It is better, says a Chinese proverb, “to hear about a thing than to see it,” and truly on this journey I was much inclined to agree with that dictum.
We were bound for Hsieh Ts'un. I can't pronounce it, and I should not like to swear to the spelling, but of one thing I am very sure, not one of the inhabitants could spell it, or even know it was wrongly set forth to the world, so I am fairly safe.
We went under the archway with the theatrical notices at Liu Lin Chen, under the arched gateway of the village, out into the open country, and it began to rain again. It came down not exactly in torrents but good steady growing rain. The roads when they were not slippery stones were appalling quagmires, and my mule litter always seemed to be overhanging a precipice of some sort. I was not very comfortable when that precipice was only twenty feet deep, when it was more I fervently wished that I had not come to China. I wished it more than once, and it rained and it rained and it rained, silent, soaking, penetrating rain, and I saw the picturesque mountain country through a veil of mist.
Hsieh Ts'un is a little dirty straggling village, and as we entered it through the usual archway with a watch tower above the setting sun broke through the thick clouds and his golden rays strcamed down upon the slippery wet cobblestones that paved the principal street. The golden sunlight and the gorgeous rainbow glorified things a little, and they needed glorifying. The principal inn, as usual, was a fairly large yard, roughly paved, but swimming now in dirty water; there were stalls for animals all round it, and there was a large empty shed where they stored lime. It was stone-paved, and the roof leaked like a sieve, but here I established myself, dodging as far as possible the holes in the roof and drawing across the front of the shed my litter as a sort of protection, for the inn, as usual with these mountain inns, had but one room.
It was cold, it was dirty, and I realised how scarce foreigners must be when through the misty, soaking rain, which generally chokes off a Chinaman, crowds came to stand round and stare at me. I was stationary, so the women came, dirty, ragged, miserable-looking women, supporting themselves with sticks and holding up their babies to look at the stranger while she ate. By and by it grew so cold I felt I must really go to bed, and I asked Mr Wang to put it to the crowd that it was not courteous to stare at the foreign woman when she wished to be alone, and, O most courtly folk! every single one of those people went away.
“You can have a bath,” said he, “no one will look”; and, all honour give I to those poor peasants of Western Shansi, I was undisturbed. I am afraid a lonely Chinese lady would hardly be received with such courtesy in an English village were the cases reversed.
Next day the rain still teemed down. The fowls pecked about the yard, drenched and dripping; a miserable, mangy, cream-coloured dog or two came foraging for a dinner, and the people, holding wadded coats and oiled paper over their heads, came to look again at the show that had come to the town; but there was no break in the grey sky, and there was nothing to do but sit there shivering with cold, writing letters on my little travelling table and listening to my interpreter, who talked with the innkeeper and brought me at intervals that gentleman's views on the doings of Pai Lang.
Those views varied hour by hour. At first he was sure he was attacking Sui Te Chou. That seemed to me sending the famous robber over the country too quickly. Then it was tufeis—that is, bands of robbers—that Sui Te Chou feared, and finally, boiled down, I came to the conclusion that Sui Te Chou had probably shut her gates because the country round was disturbed, and that she admitted no one who had not friends in the city or could not in some way guarantee his good faith. It served to show me my friends in Ki Hsien had been right, such disturbed country would be no place for a woman alone. I suppose it was the rain and the grey skies, but I must admit that day I was distinctly unhappy and more than a little afraid. I was alone among an alien people, who only regarded me as a cheap show; I had no one to take counsel with, my interpreter only irritated me and, to add to my misery, I was very cold. I have seldom put in a longer or more dreary day than I did at Hsieh Ts'un. There was absolutely nothing to do but watch the misty rain, for if I went outside and got wetter than I was already getting under the leaking roof—I wore my Burberry—I had no possible means of drying my clothes save by laying them on the hot k'ang in the solitary living-room of the inn, and that was already inhabited by many humans and the parasites that preyed upon them. Therefore I stayed where I was, compared my feet with the stumps of the women who came to visit me—distinctly I was a woman's show—gave the grubby little children raisins, and wondered if there was any fear of Pai Lang coming along this way before I had time to turn back. If it kept on raining, would my muleteers compel me to stay here till Pai Lang swept down upon us? But no, that thought did not trouble me, first, because I momentarily expected it to clear up, and secondly, because I was very sure that any rain that kept me prisoner would also hold up Pai Lang. I could not believe in a Chinaman, even a robber, going out in the rain if he could help himself, any more than I could believe in it raining longer than a day in China.
“The people are not afraid,” I said to my interpreter as I looked at a worn old woman in a much-patched blue cotton smock and trousers, her head protected from the rain by a wadded coat in the last stages of decrepitude; her feet made me shiver, and her finger-nails made me crawl, the odour that came from her was sickening, but she liked to see me write, and I guessed she had had but few pleasures in her weary life.
“They not knowing yet,” said he; “only travellers know. They tell innkeeper.”
Yes, certainly the travellers would know best.
And all day long he came, bringing me various reports, and said that, according to the innkeeper, the last caravan that had passed through had gone back on its tracks. I might have remembered it. I did remember it—a long line of donkeys and mules.
But the day passed, and the night passed, and the next day the sun came out warm and pleasant, and all my doubts were resolved. My journey was broken beyond hope, and I must go back, but turn I would not till I had looked upon the Yellow River.
We started with all our paraphernalia. We were to turn in our tracks after tiffin, but Mr Wang and the muleteers were certain on that point, everything I possessed must be dragged across the mountains if I hoped to see it again, and I acquiesced, for I certainly felt until I got back to civilisation I could not do without any of my belongings.
Almost immediately we left the village we began to ascend the mountain pass. Steeper and steeper it grew, and at last the opening in my mule litter was pointing straight up to the sky, and I, seeing there was nothing else for it, demanded to be lifted out and signified my intention of walking.
There was one thing against this and that was an attack of breathlessness. Asthma always attacks me when I am tired or worried, and now, with a very steep mountain to cross and no means of doing it except on my own feet, it had its wicked way. My master of transport and Mr Wang, like perfectly correct Chinese servants, each put a hand under my elbows, and with Buchanan skirmishing around joyfully, rejoicing that for once his mistress was sensible, the little procession started. It was hard work, very hard work. When I could go no longer I sat down and waited till I felt equal to starting again. On the one hand the mountain rose up sheer and steep, on the other it dropped away into the gully beneath, only to rise again on the other side. And yet in the most inaccessible places were patches of cultivation and wheat growing. I cannot imagine how man or beast kept a footing on such a slant, and how they ploughed and sowed it passes my understanding. But most of the mountain-side was too much even for them, and then they turned loose their flocks, meek cream-coloured sheep and impudent black goats, to graze on the scanty mountain pastures. Of course they were in charge of a shepherd, for there were no fences, and the newly springing wheat must have been far more attractive than the scanty mountain grasses.
And then I knew it was worth it all—the long trek from Fen Chou Fu, the dreary day at Hsieh Ts'un, the still more dreary nights, this stiff climb which took more breath than I had to spare—for the view when I arrived at a point of vantage was beautiful. These were strange mountains. The road before me rose at a very steep angle, and all around me were hill-sides whereon only a goat or a sheep might find foothold, but the general effect looked at from a distance was not of steepness. These were not mountains, rugged, savage, grand, they were gentle hills and dales that lay about me; I had come through them; there were more ahead; I could see them range after range, softly rounded, green and brown and then blue, beautiful for all there were no trees, in an atmosphere that was clear as a mirror after the rain of the day before. Beautiful, beautiful, with a tender entrancing loveliness, is that view over the country up in the hills that hem in the Yellow River as it passes between Shansi and Shensi. Is it possible there is never anyone to see it but these poor peasants who wring a hard livelihood from the soil, and who for all their toil, which lasts from daylight to dark all the year round, get from this rich soil just enough wheaten flour to keep the life in them, a hovel to dwell in, and a few unspeakable rags to cover their nakedness? As far as I could see, everyone was desperately poor, and yet these hills hold coal and iron in close proximity, wealth untold and unexploited. The pity of it! Unexploited, the people are poor to the verge of starvation; worked, the delicate loveliness of the country-side will vanish as the beauty of the Black Country has vanished, and can we be sure that the peasant will benefit?
0167
Still we went up and up, and the climbing of these gentle wooing hills I found hard. Steep it was, and at last, just when I felt I could not possibly go any farther, though the penalty were that I should turn back almost within sight of the river, I found that the original makers of the track had been of the same opinion, for here was the top of the pass with a tunnel bored through it, a tunnel perhaps a hundred feet long, carefully bricked, and when we, breathless and panting, walked through we came out on a little plateau with a narrow road wandering down a mountain-side as steep as the one we had just climbed. There was the most primitive of restaurants here, and the woman in charge—it was a woman, and her feet were not bound—proffered us a thin sort of drink like very tasteless barley water. At least now I know it was tasteless, then I found it was nectar, and I sat on a stone and drank it thankfully, gave not a thought to the dirt of the bowl that contained it, and drew long breaths and looked around me.
The hills rose up on either hand and away in the distance where they opened out were the beautiful treeless hills of forbidden Shensi, just as alluring, just as peaceful as the hills I had come through. It was worth the long and toilsome journey, well worth even all my fears.
Then we went down, down, but I did not dare get into my litter, the way was too steep, the chances of going over too great, for it seems the Chinese never make a road if by any chance they can get along without. They were driven to bore a tunnel through the mountains, but they never smooth or take away rocks as long as, by taking a little care, an animal can pass without the certainty of going over the cliff.
And at last through a cleft in the hills I saw one of the world's great rivers and—was disappointed. The setting was ideal. The hills rose up steep and rugged, real mountains, on either side, pheasants called, rock-doves mourned, magpies chattered, overhead was a clear blue sky just flecked here and there with fleecy clouds, beyond again were the mountains of Shensi, the golden sunlight on their rounded tops, purple shadow in their swelling folds, far away in the distance they melted blue into the blue sky, close at hand they were green with the green of springtime, save where the plough had just turned up patches of rich brown soil, and at their foot rolled a muddy flood that looked neither decent water nor good sound earth, the mighty Hoang-Ho, the Yellow River, China's sorrow. China's sorrow indeed; for though here it was hemmed in by mountains, and might not shift its bed, it looked as if it were carrying the soul of the mountains away to the sea.
There is a temple where the gully opens on to the river, a temple and a little village, and the temple was crowded with blue-clad, shabby-looking soldiers who promptly swarmed round me and wanted to look in my baggage, that heavy baggage we were hauling for safety over fourteen miles of mountain road. Presumably they were seeking arms. We managed to persuade them there were none, and that the loads contained nothing likely to disturb the peace, and then we went down to the river, crossing by a devious, rocky and unpleasant path simply reeking of human occupancy, and the inhabitants of that soldier village crowded round me and examined everything I wore and commented on everything I did.
They were there to guard the crossing; and far from me be it to say they were not most efficient, but if so their looks belied them. They did not even look toy soldiers. No man was in full uniform. Apparently they wore odd bits, as if there were not enough clothes in the company to go round, and they were one and all dirty, touzly, untidy, and all smiling and friendly and good-tempered. I only picked them out from the surrounding country people—who were certainly dirty and poverty-stricken enough in all conscience—by the fact that the soldiers had abandoned the queue which the people around, like all these country people, still affect. The soldier wore his hair about four or five inches long, sticking out at all angles, rusty-black, unkempt and uncombed, and whether he ran to a cap or not, the result was equally unworkmanlike.
I conclude Chun Pu is not a very important crossing. What the road is like on the Shensi side I do not know, but on the Shansi side I should think the pass we had just crossed was a very effective safeguard. He would be a bold leader who would venture to bring his men up that path in the face of half-a-dozen armed men, and they need not be very bold men either. Those soldiers did not look bold. They were kindly, though, and they had women and children with them—I conclude their own, for they nursed the grubby little children, all clad in grubby patches, very proudly, took such good care they had a good view of the show—me—that I could not but sympathise with their paternal affection and aid in every way in my power. Generally my good-will took the form of raisins. I was lavish now I had given up my journey, and my master of transport distributed with an air as if I were bestowing gold and silver.
He set out my table on the cobble-stones of the inn-yard in the sunshine. I believe, had I been a really dignified traveller, I should have put up with the stuffiness and darkness of the inn's one room, but I felt the recurrent hard-boiled eggs and puffed rice, with a certain steamed scone which contained more of the millstone and less of the flour than was usual even with the scones of the country, were trials enough without trying to be dignified in discomfort.
And while I had my meal everybody took it in turns to look through the finder of my camera, the women, small-footed, dirty creatures, much to the surprise of their menfolk, having precedence. Those women vowed they had never seen a foreigner before. Every one of them had bound feet, tiny feet on which they could just totter, and all were clad in extremely dirty, much-patched blue cotton faded into a dingy dirt-colour. Most of them wore tight-fitting coverings of black cloth to cover their scalps, often evidently to conceal their baldness, for many of them suffered from “expending too much heart.” Baldness is caused, say the Chinese half in fun, because the luckless man or woman has thought more of others than of themselves. I am afraid they do not believe it, or they may like to hide their good deeds, for they are anything but proud of being bald. Most of the mouths, too, here, and indeed all along the road, were badly formed and full of shockingly broken and decayed teeth, the women's particularly. Wheaten flour, which is the staple food of Shansi, is apparently not enough to make good teeth. The people were not of a markedly Mongolian type. Already it seemed as if the nations to the West were setting their seal upon them, and some of the younger girls, with thick black hair parted in the middle, a little colour in their cheeks, and somewhat pathetic, wistful-looking faces, would have been good-looking in any land.
Then I had one more good look at the river, my farthest point west on the journey, the river I had come so far to see. It was all so peaceful in the afternoon sunlight that it seemed foolish not to go on. The hills of Shensi beckoned and all my fears fell from me. I wanted badly to go on. Then came reason. It was madness to risk the tufeis with whom everyone was agreed Shensi swarmed. There in the brilliant sunshine, with the laughing people around me, I was not afraid, but when night fell—no, even if the soldiers would have allowed, which Mr Wang declared they would not—I dared not, and I turned sadly and regretfully and made my way back to Fen Chou Fu.
Had I gone on I should have arrived in Russia with the war in full swing, so on the whole? am thankful I had to flee before the tufeis of Shensi. Perhaps when the world is at peace I shall essay that fascinating journey again. Only I shall look out for some companion, and even if I take the matchless master of transport I shall most certainly see to it that I have a good cook.
