to prevent weeds and shrubs
from growing in the interstices and on the parapet, and the roots must
in course of time seriously affect the stability of the structure.
Outside the gate we passed a Kuan Yin temple and went through a small
suburb. The road then lay for about 4 miles southward over the plain
and through the village of Wo Shih Wo (the "Sleeping Lion's Den"). The
name is derived from a cave a few hundred yards above the village.
The smell of the innumerable bats, not to mention the disquieting
possibility of arousing the lion from his slumbers, would make the cave
a disagreeable place to explore. The cave evidently penetrates some
distance into the hill, though from the entrance it is difficult to
say how far, as there is a turn to the left. It was very dark, and I
did not venture far into the interior, as there was a steep slope made
slippery by the constant dripping of water from the roof. The descent
would have been easy enough--

    "Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras
    Hoc opus, hic labor est,"--

so I left the attempt to the next traveller.

From here the road wound steadily but not steeply up and over a
range of hills, and brought us to the village of Hao Tzŭ P'u. We
continued the ascent to the summit of a pass, and in the course of the
corresponding descent reached the village of Lêng Shui Ching ("Cold
Water Well"). Another 5 or 6 miles brought us down to a level plain and
to our halting-place--the large village of P'u Piao. Here I found the
accommodation bad, though it is a regular stage and there are several
inns.

The next stage was a very short one, only about 7 miles, but it
brought us to the edge of the "Valley of the Shadow of Death"--the
chasm through which flows the Salwen--and my men would not dare to
cross it unless they were quite fresh and had dosed themselves well
with quinine. The road from P'u Piao offers no difficulties. The only
villages we passed were several which bore the collective name of Fang
Ma Ch'ang. Baber describes this place as being a ruined hamlet, but it
has risen from its ashes since his day. Even as late as Baber's time
this district was the scene of sanguinary strife between the imperial
forces and a noted rebel chief. Baber actually saw the rebel camp on
the hills opposite the road in the Fang Ma Ch'ang valley. No wonder he
passed villages in ruins. Two miles further brought us to the end of
our short stage--the miserable hamlet of Ta Pan Ching. A short distance
behind it, on the slope of a wooded hill, is a small rock-temple. In it
there are four sedent figures and two standing. A semicircular brick
wall is built in front of them, so that their view, if they had eyes
to see, would be distinctly circumscribed and lacking in variety. Just
above the shrine, and nearly hidden by trees, is a picturesque little
temple, and close by are a few graves.

[Sidenote: "VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH"]

Next morning, after dosing my men and myself with all the quinine that
was likely to be good for us, I began the long winding descent into the
valley of the Salwen, the Chinese name for which is the Lu Chiang or
Lu Tzŭ Chiang.[357] I started on foot half an hour before my men, and
did not see them until we all foregathered at the river. Soon after
starting I came upon a stream of running water by the side of which was
a tablet bearing a Chinese inscription to the effect that the water
was dangerous to drink. Is it possible that the streams of this valley
really contain some vegetable or mineral poison, and that it is from
this fact that the valley derives its terrible reputation? The height
of Ta Pan Ching above sea-level is 4,500 feet, while the bed of the
Salwen lies at about 2,400; the actual descent was therefore 2,100
feet. It is not very steep, for the Salwen valley at this point is very
much broader than that of the Mekong in the same latitude. After an
easy and pleasant walk I reached the suspension bridge feeling quite as
free from sickness as when I started.

I can offer no plausible theory to account for the traditional
unhealthiness of the Salwen valley. To all appearance its verdant
hills and broad slopes ought to be covered with cultivation and with
the homes of thousands of industrious farmers. As it is, not a soul
lives in the whole of that splendid stretch of country except a few
despised Shan or Pa I tribesmen, who are apparently the only people
who can dwell there and thrive. Most travellers dash across as if they
were flying for their lives,[358] and consider themselves fortunate if
they are not struck down before they reach the heights overlooking the
further side of the valley. Baber's account of its terrors, as they
were described to him, is well worth quoting. "The morrow's journey
would lead us across the Salwen--a river, to the native mind, teeming
with portent and mystery. In western Yunnan this river is always spoken
of with a certain awe. Governor Ts'ên himself had warned us to cross
its valley with all haste. Often had we been told of the many varieties
of malarious exhalations which shroud the hollow after sunrise: fogs,
red, yellow and blue, of which the red is the most deadly and the
blue next in the scale of mortality. General Thunder, who had never
previously crossed, came to notify to us that he had determined to
start before daylight, so as to get well beyond the river before the
sun was up. Luckily for us, he said, the deadly flood was now spanned
by a suspension bridge, but before its construction travellers had to
pass in boats. In those days a gruesome monster, resembling in shape
a huge blanket, would issue from the depths, and, wrapping passengers
and boat in his fœtid folds, would sink back into his native
abyss."[359]

[Sidenote: THE SALWEN VALLEY]

How far back these superstitions may be traced is difficult to say.
Certainly in Marco Polo's time, in the thirteenth century, they were
widely current; for, though he himself obviously did not cross the
valley, he describes the whole region as "full of great woods and
mountains which 'tis impossible to pass, the air in summer is so impure
and bad; and any foreigners attempting it would die for certain." That
travellers descending from the high Yunnan plateau into a steamy valley
only 2,400 feet above sea-level may be seriously inconvenienced by the
sudden change of temperature,[360] and perhaps become liable to attacks
of fever, is not improbable; but as none of my own party succumbed to
sickness, I am inclined to think that the Salwen has been unjustly
maligned. My friend the Peking _Times_ correspondent has told us "there
can be little doubt that the deadliness of the valley is a tradition
rather than a reality." In view of Dr Morrison's well-known accuracy, I
am content to accept his opinion as the true one, more especially as it
coincides with my own. Being a man of scientific and medical skill he
would surely have sought out and annihilated Baber's blanket-fiend if
it had existed.

After crossing the suspension bridge, which is similar in construction
to those already noticed but is in two sections, I came to a small
Pa I hamlet and a temple. Being in no hurry, and anxious to give the
noxious vapours of the valley every opportunity of doing their worst
on me, I paid a long visit to the temple and waited about an hour for
the arrival of my caravan. I was told that the indigenous inhabitants
of the valley were gradually increasing in numbers and bringing more of
the land under cultivation, and that they were ruled by a _t'u ssŭ_ or
tribal chief who dwelt on the right bank of the river at a place about
10 miles to the south. A path leads thither along the river-bank.

[Sidenote: RAINBOW IN THE SALWEN VALLEY]

The upward climb on the west side of the valley was not arduous, and
the mules made the ascent without much difficulty in spite of the fact
that a very heavy shower of rain turned the road into a running stream.
It was curious to watch the rain-storm in the shape of a dense grey
cloud rushing southwards through the valley. On looking back towards
the river, then a couple of thousand feet below us, we had a fine view
of the silver waters of the Salwen sparkling in brilliant sunshine;
in a moment they were hidden by a rolling mass of dark vapour, out
of which arose a strange parti-coloured rainbow in which orange and
blue-green predominated. Its perfect arch crossed the whole breadth of
the river-bed where the valley was narrowest, spanning the river like
a fairy bridge. In five minutes the storm rolled on and the rainbow
faded away, leaving me with the impression that I had never seen
anything more beautiful or more strange. The fancy occurred to me that
it was perhaps some such natural phenomenon as this that gave rise to
the tradition recorded by Baber about the tinted fogs that varied in
deadliness according to their colour.

We were all in a very wet and draggled condition when we arrived at the
wretched wattle-and-mud hamlet of Hu Mu Shu, after a climb of about
3,100 feet above the level of the river. When we started next morning
it was still raining, and in half an hour the clothes that we had
dried with difficulty were again wet through. Our path lay to a great
extent through thick forest, and the dripping of the leaves was almost
as troublesome as the rain itself. We had a steady climb of about 3
miles to the hamlet called Hsiang Po ("Elephant's Neck"), and a further
climb of 1,500 feet to the summit of a pass 8,730 feet high. There is
a wooden gateway at the top. From here the road descends for about a
mile, then ascends again and undulates, and finally goes rather steeply
down to the hamlet of T'ai P'ing, where we halted for our midday rest.
Pheasants abound in this district, but the jungle is so thick that it
is hardly possible to leave the pathway in search of game. Our host at
T'ai P'ing possessed some valuable European articles in the shape of
a glass oil-lamp and two empty claret bottles probably left behind by
some traveller more amply provided than myself with good things. The
descent to the Shweli or Lung River was a steep and slippery ride in
the course of which we descended about 3,500 feet. The river is crossed
by a suspension bridge of the usual type. A mile or two further on we
came to the village of Kan-lan-chan, where we spent the night in a very
dirty inn.

Next day's stage presented no features of special interest. Early in
the afternoon I descended to the T'êng-yüeh plain, which is studded
with more or less prosperous villages, and soon caught sight of the
semi-European buildings of the Chinese Imperial Customs and--more
welcome still--the Union Jack floating over the gates of the British
Consulate. There I was most hospitably received and entertained by Mr
Ottewell, Acting British Consul, and enjoyed a two days' rest.

[Sidenote: PROJECTED RAILWAYS FROM BURMA]

T'êng-yüeh is to be the terminus of the proposed British railway from
Bhamo, regarding which negotiations have been in progress for some
considerable time. That the trade between Burma and China by this route
requires some stimulus is unquestionable. The officials in charge of
the T'êng-yüeh Customs informed me that the volume of trade annually
passing through their hands was not showing any elasticity, and that
the Customs revenue barely served to defray the expenses of the
establishment. Whether the railway will stimulate the trade to any very
great extent is questionable; for caravans bound for Burma have already
surmounted all serious obstacles, in the shape of mountain and flood,
by the time they have reached T'êng-yüeh, so that as far as they
are concerned a railway would merely shorten by a few days a journey
which already might have lasted months. Local traffic between the two
termini will probably be found fairly remunerative, though very large
returns can hardly be expected. If the railway could be carried on to
Tali-fu, its ultimate success would be a certainty; but the engineering
difficulties are very great, and the amount of capital required for
construction would be enormous. From Tali-fu several branch lines might
be constructed, one going south to the Kunlon ferry (a route which has
already been surveyed) to meet the existing British line from Mandalay
to Lashio, and another going north to Li-chiang. The main line should,
of course, be carried eastwards to Yunnan-fu, which will very soon
be in railway communication with French Indo-China and the port of
Haiphong. The branch line from Tali-fu to Li-chiang--following the
route traversed by myself[361]--would meet with no great difficulties,
and would pass through a series of rich and populous valleys. Even
if Li-chiang were a terminus it is probable that the local traffic
would amply justify such a railway; though it would be better still if
further branches could be carried on to Wei-hsi in the west, in order
to intercept the Tibetan trade, and to Hui-li-chou or Ning-yüan-fu on
the east, to tap the trade of the Chien-ch'ang valley, which might
eventually include a great deal of the foreign trade of Ssuch'uan. It
must be admitted that all these lines--with the exception of the branch
from Tali to Li-chiang--would be very costly to construct and to keep
in repair. Meanwhile British enterprise seems content to restrict
itself to the short line between Bhamo and T'êng-yüeh. This railway
will doubtless fully justify its existence, but it is absurd to suppose
that such a line will seriously compete with the French lines in the
east of the province, or will have any appreciable effect in deflecting
the trade of Yunnan from Tongking to Burma.[362]

[Sidenote: CHINESE SHAN STATES]

At T'êng-yüeh I paid off the Tibetan servant who had accompanied me
from Tachienlu, and the muleteers who had come from Yung-ch'ang,
and engaged new mules and coolies to take me to Bhamo. I resumed
my journey on 8th June. The path soon leaves the plain and mounts
through extensive graveyards and over barren hills. Later in the day
we descended, gradually but steadily, to a valley, narrow, but very
extensively cultivated with rice and dotted with many villages. In many
cases the recent rains had caused the inundated rice-fields to overflow
into the road, which was often quite submerged. I lunched at the small
village of Jê Shui T'ang, which, as its name implies, possesses a
natural hot spring. We had now left the Yunnan plateau behind us, and
had descended to the plains that slope gradually downwards towards
the Irrawaddy. For the rest of the way to Burma I found that the vast
majority of the population were Shans and Kachins, whose picturesque
dresses are a pleasant contrast to the drab-coloured garments that
generally content the less æsthetic Chinese. The women are remarkable
for their headgear, which is similar to that worn by the isolated Shans
whom I had seen in the Salwen valley. It consists of a tall dark turban
that looks like a kind of antediluvian gentleman's top-hat that has
been cruelly sat upon. Unfortunately the Shans, both men and women,
are much given to disfiguring their mouths by chewing betel-nut--a
disagreeable habit of an otherwise charming people. The drinking-water
in this part of the country--as is generally the case in a land of
padi-fields--must be used with great caution. I passed a clear flowing
stream, by the side of which was the notification, _t'zŭ shui yu tu_
("This water is poisonous")--a warning which must be disconcerting to a
thirsty wayfarer.

We spent the night of our first day from T'êng-yüeh in a roomy temple
in the large village of Nan Tien. The next day was uneventful. We
traversed execrable roads. Often it was difficult to know whether we
were on the path or in a padi-field, for both were inundated, and
we spent the greater part of the day in wading through a series of
shallow and very muddy lakes. We spent the second night in the market
village of Kau Ngai, and the third in Hsiao Hsin Kai ("Little Bhamo").
The purely Shan villages were generally enclosed within fences, and
we did not see much of them; but I noticed that the native houses in
the Chinese Shan States are less picturesque, and also apparently
less clean and commodious than those of the Lao-Shans in the French
Shan States and Siam. On 11th June the swollen rivers caused us even
greater trouble than the flooded rice-fields, and at one point I feared
we should have to wait till the waters subsided. Between the villages
of Hsiao Hsin Kai and Lung Chang Kai we came to a river which, though
doubtless an insignificant brook in dry weather, was then a swift and
muddy river about 60 yards broad. There was nothing in the way of boat,
bridge or ford, and our mules, with all the obstinacy of their kind,
for a long time refused to leave the bank. Finally, my two baggage
animals were relieved of their burdens, which were carried across in
separate light loads on the heads of coolies. The latter were stripped
to the skin, for the water was almost high enough to take them off
their feet. One of them lost his footing, and let his load fall into
the water; it was recovered, but most unfortunately it contained some
rolls of exposed photographic films. The comparatively poor results of
my journey from the photographic point of view--for dozens of films
were utterly ruined--are largely due to that unhappy accident. The fact
that I had so nearly reached my journey's end and had so far escaped
any such mishap rendered it all the more vexatious. I crossed the
river without any disaster to myself, but the drenching to which I was
unavoidably subjected gave me an attack of fever, which was not shaken
off for several days. It is not so easy to get rid of colds and fevers
in the steamy tropical valleys of the Shan States as it is in the
exhilarating climate of the Tibetan mountains.

[Sidenote: BRITISH-MADE ROAD IN CHINA]

The latter part of the same day's journey (the fourth stage from
T'êng-yüeh) was unexpectedly easy. I suddenly found myself on a good
broad road, unmetalled, but well engineered. I followed this road the
whole way to Bhamo, and it was not until my arrival there that I was
given an explanation of so unusual a phenomenon as a carriage road
in Chinese territory. It was the work of British engineers, and had
been undertaken by the Government of Burma at the request and at the
expense of the Government of Yunnan. The provincial funds have not yet
permitted of the extension of the road to T'êng-yüeh, but it is to
be hoped, for the sake of future travellers, and in the interests of
trade, that something will be done to carry it over the rain-sodden
plains. When we struck the British-made road we were about 70 or 80
miles from Bhamo, and between 20 and 30 from the British frontier. At
15 miles from the frontier we halted for the night in the village of
Man-hsien, which is the administrative centre of a Chinese-Shan chief
or sawbwa.[363] It is only a hamlet consisting of about thirty flimsy
bamboo huts, several of which were shops for the sale of local produce.

On 12th June my day's journey began in Chinese and ended in British
territory. Being too impatient to wait for my muleteers--who showed no
emotion at the proximity of the British flag--I started on foot and
walked the whole of the 15 miles to the frontier. There was a heavy
shower in the early morning, but the sky soon cleared up, and for the
rest of the day the fierce rays of a tropical sun beat upon me with
all their strength, and taxed all the resisting power of the shilling
umbrella I had bought at San Ying. The gradient of the road was
excellent throughout, but being unmetalled it had been much damaged by
the recent rains. In many places it was entirely blocked by landslips;
at others it had been torn away by mountain floods. It was bordered by
dense jungle on both sides. On the left, luxuriant vegetation covered
the steep slope of a mountain; on the right was an abrupt descent into
a ravine, in which one could hear but seldom see the roaring torrent
below. In some places the landslips had brought down large trees, which
lay across the road. My mules, I heard afterwards, had great difficulty
in surmounting these various obstacles, and in some cases were forced
to trample out a new road for themselves in the jungle. The road, good
as it was, seemed to me a "fair-weather" road. There was a lack of
bridges. Streams that might be non-existent in the dry season were then
rushing over the road, wearing deep channels in its surface, or tearing
it away altogether. There was also a lack of storm-water drains. These
would at least do a little to prevent the torrential summer rains from
making havoc of the roadway. Further, the wooded slopes adjacent to
the road have not been sufficiently strengthened, and, under present
conditions, serious landslips are bound to occur every year. Only an
engineer has any right to speak with authority on such matters, but one
may perhaps hazard the suggestion that the cemented roads of Hongkong,
with their admirable and elaborate storm-drainage system, might with
advantage be copied in Upper Burma in places where the roads are
specially liable to landslips or floods. Probably, however, the great
cost of such roadways would be prohibitive in a country which is, after
all, thinly populated, and where there is little traffic.

[Sidenote: THE BRITISH FRONTIER]

In referring to the lack of bridges I must not forget the admirable
iron bridge at Kamsa, 4 miles west of Man-hsien in Chinese territory.
It spans a torrent which descends in a series of dazzling cascades.
The highest of these, visible from the bridge, is a really fine
waterfall, which would attract crowds of sightseers if it were in a
more accessible country. The bridge is quite new, having been completed
only in April 1905. Had it not existed, I should have found myself in a
serious dilemma. The stream that flowed below it was a boiling torrent
which neither man nor horse could ford or swim, and its course, above
and below, was hidden by impenetrable jungle.

At the bottom of a narrow ravine 15 miles from Man-hsien there is a
brook spanned by a log of wood. I saw no inscribed pillar, and no
flags, nor was I challenged by any lynx-eyed Indian sentry; but this
is the spot at which two great Empires meet. On the Chinese side were
a few Shan huts, known collectively as Kulika. After climbing out
of the ravine on the western side, I found the first evidence of
British occupation: two small wooden bungalows surrounded by servants'
sheds and outhouses. They were all empty and deserted, though some
Shan pedlars were peacefully enjoying their midday slumber on one of
the verandahs. The bungalows had probably been used by engineers and
surveyors, but evidently they had not been occupied for some time. I
took temporary possession of the one not selected by the Shans, and
awaited there the arrival of my caravan.

[Sidenote: RETURN TO CIVILISATION]

After a meagre tiffin I again set off on foot amid enchanting tropical
scenery. The views were not extensive, for the road lay through a
gorge covered with thick jungle. Several hundred feet below the road
I occasionally caught sight of the foaming waters of the T'ai P'ing
rushing tempestuously through its confined bed. From a wide, majestic
and apparently navigable river--for such it was while it flowed through
the plains I had lately been traversing--it had become a series of
boiling rapids noisily protesting against their confinement within so
narrow a channel. Eight miles beyond the frontier I was not sorry to
come within sight of the end of my long day's walk--the first of the
trim little Public Works Bungalows[364] which a considerate Government
has established at convenient distances along the main roads of Upper
Burma for the use of officials and travellers. Here I was welcomed by
a Kachin damsel, who, in the absence of the regular bungalow keeper,
addressed to me soothing words which, I felt sure, must be meant to be
words of welcome; and I made haste to interpret them as such. A walk
of 23 miles at the hottest season of the year in a tropical country is
not a task to be lightly undertaken every day; and when allowance is
made for the manner in which I had lived for the past few months, in a
country where European comforts are unknown, I may perhaps be pardoned
for having given way to feelings of exultation at finding myself in a
bungalow furnished--as it seemed to me--with the utmost luxury. A clean
table-cloth, knives and forks and glass tumblers, long easy-chairs, a
four-poster bed with mosquito curtains, and, above all, a bath, were
things of beauty and wonder that seemed almost too good to be true.

My expedition from Weihaiwei to the frontier of Burma had occupied
five months and six days. I had travelled from the most easterly
prefecture in China (Têng-chou) to the most westerly (Yung-ch'ang);
from the extreme north-east to the extreme south-west of China; over
the loftiest passes in the empire, and through seven of its provinces.
I had also traversed most of China's greatest rivers-the Yellow River,
Yangtse, Min, Ya, Ta Tu, Yalung, Mekong, Salwen and Shweli. As to my
condition at the end of this long and solitary journey, during the
greater part of which I had partaken of the same coarse and frugal fare
as my coolies and muleteers, I need only say that apart from a short
attack of fever in the Shan plains beyond T'êng-yüeh I never had a
day's sickness.

[Sidenote: BRITISH-INDIAN TROOPS]

At the bungalow of Mong-kung-ka I was still some distance from Bhamo.
At the earnest request of my guides, whose mules were exhausted, I
spent three days in traversing the remaining 43 miles. On 13th June I
halted at the bungalow of Kulong-ka, 30 miles from Bhamo. Next day,
at the eighteenth milestone from Bhamo, I found myself on a metalled
carriage road, as good as a first-rate country road in England, and
followed it to the bungalow at Momauk, a small village inhabited by
Shans and Kachins. On the 15th I left Momauk before 6 A.M., hoping to
reach the travellers' Dâk bungalow at Bhamo, only 9 miles distant,
without having to meet the critical eyes of the European residents.
The very slender outfit with which I had started from Weihaiwei had
long since disappeared. Peking furs and sheep-skin boots had served me
well on the Tibetan mountains, but were hardly suitable for a tropical
climate: and what remained of them I had given away to my followers
at Tali-fu. Other garments had gradually fallen to pieces, and had
been discarded one by one. I was now wearing Chinese straw sandals
without socks, an old khaki suit patched with most inappropriate
coarse blue cloth, and held together with string instead of buttons,
and a huge, wide-flapping straw hat such as forms the headgear of
Chinese Shans when working in the fields. The animal on which I had
ridden from T'êng-yüeh was a shaggy Yunnanese pony. The saddle, which
I had bought in Tachienlu, was of the kind generally used by the
natives of eastern Tibet, with a high pommel tipped with metal, and
a hard wooden seat covered with tightly-stretched yak leather. The
stirrups were iron plates something like flat saucers, and the bridle
was of rope and twisted bamboo. I had no desire to be thrust into the
deputy-commissioner's dungeons on suspicion of being a head-hunting Wa,
or an untamed Kachin, yet it was rash to expect any more hospitable
reception in my present condition. My hopes of evading detection until
I had emerged a new man from the shops of the shoemakers and tailors
of Bhamo were doomed to disappointment. I covered the nine miles at my
pony's quickest trot, and the houses of Bhamo were already in sight,
when suddenly arose in front of me an ominous cloud of dust. A glint
of sunshine shone on a brilliant array of polished arms, and quickly
out of the dust advanced a body of Indian troops. The pleasure with
which I should have welcomed the sight of a British mountain-battery
and the sound of the tramp of the king-emperor's soldiers was damped by
my painful knowledge of the ridiculous figure I must have presented. I
hastily urged my pony into a friendly ditch while the detachment passed
by, but I could not, unfortunately, escape the "stony British stare" of
the commanding-officer. Half a mile further on, on entering the town, I
met a solitary European on horseback, who in answer to my timid query
kindly directed me to the Dâk bungalow. Half an hour afterwards I was
arraying myself in ready made garments of varying degrees of misfit in
that admirable establishment well known to all residents in Upper Burma
as "Kohn's."


FOOTNOTES:

[349] See below, p. 331.

[350] Baber describes the old bridge as "very dilapidated" when it was
crossed by the Grosvenor Mission in 1876.

[351] 蘭滄江.

[352] Captain Gill (_River of Golden Sand_) somewhat exaggerates the
difficulties of what he calls "this desperate gorge."

[353] 人力所通.

[354] 光尊寺.

[355] Yule's _Marco Polo_ (Cordier's edition), vol. ii. p. 85.

[356] Yule's _Marco Polo_ (Cordier's edition), vol. ii. pp. 98-104.

[357] 潞子江.

[358] This is especially the case with the Chinese who come from a long
distance, and only know the Salwen by hearsay. My men (who belonged to
Yung-ch'ang) treated the valley with a disrespect that was perhaps bred
of familiarity, for they certainly did not unduly hurry themselves.

[359] Royal Geographical Society's _Supplementary Papers_, vol. i. pp.
176-177.

[360] At Ta Pan Ching (4,500 feet) the shade temperature immediately
after sunrise was 67°: in the temple at the Salwen bridge (2,400 feet)
it was only 81° at midday. So even the change of temperature was not
very serious.

[361] Or the alternative route through the valley of Ho Ch'ing.

[362] Those interested in the railway question should consult Major
Ryder's paper in the _Geographical Journal_ for February 1903 (vol.
xxi.) and Major Davies's remarks thereon.

[363] So called by the Burmese. The Shan word is _Sao-p'a_, which is
the designation of a tribal chief or prince.

[364] The name of the bungalow is Mong-kung-ka.




CHAPTER XVII

BHAMO TO MANDALAY


[Sidenote: BHAMO]

A few years ago Bhamo was regarded by Europeans as far out of the
reach of the ordinary traveller, and beyond the uttermost limits
of what to the complacent Western mind constitutes civilisation.
Since our soldiers took "the road to Mandalay" and ended an almost
bloodless campaign in 1885[365] by annexing Upper Burma and deporting
its misguided monarch, the little north-eastern frontier-town of
Bhamo has entered upon a new phase of its somewhat dramatic history.
It is now a considerable _entrepôt_ of trade, and is bound to
derive the full benefit of any future increase of overland commerce
between China and Burma. It is therefore full of representatives
of all the races of south-eastern Asia who meet there to exchange
their varied goods. There is also a garrison, generally consisting
of Indian troops, but sometimes of a British regiment as well; and
their duty it is not only to watch the Chinese frontier--an easy
task nowadays--but also to keep an eye on the wild Kachins and other
lawless tribes of north-eastern Burma where there is still a vast
tract of country "unadministered"--that is not yet brought under
the direct control of the British Government. There is therefore a
considerable English colony consisting of officers of the army and of
the military police and a few civil officials. Of the latter, the chief
is the deputy-commissioner. Like all members of the great service to
which he belongs, he is a man who plays many parts and fulfils many
functions. He it is who, in the eyes of the subject peoples, represents
the imperial power of Great Britain. The "uncovenanted" service is
represented by officers of the Public Works and Forestry, and other
departments of government. That Bhamo is no longer a barbarous place
outside the pale of civilisation is finally proved by the fact that it
is now the residence of several English ladies who apparently find life
not only supportable but even pleasant.

"There is a wonderful mixture of types in Bhamo. Nowhere in the world
... is there a greater intermingling of races. Here live in cheerful
promiscuity Britishers and Chinese, Shans and Kachins, Sikhs and
Madrasis, Punjabis, Arabs, German Jews and French adventurers, American
missionaries, and Japanese ladies." Such is the concise summing-up
of Dr Morrison; and I may add that I found Bhamo much the same as it
was when he visited it in 1894 except that the French adventurers and
the Japanese ladies appeared to have fled to other pastures. But in
another of his remarks I must confess I am unable to concur. "At its
best," he says, "Bhamo is a forlorn, miserable and wretched station,
where all men seem to regard it as their first duty to the stranger
to apologise to him for being there." No such apologies were made to
me; and if they had, I should have suspected that the apologist was
taking an unnecessarily gloomy view of his surroundings. There are
certainly many worse places in the East than Bhamo. It is within easy
reach of Mandalay and Rangoon by steamer and train, and is therefore
by no means so isolated as its position on the map might lead one to
suppose. Its neighbourhood is picturesque; it has clubs and lawn-tennis
courts; roads are good; there are many open spaces suitable for polo
and the other games that the exiled Englishman loves, and its European
houses are roomy bungalows surrounded by delightful gardens full of
the glories of tropical vegetation. For part of the year the climate
is no doubt trying. The town lies on the banks of the Irrawaddy, and
is less than 400 feet above the sea-level. Before the rains break in
early summer the temperature sometimes goes up to 100° Fahr. It was
over 90° in the shade during the few days that I resided there. But
that is cool compared with Mandalay, where the heat, at the end of
the dry season, is sometimes excessive. I was told in Bhamo that the
temperature at Mandalay about three weeks earlier was no less than 115°
in the shade in the afternoon. But the dryness of the atmosphere both
at Bhamo and Mandalay during the spring and early summer saves European
constitutions from the disastrous results of a high temperature in a
damp climate. The summer climate of Hongkong, where the thermometer
rarely rises much above 90°, is on account of its excessive dampness
far more trying than that of any part of Upper Burma.[366]

[Sidenote: BURMESE VILLAGES]

I remained at Bhamo from the 15th to the 18th June, during which time I
was treated with the greatest hospitality by various local residents.
On the morning of the 18th I started for Mandalay on one of the fine
steamers belonging to the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, and spent the
next two days in a complete idleness, which, after months of arduous
travelling, I found thoroughly enjoyable. The scenery of this part
of the Irrawaddy is not as a rule very striking compared with the
magnificence of some of the Chinese rivers, but its placid waters and
the rich vegetation of its banks have a tranquil beauty of their own
which is quite unique. Perhaps one of the most striking facts about
Upper Burma is that it is one of the few countries where the works of
human hands--native hands, at least--have not spoiled nature's own
loveliness. A Chinese village is seldom a thing of beauty, except
as viewed from a distance:[367] a Burmese village, on the contrary,
hardly ever mars, and very often accentuates, the simple beauty of its
surroundings. The houses--built of wood and bamboo--look as if they
had grown out, and were still an integral part, of the virgin forest
from which their materials have all been drawn. Like the statue which,
according to the old Greek fancy, lay hidden in the shapeless block
of marble until the artist's chisel released it from its prison, so
the Burmese village--as one might dream--was never created by the hand
of man, but only lay buried in the primeval forest until the hour
when the woodman's axe pruned the luxuriance of the jungle growths.
Such, at least, was the impression that came to me as the throbbing
steam-boat glided rapidly in the silver morning haze through the
noiseless waters of the great river of Burma. A nearer acquaintance
with the villages--for we often stopped to embark cargo or to land
passengers--hardly convinced me that my dream was an idle one: for the
finely-carved teakwood monasteries and the shining pagodas with their
gilded summits, and, above all, the graceful figures and merry faces
and tasteful dresses of the people themselves, all tended to intensify
my first impressions. The sites of the stupas or pagodas are always
singularly well chosen.[368] It is sad to reflect that some of the
beauty of the Burmese riverside villages is gradually passing away in
obedience to the dismal Western law of progress. The danger of fire
and considerations of economy, coupled, I fear, with the partial decay
of the exquisite taste which was once the Burman's birth-right, has
brought about the introduction of new methods of building and foreign
architectural designs. Most incongruous of all are the corrugated-iron
roofs. Can the poor Burman be supplied with no roofing material less
hideous? The Burmese are wise enough to retain their own national
costume, a matter for which one should feel grateful; but the adoption
of cheap black European umbrellas is almost as serious a lapse from
good taste as the use of iron roofing, and is apparently recognised as
such by the authorities.

[Sidenote: A BURMESE CROWD]

When the Prince of Wales was recently in Mandalay he was entertained
by the Lieutenant-Governor at a water carnival. It took place on the
waters of the moat close to the walls of Fort Dufferin--the old royal
city--and such parts of the grounds as were open to the public were
crowded with Burmese sightseers, dressed in their finest silks. The
show of colour was unfortunately marred by enormous numbers of black
umbrellas, used as sunshades. As a Burmese crowd (without umbrellas)
is one of the most charming sights to be seen in Burma or anywhere
else and was therefore well worthy of a prince's gaze, messengers were
hurriedly despatched to inform the smiling crowd that in the presence
of British royalty umbrellas must come down. The order was of course
obeyed without a murmur, and the Prince of Wales had the pleasure of
beholding in Mandalay a more brilliant and picturesque assemblage of
his future subjects than he is ever likely to behold in the empire's
capital.

The most striking scenery on the Irrawaddy below Bhamo is undoubtedly
to be found in what is known as the Second Defile.[369] The river at
this point flows through a comparatively narrow channel in a gorge
which is overlooked by a great cliff about 800 feet high. A few years
ago I spent many happy days in a canoe, floating down the beautiful
Nam-U,[370] from Muang Wa to Luang Prabang. A short distance above the
mouth of the river, where it joins the Mekong, there is a stupendous
limestone precipice--how lofty I should not dare to guess--which rises
sheer out of the water on the right bank. In situation and appearance
it is similar to the cliff in the Second Defile of the Irrawaddy, yet,
if I can trust my own recollection, the Nam-U precipice is the loftier
and more magnificent. As, however, the wild beauty of the Nam-U has
never ceased to be a waking dream ever since I shot its rapids in my
little canoe, and camped on its banks night by night at the edge of its
silent and trackless jungles, it may be that its most striking features
tend in my own mind to loom larger than the reality. In any case the
Irrawaddy, too, can furnish food for lifelong dreams of beauty.

[Sidenote: MANDALAY]

Having left Bhamo on 18th June I reached Mandalay on the morning of
the 20th. Here--for the purposes of this book at least--I may regard
my journey as at an end. In travelling overland from the capital of
China to the old capital of Burma, I had carried out the pleasant
task which I had set myself when I started from Weihaiwei almost half
a year before. It were fitting, perhaps, that I should close this
imperfect account of my journey with a description of the marvels of
Mandalay; but I must decline a task for which no casual visitor can or
should regard himself qualified. A week's residence in Mandalay is not
sufficient to justify any one except the globe-trotter--for whom two
days and a night may be sufficient--in attempting a description of one
of the most curious and wonderful of the modern cities of Asia. In the
palace grounds I was shown the magnificent monument which was erected
to the memory of king Mindon,[371] father of the ex-king Thibaw. I was
told that in a recent book about Burma, written by one who was too much
pressed for time to sift his facts, there is a fine photograph of this
monument which is described as "the tomb of king Mindon's favourite
Terrier." There is a moral in this little story which we tourists would
do well to take to heart.

Next to the numerous palace buildings with their gilded
throne-rooms--no longer, thanks to Lord Curzon, used as a European
club--the most interesting sights are outside the walls of the royal
city. No student of Buddhism will omit to visit that wonderful
collection of miniature temples known as the Kutho-daw, which contains
the whole of the Buddhist Pali canon--a collection of sacred writings
at least five times as long, be it remembered, as the whole of the
Christian Bible--carved on nearly a thousand slabs of white marble.
Each slab stands upright in a small pagoda and is fully exposed to
view, though sheltered from the weather. The pagodas are about seven
hundred in number, and are arranged in symmetrical order side by
side, the whole forming a great square with a temple in the centre.
This wonderful work was carried out by Mindon Min in 1857, simply as
an act of religious devotion.[372] The other pagodas of Mandalay and
its neighbourhood are very numerous, and each possesses interesting
features of its own. The finest is perhaps the Maha Myatmuni, generally
known as the Arakan Pagoda. It contains a fine brazen colossal image
of the Buddha, nearly twelve feet high, in a sitting posture. Its
peculiar sanctity is derived from the tradition that it was copied from
life and is therefore a true image of the Buddha as he really was. In
mediæval times wars were waged between several of the kings of Burma
and Indo-China in order to settle the disputed right of its possession.
I was surprised to find that religious scruples have not prevented the
introduction of electric light into this temple; but the effect is far
from displeasing. The lights in the recess containing the famous Buddha
are so arranged that, while they strongly illuminate the image itself,
the neighbouring parts of the pagoda, where I saw many girl-worshippers
devoutly kneeling, are in deep gloom.

[Sidenote: MANDALAY AS A CENTRE]

Starting from Mandalay as a centre I paid several visits to other
parts of Burma, where I remained altogether about six weeks. Among
other places I visited Lashio, only a few days' journey by road
from the Salwen at the Kunlon Ferry, and the furthest point yet
attained by the railway. There I spent a few days as the guest of the
Superintendent of the North Shan States.[373] At Maymyo, the charming
European hill-station, I was kindly entertained by Sir Herbert White,
K.C.I.E., Lieutenant-Governor of Burma, and later on was also his
guest at Government House, Mandalay. Maymyo is only about four hours
distant from Mandalay by train, but during that short distance the
railway climbs a height of over 3,000 feet. Between Maymyo and Lashio
I broke my journey for a couple of days, and, under the auspices of Mr
D. G. Robertson, the British Adviser, I had the pleasure of meeting
the reigning chief or sawbwa of the important Shan State of Hsi-paw. I
had hoped to spend some weeks or months in the trans-Salwen portion of
the province, for the purpose of studying something of the languages
and customs of the numberless tribes that inhabit that fascinating
and little-known country, and comparing them with what I knew of the
allied tribes in French Laos, and those through whose territory I had
recently passed in Chinese territory. As travelling in the Shan States
is, however, practically impossible during the rains, I was obliged
indefinitely to postpone the fulfilment of that part of my programme.
As I hoped to return to the Shan States later on, I commenced the
study of the language and hired a Shan servant to accompany me during
the remainder of my stay in Burma.

My next objective was the old capital of Pagan, on the left bank of
the Irrawaddy, below Mandalay. I spent three days there, exploring the
wonderful ruins of innumerable pagodas and monasteries which are all
that remain of a city that was once not only the capital of a powerful
kingdom but also one of the leading centres of learning and religion in
south-eastern Asia. The secular buildings have nearly all disappeared,
but the remaining ruins possess many features of the greatest interest
to archæologists. I could trace no sign of Chinese influence in the
architecture and decoration of this dead and vanishing city, though it
is alleged--on doubtful authority--that the conquering Chinese arms did
once at least penetrate as far as Pagan. Here, as elsewhere in Burma,
the Chinese invasions do not appear to have left any lasting results or
to have affected in any way the art of the country.[374]

[Illustration: VIEW AT PAGAN, IRRAWADDY RIVER, BURMA.
  [_To face p._ 332.]

[Sidenote: EUROPEANS IN BURMA]

Leaving Pagan I continued my journey down the Irrawaddy, and reached
Rangoon on 15th July.

       *       *       *       *       *

The conviction that a tour through Burma must leave in the minds of
most Europeans is that the country is to be congratulated on its people
and that the people are to be equally congratulated on their country.
That Burma itself is one of the fairest of lands, every traveller can
see for himself; and so far as I could judge from my own short
experience and from what was told me by sympathetic British residents,
the Burmese are perhaps the most cheerful, generous and hospitable,
and on the whole the most attractive people in Asia. But one very
commonly hears them also characterised as frivolous, incorrigibly
lazy, thriftless, superstitious, untruthful, and lacking in courage
and tenacity of purpose. Many European travellers and others have
come to the conclusion that these sad deficiencies in the Burman's
character are gradually bringing about the ruin and extinction of his
race. They point to the fact that the population of Rangoon is far
less than half Burman; that Chetty money-lenders, cooks and labourers
from Madras, and Chinese merchants and shopkeepers, are gradually
monopolising the industry of the country, while the Burman looks on
with apathy at his own displacement from the fields, kitchens, shops
and counting-houses in which his Indian and Chinese rivals wax rich
and fat. In many European houses--perhaps in Lower Burma the great
majority--there is not a single Burman servant, all the duties of cook,
coolie, table-servant and valet being discharged by suave, noiseless
and obedient natives of India. The only people who seem to be able
to attract Burmese servants, and keep them for any length of time,
are members of the Civil Service, who, with their knowledge of the
language and familiarity with the national customs and ideals, are
better able than any other aliens to sympathise with the Burman in his
joys and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, and to understand something
of his point of view. They make good masters, and earn their reward
in retaining the services of loyal and attached Burmese servants. Of
course there are many non-official Europeans who, with the instincts
of gentlemen, treat their dependents quite as well and sympathetically
as any one; while among the civil servants there are no doubt many who
from the beginning to the end of their career in Burma never shake off
the feeling of antipathy to the Oriental--coupled, probably, with a
strong sense of racial superiority--which they had when they first came
out to the East. But these exceptional cases only prove the rule; and
it is strong testimony to the intrinsic worth of the Burman's character
that the more thoroughly he is understood the more he is liked by those
best qualified to judge. The versatile traveller who "does Burma" in
the course of his round-the-world tour, and fills a notebook with
comments on the character of the Burmese as a result of what he hears
at the dinner-tables of Rangoon, would do well to exercise caution
before he gives his notebook to the world. Do not some of us in China
well know how prone the tourist is to echo the too-often ignorant and
one-sided views about the Chinese that he may have heard expressed in
the clubs and drawing-rooms of Hongkong and Shanghai? It seems that the
situation in Burma is not dissimilar.

[Sidenote: THE BURMESE CHARACTER]

I should be courting a well-deserved retort if I were now to attempt,
in a few irresponsible pages, a complete character-sketch of the Burman
as he appeared to me during my too-brief sojourn in his beautiful
country. Instead of doing so I will content myself with recommending
the reader who is interested in Burma but cannot visit it to read and
read again the books that have been written by such well-informed and
sympathetic writers as Sir George Scott, Mr Fielding Hall and Mr Scott
O'Connor. It is satisfactory to know from one of these writers that the
Burmese are by no means likely to be crowded out of their own country
by such vigorous workers as the Madrasis and Chinese. The immigration
of these people enriches the Burman instead of impoverishing him. It
enables him to withdraw from work which he cordially dislikes, and
to devote himself to the tilling of his rice-fields, and to live the
free life--and it is by no means an idle one--that he best loves.
The Burmese are showing no signs of approaching extinction; on the
contrary, they are multiplying with rapidity.[375] The Burmese,
says Mr Fielding Hall, are "extremely prosperous now. There is less
poverty, less sickness, less unhappiness than among any people I have
seen East or West. If there ever was a people about whom pessimism
sounded absurd, it is about the Burmese."[376] If there is, however,
one characteristic of the Burman which appears to be beginning to
show signs of decay--let us hope it is change rather than decay--it
is his artistic sense. His art, like the art of India and Ceylon, is,
it seems, becoming demoralised. But that is not due to the example or
competition of any Oriental race; it is a result--be it said to our
shame--of the English conquest. As regards the common accusation that
the Burman is untruthful, it appears to me that Mr Fielding Hall has
effectually disposed of this in the book from which I have just quoted.
He points out that because a Burman often lies to a European--whom he
can hardly help regarding as an unsympathetic alien--that does not
imply that he is a liar by nature. "Every man has many standards. He
has one for his family, one for his friends, one for his own class, one
for his own nation, and a last for all outsiders. No man considers a
foreigner entitled to the same openness and truth from him as his own
people.... The only way to estimate a people truly is to know how they
treat each other, and how they estimate each other.... I should say,
from what I have seen, that between Burman and Burman the standard of
honesty and truth is very high. And between European and Burman it is
very much what the European chooses to make it."[377] These remarks, I
may add parenthetically, would apply with equal force to the relations
between Europeans and Chinese.

[Sidenote: BURMESE "LAZINESS"]

The question of laziness and want of energy is a very interesting one,
and is not so simple as it appears at first sight. Because the Burman
is glad to leave the rough labour of coolies and the dreary duties of
cooking foreign food and performing the routine work of house-servant
to the Madrasi, and because he is seen smoking big cheroots and wearing
silk clothes much too good to work in while his active wife carries
on the business of the bazaar, the strenuous Englishman, who knows so
well what incessant hard work has done in building up the greatness
of his own nation, is at first inclined to regard him with scorn and
impatience. Perhaps because I am conscious of a secret sympathy with
a life of what I may call intelligent indolence, I am not disposed to
execrate the Burman for a fault in which I am prone to share. But, as
a matter of fact, the Burman is not so idle as he is believed to be.
"Do not suppose," says the eloquent writer from whom I have quoted,
"that the Burmese are idle. Such a nation of workers was never known.
Every man works, every woman works, every child works. Life is not an
easy thing, but a hard, and there is a great deal of work to be done.
There is not an idle man or woman in all Burma."[378] In the face of
a statement so emphatic as this, how is it that the vice of laziness
is so often attributed to the Burman? The reason is not far to seek.
The Burman lives in a rich country where the actual necessaries of
life come easily. He may have to work hard at times, but he does not
and need not labour from morning to night and day after day without
intermission. He is content with little, for he is a frugal eater
and, more often than not, a vegetarian. Money is of little value to
him except to buy some of the novelties that are poured into Burma
from English factories. No doubt the more he craves to possess these
novelties, the harder he will have to work to get the money to pay for
them: and this is a fact that is already having a marked effect on
the national habits. The Burman who has not become half-occidentalised
does not aim at wealth for its own sake: he does not bow down and
worship people who have money: Mammon has not yet secured a niche in
his pantheon. He only wants enough to feed his relations and himself,
to bring up his children in health and strength, and to clothe them
with garments that are not only comfortable to wear but pleasant to
the eye. If his fields produce more food than he needs, he sells the
surplus, and spends the money in works of charity and religion and in
graceful hospitalities. The consequence is that at certain seasons of
the year--when harvests are over, for instance--he has many hours of
what we might call idleness. He wants to live, as well as to be a mere
machine for the manufacture of wealth.

[Sidenote: WESTERN CIVILISATION]

The Burmese theory is one which many a robust and healthy-minded
Englishman will absolutely reject, and perhaps it is as well that the
Englishman should do so. There can be no progress, he will say, if
men are only going to do sufficient work to bring them their daily
food. To be strenuous and active, to be ready to face difficulties
and strong enough to overcome them--these are the only ways to keep
ourselves in the vanguard of progress and civilisation. But, after all,
is there not a good deal to be said for the Burman's point of view,
too? Are we quite sure that we always know what we mean when we speak
of progress and civilisation? That there is a terribly sad and ugly
side to the development of civilisation in Western countries--a sadness
and ugliness chiefly noticeable in the great industrial centres--is a
dreary fact which no Englishman is so likely to realise to the full as
he who revisits his native country after a prolonged absence in the
East. Even in the most squalid quarters of the most densely-populated
cities in China I have never come across anything more painful and
depressing than comes daily within the experience of those who, like
East End missionaries, live in close proximity to the slums and poorer
quarters of our great English cities. Unfortunately, the ugliness, if
not the squalor, extends itself beyond the slums, though it assumes
different forms among the middle and upper classes of our people. At
the risk of having one's words stigmatised as cant and humbug, it is
difficult to refrain from giving utterance to a feeling of wonder that
so much of the energy and activity of the imperial British race should
be devoted to social and political rivalries and the accumulation of
material wealth, and that modern English life should be so strongly
tainted with the vulgarity and brutality that come of sordid ideals.
Make a Burman a millionaire: he will build pagodas, he will support
monasteries, he will entertain his friends lavishly, he will exercise a
graceful charity unheard of in the West,--and all these things he will
go on doing until his money-bags are so empty that he can carry them
on his back with a light heart. The process will not be a long one.
Transport a hundred Burmans to work in an English workshop or factory:
they will probably be all dead or mad in five years; or, what perhaps
is worse, all the joy and buoyancy will have been crushed out of their
souls for ever. This will not be on account of the hard work--they
could work harder if necessary--but because of the mechanical nature of
the labour, the long hours of sunless confinement, the deadly monotony,
the wearisome routine. Englishmen consider themselves the apostles of
liberty throughout the world. The Burman, if asked to give his candid
opinion after a year's experience of English life, would probably say
that the position of the vast majority of Englishmen was not much
better than that of chained slaves.

[Sidenote: CIVILISATION AND WEALTH]

The evils of our civilisation are perhaps less apparent to him who
dwells in its midst than to him who observes it from afar, yet in
England, too, there have been some sad-voiced prophets. The warnings
of Ruskin, Carlyle and Froude, to mention few out of the many who have
uttered oracles since the days when Sir Thomas More in his _Utopia_
satirised the love of gold, seem to have fallen on ears that are deaf
to every sound but the clink of coin upon coin. Even psychologists
and metaphysicians[379] have condescended to come into the arena of
practical life to tell us plain truths about the falseness of our aims
and the barbarities that we have masked with the forms of civilisation.

  "The world is too much with us; late and soon
  Getting and spending we lay waste our powers."

It is not commercialism and industrialism in themselves that are
harmful: it is only too obvious that our national, or at least our
imperial existence is dependent on our wealth, and that wealth can come
only from flourishing industries and a worldwide commerce. The harm
lies, as Wordsworth saw, in making wealth our deity instead of our
servant, and "laying waste" the powers and faculties which are fit for
nobler and higher functions by forcing them to act as the apostles
and missionaries of a false god. We are apt to speak contemptuously of
pagan religions. Take down the most grotesque idol that grins upon his
shelf in India, China or Central Africa, and put in its place the new
god worshipped by Englishmen and Americans to-day, and who shall choose
between them as fit objects for adoration?

It is frequently taken for granted--naturally enough in commercial
England--that the creation of new wants is one of the finest results
of civilisation; that by artificially creating new desires among the
people of a "backward" race, we not only enrich ourselves by finding
new markets for our trade, but we elevate and ennoble such a people
by compelling them to lay greater store on the accumulation of wealth
in order that they may gratify those new desires. That it is unwise
to accept any such theory as axiomatic may be at least tentatively
suggested. "It is popularly supposed" said Ruskin "that it benefits a
nation to invent a want. Rut the fact is that the true benefit is in
extinguishing a want--in living with as few wants as possible."[380]
To see the whole Burmese nation clad in Lancashire cottons, labouring
with set teeth from morning till night, year after year, their pagodas
deserted and ungilded, their gleaming blue sky polluted with the smoke
of factory chimneys, their beautiful country turned into a vast hive
of ceaseless and untiring industry, simply in order that wealth might
grow and British trade prosper, would no doubt be a consummation most
devoutly to be wished by the working classes of the ruling race, and
also by the alien Government which would congratulate itself on "the
unexampled prosperity of the country and the gratifying elasticity of
the revenue." But, meanwhile, what of the happiness of the Burmese
people? It is a poor answer to say that if they do not want European
luxuries they are not compelled to buy them, and that if they despise
money no one is going to force them to accumulate it.

[Sidenote: BURMESE IDEALS]

If by civilisation we mean an enlightened progress towards the
realisation of the happiness of mankind--without necessarily assuming
the truth of the Utilitarian position that human action ought to be
deliberately directed towards the attainment of the greatest possible
sum of pleasures--there can be no doubt that the Burmese people are
very high indeed in the scale of civilised races. Nothing is easier
than to criticise such statements. Some will say that the happiness
of a Burman is a matter of temperament rather than the result of the
conditions of his social environment. The Christian who holds that his
religion is the only true one, and that all others are false, will
condemn the Burman, because, being a Buddhist and a nat-worshipper,
he is a "heathen." The man of science will say that in spite of his
tolerance and kind-heartedness and humanity, the Burman has made no
discoveries worth speaking of in medicine, knows nothing of surgery,
and has never invented any labour-saving machinery. In fairness
it should be added--for we are still discussing civilisation--that
the Burman is not fond of applying his intellect to the devising of
mechanical contrivances for slaughtering his fellow-men. Whatever be
the shortcomings of his civilisation, the Burman has made one momentous
discovery, and it is to this point that I have been trying to lead up:
he has discovered how to make life happy without selfishness, and to
combine an adequate power of hard work with a corresponding ability
to enjoy himself gracefully. "Put him on the river he loves," says Mr
Scott O'Connor,[381] "with a swift and angry current against him, and
he is capable of superb effort. Turn his beautiful craft, enriched with
exquisite carvings, down stream, with wind and tide in his favour, and
he will lie all day in the sun, and exult in the Nirvana of complete
idleness. And this is not because he is 'a lazy hound,' as I have heard
him called, but because he is a philosopher and an artist; because
there is a blue sky above him which he can look at, a river before him
rippling with colour and light; because the earning of pence is a small
thing to him by comparison with the joy of life, and material things
themselves but an illusion of the temporary flesh."

[Sidenote: ORIENTAL CIVILISATION]

A few years ago I wandered alone, as I have said, through the wildest
parts of the trans-Mekong Shan States and Siam. I had no credentials,
no guide, no servants, and had no knowledge of the languages spoken
around me. I was received everywhere with the utmost kindness and the
most open-hearted hospitality. In village after village in the valleys
of the Nam-U and Mekong I found myself an honoured guest. I could give
numberless instances of the tact and fine feeling constantly displayed
by my hosts in their dealings with the dumb and unknown foreigner who
seemed to have sprung upon them from nowhere. Money did not come into
the matter at all: it was of no use to my hosts, for there was hardly
any trade, and all their food and clothes were prepared in their
own villages. During several memorable weeks I travelled through a
fairyland of beauty, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a canoe or on a
raft. I saw much of the domestic and social life of the people, and so
charming was all I saw that I fear my pleasure was not untainted with
envy. It seemed to me that not a single essential of true civilisation
was there wanting; I felt that all my preconceived notions of what
civilisation really meant had been somehow distorted and must be pulled
down and built up anew. During my few weeks in Burma I did not travel
in the same way, and steamers and trains gave me little opportunity of
seeing Burmese life from the inside; but from what came under my own
notice, and from what was told me by others who knew, I have no doubt
that where the Burman has not lost his national graces through contact
with an alien civilisation he is just as courteous and tolerant and
well-mannered and "civilised" as those neighbours of his of whom I
have such golden memories.

No doubt one of the greatest achievements of a civilisation such as
that of Laos or Burma consists in the spirit of peace and restfulness
that it seems to embody. There is, of course, a fallacy in supposing
that a contented feeling of "having arrived" is to be expected at
all in this human life. Whether we believe in an existence beyond
the grave or not, few of us dare to be so optimistic as to suppose
that perfection in any form can be realised on earth, although we
instinctively feel that we must not be satisfied with anything less.
Yet when in some parts of south-eastern Asia we have once breathed that
Nirvana-like spirit of restfulness and peace, may we not be pardoned if
we find there a strange and magical beauty that all the wisdom of the
West can never yield us? It may be, indeed, that our complex Western
civilisation, in spite of its materialism and its grossness, contains
germs of a higher perfection than ever Burma or Indo-China dreamed
of. A full realisation of human capacities, to use the phrase of T.
H. Green, can hardly be expected in a simple form of society which
calls for no great effort and in which there is no great temptation to
deviate from the normal in either an upward or a downward direction.
Our strenuous Western life, ugly and brutal as much of it is, and
besmirched with the stains of blood and toil, may yet give birth to
ideals nobler than ever stirred the imagination of southern Asia. The
mountain rent by torrents and chasms, or the ocean tearing with white
fangs the face of a cliff, presents to human eyes and minds a spectacle
that contains a deeper and grander meaning than can ever be conveyed by
the fragile beauty of the royalest of flowers: and the rose, for all
its loveliness, fades and dies. Still, let us not despise the beauty
that is flower-like, even if we meet it in a land of alien faces: we
know that "he is false to God who flouts the rose."

[Sidenote: ORIENTAL CIVILISATION]

I have said that the Burman shows himself able, in play-hours, to enjoy
himself gracefully. In the Burman--he is not alone among Orientals in
this--there is no vulgarity. When he and his friends are having what
we might call "a spree," he never behaves rudely or uproariously, nor
does he get drunk.[382] His good taste and self-control are shown
in his demeanour just as they are in his clothes. He is never a
"bounder," either in manners or appearance. All these remarks apply
with equal force to his women-folk. The Burmese woman, whatever her
class may be and whatever her occupation, is always a lady. There may
be much merriment, a great deal of noise, a considerable amount of
good-humoured chaff, but no "mafficking." Can we say quite the same of
"Merrie England"?

It is hardly fair to dwell on the brightest and most picturesque side
of Burmese life--which no doubt has its dark side as well--and compare
it with the gloomier and more horrible features of the social life of
modern England. But what I wish to emphasise is the one fact that the
Burmese people of all classes are able to enjoy themselves--and do so
most heartily--without the least admixture of "hooliganism," which
a very large class of our own countrymen and countrywomen are too
obviously unable to do.[383] If an intelligent Burman were to visit
England and set himself to discover why it is that among the poorer
classes of our great cities merry-making is apparently inseparable
from hideous and raucous vulgarity, he would probably ascribe it to
the effect of long hours of degrading and mechanical labour, the
drudgery and incessant routine of daily life in the sunless workshop
and the dismal office--work from which the victims, owing to strenuous
competition, derive only the meanest subsistence, and through which all
ideas of gracefulness and good taste are obliterated, and all sense of
beauty utterly destroyed.

[Illustration: MONASTERY AT PAGAN, IRRAWADDY RIVER, BURMA.
  [_To face p._ 349.]

[Sidenote: BUDDHISM IN BURMA]

The most wonderful and beautiful feature of Burmese life I have barely
referred to, and yet it would deserve a whole volume to itself. The
greatest thing in Burma is the Buddhist religion. We have been told
by several people who ought to know, that the real religion of Burma
is not Buddhism but Animism;[384] that Buddhism is merely an outward
label, and that what the Burman really worships is not the law of
Buddha, but the nats and spirits that inhabit the rivers and mountains
and forests. There is, of course, a considerable element of truth in
this criticism, and it applies even more truly to the Shans than to the
Burmese. I have had evidence of this in the neighbouring countries,
when the Shan boys who guided my canoe down the rivers of Laos used
to stop to offer up prayers to the river-nats whenever we came to a
dangerous rapid. But to describe Buddhism in Burma as a mere label
seems--though I say it with all deference to those who know better--to
be an exaggeration. The Burmans not only "profess and call themselves"
Buddhists, but they are brought up in the tenets of that religion from
their earliest childhood, and before the British Government established
secular schools they received all their education from Buddhist monks
within the walls of Buddhist monasteries. The great majority do so
still, though some are sent to the secular schools as well. Like the
Siamese, all Burmese boys at some time or other wear the yellow robe
and take the monastic vows. Most of them return as a matter of course
to the secular life, but it would be contrary to all human experience
to expect them to forget the religion they have been taught both at
home and at school during their most impressionable years; and, as
a matter of fact, throughout their lives they continue to have the
greatest reverence for the yellow robe--the symbol, in their eyes, of
all that is holy.

[Sidenote: BUDDHISM AND ANIMISM]

I would go so far as to say that the average Burman of the present day
is at least as much entitled to the name of Buddhist as the average
Englishman or German is to the name of Christian.[385] The law of
Buddha is certainly not broken by Burmans in the same lighthearted
manner that European Governments and individuals consistently break the
commands contained in the Sermon on the Mount: it is not contemptuously
thrust aside as "an excellent ideal, but quite unworkable in practice."
Buddhism, as it is taught and practised in Burma, is a beautiful
religion. I never met a single European in Burma--I must admit that I
did not come in contact with the Christian missionaries there--who had
a single harsh word to say about the wearers of the yellow robe,[386]
or the general effect of their teachings. Whatever their own religious
views may be, all Europeans seem ready to acknowledge that Buddhism was
and still is a great power for good, and that it will be a dismal day
for the Burmese people when their religion decays or relaxes its hold
upon them. Fortunately, there seems to be every reason to believe that
it will not do so, that Buddhism is for the Burman, if for no other,
a κτῆμα ἐς ἀεί. It seems strange to be told by one of the foremost
living exponents of Burmese life and character that the professed
religion of Burma is only "an electro-plating, a bloom, a varnish,
enamel, lacquer, a veneer."[387] Surely this must not be taken quite
seriously. A "bloom," a "varnish," a "veneer" suggests something that
may be more or less easily rubbed off, without materially affecting the
substance on which it has been laid. Can it be held in good faith that
Buddhism could be rubbed away like the bloom from a grape and leave
the Burmese people substantially unaffected? Do the gentleness, the
patience, the humanity, the kindness to animals, the winning manners
and the limitless charity and generosity of the Burmese owe nothing
to Buddhism? If Buddhism has had even a minor share in the shaping of
the character of the modern Burman we dare not call it a mere bloom or
varnish. That there is, however, a very broad stratum of animism in
the various deposits that have helped through the shadowy centuries
of an unrecorded past to build up the religious mind of Burma may be
granted without dispute. Animism, as we know, is to be traced in the
popular versions of all or nearly all the religious systems of the
world. The eleventh book of the _Odyssey_ is--as F. W. H. Myers has
remarked--"steeped in animism,"[388] and we have only to turn to the
eighth book of the _Æneid_[389] to find that even in the polished age
of Augustus animistic ideas were far from dead. Brahmanism, Buddhism,
Islam, the Greek and Roman mythologies, the popular semi-religious
superstitions of China and Japan, and Christianity[390] are all to
some extent interpenetrated with animism, and it is only natural that
in the case of Buddhism the animistic influences should be specially
strong: for that faith enshrines, among the noble and simple moral
teachings that all can understand, a profound philosophical system far
beyond the comprehension of the average half-educated peasant; and it
has always shown, perhaps, even too generous a tolerance of the alien
opinions and practices with which it has come in contact.

We are told by the well-known writer on Burma from whom I have just
quoted, that when in 1888 the _hti_ (pinnacle) of the Shwe Dagon Pagoda
at Rangoon was thrown down by an earthquake, a magnificent new one,
costing 600,000 rupees, all collected by public subscription, was put
up by gratuitous labour.[391] I am far from wishing to lay any emphasis
on the significance of the mere voluntary expenditure of so large a sum
of money, for we know that in Burma all wealth is dross, and that as
judged by Burmese ideas few of the rich philanthropists of Europe would
rank as other than mere misers; but the fact of the gift of _gratuitous
labour_ by a people who are constantly stigmatised as "lazy dogs"
and haters of all kinds of hard work, is surely worthy of a moment's
consideration. The average Briton is credited with being anything but
lazy, yet what would Christian England say if the Primate were to call
upon the British workman to give the work of his hands for nothing in
the restoration of St Paul's Cathedral? The result of his appeal might
possibly suggest in some minds the disquieting reflection that the
Burmese were not the only people whose professed religion was a mere
"varnish."

[Sidenote: THE SHWE DAGON]

Any one who visits the pagodas and watches the people at their
devotions--they make a far more beautiful picture, by the way, than
the congregation of any European church, though that is not to the
point--is not likely to see anything suggestive of the decay of
Buddhism. There are, on the contrary, healthy signs of a renewed
religious activity which, if guided aright, should lead to splendid
results and silence all forebodings. Meanwhile, the jewelled pinnacle
of "the greatest cathedral of the Buddhist faith"[392]--the Shwe Dagon
Pagoda--still bears silent witness to the vitality and beauty of the
religion which called it into being. So long as the Buddhist faith is a
living force in Burma, there will never be wanting eager hands to dress
the altars and lay gold-leaf on the dome of that splendid fane, and
never will the grand and passionless face of the Lord Buddha be averted
from the little Burmese children who with their fathers and mothers
come to lay their gifts of flowers at the Master's feet. If Buddhism
dies out of Burma the country will lose the most precious of all its
possessions; and when the Shwe Dagon, deserted by its last pilgrim,
crumbles away into a shapeless heap of bricks, the world's diadem will
lose one of its most lustrous gems.


FOOTNOTES:

[365] The years of dacoit-hunting that followed were, unfortunately,
far from bloodless; and it was during those years that the Burman
learned to respect the British soldier.

[366] The latitude of Hongkong is almost exactly the same as that of
Mandalay and Calcutta.

[367] Some villages in Ssuch'uan may be said to be an honourable
exception.

[368] "Est-ce la colline qui a été façonée pour la pagode, est-ce la
pagode qui a choisi la colline, si bien faites l'une pour l'autre,
ravissantes d'ensemble? Qu'elle est jolie, cette réflexion blanche,
tombant de haut dans le cristal de l'eau!"--_Birmanie_, par Mme.
Quenedey, p. 218.

[369] The first is above Bhamo, where, owing to the dangers to
navigation, steamers have temporarily ceased to run.

[370] A large river of French Laos or the trans-Mekong Shan States.
It is navigable only for canoes of the most primitive description,
for it is full of dangerous rapids. It enters the Mekong a few miles
above Luang Prabang. The scenery of this river, which I descended from
its highest navigable point (Muang Wa) to its mouth, is exceptionally
beautiful.

[371] The founder of Mandalay, and second last king of Burma. He
reigned from 1852 to 1878, and was succeeded by his son Thibaw, who
reigned until his deposition by the British Government in 1885.

[372] There is an interesting essay by Max Müller on the Kutho-daw in
his _Last Essays_ (Second Series).

[373] Mr G. C. B. Stirling.

[374] See Note 45 (p. 440).

[375] See Note 46 (p. 441).

[376] _A People at School_, chap. xxiv.

[377] _Op. cit._ chap. xxi.

[378] Fielding Hall's _Soul of a People_, p. 125.

[379] See, for instance, Mr R. B. Arnold's _Scientific Fact and
Metaphysical Reality_, pp. 321-323. Professor William James, in his
_Varieties of Religious Experience_, asks whether "the worship of
material luxury and wealth, which constitutes so large a portion of
the 'spirit' of our age" does not "make somewhat for effeminacy and
unmanliness." He goes so far as to recommend, as a cure for some of
our social diseases, the adoption of that form of asceticism which
consisted in "the old monkish poverty-worship." Wealth-getting,
he says, "enters as an ideal into the very bone and marrow of our
generation." It is certain, he adds, that "the prevalent fear of
poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from
which our civilisation suffers."--(Pp. 365-369.)

See also Professor W. R. Inge's _Personal Idealism and Mysticism_,
especially pp. 175-176. I strongly recommend the reader who is
interested in the pressing problems presented by the changing
relations between the Occident and the Orient to read Dr Inge's book
(especially Lectures IV. and VI.) in connection with Mr Percival
Lowell's _Soul of the Far East_. Both are, as one would expect, able
and well-written books, but they take diametrically opposite views
of a very important question. Mr Lowell finds that the most notable
characteristic of the East, and the secret of its fatal weakness, is
what he calls its Impersonality, and that the peoples of the West,
deriving an irresistible strength from the exact opposite--an intense
Individualism--have nothing to fear from the impersonal civilisations
of the East, which they will eventually overpower and crush. Dr Inge
arrives independently at a similar belief as to the remarkable absence
of individualism in the East, but so far from adopting Mr Lowell's
interpretation of its results he finds in this Oriental Impersonality
a very remarkable source of strength and permanence; while he
prognosticates possible disaster to Western civilisation from the very
fact that it is based on individualism. Already, he says, "it shows
signs of breaking up from within." It seems possible that the events of
the not-distant future will show that Dr Inge was right.

[380] _Time and Tide._ See also an article by W. T. Seeger in the
_Hibbert Journal_ for October 1906, p. 75; and Sir Oliver Lodge's
article in the same journal for April 1907, p. 527.

[381] _The Silken East_, p. 37.

[382] Of course there are exceptions, especially in the larger towns
where Burmese and English civilisations have clashed.

[383] "It is the way in which hours of freedom are spent that
determines, as much as war or as labour, the moral worth of a nation.
It raises or lowers, it replenishes or exhausts. At present we find,
in these great cities of ours, that three days' idleness will fill
the hospitals with victims whom weeks or months of toil had left
unscathed."--Maurice Maeterlinck, _The Kingdom of Matter_.

[384] See the Burma Census Report for 1891 and Sir George Scott's
_Upper Burma Gazetteer_, and his _Burma: a Handbook_, pp. 380-381.

[385] Perhaps that is not saying much after all. "In reality," said the
German philosopher Nietzsche, "there has been only one Christian, and
He died on the Cross."

[386] Here, again, there are, of course, exceptions. There are "black
sheep" within the monastic fold as well as outside it.

[387] Sir George Scott, in _Burma: a Handbook_, p. 381.

[388] See his _Greek Oracles_, pp. 8, 18, 20-21. (Eversley Series.)

[389] See ll. 349 _seq._

[390] See Frazer's _Golden Bough_, vol. iii. p. 49, and vol. i. pp.
170-171 (2nd ed.). See also Tylor's _Primitive Culture_, vol. i. pp.
475-476, and ii. pp. 217-218 (4th ed.); and Rhys Davids' _Buddhist
India_, chap. xii.

[391] Sir George Scott, _Burma: a Handbook_, p. 22.

[392] Scott O'Connor, _The Silken East_, p. 128.




CHAPTER XVIII

CONCLUSION


From Burma I returned to north China by slow and easy stages, covering
a period of two and a half months. As, however, I visited no part
of the Far East which is not thoroughly well known to the ordinary
tourist, I will spare my readers an account of peoples and localities
which have been often and well described by others. Leaving Rangoon
by steamer on 19th July, I reached Colombo on the 24th, and as the
guest of Sir Henry Blake, G.C.M.G., then Governor of Ceylon, I spent
six delightful weeks in touring through the island by train and
motor-car. At Anuradhapura I obtained a seedling from the famous
Bo-tree[393]--probably the oldest surviving historical tree in the
world--and took it away to plant in the Public Gardens of Hongkong. I
trust it is still there, and that it will do credit to its illustrious
origin. From Ceylon I passed through Singapore, Hongkong and Shanghai,
and crossed thence to Japan. After nearly a fortnight in the island
of Kyūshū I paid a short visit to Korea, and finally returned to
Weihaiwei on 5th October, after an absence of exactly nine months. My
faithful dog, which had accompanied me through all the vicissitudes of
my journey and had never had a day's illness, died suddenly, shortly
after my return to China.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: RUINS AT ANURADHAPURA, CEYLON.  [_To face p._ 354.]

[Sidenote: RETURN TO CHINA]

After the various journeys that I have made in different parts of
China, I am often asked how I have been treated by the Chinese people,
and to what extent I have suffered inconvenience from their notorious
hatred for foreigners. The reader who has been so indulgent as to
follow me carefully through the preceding pages has probably a good
idea of what my answer to such questions is likely to be. In the course
of more than nine years' residence in China I have travelled in ten
provinces, and have never had cause for a single serious complaint
against any class or any individual. By the official classes I have
almost invariably been treated with scrupulous courtesy, and at the
hands of the people I have experienced only kindness and hospitality.
It is hardly possible for me to cite a single exception to this rule;
and if it were not for the fact that other Europeans--missionaries
and travellers--have sometimes had a different tale to tell, I should
have no hesitation in saying that no more kindly or hospitable people
exist than the people of China. They have certainly not the charm
and grace of manner that are so characteristic of some of the Shan
tribes or the people of Burma, Siam and Japan, and it is sometimes
a little disconcerting to see them hurrying their children out of
sight in case the Western ogre should want to cut out their eyes to
make into foreign medicine. There are Chinese and Chinese, and good
manners are less characteristic of one locality than of another. My
own experience of the peasantry of eastern Shantung, with whom I am
best acquainted, goes to show that they are good-tempered, reasonable,
orderly and law-abiding, inveterate gamblers, quick to appreciate a
kindness, good husbands and devoted fathers, neither more nor less
intelligent than others of their class elsewhere, rather too fond of
flattering the foreign official because they think he is fool enough
to like it, singularly lacking in the proverbial conceit of his race,
full of humour, a liar in the law-courts but truthful and honest
outside them, and courageous in facing hardship and disappointment. My
slighter acquaintance with the agricultural classes of other provinces
forbids me to attempt any general characterisation, and even in our
little territory of Weihaiwei--about 300 square miles in extent,
with 160,000 people--there are differences and exceptions which must
modify any general statement. The people of Kuangtung--the province
from which issue the majority of Chinese emigrants--are in my opinion
less attractive than those of many other provinces. They have sturdy
qualities, are sober and industrious, enterprising and independent,
but are rather too truculent and too much given to brawling. But
this applies only to the lower classes, and especially to the
"rolling-stones" that find their way to the coast-ports, for the
typical Cantonese gentleman would be an ornament to any society in the
world.

[Illustration: A VILLAGE FAIR IN CHINA, WITH OPEN-AIR THEATRE.
  [_To face p._ 356.]

[Sidenote: CHINESE OF THE COAST-PORTS]

That the Chinese people have in the past been misunderstood is due to a
variety of quite unavoidable circumstances for which no one can be said
to be responsible. The intolerable arrogance of the Chinese Court, up
to very recent days, in all its dealings with other Powers, tended to
spread the belief that this attitude was characteristic of the whole
Chinese people. The admission of foreign merchants to certain "treaty
ports" did not tend to bring about much change of feeling, for though
the Chinese mercantile classes soon won, through their honesty and fair
dealing, a liking or respect which they have never ceased to deserve,
the European settlements early became the resort of the worst type of
Chinese ruffian. The emigrants from Kuangtung and other provinces of
south-eastern China have in the Straits Settlements, California and
Australia proved themselves well-behaved and law-abiding members of
society; but among them, too, there were many who left their country
"for their country's good," and who, had they not prudently sought
refuge on foreign shores, would have suffered a worse fate than mere
exile. Great numbers of the coolies who were sent to work in the South
African mines, and whose various malpractices there have raised so
natural an outburst of disgust and indignation, belonged to the vicious
and criminal classes of north China, and even the best of them were
recruited from the lowest ranks of society. Chinese officialdom,
needless to say, was only too delighted to see the last of them.
Unfortunately, even a visit to Shanghai or Hongkong does not tend to
modify very appreciably the unfavourable opinion of the Chinese which
the average Englishman may have formed from his previous knowledge
of that race. Whatever may be the cause--and several causes might be
assigned--the lower-class Chinese of Hongkong probably have worse
manners than any other inhabitants of the Chinese empire. The coolies
who wilfully jostle Europeans in Queen's and Des Vœux Roads, and snatch
watches and purses from ladies and children, the house-servants who are
impertinent to their European mistresses in their masters' absence,
and the shopkeepers who blink rudely at their foreign customers and
remain seated, sleepily fanning their paunches, when according to their
own canons of good manners they should be on their feet murmuring
polite salutations--all these are persons to whom a glimpse of Western
civilisation seems to have done nothing but harm. They have lost
their own manners, and have altogether failed to acquire those of the
Occident. For my own part, I may say that though I have travelled
through a great part of China and visited many of her large cities, I
have found nowhere such lack of manners as unfortunately characterises
a large proportion of our fellow-subjects in Hongkong.

[Sidenote: RACIAL ANTIPATHIES]

It must be admitted that the Chinese do not like foreigners. It is
all the more creditable to them that their native courtesy--outside
the European settlements--so often prevents them from showing their
dislike. Here and there, no doubt, a real friendship springs up
between a foreigner and a Chinese, owing to qualities which each finds
and appreciates in the other, but as a rule the feeling hardly goes
beyond one of respect. Though many Chinese gentlemen in Hongkong are
naturalised British subjects and are men of education and culture, they
are practically excluded from the charmed circle of Hongkong "Society."
It must be granted, of course, that a difficulty is introduced into
the situation through the incompatible social customs of the two
races, especially with regard to the position of women. But the
difficulty is not, as it may be in the case of English and Hindus, an
insuperable one. The total absence of caste-rules and the willingness
of intelligent Chinese to relax the rigidity of their own social laws
deprive Europeans of the excuse that friendly intercourse with the
Chinese is from the nature of things an impossibility.

Dr Martineau tells us that the man who goes abroad and comes in contact
with alien civilisations is at first chafed by every sound and sight of
foreign things, and thinks he has left everything good behind him at
home; but that as he grows accustomed to his surroundings he is "hit
by many a happy phrase and won by many a graceful usage, and fairly
conquered at last by a literature and art and national life which
reveal to him an unimagined type of human culture."[394] Unfortunately
all travellers and residents in foreign lands are not so easily
dragged out of their prejudices as this passage would seem to imply.
Indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the stay-at-home
Englishman is often more apparently sympathetic towards alien races
than those who come in daily contact with them. This, however, is too
frequently due to a most dangerous form of ignorance,[395] that has
already--within the British Empire--caused a good deal of possibly
irreparable mischief. In spite of warning after warning, many an
Englishman is still apt to think that Orientals under British rule
should be put in possession of all the political "rights" of the
Briton at home, and is constitutionally unable to see that a political
and social system which has been slowly created during centuries of
national growth by and for men of his own race may prove not only
detrimental but even ruinous to the true interests--political, social
and moral--of his Oriental fellow-subjects. It is quite possible--I
desire to lay special stress on this point--that a sympathetic and
broad-minded Englishman may have the highest regard for the individuals
of an Oriental race, the deepest admiration for many aspects of
Oriental life and character, and the keenest appreciation of the many
splendid achievements of the East in art, philosophy and religion, and
that he may nevertheless consistently repudiate any concurrence with
the illogical doctrine that what is good for one is good for all, and
that the aspirations of the Englishman must necessarily coincide with
the aspirations of the Hindu or the Chinese. I would even go further,
and say that the man who wishes to fit out the Oriental with a complete
equipment of Western ideals proves thereby that he has either no
understanding of or no true sympathy with Eastern peoples and Eastern
modes of thought: and that if he tries to give practical effect to
his theories he will prove himself that most dangerous of foes--the
mischief-maker who comes in the guise of a smiling friend.

[Sidenote: DIFFERENT APTITUDES]

Every exiled Englishman who as a Government official is brought into
direct contact with a large population of Asiatics is well aware that
if his object is to win a certain kind of precarious popularity among
those whom he assists in ruling, there is ready to his hand a cheap
and nasty way of attaining his ambition. Fortunately for the honour of
England and the stability of the Empire, he is generally content with
the less dazzling rewards that come from the honest performance of
duty. It has recently been reported by the newspapers that an English
politician, a few hours after he had set foot on Indian soil for the
first time, informed crowded Hindu audiences that he proposed to assist
them in securing a constitution similar to that possessed by Canada,
on the ground that "what was good for the Canadians must be good for
the Indians"; in consequence of which it was arranged by half-educated
Hindu demagogues that he should be greeted with the plaudits of
million-throated Bengal, garlanded with flowers and hailed as "an angel
and not a man." Meanwhile, scattered throughout India are hundreds of
able and experienced Englishmen--members of the Civil Service--who are
giving the best years of their lives to India and her people, who can
speak the Indian vernaculars and know the Indian mind and character as
well as they can be known by any foreigner, and who are carrying on
day by day the great administrative work that saves India from chaos.
Few of their names are known to the British public, and not one of
them--so far as I am aware--has ever been hailed by a Hindu mob as
"an angel." How is it that a roving politician has managed so quickly
to out-run them all in the race for popularity? Perhaps, if the truth
were known, most of them could, if they so desired, attain the dizzy
elevation of this kind of angelhood without much difficulty; but the
pity of it is that as time went on they would find the conditions of
continued success growing ever more and more stringent, till at last
they would have to be something greater even than angels to satisfy the
expectations of their admirers. The young Englishmen of half a century
hence might have cause to lament that their fathers had not limited
their ambitions in this life to terrestrial instead of extending them
to celestial promotion, and the young Hindus, as they sat amid the
ruins of their violated temples or crouched under the lash of the
Mohammedan, would perhaps bitterly wish that their sires had known how
to give honour where honour was due, and had turned a deaf ear to the
ignorant rhetoric of native and foreign demagogues.

[Sidenote: PREJUDICES]

But the Englishman at home, who in a spirit of misdirected generosity
aims at conferring on the Asiatic all the political and other
"blessings" (if indeed they are such, even in England) that he himself
enjoys, oblivious of the fact that under Asiatic conditions the
blessings may turn into curses, is guilty of a blunder no graver nor
more dangerous than that committed by the Englishman abroad who acts
on the other assumption that the Oriental was created to be the white
man's slave. This attitude is unfortunately traceable among a certain
class of Europeans in both India and China;[396] and in China it has
certainly tended to widen the natural gulf that Nature has fixed
between the hearts and intellects of East and West.

That the Chinese in general have no liking for the foreigner seems
to me a matter for no surprise whatever. I think I am not far wrong
when I say that the average young European comes to the East with a
prejudice against the Chinese, and a distinct idea that they are his
inferiors. Of course in a sense this form of national prejudice exists
all the world over. The English schoolboy used to believe that every
Englishman was as good as three Frenchmen.[397] The French of the
Middle Ages used to retort that Englishmen had tails, which is just
what many educated Chinese of the present day believe of the Miao-tzŭ
tribes. The ancient Greeks called every one else "barbarian." In our
own day we have it on the word of an emperor that the real "salt of
the earth" are the people of Germany: more recently, indeed, the salt
has been metamorphosed "into the block of granite upon which the Lord
God can complete His work of civilising the world."[398] Yet was it
not only a few years ago that a statesman assured us that the torch
of civilisation had now definitely passed to Russia? It was a Russian
statesman, of course, who said so: and the Englishman or the American
may smile at the self-assurance of this or any other nation that
arrogates to itself the rôle which, as he has always been convinced,
exclusively belongs to the Anglo-Saxon. Yet this kind of national
partiality--provided it is accompanied by a belief in the principle of
_noblesse oblige_--is by no means to be sneered at or despised. "The
sense of greatness keeps a nation great," and an honest belief in our
own lofty destiny will stand us in good stead in the day of trial.
If two nations of equal powers and resources come to blows, and one
of them happens to be actuated by a belief, lacking to the other, in
its "divine mission," we need be in no doubt as to the side on which
victory will declare itself. But the feelings with which Europeans
and Chinese too often regard each other are different in kind from the
national prejudices that we know so well and make allowances for in the
West.

[Sidenote: OFFICIAL BEARING]

In our relations with China we have been constantly offended by the air
of superiority that is assumed towards us by the Chinese Government
and by Chinese officials. They used to call us "barbarians" even in
official documents, just as the street urchins of Canton still hail us
as "foreign devils"; and we can never forget that Chinese officialdom
used to do its best to humiliate us in our relations with the Court at
Peking in a manner which was altogether intolerable. Of course, the
Chinese were wrong in assuming a non-existing superiority, and they
have had to pay bitterly for their arrogance. But is it not the case
that we, as individuals and as Governments, have shown in different but
not less provocative ways just as much unreasonable arrogance in our
treatment of the Chinese? "The Chinese complain," writes a fair-minded
American diplomatist,[399] "that an air of proprietorship is constantly
manifested in unreasonable demands and impertinent criticisms, in
denunciation of any of their officials who manifest a disposition to
protect native interests, and that it practically amounts to a refusal
to recognise China as the property of the Chinese. They object, perhaps
unreasonably, against the application to their empire of those two
well-known declarations, said to have been made by the unanimous voice
of a religious body: 'Resolved, that the righteous shall inherit the
earth. Resolved, that we are the righteous.'"

Many Europeans not only hold the view that Chinese civilisation is
inferior to that of Europe--which is doubtless to a great extent true,
though there is another aspect of that question--but they are strongly
convinced that the Chinese represent a lower type of humanity--that
they are, in fact, less far advanced in the scale of evolution than
Europeans. An educated Englishman once told me that the Chinese were
evidently a mean and inferior people, because when you whacked a
Chinese coolie in the streets of Canton[400] he did not hit you back.
This argument is curiously typical of the aggressive attitude which is
so often assumed by Europeans not only in their dealings with Chinese,
but also in their relations with all other Oriental races, whose lack
of "grit" is supposed to be proved by the fact that they are not so
ready with their fists as we are. One of the most enlightened Hindus of
our own day--the late Swami Vivekananda--quotes as a curious instance
of this attitude a remark that was made to him in London. "What have
you Hindus done?" said an English girl, full of the pride of race. "You
have never even conquered a single nation."

[Sidenote: "INFERIORITY"]

Now, setting aside all considerations of national prejudice and
patriotism, is it a fact that the Chinese are as a race inferior to
the peoples of the West? The question, when we examine it closely,
has really very little to do with political strength or military
efficiency, or (_pace_ Mr Benjamin Kidd) relative standards of living,
or even the usual material accompaniments of what we call an advanced
civilisation; it is a question for the trained anthropologist and the
craniologist rather than for the casual observer of men and manners.
The Japanese people are now much more highly civilised, according to
Western notions, than they were half a century ago, but it would be
ludicrously erroneous to say that they are now a higher race, from
the evolutionary point of view, than they were then. Evolution does
not work quite so rapidly as that even in these days of "hustle."
The Japanese have advanced, not because their brains have suddenly
become larger, or their moral and intellectual capabilities have
all at once made a leap forward, but because their intercourse with
Western nations, after centuries of isolated seclusion, showed them
that certain characteristic features of European civilisation would
be of great use in strengthening and enriching their own country,
developing its resources, and giving it the power to resist aggression.
If the Japanese were as members of the genus _homo sapiens_ inferior
to us fifty years ago, they are inferior to us now. If they are our
equals to-day--and the burden of proof certainly now rests on him who
wishes to show that they are not--our knowledge of the origin and
history of Eastern peoples, scanty though it is, should certainly tend
to assure us that the Chinese are our equals too. There is no valid
reason for supposing that the Chinese people are ethnically inferior
to the Japanese. They have preserved their isolated seclusion longer
than the Japanese, because until very recently it was less urgently
necessary for them to come out of it. They have taken a longer time to
appreciate the value of Western science and certain features of Western
civilisation, because new ideas take longer to permeate a very large
country than a small one, and because China was rich in the possession
within her own borders of all the necessaries of life.

[Sidenote: STAGES IN CIVILISATION]

Many Europeans, dazzled and blinded by the marvellous inventions and
discoveries of modern times, and the huge strides made by physical
science, are apt to conclude too hastily that our ethnical superiority
is sufficiently proved by the fact that all or nearly all such
achievements are due to the white races only.[401] Even the Japanese,
we are often reminded, are after all only our imitators, and being
so must necessarily be our inferiors. If an artist were to make so
excellent a copy of the Madonna di San Sisto as to deceive connoisseurs
into the belief that it was the original, he would not thereby elevate
himself to an equality with Raphael. But surely it is much too soon
to make generalisations about the relative development of Eastern
and Western nations from the few facts at our command. It is only
during the last one or two hundred years that science has achieved
her greatest triumphs in Europe, and it is with the aid of those
triumphs of science and partly as a direct result of them that European
civilisation has progressed during that time. Yet even with us popular
opinion has not always been on the side of advancing science. I once
heard a charming old lady declare that balloons or air-machines of any
kind would never be successful, because the Almighty in His wisdom had
decreed that mankind was to restrict its movements to the solid earth,
and that even the attempt to make such machines was--like the building
of a certain mythical tower that we have all heard of--an act of
impiety which would certainly bring down divine vengeance. Yet the man
who now denies that we are within measurable distance of the conquest
of the air--especially if he denies it on religious grounds--is not
likely to be listened to with much respect at the present day. Many
persons--pious and other--were strongly opposed to the construction
of railways in England in the early part of the nineteenth century.
We grew impatient with the Chinese, because, until very recently,
they showed similar reluctance to the introduction of railways and
machinery into their own country, thus proving that they were oblivious
of the enormous economic benefits that such innovations had conferred
upon every country that had adopted them; yet we do not regard the
University of Oxford as having been the last stronghold of barbarism
in England, because that venerable corporation for a long time opposed
the approach of a railway to its classic halls, nor do we consider
that Lancashire was less civilised than the rest of England in the
eighteenth century, because its cotton-spinners rose in their thousands
to resist by force the introduction of Sir Richard Arkwright's
spinning-frame. If we are willing to admit that Oxford and Lancashire
did not act from a mere blind hostility to modern inventions as such,
we should at least be willing to enquire whether the opposition of the
Chinese has not also been due to other causes than mere barbarism or
lack of intelligence.

I do not think it can be seriously contended that the civilisation
of China to-day is on the whole lower than that of Europe in the
comparatively recent days of the thumb-screw and the Holy Office,
and it is possible that in the K'ang Hsi period (1662-1722) China
was as civilised as most of the countries of Europe were at the same
period. In that case it is not much more than two hundred years since
European civilisation began to move ahead of that of China--a very
short period in a nation's history, and almost infinitesimal from the
point of view of the evolution of mankind.[402] Our racial superiority
to the Chinese may be an anthropological truth, but it cannot be
deduced merely from the fact that during the most recent portion of
our national existence we have invented steam engines or wireless
telegraphy or quick-firing guns or turbine battleships or even party
government.

[Illustration: A TEMPLE-THEATRE IN NORTH CHINA.  [_To face p. 371._]

[Sidenote: CHINESE CIVILISATION]

That Chinese civilisation has for many years been allowed to get into
a very bad state of repair is, of course, an undoubted fact. Not to
mention the various terrible outbursts of hatred against foreigners,
for which the aggression of foreign Governments has generally been to
a great extent responsible, no excuse can be found for the atrocities
committed in the Chinese criminal law-courts, or the unsatisfactory
position of women, or the binding of girls' feet, or the defective
educational system, or the low state of the arts of medicine and
surgery, or the corruption of the official classes and the numberless
administrative abuses. All these and many other evils must be rectified
before China can expect to take her proper place in the front rank of
the nations of the world. That she is now making an honest endeavour
to rectify them in the face of immense difficulties must, I think, be
apparent to all observers, but we cannot expect that great social and
political changes can be introduced into so enormous a country as China
merely by the issue of a series of imperial decrees, and it is but too
probable that before she can enter upon the heritage that is rightly
hers, China has yet to pass through a terrible ordeal of fire. It is
also far from unlikely that in the early stages of her new career she
will be forced by circumstances into various reactionary phases which
may give foreigners the mistaken impression that she is about to fall
back again into her old lethargy and somnolence.

[Sidenote: SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT]

Some of the existing features of Chinese civilisation are so admirably
suited to the genius of the people that they might with great advantage
be allowed to remain almost unchanged. If everything goes into the
melting pot, China will lose almost as much as she can ever hope
to gain. It is a great mistake, for example, to suppose that the
Chinese system of government is thoroughly bad. The Government has
failed so often and so signally to uphold the dignity of China in
her quarrels with other Powers that we are apt to regard the whole
system as rotten, inside and out. We are told so much about official
corruption and the inhumanities of Chinese gaols and the cruel acts
of oppression practised by the ruling classes and their underlings,
that some may be surprised to learn not only that there are hundreds
of admirable officials, zealous and single-minded in the discharge of
their duties, but that the majority of the people of China are quite
unconscious of being oppressed, and would be bewildered if one were
to suggest that such was the case. The "squeezes" of the officials
and their subordinates are thoroughly well recognised by every one
concerned, and acts of real extortion are by no means so common as
Europeans believe, though there have no doubt been several serious
cases of malversation of funds subscribed by Chinese and foreigners
for such laudable objects as famine relief. It is true, moreover, that
the official classes have often shown a cynical disregard for the
sanctity of private property, and this has compelled many rich Chinese
to invest their money in Shanghai and Hongkong. As regards the ordinary
"squeezes," the imperial Government knows quite well that the salaries
paid to the officials do not amount to a living wage, and that to eke
out their slender incomes they must pocket fees and percentages which
have no legal sanction.

The criminal convicted in a Chinese court is well aware that he must
fee his gaolers--that is practically part of his punishment for being
a criminal. The party to a civil lawsuit knows equally well that he
cannot hope to get a hearing till he has paid something to every one
connected with the court, from door-keeper to magistrate's secretaries,
and that if he wins his case he will have to pay more: but he, too,
knew all this before he decided to go to law, and he regards all these
payments much as we should regard a solicitor's bill of costs. Real
acts of extortion and oppression are often practised in individual
cases, but it is a strong light that beats upon the judgment seat
of a Chinese official, and if he becomes notorious for such acts he
must have exceedingly influential support if he expects to escape
denunciation and disgrace. It is the sale of offices, the selfishness
of the highest ruling classes, the ignorance and prejudices of the
court, the malversation of funds that ought to be devoted to paying for
fleets and armies and public works, that China suffers from so bitterly
to-day, not the comparatively small extortions practised by local
officials.

[Sidenote: ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE]

Even taking extortion and "squeezes" into consideration, China is a
lightly-taxed country; and we should remember that in times of famine
or other distress it is quite common for the Government to remit all
direct taxes throughout the whole area affected. A Chinese magistrate
is held responsible for the peace and well-being of his district just
as a father is held responsible for the conduct of his son. The people
whom he rules know this very well, and are fully conscious of their own
power to ruin his official career if he consistently tries to extort
more than the recognised "squeezes," or is guilty of any gross acts of
maladministration.[403] In connection with civil lawsuits, intentional
miscarriages of justice are far less frequent than is usually supposed.
The parties may be required to pay what we should call bribes, and
sometimes the hearing of a case is intentionally postponed from day to
day until the bribes offered are sufficiently large; but the important
point to notice is, that all this bribery does not necessarily imply a
miscarriage of justice. Considering the wide areas over which Chinese
district magistrates preside, and the slight amount of supervision
exercised over their proceedings, it is not an exaggeration to say that
great numbers of them are able and well-meaning officials who have
an honest desire to benefit the people committed to their charge and
to serve their country loyally. We find, too, that the men who show
such qualifications in a conspicuous degree are almost sure of rapid
advancement; nor do they fail to earn the respect and affection of the
people whom they rule, for there is no one quicker than a Chinese to
realise when he is well governed, and perhaps no one more appreciative.

The social organisation of China, especially for an agricultural
people, is in many respects thoroughly sound. In ordinary times--that
is, when no extraordinary events such as famines or political troubles
occur to complicate matters--China is one of the most profoundly
peaceful countries in the world. The fact that hated foreigners can
safely go through the country from end to end without any means of
self-protection is in itself a striking proof of this. The people are
singularly law-abiding. There are no policemen in the European sense
except in a few large cities like Peking, Ch'êng-tu and K'ai-fêng-fu,
where Western institutions are beginning to be copied, and yet there
is probably a smaller percentage of crime in China than in any
country in Europe. This is partly due, no doubt, to the naturally
peaceful and industrious character of the people, but it is an almost
necessary corollary of their semi-patriarchal village system and
the responsibility of each family for the good behaviour of all its
members. In the three hundred and ten villages of the leased territory
of Weihaiwei the policy of the British Government has been to rule the
people as far as possible in the way to which from time immemorial they
have been accustomed. The village organisation is maintained, and in
the courts of the two British magistrates the law that is administered
is the law of China (tempered by local custom), so far as such law
and custom are not repugnant to British conceptions of justice and
morality. In my own district, which is nearly 200 square miles in
extent, and contains about two hundred villages with nearly a hundred
thousand inhabitants, there are eight police constables permanently
stationed at headquarters, ready to be sent out to discharge any duties
that may be necessary, but apart from them there is not a policeman
in the district. During a recent period of six months--including
the winter months, which are always the season for serious crime in
north China--the cases of robbery reported to the police were three
in number. Out of about eighty cases in which during the same period
imprisonment or fines were imposed, nearly half were gambling cases and
the rest of a more or less trifling nature. When riding through the
villages of the territory I do not remember to have seen more than one
intoxicated man, and he had been to market and sold all his pigs.

[Illustration: THE GRAVE OF "JIM," WEIHAIWEI.  [_To face p. 376._]

[Sidenote: WEIHAIWEI]

During more than two years in Weihaiwei I have tried Englishmen and
Japanese for being "drunk and disorderly," but never a single Chinese.
I must hasten to explain that the absence of crime and disorder in
Weihaiwei is not in the least degree due to any reforms introduced by
the British Government: the neighbouring districts under Chinese rule
are just as well behaved, if not, indeed, rather more so. Perhaps I
should add that civil lawsuits in Weihaiwei are exceptionally numerous.
Such cases are decided by the two British magistrates in accordance
with Chinese law and are conducted in the Chinese language. The only
expense which a litigant incurs is a shilling or two for hiring a
petition-writer to state his case, and even this outlay he can avoid
if he happens to be an educated man and can write out an intelligible
statement for himself, or get a friend to do it for him. There are no
court fees, no "squeezes," and solicitors and barristers are unknown.
I am not quite satisfied that the facilities offered to litigants in
our courts in Weihaiwei are altogether beneficial in their results.
Litigation has become so cheap and easy that it is often resorted to
before the least serious attempt has been made by the parties to come
to an amicable settlement out of court. The British magistrates are
called upon to decide such trumpery questions that if a litigant were
to submit them to a Chinese tribunal the magistrate would probably
order him to be flogged for needlessly stirring up litigious strife.
By taking cognisance of the simplest village disputes it may be that
we are gradually weakening the solidarity of the village organisation,
which, if once destroyed, can never be restored; and we are possibly
storing up a good deal of trouble for the Chinese officials who will
resume their functions in Weihaiwei on the expiry of our lease.

[Sidenote: CHINESE ART AND MUSIC]

If the high development of literary and artistic tastes is to be taken
as a criterion of civilisation it is not likely that even in this
respect Europe has much cause to throw contemptuous glances at China.
But many of those European collectors who admire and are willing to
pay enormous prices for specimens of Chinese porcelain[404]--much of
it stolen from private houses in Peking and elsewhere--are perhaps
not aware of the high standard which Chinese artists have reached in
other directions. Fine examples of their pictorial art are still not
very numerous in Europe, or at least are not easily accessible to
the public, though the British Museum contains, among other Chinese
drawings and paintings, characteristic sketches by such famous artists
as Lin Liang of the Ming dynasty. But the rapidity with which the art
of Japan has gained the admiration of Europe is proof enough that
Chinese art--to which that of Japan owes its most characteristic
qualities and nearly all its inspiration--will some day arouse no less
enthusiasm among the art critics of Europe. An English critic, who is
also a poet--Mr Laurence Binyon--says of the landscape painting of
the Sung dynasty (the tenth to the thirteenth centuries of our era)
that "not till the nineteenth century in Europe do we find anything
like the landscape art of China in the Sung period,--a disinterested
love of beauty in nature for its own sake, regardless of associations
imposed by the struggles of existence.... To the Sung artists and
poets, mountains were a passion, as to Wordsworth. The landscape art
thus founded, and continued by the Japanese in the fifteenth century,
must rank as the greatest school of landscape which the world has
seen."[405] In art, as in literature and politics, the great days of
China lie in the past, but there are probably more artists at work
at the present day in China than anywhere else, and the zeal and
enthusiasm with which they execute their best work--generally without
any expectation of material reward--is a sure indication that the
artistic sense of the Chinese is still full of vigorous vitality, and
may lead to great results in the future.

In music it must be admitted that China lags as yet far behind Europe.
It has been reported of one of the foremost pianists and composers of
the present day that when he visited California and heard Chinese music
for the first time, he volunteered the opinion that "it really was
music," a truth which some of us perhaps might be inclined to doubt.
If an intelligent Chinese who had never before been outside his own
country were taken without previous instruction to the performance of
an Italian opera, or had the privilege of hearing the _Agnus Dei_ of
Mozart's 1st Mass or Meyerbeer's _Qui in manu Dei requiescit_ as sung,
for example, in Magdalen College Chapel, he would be merely puzzled.
The music would be devoid of meaning to him, and he would probably
regard it as unintelligible noise. Yet, after all, a musical ear--apart
from the almost universal liking for simple melody--is by no means too
common even in Europe, and an average Englishman would repudiate the
idea that he was less civilised or less highly evolved than a German
because he had less appreciation of the wonders of harmony. Time
was--not so very long ago--when Wagner's music was regarded in England
as a kind of joke; and few people are really able to understand and
appreciate the grandest music of the nineteenth century--though they
often think they do--without some previous training. Some are even
frank enough to confess that it bores them, much as it would bore a man
who did not understand Greek to listen to a reading from Sophocles.
But are the Chinese capable of being musically trained? Judging from
a few cases within my own knowledge, I am inclined to think they are.
But in any case we should remember that music as we understand it is
the youngest of the arts, and time only can show whether all the great
music of the future is to be exclusively a Western product.

[Sidenote: LITERATURE]

As regards literature, the difficulty of the Chinese written language
has no doubt stood in the way of spreading a knowledge of the Chinese
masterpieces in Europe, and most of the translations that exist
are--even when verbally exact--far from reproducing the spirit of the
original. The probability is that in future the best translations will
come from the pens of native scholars. Mr Ku Hung-Ming,[406] graduate
of a Scottish university, has rendered good service to Europe in
giving us what are perhaps the best existing English translations of a
portion of the Confucian classics. Yet the ignorance still shown even
by European residents in China of the extent and richness of Chinese
literature is very remarkable. Some time ago, in conversation with an
Englishman who had lived many years in China, I happened to allude to
the works of one of the most famous of Chinese poets. My friend had
never heard his name, and was surprised to learn that China had any
poets at all. Professor Giles, with his happy gift of apt translation
and paraphrase, has turned into good English verse[407] a few short
specimens of the beautiful poetry of the T'ang and Sung dynasties, and
the contents of his little volume must have surprised some Western
readers who had little idea that while the Mercians and West Saxons
were still struggling for supremacy in England under their Ecgberhts
and Beorhtrics, such exquisite flowers of poesy were springing up on
the soil of distant China. Yet the translations that have already
appeared in foreign languages are but a trifle compared with the wealth
of poetry that still remains unknown to Europe; and Chinese poetry,
like that of all other languages, loses half its beauty when clothed
in the words of an alien tongue. A Chinese gentleman's education is
not regarded as complete if he cannot clothe his ideas in graceful
verse; nor does he, like the English schoolboy who seldom meddles with
Latin hexameters and Greek iambics when his education is "finished,"
neglect this pleasant accomplishment when he has left the halls of
learning. Such poetry, naturally, is rarely of a high order; but though
the published poetry of the present day is poor compared with that of
the past--even in England we have not always with us singers of the
Elizabethan standard--the great poets of China are still quoted and
read with the same appreciation as of old. That real poetic feeling
is far from extinct may be seen by any English reader who peruses Mr
C. Clementi's translation of the Cantonese Love-songs,[408] which are
quite modern. The genius of Chinese poetry tends to be elegiac and
idyllic. It is seldom or never intensely lyrical, even when it is
intended for a musical accompaniment, like the love-songs just referred
to. But if Chinese literature can boast of no Shelleys or Swinburnes,
there are many writers whose poems may well be compared with the best
work of our English elegiac and descriptive poets, such as Gray. It
must, I think, be admitted that the Chinese language is not the most
perfect existing vehicle for poetical expression. We need only take
a single test-line from Homer--say line 198 of _Odyssey_ xi.,--or a
couplet from Shelley--say lines 5 and 6 of the third stanza of _The
Question_,--to realise a rhythmical music and movement of which the
Chinese language is, I fear, incapable; yet the words used by Lafcadio
Hearn to describe the best Japanese poetry may with equal justice be
applied to the idyllic poetry of China: "compositions which, with a few
chosen syllables only, can either create a perfect coloured picture in
the mind, or bestir the finest sensations of memory with marvellous
penetrative delicacy."[409]

       *       *       *       *       *

[Sidenote: EUROPEAN ATTITUDE]

All that I have said of the amenities of Chinese civilisation will no
doubt bewilder some readers who have never visited the country and
who never think of China unless it happens to figure conspicuously
in the newspapers in connection with wars and massacres. They have
had detailed accounts of how ruffianly hordes of cut-throats tried
to exterminate the Europeans in the legations at Peking, and every
now and then they hear of the brutal murder of a missionary and his
family. But does it never occur to them to ask what has led to such
outbreaks? Surely these murders and outrages are not committed from
sheer love of blood and slaughter? If such frenzied attacks are made
from time to time upon foreigners, surely they cannot result from a
mere loathing of fellow human beings who happen to belong to a Western
land? It is well to seek information on such points, for the questioner
may rest assured that the fault has not always been on the side of
China, that these ebullitions of frenzy do not spring from mere wild
barbarism, and that a real or fancied wrong is invariably at their
root. For the Chinese are as keen as the proudest race in Europe to
resent insult or injustice. It is no doubt true that on occasions when
the Chinese find their own antiquated fighting implements totally
inadequate to enable them to meet on equal terms the powerfully-armed
and well-drilled soldiers of Europe, they will then, in frenzy and
desperation, and stung with a sense of wrong, be guilty of grave
crimes against humanity, choosing moments when their victims are few
and defenceless to strike them in the dark; but they are not actuated
by mere savagery and lust of blood. Nor are they cowards. That they
will flee panic-stricken from a foe armed with the most deadly modern
weapons of precision, is true enough: so would have fled the fathers
of the splendid heroes who recently beat the best soldiers and sailors
of one of the foremost Powers of Europe, yet no one dares to assume
that the fathers of the Japanese soldiers of to-day were cowards. Let
us hesitate before we condemn the Chinese as a cowardly race because
they shrink from facing odds which we Englishmen are never called upon
to face ourselves. Let us at least wait till they have met us on equal
terms, armed with weapons as good as our own, and led by officers
trained in the art of war.[410]

[Sidenote: TREATMENT OF ORIENTALS]

Many will excuse Western aggression in China and in the Orient
generally on many grounds: even Kiaochou will have its apologists.
But can any fair-minded gentleman of England, Germany, France or
Russia say with perfect sincerity that the military Powers of Europe
have behaved chivalrously towards the East? Have they not too often
acted as bullies, too often taken advantage of their brute strength?
Even so, the apologists may say, the methods of nations cannot and
must not be the same as those of individual men. Conduct that the
public-school boy would denounce as caddish becomes statecraft and
_la haute politique_ when nation deals with nation. Yet is it not
conceivable that if we treated the East with the same chivalry and
courtesy which the well-bred English gentleman in private life shows
to those who are weaker or humbler than himself, we might before many
years are past find in China a loyal and powerful friend instead of a
possible sullen and suspicious foe? It should never be forgotten that
the true Oriental--even more than the Englishman bred at Winchester and
New College--is a firm believer in the truth embodied in William of
Wykeham's old motto, _Manners makyth man_; and nothing is more certain
than that if we want China to welcome us as teachers, as engineers, as
builders of railways, as merchants, as missionaries or as capitalists
we must approach her with frankness and courtesy, not with professions
of altruism covering only greedy selfishness, not with the sinister
motives of Chaucer's "smyler with the knyf under the cloke."

As far as British relations with China are concerned, by far the
brightest sign of the times is the willingness of our Government to
assist China in stamping out the curse of opium--almost as great a
curse as alcohol in our own country--and in doing what in us lies
to prevent the further dismemberment of the empire. That this is
a policy which commends itself to all Englishmen who have fairly
considered the questions at issue, I have very little doubt; but it
is to be feared that there will always be some who, from selfish
dread of losing some material advantage which they hoped to gain from
exploiting China, will always be ready to urge a narrower policy.
They are indignant at the idea of the subjects of a foreign Power
obtaining any valuable concessions or rights in England itself--as
when the newspapers report the acquisition of Welsh coal-fields by a
syndicate of Germans--yet they are intolerant of the cry of "China for
the Chinese." Fortunately, the English Press of Hongkong and Shanghai
is generally very fair-minded in its attitude towards international
questions, and the intelligent and sympathetic view which it has taken
of some of the recent regrettable episodes in Anglo-Chinese relations
at Shanghai and elsewhere must go far towards broadening the ideas
of many of its readers. Yet too often, I am afraid, the European in
China almost prides himself on the fact that he has no liking for or
sympathy with the Chinese; and those who are convicted of showing such
sympathy are as often as not stigmatised as "pro-Chinese"--apparently
the worst offence of which any Englishman in China can be guilty. In
the treaty ports one often hears the very foolish remark made, that
the acquisition of a scholarly knowledge of the Chinese language
and literature leads to a kind of softening of the brain: "that way
madness lies." This attitude is analogous to that of the modern man
of business, who, having had only a commercial or technical training
himself, and regarding all education merely as a means for acquiring
money and "getting on," scoffs at what he knows nothing about, and
ridicules those who maintain the advantages of a study of Greek.
Without a knowledge of that language it cannot, of course, be expected
that they should take to heart a valuable old warning:

 πᾶς τις ἀπαίδευτος φρονιμωτάτος ἐστὶ σιωπῶν.

[Sidenote: THE AWAKENING OF CHINA]

China has only recently begun to awake from her old lethargy, and
in her recent attempts to assert her independence and to repudiate
foreign interference it must be admitted by her best friends that she
has already made some grievous and foolish mistakes that may cost
her dear. More than one Western Power watches these mistakes with
sullen interest, sword in hand. It is to be hoped for China's sake
that the statesmen who are to guide her fortunes during the next few
years--which will too probably be years of strife and bloodshed--will
not attempt to compress the work of a century into a year; and it is to
be hoped that the great Western Powers for their own sakes will show
reasonable patience in dealing with the blunders which in the course
of so vast a work as the readjustment of the social and political
forces of China must from time to time be committed by her responsible
leaders. Chinese patriotism, for the first time since the history of
European relations with China began, is becoming a force to be reckoned
with. Crude manifestations of this patriotism have recently given rise
to unfortunate incidents and to acts which Europe and America cannot
be expected to sympathise with or to admire; indeed, in some cases the
West is undoubtedly right in insisting that China should show a proper
respect for her treaty obligations. But surely this is not the time to
show selfish hostility to the new hopes and ideals of a great people
who are struggling in the throes of regeneration. The next fifteen
years will probably be decisive in determining the whole course of
China's future history. If wise statesmanship brings her successfully
through her present struggle she need have no fear for the remoter
future. She will then be on the way to become one of the greatest
nations--perhaps the greatest--in the world, and I know of little in
her past history to discourage the hope that she will use her great
powers for the good of mankind and the preservation of the world's
peace.[411]

[Sidenote: THE MIDDLE KINGDOM]

After all, it is only in recent years that we have begun to realise how
large the world is--a curious fact when we consider how the advance
of science has tended to the annihilation of space. The Roman empire
and the _pax Romana_ were of such enormous importance for all the
races that now people Europe that we have hardly yet rid ourselves of
the old idea that the Romans at the period of their widest dominion
ruled the world; yet we ought to know now that the Mediterranean
"world" was only a fraction of our globe, and by no means the only
civilised fraction. The Chinese called their country "The Middle
Kingdom," meaning that it was the centre from which all civilisation
and all light and learning radiated. The countries outside China, when
their existence was known of at all, were regarded as more or less
civilised according as they were nearer to or further removed from
that brilliant centre. Those that were altogether beyond the reach of
China's influence were outside civilisation; they were countries on
the fringe of the world, inhabited by barbarians. Our own attitude
has hitherto been very much the same. We who have inherited, more or
less directly, the civilisation and culture of Rome and Greece have
for centuries past regarded ourselves as "the world." When we began to
have relations with Eastern countries we found that somehow or other we
could not make Oriental culture and civilisation quite fit in with our
preconceived notions of those things. We regarded the East--especially
China--with a kind of mingled contempt and amusement. Even to this day
superficial writers cannot deny themselves the pleasure of dwelling on
what to their minds are the oddities and absurdities of Chinese life:
and so we have humorous descriptions from their pens of how everything
in China is distorted and "upside down"--the writers forgetting that
some of the salient features of our own civilisation must be quite as
ridiculous when looked at from the Chinese standpoint. But the truth
is, of course, that neither Europe nor China has any right to regard
the other as a subject for caricature. The time has come when we should
realise that Europe and North America are not "the world"; that even
the glorious heritage handed down to us by Greece, of which we are
so justly proud, did not include everything that was worth having or
worth knowing; that we people of the West have a monopoly neither
in virtue nor in culture; and that the Far East, as well as the Far
West, has inherited something of the wisdom of the ages. When we have
realised these things it may then be possible for East and West to
meet in friendship and frankness instead of with mutual suspicion or
contempt, each ready to give the other something of the best that it
has inherited from its own past. It may then be that we shall begin to
trade with China in something more than cottons and silks, machinery
and rifles; that a commerce will be inaugurated of which political
economy knows nothing, in which customs tariffs will be unnecessary,
and in which sympathy and tolerance, not money, will be the medium of
exchange.


FOOTNOTES:

[393] A cutting from the sacred tree (a species subsequently known as
the _ficus religiosa_) under which Gautama is believed to have sat when
he attained Buddhahood, was brought from India to Ceylon about the year
245 B.C. and planted at Anuradhapura, then the Singhalese capital. It
is still growing there, and is annually visited by countless pilgrims
from all parts of the Buddhist world.

[394] _A Study of Religion_, vol. i. p. 374 (2nd ed.).

[395] See an excellent anonymous article in _Macmillan's Magazine_,
vol. ii. No. 16, N.S. It is entitled "The White Man and the British
Empire."

[396] Herbert Spencer, in the _Principles of Ethics_, speaks of "the
many who, in the East, tacitly assume that Indians exist for the
benefit of Anglo-Indians." He is right in saying it is tacitly assumed;
for few go so far as to say openly that the Indians are destined by
Nature to be exploited by the White races. But the tacit assumption
often leavens their thoughts and discourses on "the native question."
One recent writer, indeed, distinctly states that "it is an inexorable
law of progress that inferior races are made for the purpose of serving
the superior; and if they refuse to serve, they are fatally condemned
to disappear." (W. H. Brown, _On the South African Frontier_). But who
is to decide which are "the inferior races"?

[397] See Shakespeare, _King Henry V._, Act iii. Sc. 6.

[398] The _Times_, 4th Sept. 1907.

[399] Mr Chester Holcombe, in _The Real Chinese Question_, p. 242.

[400] _Mutato coelo mores mutantur!_

[401] I earnestly commend to the reader's notice an admirable leader
in the _Times_ of 15th January 1907, which closes with these words:
"Altogether it seems to be time for the white races to take a fresh
survey of the whole situation, and to recognise that, in the changed
conditions, the old haughty and dictatorial attitude stands in need of
modification."

[402] Lest it may appear that I am under-rating the speed with which
evolutionary forces have operated among the European races during the
last few centuries, I venture to quote the words of one whose opinion
is likely to be listened to with respect, and who was the last man to
minimise the significance of the conquests made by science. "There can
be no doubt that vast changes have taken place in English civilisation
since the reign of the Tudors. But I am not aware of a particle of
evidence in favour of the conclusion that this evolutionary process
has been accompanied by any modification of the physical or the mental
characters of the men who have been the subjects of it. I have not met
with any grounds for suspecting that the average Englishmen of to-day
are sensibly different from those that Shakespeare knew and drew.... In
my belief the innate qualities, physical, intellectual and moral, of
our nation have remained substantially the same for the last four or
five centuries" (T. H. Huxley, _Prolegomena to Evolution and Ethics_).

[403] A few years ago a certain Chinese magistrate in a district
very near Weihaiwei was much disgusted, on arriving at his post, to
find that the opportunities for "squeeze" were so severely limited
that he was likely to remain a poor man. On his own responsibility
he decided to tap a new source of revenue, and issued a proclamation
to the necessary effect. In a few days the populace was up in arms,
the magistrate's official residence was pulled to pieces (it is still
almost a ruin), and he was himself a disgraced fugitive.

[404] The _Times_ of 15th December 1906 reports the sale at Christie's
of a pair of vases of the K'ang Hsi period for 3,700 guineas, and a
pair of beakers of the Yung Chêng period for 3,100 guineas.

[405] Quoted in Professor Giles' _Chinese Pictorial Art_.

[406] Author of _Papers from a Viceroy's Yamen_, and other works.

[407] _Chinese Poetry in English Verse_ (Shanghai and London: 1898).

[408] Published by the Clarendon Press, 1904.

[409] Lafcadio Hearn's _Kokoro_, p. 335.

[410] See Note 47 (p. 442).

[411] See Note 48 (p. 443).




APPENDIX A: VOCABULARIES

 +------------------+----------------+------------------+--------------+
 |      ENGLISH.    |YUNG-NING LI-SO.| YUNG-NING MOSO.  | MULI (NJONG).|
 +------------------+----------------+------------------+--------------+
 |                  |                |                  |              |
 | One              | t'i            | chih             | ti           |
 |                  |                |                  |              |
 | Two              | nyi            | nyi              | nö           |
 |                  |                |                  |              |
 | Three            | sa             | so               | son          |
 |                  |                |                  |              |
 | Four             | li             | ru               | zhi, or zha  |
 |                  |                |                  |              |
 | Five             | nga            | nga or ua        | ngo          |
 |                  |                |                  |              |
 | Six              | ch'u           | k'uo or k'o      | t'ru         |
 | Seven            | shih           | shih             | hnö, hnyi    |
 | Eight            | hi or hei      | ho               | shüeh        |
 | Nine             | gu             | gu               | yö, or yi    |
 | Ten              | t'zŭ           | ts'e or t'zŭ     | ka-te        |
 | Eleven           | t'zŭ t'i       | t'zŭ chih        | ka-ti        |
 | Twelve           | t'zŭ nyi       | t'zŭ nyi         | ka-nö        |
 | Thirteen         | t'zŭ sa        | t'zŭ so          | ka-son       |
 | Fourteen         | t'zŭ li        | t'zŭ ru          | ka-zhi       |
 | Fifteen          | t'zŭ nga       | t'zŭ nga         | ka-ngo       |
 | Sixteen          | t'zŭ ch'u      | t'zŭ k'o         | ka-t'ru      |
 | Seventeen        | t'zŭ shih      | t'zŭ shih        | ka-hnö       |
 | Eighteen         | t'zŭ hi        | t'zŭ ho          | ka-shüeh.    |
 | Nineteen         | t'zŭ gu        | t'zŭ gu          | ka-yö        |
 | Twenty           | nyi-t'zŭ       | nyi-t'zŭ         | na-ha        |
 | Twenty-one       | nyi-t'zŭ-ti    | nyi-t'zŭ-chih    | na-ha-ti     |
 | Thirty           | sa-t'zŭ        | so-t'zŭ          | so ha        |
 | Forty            | li-t'zŭ        | ru t'zŭ          | ra ha        |
 | Fifty            | nga-t'zŭ       | nga t'zŭ         | ngo ha       |
 | Sixty            | ch'u-t'zŭ      | k'o t'zŭ         | t'ru ha      |
 | Seventy          | shih-t'zŭ      | shih t'zŭ        | hnö ha       |
 | Eighty           | hi t'zŭ        | ho t'zŭ          | sho ha       |
 | Ninety           | gu t'zŭ        | gu t'zŭ          | yö ha        |
 | One hundred      | t'i hya        |      ...         | shi          |
 | Yesterday        | a nyi          | a nyi            | pu-she       |
 | To-day           | ni-nyi         | nyi              | pu-ne        |
 | To-morrow        | na ha          | su nyi           | shim-pu      |
 | Day after to-    |
 | morrow           |      ...       |      ...         | ko-se-nö     |
 | Three days hence |      ...       |      ...         | ko-de-nö     |
 |                  |                |                  |              |
 | Spring           | sa nga ha      | nyi so-le        | cha pei      |
 |                  |                |                  |              |
 | Summer           | sha ha         | dje so-le        | mi-ni-bü     |
 | Autumn           | ho li mi       | ch'u so-le       | drou-pa      |
 | Winter           | mu ts'u        | ch'ih so-le      | gu-pa        |
 | I, me            | ngo, nga       | nya              | a            |
 | Old              |      ...       |       ...        | mi gi        |
 | Young            |      ...       |       ...        | djen         |
 | Large            |      ...       | chih             | she-mö       |
 | Small            |      ...       | dji              | k'o dze mö   |
 | Come             | lö ha          | yi ze            | yu           |
 | Go               | dja ha         | hü, or hsü ze    | shon         |
 +------------------+----------------+------------------+--------------+
 -----------+--------------+--------------+------------+---------------------------+
  ENGLISH.  |   PA-U RONG  |  PA-U-RONG   | TIBETAN.   |         REMARKS.          |
            |    HSI-FAN.  |     LOLO.    |            |                           |
 -----------+--------------+--------------+------------+---------------------------+
            |              |              |           {|Compare _Wa_: te; _Karen_: |
 One        | ta           | ta           | chig.     {| ta; _British Li-so_       |
            |              |              |           {| (_Leesaw_): hti.          |
            |              |              |           {|Compare _Cantonese_: yi;   |
 Two        | nyi          | ni           | nyi.      {| _Karen_: nö; _British     |
            |              |              |           {| Li-so_: nyi.              |
            |              |              |           {|Compare _Chinese_ (_Mand._):|
 Three      | zi           | son          | sum.      {| san; (_Cantonese_): sam;  |
            |              |              |           {| _Siamese and Lao_, sam.   |
 Four       | ri           | zhi          | zhi.       |                           |
            |              |              |            |Compare _Cantonese_: ng;   |
 Five       | nga          | nga          | nga.      {| _Shan_, _Siamese and Lao_:|
            |              |              |           {| Ha.                       |
 Six        | tru          | dru          | d'rug.     |                           |
 Seven      | dun          | dun          | dün.       |                           |
 Eight      | dji          | zhei         | gye.       |                           |
 Nine       | gu           | gu           | gu.        |Compare _Cantonese_: kao.  |
 Ten        | ka-den       | tchi         | chu.       |                           |
 Eleven     |     ...      |     ...      | chug chig. |                           |
 Twelve     |     ...      |     ...      | chu nyi.   |                           |
 Thirteen   |     ...      |     ...      | chug sum.  |                           |
 Fourteen   |     ...      |     ...      | chug zhi.  |                           |
 Fifteen    |     ...      |     ...      | chug nga.  |                           |
 Sixteen    |     ...      |     ...      | chug d'rug.|                           |
 Seventeen  |     ...      |     ...      | chug dün.  |                           |
 Eighteen   |     ...      |     ...      | chug gye.  |                           |
 Nineteen   |     ...      |     ...      | chug gu.   |                           |
 Twenty     | nya ka       |     ...      | nyi shu.   |                           |
 Twenty-one |     ...      |     ...      | nyi shu chig.|                         |
 Thirty     | zi ka        |     ...      | sum chu.   |                           |
 Forty      | ra ka        |     ...      | zhib chu.  |                           |
 Fifty      | nga ka       |     ...      | ngab chu.  |                           |
 Sixty      | tru ha       |     ...      | dr'ug chu. |                           |
 Seventy    | nya ha       |     ...      | dün chu.   |                           |
 Eighty     | sho ha       |     ...      | gye chu.   |                           |
 Ninety     | gu ha        |     ...      | gub chu.   |                           |
 One hundred| ta ra        |     ...      | gya.       |                           |
 Yesterday  |     ...      |     ...      | k'a sa.    |                           |
 To-day     |     ...      |     ...      | d'e ring,  |                           |
 To-morrow  | zha di       | zhom bi      | sang.      |                           |
 Day after  |     ...      |     ...      | nang (-nyi).|                          |
  tomorrow  |              |              |            |                           |
 Three days |     ...      |     ...      | zhe (-nyin ga).|                       |
  hence     |              |              |            |                           |
 Spring     |     ...      | djang-u      | chi-ka.   {|Moso _so-le_ means a       |
            |              |              |           {| period of three months.   |
 Summer     |     ...      | mêng-i       | yar-ka.    |                           |
 Autumn     |     ...      | mo dzon      | tön-ka.    |                           |
 Winter     |     ...      |     ...      | gün-ka.    |                           |
 I, me      |     ...      |     ...      | nga.       | _Cantonese_: ngo.         |
 Old        |     ...      |     ...      | nying-ba.  |                           |
 Young      |     ...      |     ...      | lo zhön-ba.|                           |
 Large      | dja          |     ...      | ch'en-po.  |                           |
 Small      | ka-ta        |     ...      | ch'ung.    |                           |
 Come       |    ...       | ba-lu        | yong-wa; leb-pa.|                      |
 Go         |     ...      |     ...      | p'eb, dro. |                           |
 -----------+--------------+--------------+------------+---------------------------+

 +---------------------+----------------+----------------+--------------+
 |      English.       |Yung-ning Li-so.| Yung-ning Moso.| Muli (Njong).|
 +---------------------+----------------+----------------+--------------+
 | Eat                 | dza dza        |       ...      | dzu          |
 | Sleep               | yi dja         | lei zhi        | k'o zhi      |
 | Beat                | di             | la             | dzu          |
 | Kill         ·      | si             | k'o            | ne se        |
 | Man                 |      ...       | hyi (strong    |              |
 |                     |                |  aspirate)     | me           |
 | Year                |      ...       | du k'u         | gu           |
 | Month               | ha po ti ma    | le, or hle me  | zhi          |
 | Moon                | ha po          | le, or hle me  | hli          |
 | Day                 | t'i nyi        | t'i nyi        | nyi          |
 | Sun                 | mi mi          | nyi me         | nyi          |
 | Star                |      ...       |       ...      | dru          |
 | Cloud               |      ...       |       ...      | hlieh wei    |
 | Rain                |      ...       |       ...      | kwi          |
 | Snow                |      ...       |       ...      | p'u          |
 | Wind                |      ...       |       ...      | mo-ho        |
 | Sky                 | mu             | mu             | me nyi       |
 | Fire                | a-tu ko        | hle dji        | ma tre       |
 | Water               | yi ta          | dji            | djö          |
 | Hill                |      ...       | dji na me      | don          |
 | Stone               | mu ti          |       ...      | yom-pa       |
 | Earth (soil)        | ne hö          | dj[)i]         | dja          |
 | Wood                | ssŭ            | ssŭ            | hsieh        |
 | Gold                | shih           | ha             | ngei         |
 | Silver              | p'ü            | ngu            | nyou         |
 | Iron                | hu             | shi            | she          |
 | Copper              |      ...       |       ...      | ni           |
 | Bone                | hao-to         | shang-ö        | ra-ka        |
 | Grass               |      ...       |       ...      | zhon         |
 | Rice                |      ...       |       ...      | tch'e        |
 | Tobacco             |      ...       |       ...      | ye           |
 | Barley              |      ...       |       ...      | mi-dji       |
 | Silk                |      ...       |       ...      | go-ch'en     |
 | Tea                 |      ...       |       ...      | dje          |
 | Yak, cow            |      ...       | ye             | roa          |
 | Water-buffalo       |      ...       | dji ye         |     ...      |
 | Dog                 | a-na           | k'u            | ka-dra       |
 | Goat                | a-ch'ih        | t'zŭ           | la           |
 | Pig                 |      ...       |       ...      | dzö          |
 | Fowl                |      ...       | a              | ro           |
 | Hare                |      ...       |       ...      |     ...      |
 | Sheep               |      ...       |       ...      |     ...      |
 | Father              | pa-pa          | a-da           | a-so-an      |
 | Mother              | ma-ma          | a-me           | ma-ma        |
 | Elder brother       | a-bu           | a-mu           | a-pei        |
 | Younger brother     | ke-zei         | ke-ssŭ         | ko-an        |
 | Head                | wu-dü          | wu-k'ua        | k'o          |
 | Hair                | wu-ts'ü        |       ...      | ko ma        |
 | Ears                |      ...       |       ...      | ne dju       |
 | Nose                | na-k'o         | nyi ga         | hne zhon     |
 | Teeth               |      ...       |       ...      | hsru         |
 | Tongue              |      ...       |       ...      | hle          |
 | Fish                |      ...       |       ...      |     ...      |
 | Mouth               |      ...       |       ...      | k'a no       |
 | Hand                |      ...       | lo k'ua        | zheru        |
 +---------------------+----------------+----------------+--------------+

 --------------+-----------+------------+------------------+-----------------+
   English.    |PA-U-RONG  | PA-U-RONG  |     TIBETAN.     |   REMARKS.      |
               |HSI-FAN    |  LOLO.     |                  |                 |
 --------------+-----------+------------+------------------+-----------------+
 Eat           |    ...    |    ...     | za-wa.           |                 |
 Sleep         | abi       |    ...     | nyal-wa.         |                 |
 Beat          |    ...    |    ...     | dung-wa; zhu-wa. |                 |
 Kill          |    ...    |    ...     | sö pa; se pa.    |                 |
 Man           | nyi       | mi         | mi.              |                 |
 Year          | go        |    ...     | lo.              |                 |
 Month         | yi        |    ...     | da wa.           |                 |
 Moon          | hli nyi   | cha pa     | da wa.           |                 |
 Day           | nyi       |    ...     | nyin; nyi ma.    |                 |
 Sun           | ru ra     | ru ra      | nyi-ma.          |                 |
 Star          |    ...    | me drü     | kar-ma.          |                 |
 Cloud         |    ...    |    ...     | trin-pa.         |                 |
 Rain          |    ...    |    ...     | ch'ar-pa.        |                 |
 Snow          | za tri-bu |    ...     | k'a wa; g'ang.   |                 |
 Wind          | ri-ru     |    ...     | lung-po; lhag-pa.|                 |
 Sky           | ngi ru-ru | ni ru-ru   | nam.             |                 |
 Fire          | na tsa-tsa| ma         | me.              |                 |
 Water         | dji       | dji        | ch'u.            |                 |
 Hill          | o         |    ...     | ri.              |                 |
 Stone         |    ...    |    ...     | do.              |                 |
 Earth (soil)  |    ...    | dra        | sa.              |                 |
 Wood          | hsieh     |    ...     | shing.           |                 |
 Gold          | ngei      |    ...     | ser.             |                 |
 Silver        | dja-ha    | she ha     | ngül.            |                 |
 Iron          | ra-ha     |    ...     | chag.            |                 |
 Copper        | sa-ha     |    ...     | zang.            |                 |
 Bone          | ro        |    ...     | rü-pa.           |                 |
 Grass         | rong      | rong       | tsa.             |                 |
 Rice          | bre       |    ...     | dre.             |                 |
 Tobacco       |    ...    |    ...     | t'a ma.          |                 |
 Barley        |    ...    |    ...     | ne; tsam-pa.     |                 |
 Silk          |    ...    |    ...     | g'o-ch'en.       |                 |
 Tea           |    ...    | hla        | j'a; sö j'a.     | _Chinese_: ch'a.|
 Yak, cow      | dzo zhu   |    ...     | b'a mo; dri; dzo.|                 |
 Water-buffalo |    ...    |    ...     |       ...        |                 |
 Dog           | ma hla mi |    ...     | k'yi.            |                 |
 Goat          | kü-na     |    ...     | ra.              |                 |
 Pig           | dja       |    ...     | p'ag-pa.         |                 |
 Fowl          |    ...    | ra-ma      | j'a.             |                 |
 Hare          | na hra    |    ...     | ri b'ong; yö.    |                 |
 Sheep         | rong      |    ...     | lug.             |                 |
 Father        |    ...    | ko-tron    | p'a; yab.        |                 |
 Mother        |    ...    | k'un yon   | a ma; yum.       |                 |
 Elder brother |    ...    |    ...     | a j'o; j'o la.   |                 |
 Younger brother|    ...   |    ...     | nu-o.            |                 |
 Head          |    ...    | k'o        | go.              |                 |
 Hair          | ko ma     |    ...     | tra.             |                 |
 Ears          |    ...    | ch'u hsin  | na (spelt rna).  |                 |
 Nose          | ra t'on   | ra t'on    | na (spelt sna).  |                 |
 Teeth         |    ...    | ra hu      | so.              |                 |
 Tongue        |    ...    |    ...     |       ...        |                 |
 Fish          | jü        |    ...     | nya.             |                 |
 Mouth         | du ka     | ng ken     | k'a.             |                 |
 Hand          |    ...    | ya ba      | lag-pa.          |                 |
 --------------+-----------+------------+------------------+-----------------+

 +---------------------+----------------+----------------+--------------+
 |      ENGLISH.       |YUNG-NING LI-SO.| YUNG-NING MOSO.| MULI (NJONG).|
 +---------------------+----------------+----------------+--------------+
 | Black               | a-lu ma        |        ...     | nya ka-ka mö |
 | White               | p'u-cha ma     |        ...     | tr'on mö     |
 | Red                 | p'u shih chih  |        ...     |              |
 |                     |  ma            |        ...     | nye mö       |
 | Blue                | ni ch'u ma     |        ...     | nyi na na mö |
 | Green               |      ...       |        ...     |              |
 | Yellow              |      ...       |        ...     | nyö mö       |
 | This                |      ...       |        ...     | o tei        |
 | That                |      ...       |        ...     | dei pei      |
 | Arm                 |      ...       |        ...     |      ...     |
 | House               | hyi            | yi k'ua        | djih         |
 | Eyes                | me to          | nya lü         | mi-a         |
 | Fingers             |      ...       | lu             | hla-dzu      |
 | First finger        |      ...       | lu nyi         | ku zhi       |
 |                     |                |        ...     |  hla-dzu     |
 | Second finger       |      ...       | lu so          | son pa       |
 |                     |                |        ...     |  hla-dzu     |
 | Third finger        |      ...       | lu ru          | zhi pa       |
 |                     |                |        ...     |  hla-dzu     |
 | Fourth finger       |      ...       | lu nga         | nga-pa       |
 |                     |                |        ...     |  hla-dzu     |
 | Thumb               |      ...       | lu mi          | ta ma        |
 | Finger-nail         |      ...       |        ...     |      ...     |
 | Last year           |      ...       |        ...     | zhei p'u     |
 | Next year           |      ...       |        ...     | zhei k'u     |
 | Heart               |      ...       |        ...     | hua          |
 | Fast                |      ...       |        ...     | tr'om p'u    |
 | Slow                |      ...       |        ...     | tei tei p'u  |
 | Horse               | a-mo           | rouen          | kwei         |
 | Stand               |      ...       |        ...     | di ch'in     |
 | Walk                |      ...       |        ...     | shi ki       |
 | Blood               |      ...       |        ...     | se           |
 | North               | hung go lo     | hung gu lo     |      ...     |
 | South               | i ch'i me      | i ch'i me      |      ...     |
 | East                | mi mi tü ga[1] | nyi me tu[1]   |      ...     |
 | West                | mi mi gu ga[2] | nyi me gu[2]   |      ...     |
 | Son, boy            | nga za         | zo             |      ...     |
 | Daughter, girl      | za mu za       | mi zo          |      ...     |
 | Go fast             | mi mi ze       |        ...     |      ...     |
 | Go slow             | za zu          |        ...     |      ...     |
 | Bed                 |      ...       |        ...     |      ...     |
 | Civil official      |      ...       | ssŭ p'in       |      ...     |
 | Road                |      ...       | zha me         |      ...     |
 | Flower              |      ...       | ba ba          |      ...     |
 | Tree                |      ...       | ssŭ tzŭ        |      ...     |
 | Go up               |      ...       | kö be be       |      ...     |
 | Go down             |      ...       | me ch'a be     |      ...     |
 | Feet                |      ...       | k'ö ts'e       |      ...     |
 | Die, dead           |      ...       | le shih        |      ...     |
 | Face                |      ...       | pa k'ua        |      ...     |
 | No, not             |      ...       | me be          |      ...     |
 | Yes, be, is         |      ...       | k'ë            |      ...     |
 | Late                |      ...       | hua k'o        |      ...     |
 | Early               |      ...       | nya            |      ...     |
 | Have                |      ...       | t'e djo        |      ...     |
 | Good                |      ...       | djei           |      ...     |
 | Bad                 |      ...       | mo djei        |      ...     |
 | Body                |      ...       |        ...     |      ...     |
 | Book                |      ...       |        ...     |      ...     |
 +---------------------+----------------+----------------+--------------+

   [1] Literally, "The side where the sun rises."]

   [2] Literally, "The side where the sun sets."]

 ------------------+-----------+------------+------------------+--------+
    ENGLISH.       |PA-U-RONG  | PA-U-RONG  |     TIBETAN.     |REMARKS.|
                   |HSI-FAN.   |  LOLO.     |                  |        |
 ------------------+-----------+------------+------------------+--------+
 Black             | nyi na-no | na-na      | nag-po.          |        |
 White             | p'u li-li | ko lu-lu   | kar-po.          |        |
 Red               | hu li-li  |    ...     | mar-po.          |        |
 Blue              |    ...    |    ...     | njön-po.         |        |
 Green             | gu li-li  |    ...     | jang-k'u.        |        |
 Yellow            |    ...    |    ...     | ser-po.          |        |
 This              |    ...    | i-bei      | di.              |        |
 That              |    ...    | o-bei      | d'e.             |        |
 Arm               | ya        | ya         | lag-pa.          |        |
 House             |    ...    | ra-ba      | k'ang-pa.        |        |
 Eyes              | byu       |            | mig.             |        |
 Fingers           |    ...    | o-dzu      | dzüg-g'u.        |        |
 First finger      |    ...    | dan-yi-da  |        ...       |        |
 Second finger     |    ...    | som bü     |        ...       |        |
 Third finger      |    ...    |    ...     |        ...       |        |
 Fourth finger     |    ...    |    ...     |        ...       |        |
 Thumb             |    ...    | dza        | t'e-po.          |        |
 Finger-nail       |    ...    | ndra       | sen-mo.          |        |
 Last year         | ya bi     | zha bi     | na-ning.         |        |
 Next year         | ya k'u    | ya k'u     | dri-lo.          |        |
 Heart             | gya du    |    ...     | nying.           |        |
 Fast              | tr'a p'u  |    ...     | gyog-po.         |        |
 Slow              | ku-ku     |    ...     | g'a-li.          |        |
 Horse             | dü        | dü         | ta.              |        |
 Stand             |    ...    | du-mu      | lang-ne; de-pa.  |        |
 Walk              |    ...    | re-bro     | dro-wa.          |        |
 Blood             |    ...    |    ...     | tr'ag.           |        |
 North             | ch'a      |    ...     | ch'ang.          |        |
 South             | lo        |    ...     | lho.             |        |
 East              | lu        |    ...     | shar-ch'og.      |        |
 West              | djong     |    ...     | nub-ch'og.       |        |
 Son, boy          |    ...    | da ngi; bu |                  |        |
                   |    ...    |  s'a       | pu; pu-g'u.      |        |
 Daughter, girl    |    ...    | ko ma sha; |                  |        |
                   |    ...    |  me ji     | b'u mo.          |        |
 Go fast           |    ...    |    ...     | gyog-pô dro.     |        |
 Go slow           |    ...    |    ...     | g'a-li dro.      |        |
 Bed               |    ...    | dra        | nya t'ri.        |        |
 Civil official    |    ...    | ko ta      | pön po.          |        |
 Road              |    ...    |    ...     | lam.             |        |
 Flower            |    ...    |    ...     | me-tog.          |        |
 Tree              |    ...    | sem-bu     | sing-dong; shing |        |
 Go up             |    ...    |    ...     | yar.             |        |
 Go down           |    ...    |    ...     | mar.             |        |
 Feet              |    ...    |    ...     | kang-pa.         |        |
 Die, dead         |    ...    |    ...     | ch'i wa;         |        |
                   |    ...    |    ...     |  k'oshisong.     |        |
 Face              |    ...    |    ...     | dong; ngo.       |        |
 No, not           |    ...    |    ...     | ma; ma re.       |        |
 Yes, be, is       |    ...    |    ...     | la so; yö pa.    |        |
 Late              |    ...    |    ...     | ch'i po.         |        |
 Early             |    ...    |    ...     | nga po.          |        |
 Have              |    ...    |    ...     | yö pa.           |        |
 Good              | wu lat    |    ...     | yag po; zang-po. |        |
 Bad               | za ru     |    ...     | ngen-pa.         |        |
 Body              | lu bu     |    ...     | zug po; lü.      |        |
 Book              | gi gu     |    ...     | pe-ch'a.         |        |
 ------------------+-----------+------------+------------------+--------+




APPENDIX B: ITINERARY


     DATE. |       NAME OF PLACE.      |            REMARKS.
 ----------+---------------------------+------------------------------
 Jan. 6-9, | Weihaiwei to Peking       | By steamer and train.
   1906    |  (威海衛：北京)
  "   13-16| Peking to Hankow (漢口)    | By train.
  "   19-30| Hankow to Ichang (宜昌)    | By steamer.
 Feb. 2-12 | Ichang to Wan-hsien (萬縣) | About 200 miles in "Red-boat."
  "   13   | Fu-tzŭ-p'u (福自鋪)        | Village.
           | Fên Shui (分水)            | Large village; good inn.
  "   14   | Shang Ku Ling (晌鼓嶺)     | Village.
           | Liang-shan (梁山縣)        | District city.
  "   15   | Sha Ho P'u (沙河鋪)        | Village.
           | Lao Yin Ch'ang (老音塲)    | Village.
           | Yüan Pa I (元壩驛)         | Village.
  "   16   | Huang Ni Pien (黃泥邊)     | Village.
           | Ta Chu (大竹)              | District city; good inn.
  "   17   | Chüan Tung Mên (卷東門)    | Large village.
           | Li Tu (李渡)               | Small town on Ch'ü River.
  "   18   | Crossed Ch'ü River (渠河)  | Ferry.
           | Wu Chia Ch'ang (吳家塲)    | Busy unwalled town.
           | Ch'ing Shih Chêng (青石正) | Large village.
  "   19   | Lo Chia Ch'ang (羅家塲)    | Village.
  Feb. 19  |T'iao Têng Ch'ang (跳登塲)  | Village; bad inn.
   "   20  |Lao Chün Ch'iao (老君橋)    | Village.
           |Shun-ch'ing-fu (順慶府)     | Prefectural city on Chia-ling
           |                           |  River. Good inn named the
           |                           |  Shang Shêng Tien (上陞店).
   "   21  |Wu Lung Ch'ang (五龍塲)     | Village.
           |P'êng-hsi-hsien (蓬溪縣)    | District city.
   "   22  |Kuan Shêng Tien (雚聖殿)    | Village.
           |T'ai Ho Chên (太河鎮)       | Small town on right bank of
           |                           |  Fou Chiang. Many pottery
           |                           |  factories and shrimp-shops.
           |                           |  River navigable for narrow
           |                           |  boats.
   "   23  |Kao Fên Tsui (高墳嘴)       | Village; good inn.
           |Kuan Yin Ch'iao (觀音橋)    | Bridge and village.
   "   24  |Lu Pan Ch'iao (魯板橋)      | Village.
           |Ta Sang Tun (大磉墩)        | Village.
   "   25  |Hsing Lung Ch'ang (興隆塲)  | Large village.
           |Chao Chia Tu (趙家渡)       | Small town.
   "   26  |Yao Chia Tu (姚家渡)        | Village.
           |Ch'êng-tu-fu (成都府)       |Capital of Ssuch'uan.
           |                           |  Elevation, 1,500 feet above
           |                           |  sea-level.
  Mar. 1-4 |Ch'êng-tu to Chia-ting-fu  |By boat. Chia-ting is a small
           |  (嘉定府)                  |  prefectural city at
           |                           |  junction of Min, Ya and Ta
           |                           |  Tu Rivers. Elevation,
           |                           |  1,100 feet.
  Mar. 6   |Chia-ting to Omei-hsien    |Omei-hsien is a small
           |  (峨眉縣)                  |  district city at the foot
           |                           |  of Mount Omei, 1,500 feet.
   "   7-10|Mount Omei (峨眉山)         |11,000 feet.
   "   11  |Omei-hsien to Chia-chiang  |Small town on Ya River.
           |  (夾江)                   |
   "   12  |Hung-Ya-hsien (洪雅縣)      |District city.
           |Chih-kuo-chên (止戈鎮)      |Small village; bad inn.
   "   13  |Kuan Yin Ch'ang (雚音塲)    |Small village.
           |  Ts'ao Pa (草垻)           |Small town.
   "   14  |  Ya-chou-fu (雅州府)       |Prefectural city, 2,500 feet.
   "   16  |  Fei Lung Pass (飛龍嶺)    |3,600 feet.
           |  Shih-chia Ch'iao (石家橋) |Small village; good inn.
   "   17  |  Jung-Ching-hsien (榮經縣) |Small town, 2,300 feet.
           |  Huang-ni-p'u (黃坭舖)     |Small village, 3,870 feet.
   "   18  |  Ta Hsiang Ling (大象嶺)   |Pass, 9,200 feet.
           |  Ch'ing-ch'i-hsien (清溪縣)|Small district city, 5,750 feet.
   "   19  |  Fu Chuang (富庄)          |Small village, 3,900 feet.
           |  Ni (I) T'ou I (宜頭驛)    |Small village; good inns;
           |                           |  4,900 feet.
   "   20  |  Fei Yüeh Ling (飛越嶺)    |9,000 feet; steep pass.
           |  Hua-lin-p'ing (花林坪)    |Small village, 7,100 feet.
   "   21  |  Lêng Chi (洽磧)           |Large village, 4,700 feet.
           |  Lu Ting Ch'iao (鑪定橋)   |Small town on the left bank
           |                           |  of Ta Tu River, 4,850 feet.
           |                           |  Suspension bridge.
  Mar. 22  |Ta P'êng Pa (大烹壩)        |Hamlet.
           |Wa Ssŭ Kou (瓦寺溝)         |Small village near junction
           |                           |  of Tachienlu River and Ta
           |                           |  Tu River, 5,300 feet.
   "   23  |Tachienlu (打箭鑪)          |Small City, 8,400 feet.
  Apr. 15  |Chê To (折多)              |Scattered hamlet, 10,650
           |                           |  feet.
   "   16  |Solitary house.            |
           |Chê Ri La                  |Two passes: the higher about
           |                           |  17,400 feet.
           |A Te                       |Scattered hamlet, 13,000
           |                           |  feet.
   "   17  |Du Sz Drung                |Village, 10,800 feet.
           |Dza Ri K'u                 |Village.
           |Ring I Drung               |Village.
           |Bridge and village.        |
           |Ba Lu                      |Village.
           |P'un Bu Shi                |Solitary house.
   "   18  |Octagonal towers.          |
           |Ch'un Bo                   |Solitary house.
           |Large House                |Residence of T'u Pai Hu,
           |                           |  11,400 feet.
   "   19  |Bridges.                   |
           |Sho Ti Ba Dze              |Village.
           |Tan Ga La                  |Pass, 15,000 feet.
           |Tu (_Chinese_, Lu Li)      |Village.
   "   20  |Bridge.                    |
  Apr. 20  |Dro Dse Drung (_Ch._ San   |
           |  Chia-tzŭ: 三家子)         |Village.
           |Na K'i (_Ch._ Hsia         |Village.
           |    Ch'êng-tzŭ: 下成子)     |
           |Long Obo.                  |
           |Dra Shê                    |Village.
           |Octagonal tower.           |
           |Ri Wa (_Ch._ Wu Chia-tzŭ:  |
           |   五家子)                  |
           |Ko Ri Drung (_Ch._ Chung   |Hamlet, 13,000 feet.
           |    Ku: 中古)               |
   "   21  |Dji Dju La                 |Pass, 17,500 feet.
           |Dur (_Ch._ Hei Lao: 黑老)   |Village, 12,500 feet.
   "   22  |Wu Shu La (_Ch._ Wu Shu    |
           |  Shan: 五樹山)             |Pass, 15,500 feet.
           |Wu Shu (_Ch._ Wu Shu: 五樹) |Village, 11,000 feet.
   "   23  |Sin Go La                  |Pass, 15,000 feet.
           |Nai Yu La                  |Pass, 16,000 feet.
           |Hlan Go La                 |Pass, 17,200 feet.
           |Gur Dja (_Ch._ Yin Cho: 銀棹) |Village, 12,000 feet.
   "   24  |Ri Go La                   |Pass, 16,500 feet.
           |Pu Ti La                   |Pass, 10,800 feet.
           |Pei T'ai (_Ch._ Pai T'ai: 白泰)|Village, 10,000 feet.
   "   25  |Lan Yi Pa                  |Valley with one house.
           |Hsin Yi La                 |Hill from which signal-gun is
           |                           |  fired.
           |Pa-U-Rong                  |Flourishing cluster of
           |                           |  villages overlooking valley
           |                           |  of Yalung, 7,700 feet.
  Apr. 27  |Yalung River (Nya Ch'u,    |Crossed by single-rope
           |  or Chin Ho) (鴉礱江)      |  bridge. River, 7,500 feet.
           |Dju Mu                     |Hamlet, 9,000 feet.
   "   28  |Tê Ben                     |One house, 10,000 feet.
   "   29  |Pa Sung                    |Hamlet.
           |Ten Ba K'a                 |Hamlet, 10,800 feet.
   "   30  |Pass                       |12,500 feet.
           |Hu Dra                     |Solitary house, 10,100 feet.
  May  1   |Two ruined huts.           |
           |Wa-chin Gompa, or Lha-k'ang|Lamasery, 9,600 feet.
           |Ta K'oa                    |Hamlet.
   "   2   |Dje Ru                     |Hamlet.
           |Tong Yi                    |Bridge Over Li Ch'u or Litang
           |                           |  River.
           |Wu                         |Hamlet.
           |Obos and Chorten           |Camp in the open, 9,000 feet.
   "   3   |Bridges.                   |
           |Ku-Dze                     |Hamlet.
           |Muli (木裏)                 |Lamasery and headquarters of
           |                           |  lama-prince of
           |                           |  "Huang-Lama," 9,500 feet.
   "   6   |Solitary house             | 9,500 feet.
   "   7   |Shi Li La                  | Pass, 15,500 feet.
           |Li She Tzŭ                 | Mo-so hamlet, 11,000 feet.
   "   8   |Li Rang Tzŭ                | Hamlet, the last in
           |                           |   "Huang-Lama" and in
           |                           |   Ssuch'uan.
  May  8   |Boundary of Ssuch'uan and  |
           |  YunnanProvinces.         |
           |Djo Dji                    |Village.
           |Wo La                      |Village.
           |Yi Ma Wa                   |Village.
           |A-ko Am-ni Wa              |Village.
           |A-gu Wa                    |Village.
           |Yung-ning-t'u-fu (永甯土府) |A Mo-so town with a lamasery.
           |                           |  Chief centre of district
           |                           |  ruled by Mo-so chief, on
           |                           |  whom Chinese Government has
           |                           |  conferred hereditary rank
           |                           |  of Prefect; 9,500 feet.
   "  10   |Ge Wa Ya K'ou              |Pass, 13,000 feet.
           |Solitary hut.              |
   "  11   |Lan Ga Lo                  |House.
           |La Ka Shi                  |Village.
           |Ferry                      |Yangtse River, 5,200 feet.
           |Fêng K'o                   |Village, 7,200 feet.
   "  12   |Shrine and spring.         |
           |Cottages.                  |
           |Camp in forest.            |
   "  13   |Go Ka A                    |Pass, 15,000 feet.
           |T'o Ko Sho                 |Hamlet.
           |Camp in forest.            |
  May 14   |Ming Yin Chi (鳴音汲)       |Village, 9,200 feet.
           |Camp                       |8,900 feet.
   "  15   |Pass                       |10,600 feet.
           |Bridge over Hei Shui (黑水) |8,900 feet.
           |Three passes               |Highest about 11,000 feet.
           |Stony plateau              |Overlooked by snowy peaks,
           |                           |  18,500 feet.
           |Li-chiang plain and        |
           |   villages.               |
           |Li-chiang (麗江府)          |Prefectural town: seat of
           |                           |  native chief, and also of
           |                           |  Chinese Prefect and
           |                           |  Magistrate, 8,200 feet.
   "  18   |Shang La Shih (上喇是),     |Village, 8,100 feet.
           |    or Lashi               |
           |Pass                       |10,000 feet.
           |Kuan Hsia (關下),           |Village at north end of Chien
           |  or P'o Chiao (坡□)        |  Ch'uan plain.
   "  19   |Tu Ho (渡河)                |Village.
           |Wa Ch'ang (瓦塲)            |Village.
           |Chi Wu (雞勿)               |Village.
           |Chiu Ho Pa (九河霸)         |Village.
           |Mei Tzŭ (梅子)              |Village.
           |Shao Chin Ch'ang (哨金塲)    |Village.
           |Chien-ch'uan-chou (劍川州)   |Departmental city, 7,500 feet.
           |Lake.                       |
           |Han Têng Ts'un (漢登村)      |Village.
           |Hai Wei (海尾)               |River and bridge.
  May 19   |Tien Wei Kai (甸尾街)        |Village.
   "  20   |Hao Shou Bridge (寉壽橋)     |House, temple and bridge.
           |Niu Kai (牛街)               |Village.
           |Huo Yen Shan (水燄山)        |Hill with hot springs.
           |San Ying (三營)              |Small market town; good inn.
   "  21   |Ch'ang Ying (長營)           |Village.
           |Ying-shan-p'u (映山鋪)       |Large village.
           |Pai Sha Ho (白沙河)          |Small river and canal.
           |Chung So (中所)              |Village.
           |Yu So (右所)                 |Village.
           |Lung Kai Tzŭ (龍街子)         |Village.
           |Têng-ch'uan-chou (登川州)     |Small departmental city,
           |                             |  7,000 feet.
           |Erh Hai (洱海)               |Lake of Tali-fu.
           |Sha P'ing (沙坪)             |Village near north end of
           |                            |  lake.
   "  22   |Shang Kuan (上關)            |Walled village.
           |Numerous villages.           |
           |Tali-fu (大理府)              |Prefectural city, 6,700 feet.
   "  25   |Hsia Kuan (下關)              |Busy town, 6,900 feet.
           |Ho Chiang-p'u (河港鋪)        |Small village.
   "  26   |Yang Pi                      |Small town, 5,160 feet.
           |Suspension bridge.           |
           |Mountain hamlet              |Not the usual stage.
  May 27   |Pass                         |8,350 feet.
           |T'ai-p'ing-p'u (太平鋪)       |Hamlet, 7,370 feet.
           |Suspension bridge            |Over Ch'ing Lien Ho (淸連河).
           |Huang-lien-p'u               |Village.
   "  28   |Chiao Kou Shan               |Huts.
           |Wan Sung An                  |Small temple.
           |Yung P'ing (永平)            |Small town.
   "  29   |Hsiao T'ien Pa (小田垻)       |Village.
           |Hsiao Hua Ch'iao (小花橋)     |Village.
           |Ta Hua Ch'iao (大花橋)        |Village.
           |Pass                         |8,150 feet.
           |Sha Yang                     |Village.
   "  30   |Bridge of the Phœnix Cry     |
           |    (鳳嗚石橋)                |
           |Pass                         |
           |Mekong River (瀾滄江)         |4,000 feet. Bridge of 60
           |                             |  yards span.
           |P'ing P'o                    |Hamlet.
           |Shui Chai                    |Village.
   "  31   |Pass                         |7,800 feet.
           |Niu Chio Kuan                |Village.
           |Kuan P'o                     |Village.
           |Shih K'o Ts'un               |Village.
           |Pan Ch'iao (板橋)            |Village.
  May 31   |Yung-ch'ang-fu (永昌府)       |Prefectural city, 5,500 feet.
  June 1   |Wo Shih Wo (臥獅窩)           |Village.
           |Hao Tzŭ P'u                  |Village.
           |Pass                         |
           |Lêng Shui Ching (冷水井)      |Village.
           |P'u Piao                     |Large village.
   "   2   |Fang Ma Ch'ang (放馬塲)       |Villages.
           |Ta Pan Ching (大板井)         |Hamlet, 4,500 feet.
   "   3   |Salwen River                 |Suspension bridge, 2,400
           |                             |  feet.
           |Hu Mu Shu                    |Hamlet, 5,560 feet.
   "   4   |Hsiang Po (象脖)             |Hamlet, 7,230 feet.
           |Pass                         |8,730 feet.
           |T'ai P'ing (太平)            |Hamlet, 7,780 feet.
           |Shwe-Li or Lung River       |Suspension bridge, 4,300 feet.
           |Kan-Lan-Chan (乾欖站)        |Village, 4,810 feet.
   "   5   |Chin Chai P'u (金齋鋪)       |Village.
           |T'êng-Yüeh (謄越), or Momein |City. British Consulate and
           |                             |  Chinese Imperial Customs.
           |                             |  5,365 feet.
   "   8   |Jê Shui T'ang (熱水盪)        |Village.
           |Nan Tien (南甸)              |Village. Seat of a Shan Sawbwa.
   "   9   |Kau Ngai                     |Market village.
   "  10   |Hsiao Hsin Kai (小新街)       |Village; good inn.
  June 11  |Lung Chang Kai               |Village. Customs station.
           |Man-hsien                    |Village. Seat of a Shan sawbwa.
    "  12  |Kamsa Bridge                 |Iron bridge, completed 1905.
           |Kulika                       |British frontier.
           |Mong-kung-ka                 |First Government Bungalow.
    "  13  |Kulong-ka                    |Government Bungalow.
    "  14  |Kalachet                     |Bungalow.
           |Momauk                       |Bungalow.
    "  15  |Bhamo                        |Frontier garrison-town, on
           |                             |  Irrawaddy, 361 feet.
    "  20  |Mandalay                     |By steamer from Bhamo.




NOTES


NOTE 1 (p. 61)

MOUNT OMEI AND CHOU KUNG SHAN

There are vague traditions that Mount Omei was a centre of primitive
nature-worship long before the days of Buddhism. There is a passage in
the _Shu Ching_ from which we learn that the semi-mythical emperor Yü
(about the twenty-third century B.C.), after the completion of some
of the famous drainage and irrigation works with which his name is
associated, offered sacrifices on (or to) certain hills named Ts'ai and
Mêng. It is a disputed point among the commentators where these hills
are. Mêng is said to be one of the mountains that overlook Ya-chou,
and we shall see in Chapter VIII. that one of those mountains is still
the resort of pilgrims. As to Ts'ai, one commentator at least has
inclined to the opinion that it must be looked for in the Omei range
(see Legge's _Chinese Classics_, vol. iii. part i. p. 121). If this
identification be correct, we must regard the brief notice in the _Shu
Ching_ as the oldest reference in extant literature to Mount Omei. The
student of Chinese who wishes to pursue further the vexed question
of Mêng and Ts'ai will find a discussion of it in the 16th _chüan_
of the _Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih_. The probability seems to be that both
Mêng and Ts'ai were close to Ya-chou, and that neither of them should
be identified with Omei. Mêng seems to be one of the hills that lie
to the south of the city; Ts'ai may or may not be the somewhat famous
mountain generally known as Chou Kung Shan, or the Hill of Duke Chou,
which is situated a couple of miles to the east. Chou Kung, who is said
to have died in B.C. 1105, is perhaps chiefly known to Europeans as the
legendary inventor of the famous "south-pointing chariot," but he is
regarded by the Chinese as a pattern of many virtues. His zeal for the
public good was so great that he seems--if we may believe Mencius--to
have anticipated the all-night sittings of the House of Commons. His
merits indeed were of so extraordinary a nature that, as we know from
the _Lun Yü_, Confucius regarded it as a sign of his approaching dotage
that for a long time he had ceased to dream of Chou Kung.

Other people besides Confucius were in the habit of dreaming of
this great and good man. The hill near Ya-chou, according to a story
preserved in the official annals of Ssuch'uan, owes its name to a
dream-vision that came to the famous Chinese general, Chu-ko Liang.
This distinguished warrior flourished in the second and third centuries
of our era. He made his name by his successful campaigns against the
Wild Men of the West--the Man-tzŭ and others--and on one occasion when
he was proceeding at the head of his army to inflict chastisement upon
them he spent a night on the slopes of the Ya-chou Hill and dreamed
that Chou Kung paid him a visit. He regarded this as of such happy omen
for the success of his expedition that he immediately caused a temple
to Chou Kung to be erected on the auspicious spot. Since that time, the
hill--which may or may not have been already sacred, under the name of
Ts'ai, to the memory of the Emperor Yü--has always been known as Chou
Kung Shan. The fame of the general Chu-ko Liang has almost rivalled
that of Chou Kung himself. This "darling hero of the Chinese people,"
as Professor Giles calls him, has had temples erected in his honour in
many towns of Ssuch'uan, and he is a well-known and popular figure on
the Chinese theatrical stage.


NOTE 2 (p. 65)

BODHIDARMA

Bodhidarma (逹摩大師) is the original of the _Ta Mo_ so often found in
Ssuch'uanese temples. Catholic missionaries, struck by the sound of the
name and the fact that Ta-Mo is sometimes found wearing an ornament
shaped like a Christian cross, have clung to the idea that Ta-Mo was
no other than the Apostle St Thomas. (See _Croix et Swastika_, by
Father Gaillard, pp. 80 _seq._) Bodhidarma is regarded as the founder
of the Zen sect in Japan. Japanese children know him well, for he is a
conspicuous object in the toy-shops in the form of the legless Daruma.
(See Lafcadio Hearn's charming essay in _A Japanese Miscellany_.)


NOTE 3 (p. 70)

"GODS" IN BUDDHISM

[Sidenote: NIRVANA]

On this subject may be consulted the passage on the "Eel-wrigglers"
in the Brahma-gâla Suttanta, translated by Rhys Davids in the _Sacred
Books of the Buddhists_, vol. ii. Buddhism refrains from denying,
rather than distinctly affirms, the existence of the Brahmanical gods;
but these gods, if existent, are regarded as neither omnipotent nor
immortal. They are subject to the law of karma just as man himself is
subject. The Arahat is greater than any "god" because released from all
change and illusion, to which the "gods" are still subject. (See Rhys
Davids, _Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 210 _seq._, 4th edn.) The abolition or
retention of the Brahmanical deities would really make little or no
difference to the philosophical position of canonical Buddhism.


NOTE 4 (p. 71)

NIRVANA

The view of Nirvana set forth in the text is that taught by Professor
Rhys Davids, the veteran scholar to whom all European students of
Buddhism owe so deep a debt of gratitude. (See his _Buddhism_, _Hibbert
Lectures_, _American Lectures_, and his valuable contributions to the
_Sacred Books of the East_. With regard to Nirvana, see especially
his _Questions of King Milinda_, vol. i. pp. 106-108 and vol. ii. pp.
181 _seq._) As regards the _tanha_ or "thirst" for existence, which
according to the Buddhist theory keeps us in the net of illusion and
prevents the attainment of Nirvana, Huxley (_Evolution and Ethics_)
mentions as a curious fact that a parallel may be found in the
_aviditas vitae_ of Stoicism.

The Japanese views of Nirvana are set forth clearly and authoritatively
in Fujishima's _Le Bouddhisme Japonais_. "Selon les écoles du Mahâyâna,
ce qui est vide au dedans et au dehors c'est l'existence composée
et visible (_samkrita_): l'anéantissement de ce vide n'est donc pas
lui-même le vide, mais plutôt la plénitude." The author goes on to
quote from a sutra which declares that "illusion passes away; reality
remains; that is Nirvana." To an English reader this naturally recalls
some of Shelley's lines in _Adonais_, too well known to quote. Japanese
Buddhism has, of course, developed somewhat on lines of its own. The
popular Buddhism of Japan is portrayed with rare insight by Lafcadio
Hearn, as in his _Gleanings from Buddha-Fields_, pp. 211 _seq._

Among recent attempts to escape from the pessimistic conclusion that,
according to strict Buddhism, Arahatship must lead after all to
complete extinction, Schrader's interesting essay in the _Journal_ of
the Pali Text Society, 1904-1905, is worth consulting. The question
is one of deep philosophic interest, but a discussion of it cannot be
attempted in the narrow space at our disposal here.

NOTE 5 (p. 76)

THE MAHAYANA

For explanations of the rise of the Mahayana, see (among many other
authorities) Max Mūller's _India_, p. 87 (1905 edn.) and his _Last
Essays_ (First Series) pp. 260 _seq._ (Longmans: 1901); see also p. 376
in R. Sewell's essay on _Early Buddhist Symbolism_ (J.R.A.S., July,
1886). For the growth of the Mahayana and kindred schools in China,
the works of Beal, Edkins, Eitel and Watters are among the first that
should be consulted. There is still a great deal that is mysterious in
the early history of Mahayana and allied systems, and it is reasonable
to hope that the discoveries recently made, and still being made
almost daily by Stein and others in Chinese Turkestan and neighbouring
regions, will throw a flood of light on the whole subject, and perhaps
destroy many existing theories regarding the history of Buddhism during
the ten or twelve first centuries of the Christian era.


NOTE 6 (p. 86)

ANTIQUITIES OF MOUNT OMEI

As Baber's discovery of the _chüan tien_ or spiral-shaped brick
hall and the bronze elephant which it contains aroused very natural
enthusiasm among persons interested in Far Eastern antiquities, and is
still repeatedly referred to in connection with Chinese archæology,
it is with hesitation that I suggest a doubt as to whether either the
building or the elephant is as old as Baber--and others after him--have
supposed. (See _Supplementary Papers_, R.G.S., vol. i. pp. 34-36, and
Archibald Little's _Mount Omi and Beyond_, pp. 64-5.)

In the 41st _chüan_ of the _Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih_ there are two
passages relating to the Wan-nien Ssŭ, and one of them Baber apparently
overlooked. It was written about 1665 in commemoration of a restoration
of the Wan-nien and Kuang Hsiang monasteries under the auspices of a
Provincial Governor. In it occur some remarks of which the following
is a rough translation. "From the T'ang to the Sung dynasties the name
of the monastery was _Pai Shui P'u Hsien Ssŭ_. In the time of Wan Li
of the Ming, its name was changed to _Shêng-shou Wan-nien Ssŭ_. As
originally built (_yüan chien_) it contained a _tsang ching ko_ (_i.e._
a library) consisting of a revolving (circular?) spiral structure of
brick, strongly built, of exceptionally delicate workmanship, very
lofty and imposing, and of a beauty unsurpassed in the world." Now
the existing _tien_ is a most curious building of a foreign (probably
Indian) type, but to describe it as lofty and imposing and of delicate
and elaborate workmanship would be to spin a traveller's yarn of the
baser sort. How, without impugning the good faith of the chronicler,
can we reconcile such a glowing description with existing facts?

[Sidenote: MOUNT OMEI]

When we learn from the local records that the Wan-nien Ssŭ has been
several times destroyed by fire, the obvious supposition is that the
original splendid structure described in my quotation perished with the
rest of the monastic pile. Baber himself points out that the tusks of
the elephant inside the _tien_ are of late date, the old ones having
been "melted off," he was told, "by the intense heat." It seems natural
to suppose that when the rebuilding of the monastery took place (and
it was rebuilt, as we know, late in the sixteenth or early in the
seventeenth century, and again about 1665) the monks had neither funds
nor skill sufficient to enable them to restore the _chüan tien_ to its
pristine magnificence, and contented themselves with putting up a much
smaller and meaner building, preserving as far as possible the original
peculiarities of design.

This, however, is mere supposition. I now return to our Chinese
authorities, and in the 9th _chüan_ of the _Omei-hsien Chih_ I find an
allusion to the Wan-nien Ssŭ by one Li Hua Nan (李化楠), an official
who apparently flourished in the seventeenth century. He states most
emphatically that the monastery was restored or rebuilt in both the
Sung and the Ming periods, but had undergone such complete destruction
by fire that nothing was left _except a chüan tien belonging to the
period of Wan Li_. Wan Li was the reign-title of a Ming emperor who
reigned from 1573 to 1619. That the _chüan tien_ was _carefully and
thoroughly restored_ under Wan Li is admitted by the authority quoted
by Baber himself: the only question seems to be whether the restoration
left enough of the original building to justify our regarding it as a
veritable monument "fifteen centuries old"--as Baber conjectured--or
whether, as the evidence seems to indicate, the restoration was such
that we have only a small and inferior copy of "a lofty and imposing
building, of a beauty unsurpassed in the world."

No one, so far as I know, has yet drawn attention to the fact that
the spiral building of the Wan-nien Ssŭ is not--or was not--the only
building of its kind on Mount Omei. Among the few monasteries on the
lower slopes of the mountain which I did not enter is the Hua Yen Ssŭ
(not to be confused with the temple of the Hua Yen Ting mentioned on
page 91). It was not till after I had left the province that I came
across a description of this monastery, which made me much regret
that I had not visited it. I translate the following passage from the
_Omei-Shan Chih_ (quoted in the 41st _chüan_ of the _T'ung Chih_):
"There is a very ancient and wonderful revolving (circular?) spiral
building (有旋螺殿極奇古), and a tablet of the Shao Hsing period of the
Sung dynasty, on the left side of which are carved the words '15 _li_
to Omei-hsien' and on the right the words '70 _li_ to the summit of
the mountain.'" The words used to describe the shape of the "revolving
spiral" building are identical--so far as they go--with those applied
to the brick edifice in the Wan-nien Ssŭ: and the whole passage
certainly implies that, whatever the date of the spiral building in the
Hua Yen Ssŭ might be, it was at any rate prior to the Sung dynasty. The
next visitor to Mount Omei should not fail to examine the curiosities
of the Hua Yen Ssŭ; a close inspection of its spiral building--if it
still exists--and a comparison of it with that of the Wan-nien Ssŭ
might assist us in assigning a date to the latter, and might perhaps
prove that however old the latter may be it is not without a rival in
mere antiquity.

So much for the brick building. What is to be said about the bronze
elephant that Baber so properly admired, and which he believed to be
"the most ancient bronze casting of any great size in existence"?

Li Hua Nan, the writer who ascribes the _chüan tien_ to the Wan Li
period, goes on to add a piece of information which is much to our
purpose. "There is a P'u Hsien 1 _chang_ 6 _ch'ih_ in height, with a
gilded body, riding a bronze elephant, set up in the _Jên Tsung period
of the Sung dynasty_." The sentence is somewhat ambiguous, for the date
might refer to the image of P'u Hsien only and not to the elephant.
Baber believed, on artistic grounds, that the P'u Hsien was of much
later date than the elephant. On the whole, however, it seems probable
that Li Hua Nan referred to both images. The Jên Tsung reign lasted
from 1023 to 1063, so that if we select the middle of the period we
may assign the elephant approximately to the year 1043. This cuts many
centuries off the age of the elephant as reckoned by Baber.

There is no reason for doubting whether so fine a bronze casting of an
animal unknown to China could have been made as late as the eleventh
century. There were still Buddhists in India at that time, and Chinese
pilgrims had not yet given up the habit of visiting India in search
of relics and _pei to yeh_ (palm-leaf manuscripts). Indian Buddhists,
too, frequently came to Mount Omei. There is, indeed, no necessity for
mere guesswork, for the monastic and provincial records contain ample
evidence that the casting of large bronzes for Buddhist shrines was,
during the Sung period at least, a regular industry in the city of
Ch'êng-tu.

[Sidenote: BUDDHA'S TEETH]

The numerous miniature "Buddhas" that line the walls of the present
_chüan tien_ have attracted the attention of several European visitors,
and perhaps deserve a few words of comment. Some are the property of
pilgrims who leave them in the holy building in order that they may
acquire sanctity, but the greater number are evidently antique and
seem to be of uniform pattern. Baber was informed that they were of
silver--darkened with age and the smoke of incense. Mr Archibald Little
says they are of bronze. I made my own enquiries on the matter and was
assured by the monks that they were of iron. Where did they come from?
I conjecture that they are the images that once adorned a vanished hall
of the Wan-nien Ssŭ, known as the _San Ch'ien T'ieh Fo Tien_--Pavilion
of the Three Thousand Iron Buddhas. I cannot find any history of this
building, but from a poem by Ku Kuang Hsü, a Ssuch'uan chief justice of
the Ming dynasty, I gather that it was remembered but had disappeared
by his time. It existed in the Sung dynasty, for it is mentioned by one
Fan Ch'êng Ta (范成大) who visited it during that period. The number of
the images is easily explained as an allusion to the three thousand
disciples who are said to have sat at the feet of P'u Hsien in the days
when, according to the legend, that great Bodhisattva expounded the
Good Law amid the forests of Mount Omei.


NOTE 7 (p. 86)

"BUDDHA'S TEETH"

The most famous of the supposed teeth of Buddha is, of course, the
celebrated relic preserved in Kandy. The Buddhists of Ceylon will
have none of the story that the original tooth was ground into powder
by a pious Portuguese archbishop of the sixteenth century, and they
firmly believe that the genuine relic still reposes in Kandy at the
Malagawa Vihara. China possesses, or is supposed to possess, several
of the alleged Buddha's teeth, but they seem to have acquired no more
than a local reputation. One--similar in appearance to that of Mount
Omei--is described by Fortune as being in possession of a monastery at
Fu-chou. A writer in the _Fan Ju Tzŭ Chi_ (范汝梓記), commenting upon
the specimen in the Wan-nien Ssŭ, remarks that it weighs 15 catties,
equivalent to about 20 lbs. He says that in the Ching Yin (淨因寺) in
Ch'êng-tu there is one that weighs 3⅓ lbs., and another in the Chao
Chiao Ssŭ (昭覺寺) in the same city that weighs 9½ lbs. He goes on to
describe a far more remarkable specimen that had the singular property
of producing out of its own substance myriads of other _shê li_ or
Buddhistic relics, some of which flew off into space while others fell
on the floor and knocked against the furniture with a jingling sound.
This surprising tooth appeared by special command before the emperor,
but we are not informed whether the _séance_ was a successful one.
Our historian shows something of a tendency to indulge in frivolous
speculations regarding the capacity and measurements of the mouth
that could accommodate teeth of such monstrous sizes and singular
properties, and he points out that according to tradition a true
Buddha's tooth is always marked with certain sacred symbols, such as
the _dharma chakra_ or Wheel of the Law.

Marco Polo mentions a great embassy sent by the emperor of China to
Ceylon in 1284 for the purpose of obtaining certain relics of "our
first father Adam," such as his hair and teeth and a dish from which he
ate; and he remarks that the ambassadors, besides acquiring the dish,
which was of "very beautiful green porphyry," and some of the hair,
"also succeeded in getting two of the grinder teeth, which were passing
great and thick." It need hardly be said that the monarchs of the Yüan
dynasty took a very considerable interest in Buddha, but none at all
in "our first father Adam." That they sent embassies to Ceylon for
Buddhist relics is probably true, for the fact is mentioned in Chinese
Chronicles; but it is impossible to say whether any of the numerous
"teeth of Buddha" that have appeared in different localities in China
formed part of the relics then brought from Ceylon. (The notes appended
to Cordier's edition of Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. ii. chap. xv., should
be consulted by all interested in the subject of the migrations of
Buddhist relics.)


NOTE 8 (p. 89)

THE K'AI SHAN CH'U TIEN

The name of this monastery shows that it claims to be one of the
original religious foundations of Mount Omei. According to tradition it
was here that P'u Kung, as related in Chapter VI., was gathering herbs
when he came across "in a misty hollow" the tracks of the lily-footed
deer that led him to the mountain-top. The monastery is supposed to
have been founded in commemoration of the occurrence.


NOTE 9 (p. 95)

TA SHÊNG SSŬ OR GREAT VEHICLE MONASTERY

[Sidenote: THE HOLY LAMPS]

The old name of this monastery was Hua Ch'êng (化成), and the name was
chosen by its founder, "a holy monk from the foreign countries of the
West," who said that the scenery reminded him of his native country.
Tradition says that he built the original hermitage of the bark of
trees; hence the additional name _Mu-p'i_ by which the foundation was
known for centuries afterwards. One of the stories about this part of
the mountain is that two hungry pilgrims were fed with fruit here by a
wonderful white monkey.


NOTE 10 (p. 102)

"THE GLORY OF BUDDHA"

Several Chinese descriptions of the Fo Kuang will be found in the
chronicles of Mount Omei and of Omei-hsien, notably those of Ho Shih
Hêng (何式恒) and Yüan Tzŭ Jang (袁子讓). According to the latter, there
are more than five colours. He describes the appearance somewhat as
follows. The central circle is of jade-green; the outermost circle
consists of a layer of pale red, and the successive inner circles are
of green, white, purple, yellow and crimson. Each beholder, he says,
sees his own shadow in the mist of the central circle.

A crude drawing of the "Glory" may be noticed near the upper left-hand
corner of the Chinese plan of Mount Omei, which is reproduced in this
book.


NOTE 11 (p. 108)

"THE HOLY LAMPS"

Among good Chinese descriptions of this phenomenon may be mentioned
those of Yüan Tzŭ Jang (袁子讓) of the Ming and Ho Shih Hêng (何式恒) of
the present dynasty. Both writers have been mentioned in the preceding
note. The former wrote a delightful account of his visit to Mount Omei.
It is in a flowing unpedantic style, and it proves that its writer
had a keenly observant eye and a great liking for old-world legends
combined with a power of working them up into a graceful narrative.

NOTE 12 (p. 109)

THE HSIEN TSU TIEN, CHUNG FÊNG SSŬ AND TA O SSŬ

The _Hsien Tsu Tien_ represents the earliest of the Mount Omei
monasteries, and is said to have been built by P'u Kung in the reign of
Ming Ti of the Han dynasty after the famous episode of the lily-footed
deer. Probably if the searchlight of strict historical enquiry were to
be turned on the legends and records of Mount Omei, it would be found
that the mountain knew nothing of Buddhism until the third or fourth
centuries of our era. It is a significant fact that some of the legends
about P'u Kung--the herb-gathering official who followed the deer and
first saw the "Glory"--state or imply that he belonged to the Chin
period, which did not begin till the year 265. There is more than a
likelihood that the historians of such ancient monasteries as the Hsien
Tsu Tien and the Wan-nien Ssŭ deliberately ante-dated their foundation
in order to throw back the beginnings of Omei's Buddhistic history to
the earliest possible period. It is almost inconceivable that Omei can
have become the resort of Buddhist monks during the very reign of the
emperor who is credited with the first introduction of Buddhism into
China.

According to the monastic chronicles, the earliest name of the
monastery we are considering was P'u Kaung Tien, "The Pavilion of
Universal Glory." The name was subsequently altered to Kuang Hsiang
Ssŭ (光相寺), and so it was known during the T'ang and Sung periods.
In the time of Hung Wu, first emperor of the Ming, it was rebuilt and
roofed with iron. Associated with it were four small bronze pagodas,
some of the remains of which are still lying on the ground within the
precincts of the present Chin Tien (which was apparently first built
in the reign of Wan Li of the Ming). A thorough restoration--carried
out during a period of three years--took place in the second half of
the fifteenth century. At the end of the Ming period it was utterly
destroyed--presumably by fire. It was again rebuilt during the reign
of K'ang Hsi of the present dynasty under the auspices of a Provincial
Governor named Chang (see note 6, paragraph 2), and minor restorations
on a smaller scale have taken place more recently.

The _Chung Fêng Ssŭ_ or Half-way Monastery bears the alternative name
of "The Gathering Clouds," an allusion to the fact that here the
upward-bound pilgrim enters into the region of mist. It dates from the
Chin dynasty (about the third century of our era) and was restored in
the Sung and Ming periods.

[Sidenote: THE TA HSIANG LING]

The _Ta O Ssŭ_ is an ancient foundation rebuilt in the first year of
K'ang Hsi (1662). It is one of the principal religious houses on the
mountain, and has a finer site than most of its rivals. An alternative
name is Fu Shou An. This name is due to the fact that the words Fu
Shou--"Happiness and Longevity"--were carved on a neighbouring rock
by a celebrated recluse of the Sung dynasty named Hsi I, known as the
Wizard of Omei.


NOTE 13 (p. 114)

YA-CHOU-FU

The military importance of this city was very great so long as the
tribal chiefs and Tibetans had not been reduced to comparative
quiescence. The commander-in-chief of the military forces of the
province was permanently stationed at this frontier city. (_Shêng Wu
Chi_, _11th chüan_.)


NOTE 14 (p. 117)

THE TA HSIANG LING

There is a small unsettled controversy regarding the name of the Ta
Hsiang Ling. It is possible that the mountain owes its name not to the
legend of P'u Hsien's elephant, but to the famous general Chu-ko Liang
(see note 1). Devout Buddhists are bound to hold that the name means
"The Great Elephant," and this is the view taken in all Buddhistic
accounts of western Ssuch'uan and in the maps issued by the monks of
Mount Omei. But other authorities--including the official _Topography_
and the _Shêng Wu Chi_ (5th _chüan_)--give the central character not as
象 (_hsiang_, elephant) but as 相 (_hsiang_, minister of state), thereby
changing the mountain's name into "The Great Mountain of the Minister."
This minister is none other than Chu-ko Liang, who is said to have
crossed the mountain during his western campaigns. The "Small Elephant
Pass" in the Chien-ch'ang Valley is similarly metamorphosed into "The
Small Mountain of the Minister," and for a like reason. This latter
mountain, however, is also known officially as the Nan Shan or South
Mountain. (寕遠府南山土名小相嶺皆以武候經過得名: _Shêng Wu Chi_, _loc.
cit._)

This note will throw a light on a passage that occurs in Mr Archibald
Little's _Mount Omi and Beyond_ (pp. 204-205) and exonerate Captain
Gill from the charge of inaccuracy.

It may be worth mentioning that a neighbouring mountain bears the
officially-recognised name of Shih-tzŭ Shan, or Lion Hill, but the
_T'ung Chih_ explicitly states that this is owing to its peculiar
shape. There is nothing in the contour of the Ta Hsiang Ling to suggest
an elephant.


NOTE 15 (p. 120)

CH'ING-CH'I-HSIEN

This little town has had a variety of names during its long and
chequered history, and it frequently changed hands. Its position was
for centuries somewhat analogous to that of Berwick-on-Tweed during
the Anglo-Scottish border wars. The _T'ung Chih_ states that it passed
into the hands of the Chinese after one of the numerous "pacifications
of the West," in the 30th year of Han Wu Ti (111 B.C.), but it was
lost to China many times after that. Its present name and status as a
magistracy date from the eighth year of Yung Chêng (1730). This was an
epoch in which a series of able Chinese emperors were making determined
and, on the whole, successful efforts to reduce the Wild West to
obedience.


NOTE 16 (p. 121)

THE LIU SHA RIVER

The Liu Sha is also known as the Han Shui or Chinese water. It is said
to rise in the "Fairy's Cave" (_hsien jên tung_) in the Fei Yüeh range.
Thence it flows to the Shih Chien Shan or Trial-of-the-Sword Hill and
joins the Chien Shui (澗水) and thereafter enters the Ta Tu. According
to the _Huan Yü Chi_ (寰宇記) an evil miasma arises from this river
every winter and spring, causing fever.


NOTE 17 (p. 122)

THE FEI YÜEH LING AND HUA-LIN-P'ING

[Sidenote: LU TING BRIDGE]

This great pass has for centuries been regarded by the Chinese as a
very important strategic point in connection with their western wars.
During the eighteenth century, when strenuous warfare was being
carried on against the Chin Ch'uan chiefs and others, the summit of
the pass was permanently held by a Chinese guard, and the village that
lies at the mountain's western base--Hua-lin-p'ing--was garrisoned by a
considerable body of troops.


NOTE 18 (p. 124)

THE TA TU RIVER

The Ta Tu (Great Ferry) is said to derive its name from the fact that
it was crossed by the ubiquitous Chu-ko Liang. In the neighbourhood
of Chia-ting it is commonly known as the T'ung, and above Wa Ssŭ Kou
its two branches are always known as the Great and Small Chin Ch'uan.
(_Shêng Wu Chi_, _5th chüan_.)


NOTE 19 (p. 126)

LU TING BRIDGE

The _Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih_ makes the following remark in connection
with the suspension bridge at Lu Ting. "Formerly there was no bridge.
The waters of the river are swift and turbulent, and boats and oars
cannot be used. Travellers used to cross by hanging on to a rope
stretched across the river--a dangerous proceeding." (We shall see,
when we come to the Yalung, that rope bridges are still in use.) In
the fortieth year of K'ang Hsi (1701) it was decided with imperial
sanction to construct an iron suspension bridge, not merely for the
convenience of travellers to and from Tibet, but also to facilitate
the military operations which during the reigns of K'ang Hsi, Yung
Chêng and Ch'ien Lung were carried on with great vigour against the
Tibetan tribes. The bridge is accurately described in the _Chih_ and
in the _Hsi Tsang Tu K'as_ as being 31 _chang_ 1 _ch'ih_ in length and
9 _ch'ih_ broad, and as possessing 9 chain-cables supporting wooden
planks, and side-railings of cast-iron. A _chang_ is 11¾ English
feet, and a _ch'ih_ about 14-1/10 English inches. The bridge is similar
in construction to those that span the Mekong, Salwen and other rivers
in Yunnan. They are remarkable examples of Chinese engineering skill,
and never fail to astonish European travellers who behold them for the
first time.

The completion of the Lu Ting bridge seems to have had a considerable
moral effect on the border tribes, for the _Chih_ contains the names
of dozens of _t'u ssŭ_ (tribal chiefs) who immediately afterwards
submitted to Chinese overlordship and consented to pay tribute.
The more remote chiefs came in later, but most of those in the
neighbourhood of the road to Tachienlu and the Ta Tu River hastened
to become vassals of China during the five first years of the
eighteenth century. The vassalage consisted--and for the most part
still consists--merely in the payment of a small annual tribute. But
the chiefs of the Greater and the Smaller Chin Ch'uan--the country
that includes the valley of the Ta Tu and its branches above Wa Ssŭ
Kou--resisted Chinese encroachments for many years in a most vigorous
and courageous manner, and it was not till the reign of Ch'ien Lung,
towards the end of the century, that the resistance of the last Chin
Ch'uan _roitelet_ was finally quelled--with the usual accompaniments
of slaughter and devastation. Even as it was, the Chinese owed their
ultimate success more to the assistance rendered them by other
tribal chiefs--of whom the Ming Chêng Ssŭ or King of Chala was the
most important--than to their own military skill. The war is well
described--though from an exclusively Chinese standpoint--in the _Shêng
Wu Chi_ (聖武記).


NOTE 20 (p. 129)

TACHIENLU

The Chinese characters (see Itinerary) used for the name Tachienlu
are three separate words signifying _strike_, _arrow_, _forge_. These
characters were originally chosen merely to represent the sound of
the Tibetan name Tar-rTse-Mto or Dartsendo (derived from the names
of the streams that meet there), but Chinese archæologists contrived
to forget this and insisted upon finding an interpretation of the
word that would suit the meaning of the three Chinese characters.
Accordingly they constructed an ingenious legend to the effect that
the famous Chu-ko Liang--always as useful in literary as he used to be
in military emergencies--came to Tachienlu in the third century of our
era, and ordered his lieutenant, Kuo Ta, to forge arrow-heads there
for the imperial army. The actual forge is said to have been in a cave
on a hill at a short distance to the north-east of the city. The proof
of the absolute truth of this story consists in the incontrovertible
fact that the hill in question is called the Kuo Ta hill to this day,
and there is a cave in it. The story is further embellished by the
statement that when the forge was in use a blue-black ram ran round the
hill and frightened away the barbarians (_i jên_) so that the good work
could proceed without interruption.

An ancient name of the Tachienlu district is said to have been Mao Niu
Kuo--the Land of Yaks.

[Sidenote: THE KING OF CHALA]


NOTE 21 (p. 129)

SINO-TIBETAN TRADE

Chinese accounts of Tachienlu as a trading centre may be found in the
_Hsi Tsang T'u K'ao_, the _Tachienlu T'ing Chih_ and the more easily
accessible _Shêng Wu Chi_. In the fifth volume of the last-named work
the town is aptly described as being (from the commercial point of
view) the hub of a wheel--the centre at which all the spokes meet.


NOTE 22 (p. 136)

THE KING OF CHALA

Tachienlu is not a correct name for the state as a whole: it is
strictly applicable only to the city. The state may be described as
Chala or as Ming Chêng. Ming Chêng (明正) corresponds with the Chinese
title of the king--Ming Chêng Ssŭ (明正司)--which was conferred upon
an ancestor no less than five hundred years ago. The meaning of the
Chinese words--"bright" and "correct"--are of no consequence. The word
"Chala" we have already discussed on page 136.

The king's Chinese rank is that of a _hsüan wei shih ssŭ_ (宣慰使司)--one
of the numerous titles invented by the Chinese for their vassal
chiefs. This title carries with it the Chinese rank 3b. As a _hsüan wei
shih ssŭ_ the king of Chala takes precedence of the chiefs of Litang
and Batang, his neighbours on the west, both of whom are _hsüan fu
shih ssŭ_ (宣撫使司) with Chinese rank 4b. All three take precedence of
the ruler of Muli, who is an _an fu shih ssŭ_ (安撫使司), with rank 5b.
(For an explanation of these titles and ranks, see Mayers' _Chinese
Government_, 3rd edn., pp. 46-47. The Chinese official hierarchy
consists of nine ranks, subdivided into a higher and a lower grade,
or _a_ and _b_.) Special decorations may be and often are conferred
upon an individual chief, and these may carry with them the "button"
of a superior rank: the button and its privileges, however, are not
hereditary. The rank of the chiefs _quâ_ Chinese officials does not
affect their position _quâ_ rulers of native states. The "kings" of
Litang, Batang and Muli are within their own borders quite as powerful
as the "king" of Chala. The latter, however, holds his kingship by
strict hereditary right, whereas the "regalities" of Litang and Batang
are not necessarily hereditary, though in practice they may be
generally so. The kingship of Muli is hereditary in one family (see
page 215), but as the king is also a lama, and therefore a celibate,
the descent can only be collateral.

It must be remembered that there are many other semi-independent
kings and chiefs along the borderland of Burma, Tibet, Turkestan
and Mongolia. Some are the vassals of China, others the vassals of
Tibet, while there are probably some even to-day who pay no tribute
and acknowledge no suzerain. Few of these chiefs, however, have the
importance and dignity of those mentioned in this note.

The greatest length of the state of Chala, from Rumi-changu on the
north, to Lo Jang and Muli on the south, is 1,050 _li_ (say 350 miles);
the greatest breadth, from Lu Ting on the east, to the Yalung on
the west, 400 _li_ (say 133 miles). Under the king's control are 49
sub-chiefs, including 1 _t'u ch'ien hu_ (土千戶) and 48 _t'u pai hu_
(土百戶). A _t'u ch'ien hu_ nominally presides over 1,000 households,
a _t'u pai hu_ over 100. These terms, however, are quite elastic in
meaning. The former takes precedence of the latter, but he does not
necessarily control a wider territory, or a larger population. The
population of the whole state--not including Tachienlu--consists
of 6,591 households. (This is the figure given in the _Ssuch'uan
T'ung Chih_, the latest edition of which belongs to the nineteenth
century.) The number seems a small one, but a Tibetan household--the
members of which are all farm-hands or herdsmen--is generally large,
though the average family is so small that the population of Chinese
Tibet is probably--apart from Chinese immigration--at the present
time stationary. The annual tribute payable to China by the king
himself amounts to 161 taels 7 candareens--a sum which, according to
our reckoning, amounts to about £25. His 49 sub-chiefs or headmen
pay between them a further tribute of about 180 taels 9 mace 2
candareens--equivalent to about £27. The total revenue raised by China
out of this large tract of country is, therefore, only slightly over
£50 a year. But this amount was assessed at a time when the tael was
worth far more than it is worth now, and its purchasing power in the
Tibetan states is in any case considerably greater than in the east
of China; moreover, the money is not, strictly speaking, a tax, but a
mere acknowledgment of China's suzerainty. _Ula_ (see pp. 136-137) is
the real tax paid to China by the tributary states of the west, and
China exacts it in case of need to the grim uttermost. Over and above
the exaction of _ula_ and the payment of tribute the people are, of
course, obliged to pay taxes to the king himself. The king's powers
in the matter of taxation appear to be unlimited, for the principle
of "no taxation without representation" has not yet been accepted as
a political axiom in the state of Chala. But the only direct tax
consists of a kind of _likin_, or toll on merchandise in transit; this
is ample to defray the cost of administration, and the king's private
exchequer is apparently chiefly dependent for its supplies on the
revenues of his hereditary property, which are very considerable. The
king of Chala succeeds in doing what the kings of England used at one
time to get into serious trouble for not doing--he "lives of his own."

[Sidenote: THE KING OF CHALA]

The position of the _t'u ch'ien hu_ and _t'u pai hu_ is a peculiar
one. Though they are under the jurisdiction of the king, they may be
regarded as possessing a certain amount of independence. The _Ssuch'uan
T'ung Chih_ states that the king became a vassal of China in the year
1666, but his _t'u ch'ien hu_ did not follow suit till 1700, while the
48 _t'u pai hu_ all "came in" together in 1701 (the fortieth year of
K'ang Hsi). The Suzerain Power, however, is careful to differentiate
between the great vassals and the little ones: the king of Chala--like
others of his rank--receives, in return for his homage, sealed "letters
of authority" and a stamped warrant; each _t'u pai hu_ receives only
the warrant. All these formalities are of small practical consequence:
the Chinese insist upon controlling the high-road to Lhasa, and upon
receiving their just dues in the shape of _ula_ service and tribute,
but otherwise the kings and _t'u pai hu_ of the western border are just
as free as they were before they "tied their heads"--as the Tibetan
saying goes--to the emperor of China. It may be worth while adding that
the king of Chala is expected to prostrate himself before the imperial
throne at Peking once in twelve years. In practice it appears that he
does not do so with great regularity. The expenses entailed by such
a journey--chiefly in connection with the valuable presents always
expected by the Court on such occasions--must be a very severe tax on
his majesty's privy purse.

The first appearance of a ruler of Chala in Chinese history may be
assigned to the first years of the Ming dynasty, in the second half
of the fourteenth century, when the king showed his good-will to his
mighty neighbour by assisting the imperial troops in the frontier
warfare of those days. In the fifth year of Yung Lo (1407) he received
the title of Ming Chêng Ssŭ, and in the fifth year of K'ang Hsi
(1666) his successor definitely abjured his allegiance to Tibet and
became a vassal of China. In 1771 the king--whose name was Chia Mu
Ts'an--received official recognition from the emperor for his valuable
assistance against the Chin Ch'uan rebels, and received a Peacock's
Feather and the "button" of the Second Rank. Twenty years later his
successor had a similar honour conferred upon him for like services,
and in the fourteenth year of Chia Ch'ing (1809) the king went with a
retinue to Peking to do homage to the emperor. Since then the history
of the little state has gone through few vicissitudes; but, now that
the relations between China and Tibet are going through a process of
re-adjustment, it is probable that the new administrative arrangements
will tend to the gradual effacement of the powers and privileges of all
the Sino-Tibetan kings and chiefs, including the ruler of Chala, and
the conversion of their territories into magistracies and prefectures
under the direct control of China. Perhaps this is a fitting time,
while "the old order changeth, yielding place to new," to put on record
some account of systems of government and constitutions that no doubt
have in the past fulfilled some useful purposes, but seem destined
before long to pass utterly away.


NOTE 23 (p. 155)

HEIGHTS OF PASSES

With regard to the elevations given in this book it is very necessary
to say that those referring to localities between Tachienlu and
Li-chiang must be regarded as tentative and provisional only. Future
travellers, better equipped with instruments than I was, will doubtless
find much to correct. My readings were for the most part dependent on
aneroids, which are very untrustworthy at great altitudes. Wherever
possible, I have accepted the results of previous travellers,
especially those of such accomplished surveyors as Major Davies.


NOTE 24 (p. 157)

POPULATION OF YALUNG WATERSHED

M. Bonin appears to have had the same experience. He states that in
travelling from Chung-tien _viâ_ Muli to Tachienlu--a journey of
about a month's duration--he did not meet a single Chinese. "All the
inhabitants," he says, "belong to the Tibetan race." (_Bulletin de la
Soc. de Géog._, 1898, p. 393.)


NOTE 25 (p. 161)

RACE-TYPES OF YALUNG WATERSHED

[Sidenote: THE PA-U-RONG T'U PAI HU]

These people owe their tall and well-built frames to their non-Tibetan
blood. It is probably the "Man-tzŭ" blood that tells. "The stature
of the Tibetans of Lhasa," says Colonel Waddell, "is even less than
that of the Chinese, and considerably below the European average;
whilst the men from the eastern province of Kham are quite up to that
standard." (_Lhasa and its Mysteries_, p. 347.) Kham or Khams includes
or included the greater part of Chinese Tibet.


NOTE 26 (p. 186)

ATTITUDE OF MULI PEOPLE TOWARDS STRANGERS

M. Bonin states that he had to spend ten days in negotiation before he
was allowed, in 1895, to cross into the Muli country. He approached it
from the Yunnan side. (_Bulletin de la Soc. de Géog._, 1898, p. 396.)
Major Davies informs me that he also had difficulty in persuading
the people of Muli to allow him to cross the Yalung in the course
of his journey from Mien-ning-hsien. It was doubtless owing to the
friendliness and tact shown by these travellers and by Mr Amundsen that
I met with no opposition on entering the country.


NOTE 27 (p. 187)

EXPLORATION OF THE TA LIANG SHAN

It is reported that the country of the Independent Lolos (the Ta
Liang Shan) has at last been traversed by a European. The successful
traveller was a French officer named D'Ollone. (See _Geographical
Journal_, October, 1907, p. 437.) The account of his journey should be
awaited with interest.


NOTE 28 (p. 190)

THE PA-U-RONG T'U PAI HU

The _t'u pai hu_ of Pa-U-Rong (Pa-U-Lung according to the Pekingese
sound of the Chinese characters) is to be accounted one of the most
important of all the 49 sub-chiefs of the king of Chala, if the amount
of tribute paid is the test of importance. His annual tribute is 7
taels, whereas the single _t'u ch'ien hu_ only pays a little more than
9 taels. The highest of all the tributes is that of the _t'u pai hu_
of Rumi Cho-rong, in the northern part of the state. His payment is
12 taels 5 mace. The Pa-U-Rong _t'u pai hu_ nets a modest revenue by
causing travellers and merchants who cross the Yalung at this point to
pay him a small toll.

NOTE 29 (p. 191)

NAME OF THE YALUNG

M. Bonin calls the Yalung the _Rivière Noire_, apparently supposing
its Tibetan name to be Nag Ch'u (ནག་ཆུ་) "Black Water." But I know of no
authority for this. The true Tibetan name appears to he Nya(g)-ch'u
(ཉག་ཆུ་). The _nya(g)_ reappears in the tribal or district name Mi-nya(g)
or Miniak (Menia), མི་ཉག་; and the Chinese "Yalung" is an attempt to
pronounce the Tibetan _Nya-Rong_ (ཉག་རོང་) or "Valley of the Nya."


NOTE 30 (p. 197)

THE CHIN SHA CHIANG

[Sidenote: MULI--KHON--OFFICIAL TITLES]

It may not be generally known that according to the Chinese authorities
there are _two_ rivers bearing the name of Chin Sha Chiang. One is
the _Ta_ (Great), the other the _Hsiao_ (Small) Chin Sha Chiang, and
_the "small" one is the Yangtse_. In a first attempt to identify the
Ta Chin Sha Chiang--which must obviously be a very great river--we
are apt to be much puzzled; for we read of it as flowing from western
Tibet and also as flowing through Burma into the "Southern Ocean."
But the mystery is explained when we remember that the great river
of southern Tibet--the Tsangpo or Yaru Tsangpo (literally "Upper
River")--used to be believed not only by Chinese but also by European
geographers to be the main feeder of the Irrawaddy. We now know that
the Tsangpo is no other than the main upper branch of the Brahmaputra:
or rather we assume it from much circumstantial evidence. No European
has yet followed the course of the Brahmaputra up to the point where
it receives the icy waters of the Tibetan Tsangpo--which hurls itself
over the edge of the Tibetan plateau and creates there a series of
waterfalls that must be among the grandest sights in the world--but we
now know, from the reports of our native surveyors, the approximate
position of the falls.[414] The country between Assam and Tibet is
unfortunately inhabited by tribes that are apparently violently hostile
to all strangers. Their own domestic habits are of a somewhat repellent
nature: it is said,[415] for instance, that on occasions of the
celebration of marriages it is the genial custom of one of the tribes
to serve up the bridegroom's mother-in-law at the nuptial banquet.

The Chinese geographers know the Tsangpo by its Tibetan name (calling
it the Ya-lu-tsang-pu-chiang, where _chiang_ is tautological) but
they also call it the Great (_Ta_) Chin Sha Chiang; and readers of
their topographical works must beware of confusing this river with the
Small (_Hsiao_) Chin Sha Chiang of China: though when the adjective
is omitted the river referred to is always the Chinese river, and
therefore identical with the Yangtse.


NOTE 31 (p. 213)

MULI

I have adopted the spelling "Muli" instead of "Mili" on the authority
of the _Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih_. The Chinese characters there given are
木裏, (Mu-li), and though I have seen others used I think there can be no
doubt that the _T'ung Chih_ is the best authority to follow.


NOTE 32 (p. 216)

KHON

The name of the third lamasery was given to me as Khon, but I observe
that Mr Amundsen calls it Kang-u, and locates it half-way between Muli
and the Yalung, almost due east. Major Davies's map, again, places a
lamasery named K'u-lu at almost the same spot. K'u-lu, Khon and Kang-u
are probably one and the same place, and as Major Davies's route seems
to have led him past it the name given by him is probably the correct
one. It seems strange that the residences of the _k'an-po_ should all
be within a comparatively short distance of each other. If the real
object of the periodical movements of the "Court" were to enable the
_k'an-po_ to keep in close touch with all parts of his territory, it
would naturally extend its peregrinations somewhat further afield.


NOTE 33 (p. 217)

OFFICIAL TITLES IN MULI

Most of these official titles are well known in connection with the
administrative arrangements of all the great lamaseries of Tibet; but
the authority of the Muli officials is not confined to the management
of lamaseries.

NOTE 34 (p. 219)

THE KING AND PEOPLE OF MULI

The ruler of Muli holds the rank, _vis-à-vis_ the Chinese suzerain, of
an _An Fu Ssŭ_ (see note 22). In his own territory he is a _gyal-po_
or king, but he is also a lama, and the succession must therefore go
to a collateral branch of the "royal" family. In practice, the heir
is generally a nephew who has been inducted into Lamaism at an early
age, and has risen high in the hierarchy. The king of Muli first
became tributary to China in the seventh year of Yung Chêng (1729).
He received from the Chinese Government sealed "letters of authority"
and a stamped warrant similar to those bestowed on the king of Chala.
The greatest length of the territory, from the frontier of the Litang
principality on the north to the territory of the Ku Po Chu _t'u ssŭ_
on the south, is 900 _li_ (say 300 miles); its greatest breadth is from
the frontier of Chala on the east to that of Chung-tien on the west,
1,300 _li_ (say 430 miles). These distances, as in the case of Chala,
are measured by length of actual paths, and not by bee-lines. Though
the Yalung forms the eastern boundary at Pa-U-Rong, the Muli territory
extends for a distance of some scores of miles across the Yalung
further south. According to the _Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih_ (published in
the first half of the nineteenth century) the total number of _i jên_
("barbarians") under the king's rule comprises 3,283 households. This
figure hardly enables us to assess the present population, which--if
we include the large body of lamas--can hardly be judged to be less
than 25,000. It should be remembered that there are no towns in Muli,
very little trade, and great areas of mountainous country practically
uninhabitable. The king's annual tribute consists of 120 piculs of
buckwheat (16,000 lbs.) estimated in cash value at 74 taels 4 mace
and 3 horses, each valued at 8 taels, or a total of 24 taels for the
three. The total tribute thus amounts (in money-value) to 98 taels 4
mace. These assessments of value were, of course, made many years ago.
Probably re-assessments are made from time to time, as otherwise the
monetary values would bear no proper ratio to the value of the articles
forming the basis of the tribute. Payment is made at Yen-yüan-hsien,
and is supposed to be applied to the expenses of the local military
establishment. It is the custom of the country that one out of every
three, or two out of every five, male members of a family enter the
priesthood. All the lay population can be called upon for military
service; but it is hardly necessary to say that the king keeps no
standing army, and his people are only called to arms when serious
disputes arise with the neighbouring Tibetan chiefs. The _T'ung Chih_
goes on to say that the people of the land of Muli consist of six
different kinds of Barbarians: (1) _lamas_; (2) _Chia-mi_ or _Chieh-mi_
(呷迷); (3) _Yüeh-ku_ or _Yo-ku_ (約古); (4) _Hsü-mi_ (虛迷); (5) _Mo-so_;
(6) _Hsi Fan_. The lamas, of course, are not a distinct race; the Mo-so
and Hsi Fan are discussed in Chapter XV. of this book; as for the three
others, the remarks made upon them in the _T'ung Chih_ leave us very
much in the dark. The characteristics of the _i jên_ are dismissed in
four lines. We are told that the Chia-mi and Yüeh-ku are very like
one another, and that the women allow their hair to hang over their
shoulders. The Hsü-mi males cultivate a queue, and the women do up
their hair into a pointed coiffure. They are docile, and of an amiable
disposition. The Mo-so and Hsi Fan are like each other, and honest and
tractable by nature. Their clothes are made of woven cloth, and their
coats button under the left arm (_tso jên_; _cf._ the Confucian _Lun
Yü_, p. 282, Legge's edn.) The men wear queues and the women do up
their hair. They live by agriculture. They are fond of hunting wild
animals. This is all the _T'ung Chih_ has to tell us about the people
of Muli. The section ends with the laconic remark that lawsuits are
decided by the _k'an-po_.

[Sidenote: THE LANGUAGE-TEST OF RACE]

Chinese customs certainly seem to be losing rather than gaining ground
in Muli: the queues worn by some of the men do not hang down the back
but are coiled round the head; and it is not a mark of respect, as
in China, to uncoil the queue. Moreover the front of the head is not
shaved, as in China. The remarks about the women are true enough: a
large proportion wear their hair loose, so that they look like rather
overgrown and unwieldy school-girls; the rest have more or less
elaborate coiffures, but the female fashions of China in this respect
are totally ignored. I will leave the task of identifying the Chia-mi,
Yüeh-ku and Hsü-mi to some future investigator with more time and
leisure than fell to my lot. Tibetans, Li-so, Man-tzŭ or Lolos, Kachins
and Mo-so are all doubtless to be found among the people of Muli, and
it seems not improbable that the predominant type is Mo-so.


NOTE 35 (p. 222)

THE LANGUAGE-TEST OF RACE

The collection of hastily-compiled and doubtless very inaccurate
vocabularies to be found in Appendix A need not be taken as indicating
any belief in the value of such lists of words from either the
philological or the ethnological point of view. They are given merely
for what they are worth, as an infinitesimal addition to the small
stock of general knowledge that we already possess with regard to the
tribes of western China. The old faith in language as a sure test of
race has long been given up. A page or two of skull measurements would
help us more towards settling the racial problems of western China than
the completest equipment of grammars and dictionaries. Unfortunately
the methods employed by many of the tribes for the disposal of their
dead will seriously hamper the investigations of the craniologist
who, in the hopes of a rich harvest of inexorable bones, may take his
measuring-tape to the graveyards of western China.


NOTE 36 (p. 226)

HIGHEST HABITATION ON THE GLOBE

The land of Muli is as wild and mountainous as that of Chala. It was
between Muli and the Yalung that M. Bonin discovered what he believes
to be the highest inhabited station on the globe, at a height of 16,568
feet, "a hamlet occupied in the dead of winter by a few yak-herdsmen."
The mines of Tok-ya-long in western Tibet, he says, which have hitherto
been considered the highest habitation in the world are 525 feet lower,
and moreover are not inhabited all the year round. There are other
spots both in Muli and Chala, probably of a greater height than 16,000
feet, that are inhabited, though the huts are probably not occupied in
winter.


NOTE 37 (p. 233)

FEMALE CHIEFS

In the Shan States female rulers are apparently not uncommon. (See
_Gazetteer of Upper Burma_, pt. i. vol. i. p. 262.) For an interesting
note on several Tibetan "queens" (derived from native and Chinese
sources) see Rockhill's _Land of the Lamas_, pp. 339-341. Sa-mong
is better known as So-mo. A recent European visitor to this country
says that the "queen" or _nü-wang_ of So-mo is only a myth, "the real
monarch being actually a man, who for some obscure reason calls himself
a Queen." (W. C. Haines Watson, _A Journey to Sung-p'an, in J.R.A.S._
(_China_), vol. xxxvi., 1905.) The _Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih_ contains
references to several female _t'u ssŭ_. A female _t'u pai hu_, with a
territorial name of six syllables, is mentioned as becoming tributary
to China in K'ang Hsi 60. She paid 20 taels annually as "horse-money."
The _Ch'ang Kuan Ssŭ_ of Sung Kang is--or may be--a woman. One is
mentioned as receiving honours from China in K'ang Hsi 23. Another
female _ch'ang kuan ssŭ_ in the Chien-ch'ang Valley (Hu-li-ho-tung) is
described as being a tribute-payer to the extent of ten horses a year.


NOTE 38 (p. 246)

LI-CHIANG-FU

An old name of Li-chiang was Sui (嶲), and its inhabitants, in the days
of the Early Han dynasty, appear to have been known as the K'un Ming
(昆明). Their fierceness and lawlessness were instrumental in preventing
the Emperor Wu Ti, in the second century B.C., from establishing a
trade route from China to India through their territory. (See T. W.
Kingsmill's _Intercourse of China with Eastern Turkestan_, _J.R.A.S._,
January 1882.)


NOTE 39 (p. 259)

THE REBELLION IN YUNNAN

The best account of the Mohammedan rebellion is to be found in M. Émile
Rocher's _La Province Chinoise du Yunnan_, vol. ii. pp. 30-192. The
origin of the rebellion is to be traced to a comparatively trifling
dispute among miners, which took place in 1855 in a mining centre
situated between Yunnan-fu and Tali-fu. The Mohammedan section of
miners, who all worked together, aroused envy and hatred because they
had struck richer veins of metal than the "orthodox" Chinese miners in
a neighbouring locality, and the result was a violent dispute which
ended in blows. The official who was responsible for good order in
the district was seized with panic and fled to Yunnan-fu, where he
submitted reports that were unjustifiably hostile to the Mohammedans.
The latter meanwhile had rendered themselves masters of the situation,
and drove their opponents off the field. The people of the neighbouring
town of Linan avenged this insult by attacking the Mohammedans in
overwhelming force and expelling them to the forests. This was the
beginning of a series of bloodthirsty combats, which in a short time
set the whole province in a blaze, and caused the loss of millions of
human lives.

So far as race went, the Mohammedans of Yunnan were no other than
ordinary Yunnanese. They were marked off from their fellow-provincials
solely by their religion. This, however, was sufficient to cause them
to be treated almost as foreigners, for they had little intercourse
with orthodox Chinese, and seem to have intermarried among themselves.
Whether the Mohammedans of Yunnan and other parts of China were--and
are--strict observers of the rules of their religion is a doubtful
point. Rocher says of the Yunnanese Mohammedans that "they have
preserved intact the beliefs of their ancestors, and they rigorously
observe the rules imposed upon them by the Koran." Other observers,
however,--including Mohammedan natives of India--have scoffed at their
co-religionists of Yunnan, declaring that they know nothing of the
tenets of Islam, and obey none of the rules of their faith except that
of abstinence from pork. I have myself seen Chinese Mohammedan children
undergoing the pains of having page after page of Arabic drilled into
their little heads, though both they and their teachers admitted that
they did not understand the meaning of a single word. The fact remains,
however, that some Chinese Mohammedans do still occasionally make the
pilgrimage to Mecca; and well-attended Mohammedan mosques may yet be
found in at least half the provinces of China.

Chinese Mohammedans have often proved a thorn in the flesh of the
official classes, not only in Yunnan, but also in Kansu and elsewhere.
Yet it cannot be said that they have shown much of that fiery religious
fanaticism which has sometimes characterised Islam elsewhere. The great
rebellion in Yunnan did not originate in any religious dispute, and it
would never have developed into a war that lasted nearly twenty years
and laid waste a province, if only a few able and impartial officials
had given their attention to the matter in its early stages.

Two circumstances helped to prolong the struggle. The first was the
great T'ai P'ing rebellion in eastern China, which rendered the central
Government powerless to deal effectually with the situation in Yunnan;
the second was the military skill of the Mohammedan leaders, which led
to the concentration of the whole Mohammedan strength in the hands of a
few able men.

[Sidenote: OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS OF WESTERN TRIBES]

The history of the war cannot be sketched here. It may be sufficient
to say that at one time nearly the whole province was in the hands
of the Mohammedan rebels; even Yunnan-fu itself capitulated to their
victorious arms. Before this took place, the great Mohammedan leader,
Tu Wên-hsiu, had already greatly distinguished himself in the west of
the province. Against the will of the viceroy, who committed suicide,
the officials had in 1856 planned and carried out a massacre of all
Mohammedans found within a radius of 800 _li_ from the capital. The
news of the massacre naturally roused in Tu Wên-hsiu intense feelings
of indignation and hatred against the provincial Government which had
sanctioned an act of such hideous barbarity, and his natural abilities
and high reputation for courage and integrity soon singled him out
for leadership. His first great victory secured him the city of Tali,
which became the Mohammedan headquarters. In 1867 he was proclaimed
Imam or Sultan, and Tali became the capital of a short-lived Mohammedan
state. It was held till 1873, when Tu Wên-hsiu, faced by hopeless odds,
surrendered it and poisoned himself. Before this time the genius of
General Gordon had put an end to the T'ai P'ing rebellion, and the
imperial Government was in a position to oppose the Sultan with an
overwhelming force. Only one result was possible. With the capitulation
of Tali and the death of Tu Wên-hsiu the Mohammedans were able to make
no further headway against the imperial troops.

One of the most terrible results of this hideous civil war was the
recrudescence of the deadly disease now too well known to us all as the
plague. After the war the pestilence gradually spread far beyond the
limits of the province, and is still the annual scourge of south China
and India. It is probable, however, that plague has for many centuries
been endemic in the valleys of western Yunnan. The accounts given of
it by such writers as Rocher and Baber, who witnessed its ravages in
Yunnan long before the fatal year when it was first observed in Hong
Kong (1894), are of great interest. The curious fact that rats always
seemed to be attacked before human beings was noted by Rocher many
years before the disease began to be studied by medical experts. (See
Rocher, _op. cit._, vol. i. p. 75; vol. ii. pp. 279-281.)


NOTE 40 (p. 273)

CHINESE OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS OF WESTERN TRIBES

Several volumes of the official Provincial Annals of Yunnan are devoted
to a most elaborate quasi-ethnological enquiry into the various
tribal communities of that province. Unfortunately, the conscientious
industry of the compilers coupled with their bland credulity and lack
of critical training led them to fill their pages with a great deal of
matter that is useless and misleading. The numbers and names of the
tribes are quite unnecessarily multiplied, and there is hardly any
attempt at classification or at the tracing of origins. Subdivisions of
the same race are treated as entirely separate, and any similarities
between them are either ignored or merely mentioned as unexplained
facts. Yet it must be admitted that as descriptions of tribal customs
and as store-houses of tradition and folk-lore the ethnological
sections of the Annals are by no means to be despised. The _T'ung Chih_
of Ssuch'uan is less satisfactory in this respect than that of Yunnan.


NOTE 41 (p. 284)

THEORY OF INDIAN ORIGIN OF TRIBES

It seems quite clear that the Licchavis--or the great Vaggian or
Vrijian clan-system to which they belonged and from which the Mauryans
sprang--were neither Aryans nor Dravidians. In all probability they
were of Kolarian or Munda race. The Kolarians seem to have entered
India from the north-east--just as the Aryans afterwards entered it
from the north-west--and extended themselves over vast areas from which
they were subsequently driven by Dravidians and Aryans. They must have
originally come from the countries that lay to the east, which we now
know as Burma, China and Indo-China. They probably left many of their
Kolarian kinsfolk behind them, and it may have been through keeping up
communications with the latter that they were able to introduce into
their old homes something of the new culture and civilisation that they
acquired in their new homes in India. The Kolarian dialects are known
to be akin to those of certain tribes in Burma, and so far as personal
characteristics are concerned a description of the Kolarian tribes as
they are known to-day in parts of Bengal would be applicable, word for
word, to some of the peoples of Indo-China and Yunnan. "The Kolarian
people," says Mr J. F. Hewitt, who lived among them, "may generally
be described as gregarious, excitable, turbulent when roused, but
generally peaceable and good-humoured. They are brave and adventurous,
witty, and very fond of amusement, not given to work more than is
necessary, and as a rule very careless of the future." (_J.R.A.S._,
vol. xx. p. 330.) It must be remembered, however, that the Burmese
people, to whom these words are also applicable, are now believed by
the best authorities to have come from "the Mongolian countries north
of Magadha." (Sir George Scott's _Burma_, p. 66.)

Many of the tribes of western China--some of the Lolos and Min-chia,
for instance--are often described as possessing a type of features
that is almost European; and Mr Kingsmill seems to derive from this
fact some support of his theory of their Indian (Aryan) origin. "The
distinctive colouring," he says, "closely approximates to the Aryan
type of the Indian peninsula," etc. (_J.R.A.S._ (China Branch), vol.
xxxv. p. 95.) But the Mauryans themselves, as we have seen, were not
of Aryan origin. The Licchavis are referred to in Manu as one of the
"base-born" castes for that very reason--in spite of the fact that
they possessed great power and prestige and very wide influence. It
seems very doubtful whether an Aryan emigration from India to China
took place at any time. India always offered full scope for all
Aryan energies; indeed we know that the Aryans by no means became so
universally predominant, even in India, as one might gather from the
early and wide extension of their language and religion. If there
really is an Aryan element among the tribes of western China it would
be curious to speculate on the possibility of its having come by a
non-Indian route.


NOTE 42 (p. 285)

CHANDRAGUPTA AND ASOKA

Chandragupta's reign probably began in 320 B.C., and his grandson Asoka
ruled from ? 264 to ? 228. The chronology is not yet absolutely fixed,
but I rely with some confidence on the dates recently selected by J.
F. Fleet (_J.R.A.S._, October 1906, pp. 984 _seq._) who, it may be
remarked incidentally, assigns the death of the Buddha to B.C. 482.


NOTE 43 (p. 285)

VESÂLI AND THE LICCHAVIS

For further information regarding Vesâli and the Licchavis see W. W.
Rockhill's _Life of the Buddha_, pp. 62 _seq._, and 203 (_footnote_),
Dr Rhys Davids' _Buddhist India_, pp. 40-41, and two articles by Mr
Vincent Smith in the Royal Asiatic Society's _Journal_ for April 1902
and January 1905. One of Mr Rockhill's Tibetan authorities connects
the Licchavis with the Sakyas or Çakyas to whom the Buddha himself
belonged. "The Çakyas," says this authority, were "divided into three
parts, whose most celebrated representatives were Çakya the Great (the
Buddha), Çakya the Licchavi, and Çakya the Mountaineer. Grya Khri
btsan po, the first Tibetan King, belonged to the family of Çakya the
Licchavi. Many other Buddhist sovereigns of India and elsewhere claimed
the same descent." This note is of interest as showing the wide extent
and long duration of Licchavi influence, and the desire of powerful
races and kings to trace a connection with the family of the Buddha.
"Çakya, the Licchavi" may, of course, have become a member of the clan
by adoption. Caste-rules (even supposing they precluded adoption) did
not hold good among the Licchavis, who were not Aryans. With respect
to the possible connection of the Buddha's family with the Licchavis,
all that can be said for certain is that the Licchavis were among the
earliest and most devoted supporters of the Buddhist faith, and that
Vesâli soon became a city of great religious importance. Buddhism,
indeed, was less of an Aryan religion than people have been in the
habit of supposing. The Sakyas themselves were almost certainly an
Aryan people; we know that their exclusiveness and intense pride of
birth brought about the destruction of their capital at the hands of
Vidūdabha. But it seems quite clear that Buddhism progressed most
rapidly and won its greatest victories among people of non-Aryan race,
and this not only in foreign lands but in India itself. Buddhism did
not achieve its wonderful successes in India in the third century B.C.
and afterwards by means of the conversion of Brahmans. It is far truer
to say that Buddhism spread on account of its adoption by northern
non-Aryan tribes which, in spite of Aryan conquests, remained very
powerful both in numbers and in political influence. (See on this point
B. H. Baden-Powell's _Notes on the Origin of the "Lunar" and "Solar"
Aryan Tribes_, _J.R.A.S._, April 1899, pp. 298-299.)


NOTE 44 (p. 289)

THE SERES

The Seres are mentioned by Virgil, Strabo, Lucan, Pliny and Pomponius
Mela. Lucan seems to have supposed that they were an African
race--neighbours of the Ethiopians. Such ignorance in Nero's age may be
excused when we remember the wild theories prevalent in mediæval Europe
as to the local habitation of Prester John!


NOTE 45 (p. 332)

ARCHÆOLOGICAL WORK

Some valuable work--of special interest to the student of Buddhism--has
quite recently been carried out at Pagan by Mr I. H. Marshall and
Dr Sten Konow. (See _J.R.A.S._, October 1907, pp. 1003 _seq._) It
is earnestly to be hoped that that Government will some day see fit
to provide for the proper support of the Archæological Department,
which cannot be expected to carry out good work at Pagan or elsewhere
without funds. Every year's delay will render the work of excavation
more difficult and more costly. It is not pleasing to observe that the
Archæological Departments of India, Burma and Ceylon are all starved.
Only a few weeks after the conclusion of the recent Franco-Siamese
treaty it was announced in the French press that steps were being taken
forthwith to carry out some expensive archæological and preservative
work at the magnificent ruins of Angkor Wat, which are within the
Cambodian territory acquired by France under the treaty. Is England
always to lag behind France in matters of this kind?


NOTE 46 (p. 335)

THE BURMESE LABOUR QUESTION

One aspect of the labour question in Burma does not seem to have
attracted the attention it deserves. In spite of Mr Fielding Hall's
optimism, the belief that the apathetic Burman is being shouldered out
of his own country by more hard-working immigrants, especially natives
of India, is a very prevalent one, not only among European observers,
but even among some classes of the Burmese themselves. At present no
Burman dares to raise a protest against the influx of labourers, who,
if they do not utterly crush him in the course of the struggle for
existence, may at least degrade him from the high level of comfort and
social well-being in which he now lives. The day may come when the
Burman will demand that this alien immigration be interdicted. If he
does so, what will be the attitude of the Government? Probably anything
but sympathetic. The White races of Australia, British Columbia and
California object to the influx of Chinese and Japanese labourers
for reasons practically identical with those that would actuate the
Burman, and if their attitude is a justifiable one can it be argued
that the Burmese attitude would not be equally so? The Burman would
doubtless be told by the European, whose material interests in Burma
depend on the unrestricted immigration of hard-working aliens, that
his country cannot be allowed to go to waste; that if he, through his
laziness, will not develop it to the utmost, some one else must be
found who will develop it in his stead. But the Chinese and Japanese
might if they were strong enough--and perhaps some day they will be
strong enough--knock at the gates of Australia, Canada and the United
States, and demand admission on precisely similar grounds. No one will
deny that the scarcity and high price of labour in those countries
have seriously retarded, and are still retarding, nearly every form
of industrial and agricultural development; yet the Yellow races are
excluded on the grounds that they would lower the White man's standard
of living, and that they are in the habit of sending their earnings out
of the country. I do not say the White man's attitude is unreasonable:
but I do not see how, on our own principles, we could refuse to
restrict the immigration of black aliens into Burma if the Burmese
people--on grounds identical with those that actuate our own conduct in
Canada and elsewhere--demanded that we should do so. Such action would
no doubt be an artificial restriction of natural economic tendencies,
and so might bring its own punishment in the long-run; but the same
remark applies to the policy adopted in our own colonies.

We have recently become so much accustomed to hear of the antagonism
and rivalry of interests between East and West--as if all Eastern
countries represented one set of immutable ideals and all Western
countries another--that we are apt to lose ourselves in a mist of
generalities. The East has problems of its own to solve, some of which
reproduce in a more restricted area the racial problems that are
beginning at a late hour to agitate the minds of statesmen in Europe
and America. The European speaks with half-hearted contempt (behind
which lurks a secret dread) of a Yellow Peril: the Burman is disquieted
by a no less threatening Black Peril that is already within his gates,
and his gates still stand open with a dangerous hospitality.


NOTE 47 (p. 384)

MILITARY QUALITIES OF ORIENTALS

The British officers who trained and led the recently-disbanded Chinese
Regiment are known to have formed a high opinion of the personal
courage of the Chinese as represented by the men of that regiment. When
it is remembered that the very existence of the regiment as a unit in
the British Army was an anomaly, and that at Tientsin and Peking the
men fought as mercenaries against their own countrymen, the fact that
they behaved well under fire is all the more noteworthy. It may be
taken for granted that even the Japanese soldier, if ordered to charge
an unruly mob of his own countrymen, would hardly show the brilliant
daring that he displayed before Port Arthur.

When Europe was startled by the news of some of the great Japanese
victories in Manchuria, an English newspaper made the somewhat hasty
suggestion that the Japanese were "scientific fanatics," and the phrase
was caught up and repeated with approbation by many. Why fanatics?
Simply because the Japanese troops had behaved with such unheard-of
heroism that Europe was unable to reconcile such conduct with its
own ideas of what constituted bravery. What many Englishmen said, in
effect, was this: "The conduct ordinarily shown by British troops in
action is bravery; to go beyond this is fanaticism. The criterion of
true courage is the average conduct of the average British soldier on
the field of battle." The Japanese who with reckless gallantry gave
their lives for emperor and country on the battle-fields of Liao-tung,
and who considered it a disgrace to return home without a wound, were
fanatics. Well, if so, it is a kind of fanaticism that every European
Government would like to see spread among its own fighting-men when the
day of battle comes.


NOTE 48 (p. 388)

"THE YELLOW PERIL"

With some people the antipathy to the Oriental amounts to a positive
horror, inexplicable even by themselves in ordinary language, and very
often based on no personal experience. "I know not," said De Quincey,
"what others share in my feelings on this point; but I have often
thought that if I were compelled to forego England, and to live in
China, among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I should
go mad. The causes of my horror lie deep, and some of them must be
common to others.... In China, over and above what it has in common
with the rest of southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life,
by the manners, by the barrier of utter abhorrence placed between
myself and them, by counter-sympathies deeper than I can analyse.
I could sooner live with lunatics, with vermin, with crocodiles or
snakes." When we have made all allowances for the excited utterances
of an opium-dreamer, these words indicate the existence of intensely
strong feelings of racial antipathy, and there is no reason to regard
De Quincey as the only European who has entertained such feelings.
Does our subliminal consciousness retain dim ancestral memories of
mighty struggles waged æons ago for the survival and supremacy of our
own racial type? And does it harbour a vague prophetic dread of a more
terrific warfare yet to come?

What is perhaps at the root of this horror of Asiatics felt by some
Europeans is an instinctive feeling that the world is not large
enough to contain or afford free play for the energies of both races;
coupled perhaps with an ugly doubt whether, in spite of all the great
material achievements of the West in recent years, the European type
is after all the fittest to survive in the struggle for existence.
Huxley long ago reminded us that the "survival of the fittest" does not
necessarily imply the survival of the "best" or most highly developed.
He points out, for instance, that if certain conceivable changes were
to come about in atmospheric conditions, the law of the survival of
the fittest might bring about the extinction of all living things
except "lichens, diatoms, and such microscopic organisms as those
which give red snow its colour."[416] They would be the sole survivors
of the struggle for existence because they alone were adapted to the
new environment. It may be that at some future period in the course
of the struggle--though long before we have reached the lichen and
diatom stage--certain conditions may prove hostile to the continued
existence of the White races and favourable to that of the Yellow.
Lafcadio Hearn, who in spite of his "de-occidentalisation" admitted
the superiority of the Western races--without explaining what he meant
by "superiority"--expressed the belief that in the "simple power
of living" they are immensely inferior to those of the East. "The
Occidental," he says, "cannot live except at a cost sufficient for the
maintenance of twenty Oriental lives. In our very superiority lies the
secret of our fatal weakness. Our physical machinery requires a fuel
too costly to pay for the running of it in a perfectly conceivable
future period of race-competition and pressure of population." He
conjectures that some day the Western peoples may be crushed out of
existence, their successors scarcely regretting their disappearance
"anymore than we ourselves regret the extinction of the dinotherium or
the ichthyosaurus." Why indeed should they? When we consider how seldom
the memory even of our own dead ancestors touches our sympathies or
prompts an affectionate thought it will not seem strange that in the
days to come the victorious Yellow man may regard the extinct White
man with no more emotion than the visitor to a museum now regards the
wire-linked bones of a prehistoric monster. No creature that is doomed
to failure in the struggle for existence need look to the conquerors
for the least sign of pity or sympathy. The poor dodo has vanished from
the scene of its joys and sorrows for ever, but that is not the reason
why the nightingale's song is sometimes a sad one. No less cheerfully
warbles the thrush because the great auk will flap his ineffectual
wings no more. Even the crocodile refrains from shedding tears over the
fossil remains of the Triassic _stagonolepis_.

It behoves us to remember that victory in the struggle for existence is
not a victory once and for all. The doom of the conqueror in this fight
is that he must never sheathe his sword. The prize goes always to him
who deserves it, but no rest is allowed him when the battle is over.
New challengers are ever pressing into the lists, and the challenged
must go ever armed and with lance in rest.

The grim tragedy once enacted periodically at Aricia might be
interpreted, not too fancifully, as a miniature representation of the
more terrible struggle that is for ever in progress throughout the
whole world of animate nature. The guardian of the Golden Bough--

    "The priest who slew the slayer,
    And shall himself be slain"--

retained his position and his life only so long as they were not
challenged by one more vigorous or more dexterous than himself.

The great nations of the West have won their material pre-eminence
by overcoming weaker competitors, who in their turn had once been
conquerors. They will keep their prizes so long as they deserve to
keep them, and no longer. Exclusion laws and trades-unions and cunning
appliances wrought by scientific and intellectual skill may stave off
the day of disaster, but if the White races have no better support than
such things as these, for them the day of doom will assuredly dawn.

Yet a struggle for predominance among great sections of the human race
need not imply actual physical warfare. If the Yellow races are to be
supreme, it will be partly because the White races have suicidally
contributed to their own ruin. If White men become too intensely
careful of the individual life, and too careless of the welfare of
the race; if they allow luxury to sap their energies and weaken their
moral fibre; if they insist too strongly on "rights" and show too
slack a devotion to "duty"; if they regard the accumulation of wealth
as the be-all and end-all of existence; if selfishness impels their
young men to avoid matrimony, and their young women to shun the duties
of maternity; if they give way to these and other social vices to
which our age bears witness, they cannot reasonably expect to compete
advantageously with people who have no craving for luxury, and scarcely
know what it means; who look not to wealth as a means for individual
aggrandisement; who are at all times willing to sink personal interests
in the larger interests of family and clan; who are tireless and
uncomplaining workers; among whom parenthood is a religious necessity,
and artificial restrictions of the birth-rate are practically unknown;
and whose women are free from political aspirations and willing to do
their duty at the domestic fireside and in the nursery.

The Yellow Peril, then, is no mere myth: let so much be granted. Yet
the recognition of its existence need not drive us to utter pessimism,
so long as our faults are not irremediable, and our virtues not
reduced to inactivity. The shaping of our fate lies, to some extent at
least, in our own hands, and, after all, the outlook for the West is
not entirely gloomy. The mere proximity of a peril does not make the
brave man falter and tremble; on the contrary, it braces his nerves,
and increases his alertness. If the East has qualities and virtues
that make for great strength, it is no less clearly lacking in other
qualities and virtues that still find a home in the West. The Yellow
Peril, so far from driving us to a cowardly despair, may and should
have the effect of raising our courage, ennobling our ideals, up
rooting our selfishness and purifying Western society. It may enable
us to see that in some respects our aims have been false ones, and
that our views of the essentials of progress and of civilisation must
be partially modified. The recognition of the existence of our own
diseases may lead to the discovery of the means of cure. The East has
begun in recent years to learn some valuable lessons from the West;
is it not time that we returned the compliment? If we could but bring
ourselves to do so, perhaps at no very distant period the Yellow Peril
might turn out to be the White Salvation.


FOOTNOTES:

[414] See Waddell's _Lhasa and its Mysteries_, pp. 434 _seq._

[415] _Op. cit._, p. 439.

[416] See _Evolution and Ethics_, pp. 80-81 (Eversley edn.).




GENERAL INDEX

_The references in Roman numerals are to the Notes_


  Administration of state of Muli, 214 _seq._, xxxi., xxxiii., xxxiv.

  Alabaster, image of the Buddha, 86

  Amban, 133 _seq._

  American Baptist Mission, 114-115

  Amitabhism, 73-74, 77

  Ancestral worship, 80-81

  _An fu shih ssŭ_, xxii., xxxiv.

  Animism, 77, 348 _seq._

  Anti-foreign feeling in China, 12, 18, 34, 355-356, 358 _seq._

  Anti-opium regulations, 25, 385

  Antiquities of Mount Omei, 86-87, vi.

  Arahat, 69 _seq._, 72, 89-91, 95, 96, 109

  Arahatship, 69 _seq._

  Archæological work in the Far East, 332, xlv.

  Architecture in western Yunnan, 299;
    in Burma, 325 _seq._

  Art, in China, 42, 378 _seq._;
    in Burma, 326, 332, 335;
    decay of Burmese, under European influence, 335

  Artillery, French, at Tali, 257

  Ash-trees, Chinese dwarf, 51

  Ass, wild, 165

  Assyrian deities, 96

  Âtman, Buddhist denial of, 67-68, 72

  Avalanche, 93, 249

  Awakening of China, 12 _seq._, 40-41, 387 _seq._


  Baptist Mission in China, American, 114-115

  "Basket" bridges, 113

  Bears, 165

  Bei-ze, 216-217

  Bend in Yangtse, 237-238

  Betel-nut, 313

  "Black-bone" Lolos, 187

  "Black Peril in Burma," xlvi.

  Bo Tree, 354

  Bodhisattvas, 57 _seq._, 72, 89-90, 91 _seq._, 105 _seq._

  Bon _or_ Bon-pa religion, 281

  Bridge, Kamsa, 317

  ----, Mekong, 296-297;
    Salwen, 305-308;
    Ta Tu, 125-126, xix.;
    Yellow River, 14-15

  ----, Single-rope, over Yalung, 191, _seq._

  Bridges, 14-15, 110, 113, 114, 125-126, 128, 230, 243, 295, 296-297,
    305-308, 310, 317

  ----, "Basket," 113

  ----, Suspension, 125-126, 128, 294, 305, 306, 307, 308, 310, xix.

  British designs on Tibet, alleged, 135

  ---- frontier, arrival at, 315-319

  Bronze elephant, 85-86, vi.

  ---- temple, 104, xii.

  Bubonic plague, _see_ Plague

  Buddha, the, 68 _seq._, 76, 88, 330, 353, _and chaps._ vi. _and_
    vii. _passim_

  Buddha's death, date of, xlii.

  "Buddha's Glory," 59, 101-103, 111, x.

  Buddhism, in Burma, 77, 329-330, 348-353;
    in China, 45-46, 54-81, 82-111, ii.-xii.;
    in India, xliii.;
    in Japan, 81, iv.;
    in Siam, 77

  Bungalows, travellers', in Burma, 318-319, 320, 321

  Burial customs, _see_ Dead, disposal of the

  Burmese people, the, 8, 161, 275, 281, 302, 326 _seq._, 333 _seq._;
    artistic sense of, 326, 332, 335;
    characteristics of, 332-353;
    as labourers, 335, xlvi.;
    "laziness of," 336 _seq._;
    prosperity of, 335;
    religion of, 348-353;
    truthfulness of, 336

  Burmese villages, 325-326

  "Burning of the Books," 289

  Butter, Tibetan, 156, 158, 159


  Cairns, stone, 166

  Canton-Kowloon Railway, 16

  Cantonese, 199, 356-357, 365

  Cat, wild, 165

  Cave-temples, 35-36, 46

  Caves, 174, 238

  ----, "Man-tzŭ," 45-50, 286

  Certificates of pilgrims, 104-105

  _Ch'an dzö_, 217

  Charcoal-fires, 101, 123

  Charms, 91, 190, 198-199

  China, _see_ Index of Names

  Chinese, art of, 378-379;
    Buddhism, _see_ Buddhism;
    characteristics of, 3, 12, 355 _seq._;
    civilisation, 366 _seq._, 371 _seq._;
    corruption of, 372 _seq._;
    court, arrogance of, 357, 365;
    courtesy of, 355-356;
    currency, 153-154;
    dislike of foreigners, 355, 358-359, 371, 383-384;
    emigrants, 357-358;
    emperor and empress-dowager, 13;
    hospitality of, 355 _seq._;
    in Hongkong, 358;
    inns, 32-33, 34, 51-53, 121;
    literature, 380-383;
    litigiousness of, 377;
    manners of, 355 _seq._;
    merchants, integrity of, 357;
    music, 379-380;
    not cowards, 384;
    oak, _see_ Oak;
    patriotism, 387-388;
    poetry, 381-382;
    pride of, 384;
    progress of, 12, 13, 16 _seq._, 40-41, 371;
    regiment, the 1st, xlvii.;
    Shan States, _see_ Shan States, etc.;
    sobriety of, 376-377;
    Tibet, 1, 126, 153 _seq._, _and passim_

  _Ch'ing-k'o_, 173

  Ch'orten (Lamaist pyramid or pagoda), 208-209

  _Chou_, meaning of, 35

  Christianity, in China, 78-81, _and see_ Missionaries

  _Chün Liang Fu_, 131, 132-133

  Civilisation, western, 5;
    limitations of, 338 _seq._, 365 _seq._

  Climate of Ssuch'uan, 34, 124, 198-199, 315

  ---- of Yunnan, 252-253, 314-315

  ---- of Burma, 324

  Coal in Ssuch'uan, 34, 123

  Colossal image, 45-46

  Commerce, _see_ Trade

  Confucianism, 66, 67, 80-81

  Cotton, 129

  _Couvade_, 301

  Cremation, 174, 224, 232

  Crocodiles, 259

  _Crossoptilon Tibetanum_, 156

  Cuckoo, 203


  Dacoits, 322

  Dagobas, 209

  Dalai Lama, the, 139, 215, 216

  Dead, disposal of the, 174, 189, 224, 232-233, 238

  Decay of Oriental art, 335

  Deer, 165

  Dhyâni Buddhas, 72, 73

  Dogs, Tibetan, 162-163

  Donations, religious, in China, 84, 85

  Drowning accident on Yangtse, 21

  _Drung_, 170

  Duck, wild, 113

  Dyeing industry, 35


  Earthquakes, 132, 254

  Eastern Heaven, 96-97

  Eclecticism of Buddhism, 67

  Education in China, 40-41, 119, 223-224, 371;
    in Burma, 350

  Elephant in Buddhist mythology, 63 _seq._, 85-86, 94, 96, 97, 98

  ----, bronze, on Mount Omei, 85-86, vi.

  Ethnology of western China, 1, 126, 265-292

  Europeans in China, 17 _seq._, 78 _seq._, 355 _seq._

  Extra-territorial jurisdiction in China, 78-79


  "Fairies' Scarf," 178-179

  Fauna of Tibetan Ssuch'uan, 164-165

  _Fei tzŭ_, 84

  _Felis fontanieri_, 165

  Female rulers in Tibet and Shan States, 232, xxxvii.

  Flora of western China and Chinese Tibet, 87, 163, 164, 180-181,
    201, 204-205, 244, 248

  Foot-binding in China, 371

  Footprints of Buddha, 62

  Foreign enterprise in China, _see_ Europeans in China

  Forest fires, 178-179

  Forests, 156, 163, 165, 171, 172 _seq._, 178 _seq._, 199, 202, 220,
    226, 244

  French artillery at Tali-fu, 257;
    railways in Yunnan, 25-26, 311-312;
    travellers in Yunnan, 227

  Frontier of Ssuch'uan and Yunnan, 227;
    of Yunnan and Burma, 315-316, 317-318

  _Fu_, 35, 229


  Game, big, 164 _seq._

  "Gate of Tibet," 154

  Gélupa, _see_ Yellow Sect of Lamaism

  Geographical interest of western China, 1-2

  Gipsies, 166

  Girls' school, 119

  Glaciers, 155, 176, 202, 237, 244

  "Glory of Buddha, The," 59, 101-103, 111, x.

  Glow-worms, 245

  Goat, wild, 165

  "God of War," _see_ Kuan Ti (Index of Names)

  "God of Wealth," _see_ T'sai Shên (Index of Names)

  "God of Wisdom," _see_ Manjusri (Index of Names)

  "Gods" in Buddhism, 70, iii.

  "Goddess of Mercy," 73, 75, _and see_ Kuan Yin (Index of Names)

  Goitre, 168

  "Gold" as name of rivers, 195

  Gold-dust, 130

  Gold-mining, 238-239

  Gold-washing, 128, 195-196, 218

  "Golden Summit" of Mount Omei, 100, 105

  "Golden-Teeth" country, 300

  Gorges of the Yangtse, 28-29

  Gossip at Tachienlu, 139 _seq._

  Graves, _see_ Disposal of the dead


  _Han-hua_, 273

  Hand-stoves in Ssuch'uan, 34

  Heights of Passes, xxiii.

  Highest habitation on the globe, xxxvi.

  Highwaymen, 37-38, 146-147, 181, 225, 235, 242

  Holy water in Tibet, 143

  Hospitality of Orientals, 8, 187, 333, 355 _seq._

  Hot springs, 142, 254, 312

  Hotels in China, _see_ Inns

  _Hsien_, 35

  _Hsüan fu shih ssŭ_, xxii.

  _Hsüan wei shih ssŭ_, xxii.

  _Huan-t'ieh_, 139


  Idolatry in Europe and America, 342

  Indian origin of tribes in West China, supposed, 268-269, 282 _seq._,
    285 _seq._, xli.-xliv.

  Indo Chinese peoples, 282 _seq._, 286-287, _and see chap._ xv. _passim_.

  Inns in China, 32-33, 34, 51-53, 121

  Insect-wax industry, _see_ White-wax industry

  Irrigation of the Ch'êng-tu Plain, 39, 42, 43

  Itinerary, _Appendix B_


  Japanese Buddhism, 81, 90, iv.

  ---- landscape-painting, 378-379

  ---- navigation on the Yangtse, 20-23

  ---- poetry, 383


  _K'an-po_ (Tibetan bishop or abbot), 215 _seq._

  Karma (Kamma) in Buddhism, 68 _seq._

  Kiang element in Tibetan population, 286

  Kyaungs of Burma, 82


  _La_ (mountain pass), 173

  _Lab-ch'a_ (stone cairns), 166

  Labour question in Burma, 336, xlvi.

  Lamaism, 74, 90, 94, 130, 134, 138, 140 _seq._, 189, 190, 213 _seq._,
    215, 219 _seq._, 228, 267, 281

  Lamaseries, 130, 134, 168, 180, 202 _seq._, 219 _seq._

  Landscape-painting in China, 378-379

  Landslips, 124-125, 180, 207, 211, 249, 316

  Language as a test of race, xxxv.

  Laos Upper, or French, 6, 187, 314, 329, 331, 344-345, 349,
    _and see_ Shans

  _Lapis-lazuli_, sacred, 96

  Legends of Mount Omei, 54 _seq._

  Lien Hua Shih, 91-92

  "Living Buddhas," 215

  Lo-han, _see_ Arahat

  Lotus allegory, 59, 92-93

  Lu-Han Railway, 10, 14-20


  Machi (game-fowl), 156, 173

  Mahayana, 63 _seq._, 76, v.

  _Man-hua_, 273

  Mani-dong, _see_ Obo

  "Manners makyth man," 385

  "Man-tzŭ" caves, 47 _seq._

  Massacre in Tali, 262-263

  Matins, Buddhist, 105-107

  _Mig-ra_ (Tibetan eye-shade), 157

  Military qualities of Orientals, xlvii.

  _Ming Chêng Ssŭ_, 149

  Missionaries, Christian, in China, 31, 33, 78-79, 110, 150

  Mohammedan rebellion in Yunnan, 250, 257-264, xxxix.

  Mohammedans in China, xxxix.

  Monasteries and temples, 62 _seq._, 82 _seq._, 326, 332, vi.-xii.

  Monastic life in China, 82 _seq._, _and see_ Lamaseries.

  Monasticism, Chinese contempt for, 66-67

  Money, _see_ Currency

  Mongol conquests in Yunnan, 277-278

  ---- dynasty, 271-272

  Monks, Chinese, ignorance of, 65 _seq._

  Monolith in Ch'êng-tu, 41-42

  Morrison, Dr G. E., 294, 307, 323

  Mosquitoes, 242

  Mountain-sickness, 165

  Mules, death of, 155, 179-180

  Mummies on Mount Omei, 98

  Music in China, 379-380

  Musk, 130, 247

  Musk-deer, 165


  Names of monasteries on Mount Omei, _chap._ vii.

  Names of rivers in China, 44, 205-206

  Nat-worship, 349 _seq._

  Navigation on Irrawaddy, 325-328, 332

  ---- on Min, 43-45

  ---- on Yangtse, 20-30

  Neo-Confucianism, 80-81

  Nirvana, 69 _seq._, iv.

  Noble Eightfold Path, 70

  _Nyer-ba_, 217


  O-mi-to-Fo, 73, 94

  Oak (_Quercus sinensis_), 164, 220

  Obo, 144-145, 174, 201, 211

  Octagonal towers, 168 _seq._, 171, 175, 177

  Official obstruction to travelling, 146-152

  Officials of Muli, 216 _seq._

  _Om mane padme hom_, 93-94, 130, 144-145

  Opium, 24-25, 244-245, 254, 255, 258, 385

  Ornaments, personal, 197-198, 228, 242


  Pagodas, 44-45, 113, 254, 255, 258, 326, 330, 332, _and see_
    Ch'orten _and_ Shwe Dagon pagoda.

  Palace of Mandalay, 329

  Panthers, 165, 241

  Parrots, 181

  Passes (mountain), 1, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121-122, 155, 156 _seq._,
    165 _seq._, 173, 175, 176, 179, 180, 225-256, 235, 241, 243, 304,
    309, xxiii.

  Peaches, 125

  _Pên-ti-jên_, 239, 290

  Perpetual snow, _see_ Snow-line

  Pewter staff of Buddhists, 99-100

  Pheasants, 142, 156, 220, 241, 309

  Photographs, destruction of, by water, 314

  Pictorial art in China, 378-379

  Pigeons, 157

  Pigs, 171

  Pilgrims in China, 53, 59, 83, 85, 86, 94, 100, 104, 122, 127

  Pine-forests, _see_ Forests

  Plague, 198-199, xxxix.

  Poetry of China, 381-382

  Police, absence of, in China, 375

  Polyandry, 230-232

  Polygamy, 231

  Ponies, 171, 321

  Poplars, 164

  Poppy, _see_ Opium

  Porcelain, Chinese, 378

  Prayer-flags, 130, 142-143, 174, 211

  Prayer-wheels, 94, 142-144, 211

  Prejudices, national, 359 _seq._

  Prickly pear, 255

  Primroses, 164, 180, 248

  Proverbs, Chinese, 36, 101, 104


  Railways in China, 10, 14 _seq._, 39-40, 310-312, 369

  Rain, 240-241, 297-298, 308-309, 316, 324, 331

  Rainbow in Salwen valley, 308-309

  Rainy season in Yunnan, 293, 297-298

  ---- ---- in Shan States, 331

  Rape-flower, 38, 112

  Rapids on the Yangtse, 25 _seq._

  Rebellion in Yunnan, _see_ Mohammedan Rebellion

  Recluses and hermits, 55 _seq._

  Red sandstone basin of Ssuch'uan, 46, 250

  Red-boats on the Yangtse, 27-28

  "Refuges, The Three," 73

  Religion, _see_ Buddhism, Christianity, _etc._

  Revenue of Muli, 218

  Rhododendrons, 163, 175

  Rice, 230, 254

  Rivers, names of, 44, 205-206

  Road, a good Chinese, 244-245;
    British-made, in Chinese Shan States, 315

  Roads in Upper Burma, 316-317, 320

  Robbers, 37-38, 146-147, 181, 225, 235, 242

  Rope-bridge, 191 _seq._

  Roses, wild, 244, 248, 254-255

  Rupee, Chinese, 153-154


  Saddle, Tibetan, 320

  _San Kuei_ ("Three Refuges"), 73

  Sao-p'a, _see_ Sawbwa

  Sawbwa (Shan chief), 315, 331

  Scenery of China, Chinese Tibet, Burma, etc., 2-3, 15, 44, 123-124,
    133, 156, 163, 172, 174, 177, 182 _seq._, 206-207, 209-211, 255,
    317, 318, 325-326, 327-328

  Scholarship, lack of, among Chinese Buddhists, 65 _seq._

  Schools, _see_ Education

  Schrader's theory of Nirvana, iv.

  Science, triumphs of, in Europe, 368-369

  Second defile, 327, 328

  Sericulture, 35, 41, 45

  Shanghai-Wusung railway, 17

  Shans, _see_ Index of Names

  Siege of Tali, 257, 258-264, xxxix.

  Silk-weaving, 41, _and see_ Sericulture

  Smoking prohibited at Muli, 221

  Snow-line, 163-164, 175

  Soul, Buddhist denial of, 67-68, 72

  Sport, 113, 142, 164-165, 220, 241, 309

  Squirrels, 181

  Stags, 165

  Steam navigation on Irrawaddy, 325-328, 332

  ---- on Yangtse, 20 _seq._, 25-26

  Sulphur springs, 142

  Sung dynasty, 271, 272;
    artists of, 378-379

  Sunshine in Ssuch'uan rare, 101

  Suspension-bridges, _see_ Bridges


  Taoism, 67, 78, 99

  Tatooing, 302

  Taxation in Muli, 218, xxxiv.

  ---- in China, 374

  Tea, 114, 129, 156, 158-159

  Tea-carriers, 114, 117

  Teeth of Buddha, alleged, 62, 86, vii.

  Temples and monasteries, 42, 45-46, 62 _seq._, 82 _seq._, 122, 128,
    299, 308

  "Three Refuges, The," 73

  Thunder-dragon, 61

  Tibetan charms, 91, 190, 198-199

  ---- coinage, 153-154

  ---- dogs, 162-163

  ---- frontier, 39, 116, 125-126

  ---- houses, 157 _seq._, 170

  ---- inns, 130, 131

  ---- saddle, 320

  ---- tea, 158-159

  ---- women, 160 _seq._, 205

  Tibetans, _see_ Index of Names

  Tobacco, 129

  Tolerance of Chinese, religious, 79-80

  Tombs, "Royal," near Tachienlu, 142

  Tooth-relics of the Buddha, 62, 86, vii.

  Towers, octagonal, 168 _seq._, 171, 175, 177

  Trade between China and Burma, 254, 300, 310-312, 315, 317, 322

  ---- between China and Tibet, 129-130, xxi.

  _Tra-pa_ (Lamaist novices), 217, 221, 225

  Trackers on the Yangtse, 28-30

  Transliteration of Chinese names, 44

  Trees, famous, of Mount Omei, 61 _seq._

  Tribal chiefs subject to China, 128, 132 _seq._, 213 _seq._, 229,
    xxii., xxviii., xxxiv., xxxvii., _and see_ Tachienlu, Muli,
    Yung-ning, Li-chiang, _etc._, in Index of Names

  _Tsamba_, 83, 156, 158, 159, 172, 173

  _T'u Ch'ien Hu_, xix., xxii.

  _T'u Pai Hu_, 172, 176, 190, xix., xxii., xxviii.

  Typhus fever, 132


  Ula, 136-137, 139, 152, 160, 173, 174, 186, 225

  Umbrellas, European, in Burma, 327

  Unhealthiness of valleys in western China, 198-199, 236, 248, 304-309,
    314

  _Usnea barbata_, 178-179

  "Valley of the Shadow of Death," 304-309

  Vegetarian diet, 83, 100, 221, 337

  Vespers, Buddhist, 107-108

  Village communities of China, 376 _seq._

  Vocabularies, _Appendix A_

  Vulgarity, absence of, in Burma, 345 _seq._


  Warfare on Tibetan border, 119-120, 133 _seq._, 150-152, 154

  Water-buffalo, 201, 230

  Waterfall, 317

  Wats of Siam, 82

  Western civilisation, limitations of, 338 _seq._, 347 _seq._

  White wax industry, 45, 51, 112

  Wild duck, 113

  ---- flowers, _see_ Flora

  "Will to live" in Buddhism, 68

  Women of western China, 160 _seq._, 205, 228, 251, 258

  Wood-carving in Burma, 326


  Yellow Lamas, Land of the, _see_ Muli

  "Yellow Peril, The," xlvi., xlviii.

  Yellow robe of Burmese Buddhist, 349, 350

  Yellow Sect of Lamaism, 214, 219

  Yuan dynasty, 271-272

  Yunnan, 227-317;
    climate of, 252-253, 297-298, 307;
    foreign trade in, 254, 310-312;
    frontiers of, 227, 317;
    language of, 290-291, 302;
    Mohammedan rebellion in, 250, 257-264, xxxix.;
    railways in, 25-26, 310-312;
    tribes of, 265-292




INDEX OF NAMES

_The references in Roman numerals are to the Notes_


  A-gu Wa, 228

  A-jol, 249, _and see_ Atuntzŭ

  A-ko Am-ni Wa, 228

  A-mi-chi-ts'a, 171

  A Te, 156

  Adam's Peak, 101

  Africa, South, Chinese miners in, 357-358

  Ajangs _or_ A-ch'angs, 279

  Akchôbhya Buddha, 97

  Amitabha Buddha, 73, 74, 78, 94, 96, 98, 99, 102, 107

  Amundsen, E., 147, 191, 239, xxvi., xxxii.

  An-hui Province, 97

  Angkor Wat, archæological work at, xlv.

  Anuradhapura, 209, 354

  Ashi, 280

  Ashi Ferry, 249, 280

  Asoka, 285, 289, xlii., _and see_ Maurya

  Atuntzŭ, 241, 246, 249

  Avalokiteçvara, 73; _see also_ Kuan Yin

  "Azure Hills" of Tali, 261, 264


  Ba Lu, 170

  Ba Tsam Ch'u, 206, _and see_ Dja Ch'u

  Baber, E. Colborne, 41, 85-86, 146, 169, 196, 213, 231, 291, 296, 304,
    306-307, vi.

  Bamian, caves at, 49

  Bangkok, 6

  Batang, 126, 154

  Bhamo, 199, 282, 312, 315, 320, 321, 322-326

  Bhamo to Mandalay, 322-363

  Bhamo-T'êng-yüeh railway, 17, 310-312

  Binyon, Mr Laurence, _quoted_, 378-379

  Bishop, Mrs, 34

  "Black-bone" Lolos, 187

  Blake, Sir Henry A., G.C.M.G., 354

  Böd, 268-269, _and see_ Tibetans, _etc._

  Bodhidarma, 65, 78, 98, ii.

  Bonin, M., 147, 238, 273, 274, xxvi., xxxvi.

  Bourne, Mr F. S. A., 276

  Brahmaputra, xxx.

  Buddha, _see_ General Index

  Burma, 9, 86, 223, 266, 282, 287, 302, 317-353;
    annexation of, 322, 329;
    climate of, 324-325;
    labour question in, 336, xlvi.;
    people of, 326-353, xli.;
    religion of, 348-353


  California, Chinese in, 357

  Canton, 90

  Canton-Kowloon railway, 16

  Cantonese, 199, 356-357, 365

  Carajan, 259, 300

  Cathay, 116, 271

  Ceylon, 354;
    polyandry in, 231

  Chala, kingdom and king of, 131 _seq._, 186, xxii., _and see_ Tachienlu

  Chandragupta Maurya, 284, xlii., _and see_ Maurya

  Chang Chih-tung, 18-19

  Chang Liang, 95, 97

  Ch'ang Lao P'ing, 88

  Ch'ang Ying, 255

  Chê-chiang (Chekiang) Province, 271

  Chê Ri La, 155-156

  Chê To, 154-155, 157

  Ch'ên Hsiang T'a, 98

  Chêng-chou, 25

  Chêng Ting Chin Tien, 100

  Ch'êng-tu, 26, 30, 36-42, 114, 116, 287, 375;
    Mint, 154

  Chêng-tu to Omei-hsien, 43 _seq._

  Ch'i T'ien Ch'iao, 98

  Chia I Chai, "king" of Tachienlu, 136 _seq._

  Chia-chiang, 112, 113

  Chia-ling river, 35

  Chiang K'ou, 43

  Chia-ting-fu, 26, 43, 45-50, 124, 127

  Chieh Yin Tien, 96

  Chien-ch'ang valley, 51, 116, 146, 148, 187, 246, 268, 311

  Chien-ch'uan-chou, 251-252

  Chien Wên (Ming emperor), 290

  Ch'ien Fo, 109

  Ch'ien Sui Ho-shang, 57

  Chih-kuo-chên, 113

  Chihli, Province of, 14

  Chin Ch'uan, 128, xviii., xix., xxii.

  Chin Ho, 44, 195 _seq._, xxix., xxx., _and see_ Yangtse _and_ Yalung

  Chin Sha Chiang, 44, 195-197, xxx., _and see_ Yangtse

  Chin Tartars, 271

  Chin-wang-tao, 10

  China, awakening of, 12 _seq._, 40-41,387 _seq._;
    Buddhism in, _see_ Buddhism;
    Christianity in, 78, 81, _and see_ Missionaries;
    consular jurisdiction in, 78-79;
    future greatness of, 387-388;
    reaction in, 371;
    social organisation of, 375;
    taxation of, 374

  ---- Inland Mission, 31

  Chinan-fu, 8

  _China's Only Hope_, 19

  _Ch'ing-ch'i-hsien_, 118-120, 126, xv.

  Ch'ing Lien river, 295

  Chou Kung Shan, 115, i.

  Chu-ko Liang, 117, i., xiv., xviii., xx.

  Chu Ma-tien, 15

  Chung-chia-tzŭ, 276, 292

  Chung Fêng Ssŭ, 110, xii.

  Chung-king, 25, 33, 35

  Chung Ku, 175

  Chung So, 256

  Chung-tien, 228, 249, 280

  Ch'ü Fou, 8

  Ch'ü-hsien, 35

  Ch'ü river, 35

  Clementi, Mr C., 382

  Colombo, 354

  Confucius, 8, 271, i.

  Cooper's _Travels_, 162


  Davids, Dr Rhys, 72, 143, 284, 286, iv., xliii.

  Davies, Major H. R., 147, 202, 223, 238, 312, xxiii., xxvi., xxxii.

  De Quincey _quoted_, xlviii.

  Derge, 232

  Dja Ch'u, 202, 203, 204, 209-211, 219-220

  Dja Ki Ch'u, 168, 170-171

  Dje Ru, 205

  Dji Dju La, 175-176

  Dji Dju Rong, 176

  Djiung, 279, 280, 281, _and see_ Lashi

  Djo-Dji, 227

  Dju Mu, 197

  Do river, 127

  Dra Shê, 174

  Dravidians, xli.

  Dro Dze Drung, 174

  Du Sz Drung, 168

  Dur, 176

  Dza Ri K'u, 168


  Eagle-wood Pagoda, 98

  Eitel, E. J., 73, 92

  "Elephant's Bath," 94

  England and Tibet, 135

  Ênu-rêstū (Assyrian deity), 96

  Erh Hai (Lake of Tali), 256-257


  Fang Ma Ch'ang, 304

  Fei Lung Ling, 116

  Fei Yüeh Ling, 121-122, xvii.

  Fêng Hsiang gorge, 30

  Fêng K'o, 239-240, 241

  Fêng Ming Shih Ch'iao, 295

  Fêng Ting Wo Yün An, 109

  Flying Dragon Pass, 116

  Forrest, Mr, adventures of, 150, 247

  Fox, Mr H. H., 27

  Fu Chuang, 120

  Fu Hsi, 55


  "Gate of Tibet," 154

  Ge Wa Pass, 235-236

  Gélupa, _see_ Yellow Sect of Lamaism

  Gi Dji, 237

  Gill, Captain, 169, 192, 294, 296

  "Glory of Buddha," 59, 101-103, 111, x.

  Go Ka A, 241

  Gods of War, Wealth, Wisdom, _see_ Kuan Ti, Ts'ai Shên, Manjusri

  Goddess of Mercy, 73, 75, _and see_ Kuan Yin

  _Golden Bough, The_, 166

  Golden Dragon Monastery, 85

  ---- Hall of the True Summit, 100 _seq._, 108

  ---- Summit, the, 100, 105

  Golden-Teeth Country, the, 300

  Great Elephant Pass, 117-118, 288, xiv.

  ---- River, the, _see_ Yangtse river

  ---- Snow Mountains, 102

  ---- Vehicle Monastery, 95, ix.

  Gur Dja, 179


  Hai Wei, 252

  Hai Yin Ssŭ, 45-46

  Hall, Mr Fielding, 335-336, 337

  Han river, 15, 16

  Han-Yang, 15

  Hang-chow, 271

  Hankow, 10, 14, 15-16, 20

  Hao Shou bridge, 253

  Hao Tzŭ P'u, 303

  Hearn, Lafcadio, _quoted_, 383, xlviii.

  "Heavenly Sage, The," 55

  Hei Lao, 176

  Hlan Go La, 177, 179

  Hmêng _and_ Hmung, _see_ Miao-tzŭ

  Ho Chiang-p'u, 294

  Ho-chou, 35

  Holcombe, Mr Chester, _quoted_, 17, 365

  "Holy Lamps, The," 108, xi.

  Honan, Province of, 14, 15

  Hongkong, 354, 358, 359;
    climate of, 324-325;
    latitude of, 325

  Hosie, Sir Alexander, 51, 87, 116, 125, 128, 146, 213

  Hsi Fan, 126, 268-269, 276, xxxiv.

  Hsi Hsiang Ch'ih, 94

  Hsi Hsin So, 88

  Hsi-paw, Sawbwa of, 331

  Hsi Shan, 35-36

  Hsi T'ien (Western Heaven), _see_ Sukhâvatî

  Hsi Wa Tien, 99

  Hsia Ch'êng-tzŭ, 174

  Hsia Kuan, 257, 294

  Hsiang Po, 309

  Hsiao Hsin Kai, 313-314

  Hsiao Hua Ch'iao, 295

  Hsiao T'ien Pa, 295

  Hsien Tsu Tien, 58, 109, xii.

  Hsin Yi La, 181

  Hsiung-nu, 49, 279

  Hsü-chou-fu, 25, 26, 44, 45

  Hu Dra, 203

  Hu Mu Shu, 309

  Hua-lin-p'ing, 122-123, xvii.

  Hua Yen Ssŭ, vi.

  Hua Yen Ting, 91

  Huang Jên, 55

  Huang Lama, 147 _seq._, 186, 213 _seq._

  Huang-lien-p'u, 295

  Huang-ni-p'u, 117

  Huang Ti ("Yellow Emperor"), 55

  Huc, Abbé, 49, 108, 145, 192

  Hui Ch'ih, 61

  Hui-li-chou, 311

  Hui Têng Ssŭ, 110

  Hui Ti, _see_ Chien Wên

  Hung Wu (Ming emperor), 290

  Hung Ya, 113

  Huo Yen Shan, 254

  Hupeh, Province of, 14, 15, 30

  Huxley, T. H., _quoted_, 369, iv., xlviii.


  I T'ou, 121

  Ichang, 10, 20, 23-27, 30

  Ichang to Wan-hsien, 24-30

  Irrawaddy Flotilla Co., 325

  Irrawaddy river, 282, 312, 324 _seq._, 327-328, 332


  Japan, 355, 367-368

  _Jātakas_, 285

  Jê Shui T'ang, 312

  "Jim," 27, 33, 34, 117, 159, 194, 299, 355

  Jung (Barbarians), 270, 279

  Jung An Ch'iao, 35

  Jung-Ching, 117


  Kachins, 282, 300, 313, 320, 323

  K'ai Chi, 230

  K'ai-fêng-fu, 375

  K'ai Shan Ch'u Tien, 89, viii.

  Kamsa bridge, 317

  Kan-lan-chan, 310

  Kandy, Buddha's Tooth at, vii.

  Kau Ngai, 313

  Ke-lao, 276

  Khams (Kham), 161

  Khon, 216, 218, xxxii.

  Kiangsi, 8

  Kiaochou, 8

  Kidd, Mr Benjamin, 367

  Kin Ho, 195 _seq._, _and see_ Yalung river

  Kinsay, _see_ Hang-chow

  Ko Ri Drung, 175

  "Kohn's," 321

  Kolarians, xli.

  Koloman, 276

  Korat, 6

  Korea, 8, 90, 355

  Kosala, kingdom of, 284 _seq._

  Kowloon-Canton railway, 16, 17

  Ku-Dze, 211

  Ku Hung-Ming, 378

  Ku T'ai Tzŭ P'ing, 97

  Ku-tsung, 246, 274, 276

  Kuan Hsia, 250

  Kuan-hsien, 39, 42

  Kuan Hsin Ting, 88

  Kuan P'o, 298

  Kuan Ti ("God of War"), 99, 108, 119

  Kuan Yin ("Goddess of Mercy"), 73, 75, 78, 93-94, 95, 107, 122, 128

  Kuan Yin Ch'iao, 114

  Kuan Yin Ssŭ, 110

  Kuang-an, 35

  Kuang Fu Ssŭ, 110

  Kuang Hsiang Ssŭ, _see_ Hsien Tsu Tien

  Kuangsi, 8

  Kuangtung, 8, 356-357

  Kúblái Khan, 272, 278

  K'uei-chou-fu, 39

  Kulika, 317

  Kulong-ka, 320

  K'ung, Duke, 8

  Kunlon Ferry, 248, 293, 311, 331

  Kuo Ta Shan, xxi.

  Kutho-daw, 329-330

  Kyūshū, 355


  La'hu, 281, 282, 292

  La Ka Shi, 236

  Lacouperie, Terrien de, 276, 283

  Lan Ga Lo, 236

  Lan Yi Pa, 181

  Lan Ts'ang Chiang; _see_ Mekong river

  Laos, Upper, _or_ French, 6, 187, 314, 328, 331, 344-346, 349,
    _and see_ Shans

  Lashi, 246, 279, 280, _and see_ Mo-so

  Lashi-Pa, 249, 280

  Lashio, 248, 280, 293, 311, 331

  _Lee-chuen_ steamer, 25

  Leesaw, _see_ Li-so

  Lei Tung P'ing, 95-96

  Lêng Chi, 124

  Lêng Shui Ching, 304

  Lha-k'ang, 216

  Lhasa, 108, 114, 122, 126, 127, 145, 161, 164, 191, 192, 221-222, 267

  Li-chiang, 157, 237, 239, 241, 242, 244, 245-247, 248, 277, 278, 280,
    311, xxxviii.

  Li-chiang to Tali-fu, 248-264

  Li Ch'u, 172, _and see_ Litang river _and_ Dja Ch'u

  Li Hua Nan, vi.

  Li Ping, 42

  Li She Tzŭ, 226

  Li-so, 230, 239, 246, 274, 277, 281-282, 292

  Liang-shan, 34

  Licchavis, 49, 284 _seq._, xli. _and_ xliii.

  Litang, 105, 120, 151, 154;
    river, 202 _seq._, _and see_ Dja Ch'u

  Little, Mr A., 25, 28, vi.

  Liu Sha river, 120, 121, xvi.

  Lolos, 102, 120, 146, 186-190, 223, 235, 246 _seq._, 273, 276, 277,
    279, 282, 292

  Lu-Han railway, 10, 14-20

  Lu Li, 173

  Lu river, 127, 128, 129

  Lu Ting, 124-126, 151, xix.

  Lu Tzŭ Chiang, 305 _seq_., _and see_ Salwen river

  Luang Prabang, 6, 328

  Lung Chang Kai, 314

  Lung river, _see_ Shweli river

  Lung Shêng Kang, 110

  Lung Shu, _see_ Nāgārjuna

  Lung Wang (Naga-raja), 99


  Madrasis in Burma, 333, 336

  Maeterlinck, Maurice, _quoted_, 348

  Magadha, Empire of, 284 _seq._

  Mahā Myatmuni (Arakan Pagoda), 331

  Mahâsthâma, 73, _and see_ Ta Shih Chih

  Mahayana, _see_ General Index

  Maitrêya Buddha, 45-46, 95, 106

  Man-chia, 268 _seq._, 273

  Man-hsien, 315, 317

  Mandalay, 86, 108, 288, 311, 324, 327, 328-332

  Manjusri, 77, 91, 94, 95, 97, 99, 106

  Man-tzŭ, 20, 126, 197, 222-223, 268 _seq._, 283

  Manu, Laws of, 231

  _Manzi_, 271, _and see_ Man-tzŭ

  Mao Niu Kuo, xx.

  Martineau, James, _quoted_, 359

  Maudgalyâyana, 73

  Maurya race and kings, 282 _seq._, xli., xlii.

  Maymyo, 331

  Mekong river, 6, 241, 246, 293, 296-297, 298, 319, 328, 345

  Mencius, 270, 271

  "Middle Kingdom, The," 389

  Mien, _see_ Burma

  Mien-ning-hsien, 238

  Min-chia, 246, 251, 289-292

  Mindon Min, 329, 330

  Min river, 26-27, 33, 38-39, 43 _seq._, 124, 196-197, 319

  Min Shan, 44

  _Ming Cheng Ssŭ_, 149, xxii.

  Ming Yin Chi, 242

  Mo-so, 222, 226, 227, 228, 230, 231, 232, 238, 239, 241, 245, 246,
    250, 274, 277 _seq._, 281, xxxiv.

  Momauk, 320

  Môn races, 277

  Mong-kung-ka, 318-319

  Mongols, 271-272, 277-278

  Mount Omei, 43, 50, 53, 54-81, 82-111, 117, 124, 127, 159, i.-xii.

  Moyes, Mr and Mrs, 129, 150

  Muang Wa, 328

  Muh-sö, 279, 282

  Muli, 2, 168, 202, 211, 212, 213-225, 234, 238, 281, xxvi., xxxi., xxxiv.

  Muli _to_ Yung-ning, 213-230

  Mung, _see_ Miao-tzŭ

  Müller, Max, 75, 330

  Murghab, caves on, 49

  Myitkyina, 280


  Na K'i, 174

  Nāgārjuna, 76, 91

  Nai Yu La, 177

  Nam T'ing (T'ing river), 293

  Nam U (U river), 328, 345

  Nan Chao, 278, 287

  Nan Tien, 313

  Nanking, 282, 290, 291

  Nashi, _see_ Lashi

  Ni T'ou, 121

  Ning-yüan, 146, 217, 238, 311

  Niu Chio Kuan, 298

  Niu Kai, 253-254

  Njong, 222 _seq._, 281

  Nü Wo, 55

  Nya Ch'u, _see_ Yalung river.

  Nya Rong ("Valley of the Nya"), 195, xxix., _and see_ Yalung river


  O-mi-to-Fo (Amitabha Buddha), 73, 94

  O'Connor, Mr Scott, 344

  Odoric, Friar, 224

  Omei-hsien, 50-53

  Omei-hsien _to_ Tachienlu, 112-130

  Omei-shan, _see_ Mount Omei

  Orleans, Prince Henry of, 282, 292

  Ottewell, Mr, 310


  Pa-Chi, 223

  Pa I (Shan tribesmen), 306, 308

  Pa-No, 223

  Pa Sung, 200, 201

  Pa-U-Rong, 168, 181 _seq._, xxviii., xxix.

  Pa-U-Rong _to_ Muli, 186-212

  Pagan, 332, xlv.

  Pai Sha river, 255-256

  Pai Shui Ho, 237

  Pai Yün Ku Ch'a, 95

  Pan Ch'iao, 299

  Pao Chang, 57

  Pao-ning Ssŭ, 85

  Paradise of the West, 72-73, _and see_ Sukhâvatî

  Parker, Prof. E. H., 266-267, 272

  Pataliputra (Patna), 285

  Patisambhidâ, 89

  Peguans, 277

  Pei T'ai, 180

  Peking, 10-13, 114, 375;
    to Hankow railway, 14-20;
    to Kalgan railway, 17;
    to Ichang, 10 _seq._

  _Pên-ti-jên_, 239, 290

  P'êng-shan, 44

  Perronne, M. Gaston, 247, 248

  Persia, 48-49, 166

  P'ing P'o, 297

  P'ing-shan, 26

  P'o Chiao, 250

  Polo, Marco, 38-39, 90, 116, 131, 146, 161-162, 224, 271, 294, 300,
    301, 302, 307, vii.

  Pu-tai K'ou, 30

  Pu Ti La, 180

  P'u Hsien Bodhisattva, 57 _seq._, 77, 86, 88, 91, 94 _seq._, 106, 109,
    117

  P'u Kuang Tien, _see_ Hsien Tsu Tien

  P'u Kung, 57, viii., xii.

  P'u Piao, 304

  P'u T'o, 122

  P'un Bu Shi, 170-171


  Raineh, Persia, cave-dwellings in, 48-49

  Rangoon, 86, 108, 333 _seq._, 354

  Red River, 6, 198-199

  _Ri_, 173

  Ri Go La, 179-180

  Ri Wa, 169, 174

  Ring I Drung, 168, 170

  River of Golden Sand, 44, _and see_ Yangtse river

  Robertson, Mr D. G., 331

  Rocher, M. Émile, _quoted_, 199, 260-263, xxxix.

  Rockhill, Mr W. W., 121-122, 125, 136, 208, 224, xxxvii., xliii.

  _Rong_, 173

  Rong Ch'u, 219, 225

  Ruskin, John, 3, 30, 182-183, 204-205, 340, 342

  Ryder, Major, 238, 312


  Sa-Mong, 232

  Sa-T'am, 280, _and see_ Li-chiang

  Sakya Clan, xliii.

  Sakyamuni Buddha, 68 _seq._, 73, 76, 88, 91, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99,
    105, 109

  Salwen river, 199, 248, 293, 298, 304-309, 319, 331

  Samanta Bhadra, _see_ P'u Hsien Bodhisattva

  San Chia-tzŭ, 174

  San Kuan, 99

  San Shêng Kung, 295

  San T'ieh Fo Tien, vi.

  San Ying, 254

  Scott, Sir George, 265, 348 _seq._

  Second Defile, 327, 328

  Seres, 288-289, xliv.

  Sha P'ing, 257

  Sha-shih, 23

  Sha Yang, 295

  Shang Kuan, 257, 258

  Shang La Shih, 250

  Shanghai, 355, 358

  Shanghai-Wusung railway, 17

  Shan States, 6, 231-232, 272, 275, 287, 313, 331, _and see_ Shans

  Shans, 6, 8, 187, 248, 266, 280, 282, 292, 300, 302, 313, 314, 315,
    318, 349, 355, 356, xxxvii.

  Shantung, 8, 356

  Shelley, _quoted_, 110

  Shi Li La, 226

  Shih-chia Ch'iao, 116

  Shih K'o Ts'un, 299

  Sho Ti Ba Dze, 173

  _Shu Ching_, 270

  Shui Chai, 297, 298

  Shun, Emperor, 8

  Shun-ch'ing-fu, 35

  Shun-tê-fu, 14

  Shwe Dagon Pagoda, 86, 352-353

  Shweli river, 310, 319

  Si Dji, 236

  Si Fan, _see_ Hsi Fan

  Siam, 6, 8, 223, 276, 314, 344, 356

  Siddharta, Prince (the Buddha), _see_ Sakyamuni Buddha

  "Silvery Boundary, The," 103

  Sin Go La, 177

  _Sinae_, 282 _seq._

  Sindafu, 38-39, _and see_ Ch'êng-tu

  Singapore, 354

  _Smaller Sukhâvatî Vyûha Sutra_, 74-75

  So Chiang T'a, 44-45

  Spencer, Herbert, 231-232

  Ssuch'uan, 1, 9, 25, 30, 32 _seq._, 39, _and passim_

  Ssu-ma Ch'ien, 272

  Ssumao, 6

  Stirling, Mr G. C. B., 282, 331

  Straits Settlements, Chinese in, 357

  Sui-fu, 25, _and see_ Hsü-chou-fu

  "Suicide's Cliff," 103-104

  Sukhâvatî (Western Heaven), 72-73, 77, 78, 94, 95

  Sung dynasty, 271, 272;
    artists of, 378

  Swami Vivekananda, the, 366


  Ta-chien-lu, _see_ Tachienlu

  Ta Chu, 34

  Ta Hsiang Ling, 117, 118, 119, 288, xiv.

  Ta Hsüeh Shan, 102-104

  Ta Hua Ch'iao, 295

  Ta Kiang, _see_ Yangtse

  Ta Liang Shan, 187, xxvii.

  Ta K'oa, 204

  Tali-fu, 100, 153, 154, 246, 248, 257-264, 265, 278, xxxix.;
    lake of, 256-259;
    massacre in, 262-263;
    siege of, 257, 259-264, xxxix.

  Tali-fu _to_ Bhamo, 199, 293 _seq._

  Ta-Mo, _see_ Bodhidarma

  Ta O Monastery, 110, xii.

  Ta Pan Ching, 304-305, 307

  Ta P'êng Pa, 126-127

  Ta Shih Chih, 73, 95, 97, 107

  Ta Tu river, 45, 102, 124, 126, 127, 128, 132, 195, 268, 319,
    xviii., xix.

  Tachienlu, 1, 114, 115, 117, 123, 126, 128, 129-152, 153, 154, 191,
    214, 234, 266, xx.-xxii.

  Tachienlu _to_ Pa-U-Rong, 153-185

  T'ai peoples, 275, 276, 283, _and see_ Shans

  T'ai P'ing, 309

  T'ai P'ing Rebellion, xxxix.

  T'ai P'ing river, 316, 318

  T'ai P'ing Ch'iao, 296

  T'ai-p'ing-p'u, 294

  T'ai Shan, 8, 103

  Talaings, 277

  Tan Ga La, 173

  Tê Ben, 199

  Tê Yüan bridge, 256

  Ten Ba K'a, 201

  Têng-ch'uan-chou, 256-257

  Tennyson, _quoted_, 54

  T'êng-yüeh, 235, 294, 298, 302, 310-312, 313, 320

  T'êng-yüeh-Bhamo railway, 17, 310-312

  Thai peoples, _see_ T'ai

  Thibaw, King, 322, 329

  Thinae, 282

  Thunder Cavern, 61, 95-96

  Ti (Barbarians), 270

  Ti Tsang Bodhisattva, 91, 96-97, 107

  Tibet, _see_ Tibetans, etc.

  Tibet, meaning of word, 268-269

  Tibetans, 8, 39, 50, 94, 116, 119, 125, 126, 129 _seq._, 153 _seq._,
    196, 197, 222, 246, 267 _seq._, 311, _and see_ General Index

  Tien, kingdom of, 272, 283, 287

  Tien Wei, 252

  Tientsin, 10

  T'ien Chên Huang Jên, 55

  T'o K'o Sho, 241

  Toloman, 276

  Tongking, 6, 8, 26, 198-199

  Tsa Ch'u, 172

  Ts'ai Shên ("God of Wealth"), 99, 106

  Tsang po, _see_ Brahmaputra

  Ts'ao Pa, 114

  Tu, 173

  Tu Wên-hsiu, 259-262, xxxix.

  T'u Fan, 268

  T'ung river, _see_ Ta Tu

  Turfan, 269

  Tylor, E. B., 301

  Tyndall, John, _quoted_, 183


  Upper Laos, 6, 328, 345-346

  ---- Lashi, 250

  Uriangkadai, 278


  Vaggians, 49, 284 _seq._, xli.

  Vairocana, Celestial Buddha, 64

  Vesâli, 285-286, xliii.

  Vial, Paul, _quoted_, 187, 274, 275, 276, 277, 280, 290

  Vien-chan, 6

  Virgil, _quoted_, 69, 303

  Vivekananda, the Swami, 366

  Vochan, _see_ Yung-ch'ang


  Wa Mountain, 102

  Wa-chin Gompa, 204, 216

  Wa Ssŭ Kou, 127-128, 151, 195

  Waddell, Colonel, 126, 139, 208-209, 215

  Wan-hsien, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32

  Wan-hsien _to_ Chêng-tu, 31-42

  Wan-nien Ssŭ, 85-88, 109, vi., vii.

  Warry, Mr, _quoted_, 276

  Wealth, Chinese god of, _see_ Ts'ai Shên

  Wei Chên T'ien Mên, 98

  Wei-Si (Wei-hsi), 311

  Wei To, 96, 106, 107

  Weihaiwei, 10, 319, 355, 356, 374, 376-377

  Wên Ch'êng, 95, 97

  Western Paradise, _see_ Sukhâvatî

  White, Sir Herbert, 331

  "White-bone" Lolos, 186-187

  White Clouds Monastery, 95

  ---- Dragon Monastery, 85

  White Dragon Pool, 109

  Wo La, 223

  Wo Pu Tsong, 206; _see_ Dja Ch'u

  Wo Shih Wo ("Sleeping Lion's Den"), 303

  Wordsworth, _quoted_, 251

  Wu, 206-207

  Wu-ch'ang, 15

  Wu Chia-tzŭ, 174

  Wu Shu, 177

  Wu Shu La, 176

  Wu T'ai Shan, 217


  Ya River, 45, 50, 112, 113, 114, 116, 124, 319

  Ya-chou, 112, 114-116, 117, xiii.

  "Yaks, The Land of," xx., _and see_ Tachienlu

  Yalung river and watershed, 146, 147 _seq._, 159 _seq._, 164, 168,
    170, 180, 181, 191 _seq._, 238, 267, 319, xxiii.-xxvi.,
    xxviii.-xxxi., xxxvi.

  Yamdok lake, caves of, 49

  Yang Pi, 294

  Yangtse river, 10, 15, 20 _seq._, 24 _seq._, 28-30, 43-44, 45,
    195-197, 228, 231, 232, 236-238, 245, 249, 319, xxix., xxx.

  "Yellow Emperor, The," 55

  Yellow Lamas, Land of the, _see_ Muli

  ---- River, 14, 271, 319

  ---- Sect of Lamaism, 214, 219

  Yen-yüan, 217

  Yi Ma Wa, 228

  Yin Cho, 179

  Ying-shan-p'u, 255

  Yo Shih Fo, 96-97, 106, 107

  Yule, Colonel, 276

  Yung-ch'ang, 294, 298, 299-303

  Yung-ch'ing Ssŭ, 97

  Yung Pei, 228, 229, 246

  Yung P'ing, 295

  Yung-ning, 147, 154, 168, 225, 226, 227, 228-230, 234, 235, 237, 239,
    240, 277, 280, 281

  Yunnan, 6, 9, 146, 168, 187, 225, 227-317, _and see_ General Index

  Yunnan-fu, 116, 246, 311

  Yü, the Emperor, 270, i.

  Yü Lin Kung, 142

  Yüan Tzŭ Jang, x., xi.

  Yüeh-chi, _see_ Yüeh-ti

  Yüeh-hsi, 146

  Yüeh-ti, _or_ Lunar Race, 49, 286

  Yün-chou, 293


  Zardandan, 300, 302

  Zend-Avesta, 224


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       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Notes

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.

Variations in spelling, punctuation, accents and hyphenation are as in
the original.

Recto pages of the original are headed by a brief description of
the topic. These have been retained as sidenotes and inserted at
appropriate breaks in the text.

In APPENDIX A: VOCABULARY, the original tables were eight columns wide.
Each table has been split into two four column tables, with the English
repeated in the second part.

Italics are represented thus _italic_ and bold thus =bold=.

The following errors in Chinese characters have been corrected:
"秦" in footnote 340 was rotated 90 degrees anticlockwise.

On page 416, "旋" was printed upside-down, and "奇" was rotated 90
degrees clockwise.

On p. 422, "記" was printed upside-down.

The following phrases include characters that are not available. The
characters have been replaced by □
 唵嚤呢叭□吽  footnote 68.
 摩□  footnote 312.
 力□  footnote 322.
 坡□  Itinerary, May 18th.

The Tibetan for om mane padme hom in footnote 69 has been corrected.






End of Project Gutenberg's From Peking to Mandalay, by R. F. Johnston

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49561 ***