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.

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.

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 vi 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.

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.

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 Mantzu 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.

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.

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.

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, Mantzu, 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

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 Ssu 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.

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 Ssu 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.