The crossing of the Lanho—A dust storm—Dangers of a new inn—Locked in—Holy mountain—Ruined city—My interpreter—A steep hill—The barren woman—Unappetising food—The abbot—The beggar—Burning incense—The beauty of the way.

We were fairly in the mountains when we left Tsung Hua Chou. As we crawled along slowly, and I trust with dignity, though dignity is not my strong point, I looked up to the hills that towered above us, almost perpendicular they seemed in places, as if the slope had been shorn off roughly with a blunt knife, and I saw that one of these crags, that must have been about a thousand feet above the valley bottom, anyhow it looked it in the afternoon sunlight, was crowned by buildings; and not feeling energetic, nobody does feel energetic who rides for long in a Peking cart, I thanked my stars that I had not to go up there. I thought if it were the most beautiful temple in the world I would not go up that mountain to visit it. Which only shows that I did not reckon on my Chinese servant. There may be people who can cope single-handed with the will of a Chinaman. I can't. I know now that if my servant expresses a desire for a thing, he will only ask, of course, for what is perfectly correct and good for his Missie, he will have it in the end, so it is no good struggling; it is better to give in gracefully at first.

By the time we arrived at the river-banks it was blowing furiously, and a good part of the country, as always seems to be the case in China when the wind blows, was in the air. The river, wide and muddy and rather shallow, was flowing swiftly along, and the crossing-place was just where the valley was widest, and there was a large extent of sand on either bank, so there was plenty of material for the wind to play with. It used it as if it had never had a chance before and was bound to make the most of it. There were many other people on that sandy beach, there were other Peking carts, there were laden country carts with their heavily studded wheels cut out of one piece of wood, looking like the wheels Mr Reed puts on his prehistoric carts in Punch, there were laden donkeys and mules, there were all the blue-clad people in charge of the traffic, and there were tiny restaurants, rough-looking shacks where the refreshment of these people was provided for. They weren't refreshing when I arrived, the wind was blowing things away piecemeal, and every man seemed to be grabbing something portable, or putting it down with a stone upon it to anchor it. "Must make haste,” said Tuan again, as he helped me out of the cart, and the wind got under my coat, tore at my veil, and succeeded in pulling down some of my hair.

We had got beyond the region of bridges, I suppose in the summer the floods come down and sweep them away, and everybody was crossing on a wupan, a long, shallow, flat-bottomed boat that had been decked in the middle to allow of carts being taken across. The mules were taken out, and the carts with the help of every available man about, except the fat restaurant-keeper, were got on the boat.

“Must make haste,” repeated Tuan, distributing with a liberal hand my hard-earned cents. I used to think a cent or two in China didn't matter, but I know by bitter experience they mount up.

And then just as we were all ready, my leading mule, a fawn-coloured animal of some character, expressed his disapproval of the mode of transit by a violent kick, and broke away. The dust was blowing in heavy clouds, but every now and then I could see through the veil a dozen people racing after him, while he kicked up his heels in derision, and in a fashion of which I should not have thought any beast that had brought a Peking cart so far over such roads was capable. Then a brilliant idea occurred to the younger “cartee man.” He decided to mount the white mule that led the other cart. This was a meek-looking beast who I presume always did exactly as he was told; but a worm will turn, and to be ridden after all the long journey was more than even he would stand. With a buck and a kick he got rid of the “cartee man,” and then there were two mules careering about in the wild dust storm. It looked highly probable that they would take advantage of their liberty to go back to Peking, and I crossed that river wondering very much how I was to get any farther on my journey, and whether lost mules were a part of the just expenditure expected of a foreign woman. After about two hours, however, they were brought in, the fawn-coloured mule as perky as ever, but the white one so depressed by his only taste of freedom that he never recovered as long as I had the pleasure of his acquaintance.

Before we were on our way again the dust storm had subsided, and I was shaking the mountains, or the Gobi Desert, or whatever it was, out of the folds of my clothes and out of my hair and eyes, and Tuan was once more urgent.

“Must make haste.”

But it was no good, we had lost too much time, we could not possibly reach the little town we had planned to reach, and before the sun set we turned into the yard of a little hostelry in a small mountain hamlet underneath the holy mountain that was crowned with the temple I had been looking at all the afternoon.

And then to my joy I found that this place was clean, actually clean!! Two notes of exclamation do not do proper justice to it. The yard bore little traces of occupation, the room I was shown into had a new blue calico curtain at the door, it was freshly whitewashed, a clean mat was on the k'ang, the wood that edged it was new, and there was clean tissue paper over the lattice-work of the windows. The floor, of course, was only hard, beaten earth, but that did not matter. I would sit on the k'ang, and besides this place smelt of nothing but whitewash. I rejoiced exceedingly as I had the paper torn off the top of the window to let in the fresh air, but Tuan looked at it from another point of view.

“Must take care,” said he, “this new inn. 'Cartee man' no know she. Must take care,” and he looked so grave that I wondered what on earth was the penalty I ran the risk of paying for cleanliness.

They evidently were afraid, for all the luggage, which as a rule stayed strapped on the carts in the inn yard, was taken off and brought in. I was worth robbing, for I had about seven-and-twenty pounds in dollars in my black box, and that, judging by what I saw, would have bought up all the villages between Jehol and Peking. However, it was no good worrying about it, however agitated Tuan might be. Besides, anyhow he was something of a coward, all Chinese servants are, it seems to me.

His fear didn't seem to last very long, for presently he came bustling in, all excitement.

I was brushing my hair to try and get some of the dust out of it, and reflecting there was possibly some reason in so many Chinese women being bald. It must be much easier to keep a hairless head free from dust.

“Missie, Missie, innkeeper man, she say my Missie come in good time. Nine Dragon Temple,” he pointed upwards, and I knew with a sinking heart he meant the one I had watched all day and decided that to it I would not go, “open one time for ten day, never in year open any more,” and he looked at me to see his words sink in. They sank in right enough. I knew I was going there, but still I protested.

“I cannot walk up that mountain.”

“No walk, Missie no walk, can get chair.”

Still I struggled. “It will cost too much money.”

“Three dollars, Missie, can do. Not spend much monies,” and he looked at me as much as to say I would never let three dollars, about six shillings, stand between me and a wonder that was only open for ten days in the year, especially when I had arrived on the auspicious day.

“But what will you do, Tuan, I really cannot afford a chair for you,” for I knew my follower on every occasion, even when I should have walked made a point of riding. He looked at me, but I suppose he saw I had reached the limit of my forbearance. His chest swelled out virtuously.

“I strong young man, I walk.”

I made another effort. “But the bottom of the mountain is a good way off, how shall I get there?”

“I talkee 'cartee man,' he takee Missie two dollars.”

It was mounting up. I knew it would.

“But who will look after our things here?”

“One piecey 'cartee man,' stop,” said he airily. So it was all arranged and I was booked for the Nine Dragon Temple whether I liked it or not. Then there was the night to consider in this new inn, the safety of which Tuan had doubted. In my room were all my possessions, including the black box with the money in it, and I looked at the door and saw to my dismay that there was no fastening on the inside.

“I take care Missie,” said Tuan loftily, and then proceeded to instruct me in the precautions he had taken.

“Innkeeper man ask how long Missie stay and I say p'r'aps five day, p'r'aps ten day. No tell true.” No tell true indeed, for I had every intention of leaving next day even if I did have to go up to the mountain temple in the morning.

Again I looked at the rough planks of the door coming down to the earthen floor, and decided I would draw my heavy box across it, and I said so to Tuan.

But he was emphatic, “I take care Missie,” I wonder if he would have done so had there really been any danger. Then he bid me good night and, going out, drew the door to after him and proceeded to lock it on the outside! I presume he put the key in his pocket. Some papers have honoured me by referring to me as a “distinguished traveller,” and I have had hopes of being elected to the Royal Geographical Society! For a moment I thought of calling him back indignantly, and then I thought better of it. “A man thinks he knows,” says the Chinese proverb, “but a woman knows better.”

The window was frail and all across the room, and I knew I could break the lattice-work if I wanted to, so could the thief for that matter, so I slept peacefully, the sleep of the utterly weary, and the innkeeper proved an honest man after all.

And next day, after breakfast, just as the sun was rising, I started for the Nine Dragon Temple. The peak which it crowned stood out from the rest like a very acute triangle. They say the camera cannot lie, I only know I did not succeed in getting a photograph of that mountain that gave any idea of its steepness. Its slopes, faintly tinged with green and dotted with fir-trees, fell away like the sides of a house from the narrow top that was crowned with buildings. It was just one of the many holy mountains that are scattered over China, and it seemed to me, looking up, that nothing but a bird could reach it. But still I had to try. All the country was bathed in the golden rays of the sun as I climbed into the cart, and we made our way through a ruined city that must once have been very rich and prosperous. Only the poorest of the poor apparently lived among the ruins, and we went through a ruined gateway where no man watched now, and over half-tilled fields, to the supplementary temple at the bottom of the mountain.

Here Tuan blossomed forth wonderfully. Up till now he had only been my servant, a most important servant but still a servant, now he became, on a sudden, that much more important functionary, my interpreter.

A solemn old gentleman in a dark-coloured robe with a shaven head received me with that perfect courtesy which it is my experience these monks always show, escorted me into a large room with a k'ang on one side and a figure of a god, large and gorgeous, facing the door. He asked me my age, as apparently the most important question he could ask—it is rather an important factor in one's life—and then when I was seated on the k'ang, with my interpreter, in his very best clothes of silk brocade, on the other, a variety of cakes in little dishes were set on the k'ang table beside me, and a small shavenheaded little boy who I was informed was called “Trees” was set to pour out tea as long as I would drink it. I was so amused at the importance of Tuan. Not for worlds would I have given him away as he sat there sipping tea and nibbling at a piece of cake; and I wonder still what he thought I thought. Did he fear I should call him to account for sitting down as if he were on terms of equality with me? Did he think I was a fool, or was he properly grateful that I allowed him this little latitude? At any rate, except in the matter of squeeze, he always served me very well indeed, and there is no doubt my dignity was enhanced by going about with a real, live interpreter. The priest could not know what a very inadequate one he was.

Presently they came and announced that the chair was ready.

“Put on new ropes,” announced my interpreter pointing out the lashings to me. The chair was fastened to a couple of stout poles and four coolies, they might have been own brothers to the ones I had at the Ming Tombs, lifted it to their shoulders and we were off. All the people who dwelt in the little hamlet that clustered round the temple at the foot of the mountain, hoary-headed old men, little, naked children, small-footed women, peeped out and looked at the foreign woman as she passed on her pilgrimage up the steep and narrow pathway, the first foreigner that had passed up this way for some years, and probably the only one who would pass up this year. It took a good many people to get me up, I noticed, it wouldn't have been Tuan if it hadn't. There was his all-important self of course, there was a man carrying my camera, another one carrying my umbrella and a bundle of incense sticks, there were various minor hangers-on in the shape of small boys, and there were, of course, my four chair coolies.

Up we went and up. There were stone steps put together without mortar, all the way, and there were platforms every here and there, where the weary might rest, and because the hill was so steep, these platforms were generally made by piling up stones that looked as if a touch would send them rolling to the bottom of the mountain, a step and one would be over oneself, for there were no barriers. It was twelve li, four miles up, and the way was broken by smaller temples dedicated to various gods, among them one to the goddess who takes pity on barren women. This one was half-way up the mountain, and here we met a small-footed woman toiling along with the aid of a stick. Half-way up that cruel mountain she had crawled on her aching feet, and every day she would come up, she told us, to burn incense at the shrine. And she looked old, old. It would be a miracle indeed, I thought, if she bore that longed-for child. Hope must be dying very hard indeed. And yet she must have known. Poor thing, poor weary woman, what was the tragedy of her life? Children, one would think, were a drug in the market in China, they swarm everywhere. I burned an incense stick for her and could only hope the God of Pity would answer her prayer, and take away her reproach before men.

Up and up and up, and so steep it grew I was fain to shut my eyes else the sensation that I would fall off into space would have been too much for me. From the doorways of the wayside temples we passed through we looked into space, and the mountains at the other side of the valley seemed farther away than ever. A cuckoo called and called again “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!” As we waited once a coolie passed with a bamboo across his shoulder from which were slung two very modern kerosene tins—Babylon and America meeting—and they told me there was no water on the mountain, every drop had to be carried up; and then the men took up the poles on their shoulders and tramped on again, and every time they changed the pole from one shoulder to the other I felt I would surely fall off into the valley, miles below. Up and up and up, they were streaming with perspiration, and at last when it seemed to me we had arrived at the highest point of the world, and that it was very like a needle-point, they set down my chair at the bottom of the flight of steps that led up to the entrance to the main temple, and the abbot and a crowd of monks stood at the top to greet me.

They swarmed everywhere, it was impossible to estimate their numbers, young men and old, all with shaven heads and dark, rusty red robes, and then others, blind, and halt, and maimed, evidently pensioners on their bounty. It seemed to me it could hardly be worth while to climb up so steep a place for the small dole that was all the monks had it in their power to give. It must have been so little, so little. They showed me the shrine, a poor little shrine to one who had seen the wonders of the Lama Temple in Peking. I took a picture of the abbot standing in front of it, and they showed me their kitchen premises, where were great jars of vegetables salted and in pickle, and looking most unappetising, but that apparently, with millet porridge, was all they had to live on.

It was crowded, it was dirty, it was shabby, but there were great stone pillars, eighteen of them, that they told me had been brought from a great distance south of Peking, and had been carried up the mountain in the days of the Mings, long before there were the steps, which were only put there a little over a hundred years ago—quite recently for China. How they could possibly get them up even now that there are four miles of steep stone steps I cannot possibly imagine. Babylon! Babylon!! I shut my eyes and saw the toiling slaves, heard the crack of the taskmaster's whip, and the hopeless moan of the man who sank, crushed and broken, beneath the burden.

The abbot bowed himself courteously over a gift of thirty cents which Tuan, and I am sure he would not have understated it, said was the proper cumshaw, and I bade them farewell and turned to go down that hill again. The thought of it was heavy on my soul. Outside was a beggar, men are close to starvation in China. The wretched, forlorn creature, with wild hair and his nakedness hidden by the most disgusting rags, had followed my train up all those four steep miles in the hope of a small gift. For five cents he too bowed himself in deepest gratitude. It was a gift I was ashamed of, but the important interpreter considered he had the right to regulate these things, and he certainly led me carefully on all other occasions. Then I looked at my chair and I looked at the steep steps down which we must go. How could I possibly manage it without getting giddy and pitching right forward, for going down would be much worse than coming up had been. And then the men showed me that I must get in and be carried down backwards.

Would they slip? I could but trust not. I was alone and helpless, days, and they must have known it, from any of my own people. They might easily have held me up and demanded more than the three dollars for which they had contracted, but they did not. Patient, uncomplaining, as the Babylonish slaves to whom I had compared them, they carried me steadily and carefully from temple to temple all the way down, and at every altar we stopped I sat and looked on, and Tuan burned incense sticks, the officiating priest, he was very poor, dirty and shabby, struck a melodious gong as the act of adoration was accomplished and Tuan, in all his best clothes, knelt and knocked his head on the ground. I wondered whether I, too, was not acquiring merit, for my money had bought the incense sticks, and my money, it was only a trifling ten cents, paid the wild-looking individual, with torn coat and unshaven head, who carried them up the mountain.

And when I reached the bottom of the mountain in safety, I felt I had gained merit, for the men who had carried me so carefully were wild with gratitude, and evidently called down blessings upon my head, because I gave them an extra dollar. It pleased me, and yet saddened me, because it seemed an awful thing that twenty-five cents apiece, sixpence each, should mean so much to any man. Their legs ached, they said. Poor things, poor things. Many legs ache in China, and I am afraid more often than not there is no one to supply a salve.

So we came back to the little mountain inn in the glorious afternoon, and the people looked on us as those who had made a pilgrimage, and Tuan climbed a little way down from his high estate. He set about getting me a meal, the eternal chicken, and rice, and stewed pear, and I looked back at the mountain I had climbed and wondered, and was glad, as I am often glad, that I had done a thing I need never do again.

Was there merit? For Tuan, let us hope, even though I did pay for the incense sticks, for me, well I don't know. On the mountain I was uplifted, here in the valley I only knew that the view from the high peak, the vista of hill and valley, the greenness of the fresh grass on the rounded, treeless hills, and the greenness of the springing crops in the valley, the golden sunshine and the glorious blue sky of Northern China, the sky that is translucent and far away, was something well worth remembering. Truly it sometimes seems that all things that are worth doing are hard to do.