  WE PAY OFF SHUKR ALI—LANCHEO TO CHONG WEI—OFFICIAL INCIVILITY—LOSE RUBY—SHAHZAD MIR MISTAKEN FOR A REBEL. Soon after daybreak on the 25th October we bade farewell to the missionaries, and, accompanied by Ridley and Rijnhart, made our way to the inn on the far side of the river, from which our carts were to start, and in which our men had slept the previous night. Our baggage was now of the most miscellaneous description, for in addition to the instruments, clothes, and flowers which we had brought with us, there were the curios we had bought, and last, but not least, provisions of bread, meat, vegetables, and butter for a seven days' journey across a sandy desert country, where little could be bought, the inns providing accommodation, but scarcely anything else. We were determined not to starve any more, and made due preparations to guard against doing so. To carry these numerous articles, as well as ourselves and our men, we had engaged two carts, each drawn by a mule and a pony. As when hiring baggage mules, so again now a regular contract had to be drawn up and signed by the contracting parties. Our agreement was that each cart was to carry 500 Chinese pounds, equal to 666 English pounds, including passengers, and to land us in Chong Wei on the 31st October. There is also another and bigger sort of cart in this part of China, which carries 1,200 pounds, and is drawn by three animals, but it was not suited to our requirements. THE ONLY WAY TO DRIVE IN NORTH CHINA. As usual in making a start, the first day there was considerable delay, and even after everything was ready as far as we were concerned our carters flatly refused to start till another party, consisting of two officials—one military, the other customs-house—who were going to Ning-Shia-Fu, were also prepared to make a move, and this was not till just 11 a.m., some five hours after leaving the mission-house. Our last care before starting was to pay off Shukr Ali, whom we were sending back to Ladakh vi Yarkand. The inn which we were leaving for Chong Wei was also the inn from which the carts make their departure for Yarkand, so we arranged with the innkeeper that he was to keep Shukr Ali until a caravan should be starting, leaving him a sum of money for board and lodging, Ridley, moreover, very kindly promising to see that the innkeeper did not defraud him or delay his departure. Some months later we heard that Shukr Ali had arrived in Kashgar, where he presented himself to the British Resident, Captain Macartney, and coolly stated that he had been defrauded of a portion of his just dues. He appears, however, to have omitted to mention the fact of his desertion with the remainder of our flour, or any of his many sins of omission and commission by which he had forfeited all claim to any consideration. We did, indeed, send him Rs. 40 in answer to the appeal of the Resident, but with a special request that he should be made to clearly understand that he was in no way entitled to it. I can only hope that this was done. Had it not been for the fact that his behaviour up to the 2nd August was infinitely better than that of the other men, we would certainly never have taken him back into our service. The usual method of cart travelling in China is to make an early morning start, to halt a couple of hours about midday, and then to go on till sunset, or rather later; but as the animals travel at a walk the whole time, the amount of One day the monotony of our journey was broken by a slight fracas between the carters and ourselves, they having made up their minds to stop for the day at 2 p.m., while we were equally determined that they should go on another fifty li. Halting so early made it quite impossible for them to land us in Chong Wei on the day they had agreed upon, but this did not appear to affect them in the least, and threats of taking them to the Yamen at Chong Wei were equally unavailing, so that I am bound to confess that they fairly beat us, and we remained stuck in a little village for the rest of the day. On the 31st October, the day our cart journey should have ended, we were woken up at 2 a.m., the carters saying they were in a hurry to start. Nothing loth, we made a hasty breakfast, rolled up our blankets, and made every preparation for departure. Our fellow-travellers moved off, but there were The men had already gone on, so, taking Ruby with me, I set off down the road, which soon developed into a succession of sand hills, with many cart ruts in several places nearly two feet deep—anything but pleasant walking in the dark. It did not take me long to catch up to the men, but by this time I had been deserted by Ruby, the faithful companion of so many days' travelling. This troubled me little at the time, as I quite made up my mind that, not relishing the keen morning air, she had returned to the inn to put in as much more sleep as possible. After going about thirteen miles I came to a small village, where I tried to get some bread, but my endeavours being unsuccessful, whether owing to some flaw in my Chinese or not I cannot say, I decided to walk on to the next place. On I went, following the cart tracks, which formed an apology for a road, down the bed of a narrow stream, and between high cliffs, till I at length emerged on the banks of what was undoubtedly our old friend the Yellow River. I knew I could not be mistaken in this, as there is no other river in this part of China with anything like the same volume of water. The tracks led me along the left bank of the river, till they eventually stopped abruptly at the water's edge. High above me I could see a track across some forbidding-looking sand hills, but to reach it one had a difficult piece of ground to negotiate which was utterly impracticable for carts. I knew there was no other road by which the carts could go, and, as far as I could see, there was no possibility of their getting any further. It was now about It was about 5 p.m. when I woke, refreshed by sleep, but still very hungry, and anxious for the arrival of the carts, which, however, were nowhere to be seen; but just as it was getting dusk, a boat came round a bend of the river, being dragged up the far side by sturdy Chinamen. They went a short distance further up the river than where I was, and then dropped across to my side. This was evidently a ferry-boat, and was in the habit of meeting carts and travellers at intervals during the day, so, feeling sure it was certain to take me somewhere, I got on board with the men, expecting to be ferried across to some village on the far side, which was hidden by the curve of the bank, but to my astonishment we went straight down the river, about half a mile. Here the boat stopped, and out we all got. The boatmen moored the boat for the night, and then started off across some fields. I followed in silence, wondering what the upshot of it all was likely to be. There I was, a stranger in a strange land, destitute of money and food, and quite unable to speak the language, or make myself understood except occasionally by signs. And in this Shahzad Mir, Esau, and Lassoo, were of no help; they were indeed only extra mouths to feed, and no money to do it with. After walking about half a mile we came to a small group of houses, and one of the boatmen, a good sort of fellow, made signs for us to follow him into one of them. Here we found an old lady, evidently his wife, and to our great delight our demands for "momo" (bread) and "tsa" (tea) were promptly complied with. We had indeed fallen upon our feet, for in addition to these luxuries the room was clean and comfortable, but all efforts to make our host and hostess understand that we would like some eggs availed us nothing. Even when we all four sat in a row, each ON THE ROAD FROM LANCHEO, CHINA. Next morning, after more bread and tea, I went out and anxiously looked up the river for signs of the ferry-boat or the carts, but nothing occurred till about midday, when the carters arrived leading their animals, and now, for the first time I really grasped the meaning of the abruptly ending cart road, the steep track over the sand hills, and the ferry-boat. The carts are dragged down as far as possible by the animals, which are then unharnessed, led up the steep cliff and across the sand hills down to the village in which I had passed the night, and in the meanwhile the carts are shipped on to the ferry-boat and brought down until the road again becomes fit for wheeled traffic. Soon after Rijnhart and Malcolm arrived with the carts in the boat, which this time came right down to the village, but, to my great sorrow, Ruby was not with them, nor had they seen her. It certainly seemed hard that, after travelling so many miles, she should be lost when comparatively near the goal. It appeared that the pony had not returned the previous morning till nearly seven, and that the carters had again struck work and insisted on stopping for the night at the village through which I had passed after my unsuccessful attempt to get bread. They had said that they could not possibly get to the ferry that night, and that, as they had no intention of sleeping in the open, they would go no further. However, now that we were all united, our first care was to start off the men in the carts for Chong Wei, while we got a raft for ourselves to take us down the river. The whole party was in motion again by 2 p.m., and about half an hour before sunset we got down to our landing place, a sort of coal wharf about two miles from the city of Chong Wei. We had previously agreed with our carters to go to a certain inn in the east suburb, so we made our way there as quickly as possible, expecting the carts to come in before night. In this, however, we were disappointed, but it was a matter of indifference to us, as our men had plenty of money and were perfectly safe. The innkeeper made us a capital supper of mutton and rice, and while we were discussing it, a Chinaman, who turned out to be an agent for one of the wool firms, with that easy familiarity characteristic of the race, came in and gave us all the news of the place; and from him we learnt that there was another foreigner living near the west gate of the city, so we made up our minds to visit him in the morning and find out the best way of getting on to Pao T'eo. Chong Wei.Soon after daylight the next morning we started off to the wharf, where the wool boats lie while taking in cargo, in hopes that we might be able to get a passage in one as far as Ning-Shia-Fu or Shih-Tsui-Tsi, or, failing in that, that we might be able to hire a boat for ourselves. In this we failed, the prices asked being absolutely prohibitive, and we also learnt that another and hitherto unthought-of danger was staring us in the face, and that was that it was quite possible that the river would freeze below Shih-Tsui-Tsi in a very few days, in which case we should have to make a tedious camel journey through the Ordos country to Pao T'eo, by no means a pleasant look-out in the wintry weather that was now coming on; but as a set-off against this we heard that Messrs. Forbes & Co., the wool merchants, whose agent we had met at Tankar, had an office just opposite the inn in which we were lodging, and that very possibly they might be able to help us on our journey. STREET IN THE TONG KUAN (E. SUBURB), CHONG WEI, YELLOW RIVER. With this information to cheer us we rushed back to the town and into Forbes's office, where we found all the agents and principal men discussing a hearty breakfast, of which This was a good morning's work, and we crossed the street to breakfast in our inn, almost as hungry as we had been in Tibet. We were followed immediately into the yard by our carts and servants, so, to save any bother, we paid the former off at once, and, such is the cheek of the Chinese carter, they grumbled at not getting wine money in addition to the full amount of Ts. 19, for which they should have landed us in Chong Wei two days sooner than they actually had. The altercation thus caused collected rather a crowd, who were far from being as civil as those we had hitherto met—in fact, Chong Wei was the only place in China where we experienced any inconvenience from the inquisitive objection to foreigners of which one hears so much; but had it not been for Rijnhart we might have got into serious trouble here, as will be seen later. One man On some occasions our worthy guard was called away from his post for another purpose, when the inquisitive crowd would at once take advantage of his absence, and a mass of peering faces would obscure all the air and nearly all the light from the door of our little room. A toe over the threshold invited a rap from one of our sticks, but still we required more ventilation and adopted a plan and a surprise quite novel to the Chinaman. Seizing a tumbler full of water, either Malcolm or I would fling the contents on them, and at the same time laugh right merrily, and, although annoyed at the time we could not help doing this at the result. The crowd at once dispersed on every side; those who had been unfortunate in getting a wetting at first became enraged, but those who had escaped were only too glad to join us in our chaff against their fellow-countrymen. Had we put on a serious mien all would Breakfast over, Rijnhart and I started to find out the foreigner of whom we had heard the previous night, and also to pay a visit at the Yamen, where I thought I might be able to get some further information about our journey to the coast. In this, however, I was unsuccessful, and a very few moments sufficed to show me that any incivility shown to foreigners would certainly not incur the disapproval of the Yamen. Our reception was very different from anything we had experienced at any of the other Yamens. My visiting card, a brilliant crimson piece of paper, with my name in black Chinese characters, was the same size as that used by generals and others of equal rank, i.e., nearly a foot in length, and had hitherto always commanded respect, but was here treated with contempt, the doorkeeper refusing to take it in to the mandarin, while the crowd kept insolently jostling and shoving against us. Even my passport, elsewhere a regular "open sesame," in which I was referred to in the most flattering terms, was of little good; and even when we were finally admitted it was not into the presence of the big man himself, but only of his head clerk, who did not even offer us chairs, but adopted a tone of insolence such as only a Chinese jack-in-office can. Rijnhart was equal to the occasion, and soon showed him that his arrogant tone did not impress us with a sense of his importance as he had doubtless hoped it would do; but seeing that nothing was to be gained by stopping there, we left as soon as we possibly could, and went in search of the foreigner. We had no difficulty in finding out his inn, and most highly surprised and delighted he appeared at It soon turned out that he and Rijnhart were old acquaintances, having landed in China about the same time, and thus the ice was speedily broken, and I quickly learnt that our new friend's name was Mr. Lumberg, that he was a Swede, and belonged to that branch of the International Mission Alliance. He had been some months in Chong Wei trying to open a mission station, but so far, owing to the opposition of the Yamen, he had not been very successful. He was very anxious to hire a house, but, although many of the townspeople were willing to let, the Yamen people secretly but effectually stopped them doing so, at the same time assuring Mr. Lumberg that they were doing all they could to help him, even going so far as to put up notices in public places proclaiming his wants. The petty official of Chong Wei was thus able to gratify his personal spite against foreigners while guarding against the displeasure of his superior at Lancheo, a man well known to be favourably disposed towards them. When we returned to our inn, Lumberg accompanied us, and eventually we persuaded him to send for his bedding and spend the night with us. It was now, for the first time, that we heard what a hornet's nest Mr. Littledale had raised by his remarks before the Royal Geographical Society, about sending unprotected Swedish girls to live in out-of-the-way parts of China. Well meant as these remarks undoubtedly were, the Swedes considered that his object was to strike a blow at their missionary enterprise, and when the matter was taken up by the Swedish Government, it roused a feeling of resentment that will not die out for some time, and which, in some cases, seemed to extend to the whole race of Englishmen. Although we were invariably treated with the greatest hospitality, one could not OUR INN AT CHONG WEI. That evening, while walking in the streets, accompanied by Shahzad Mir, an incident occurred, which, but for Rijnhart's shrewdness and knowledge of the Chinese, might have landed us in a row. Shahzad Mir was dressed in semi-European clothes, and being an unmistakable Mohammedan, some of the people jumped to the conclusion that he was a "Salar" in disguise. No sooner had this idea been started than it spread rapidly. A crowd collected, and began following us, shouting excitedly. We quickened our pace slightly, and told Shahzad Mir not to get separated from us. The crowd and shouting gradually increased, and things were looking awkward, when, seizing his opportunity, Rijnhart suddenly turned round and addressed the crowd, saying that he knew for certain that Shahzad Mir had been travelling for six months since he left his home, and that, as the Salars lived comparatively close by, he could not possibly be one of them. This pacified them for a bit, and while they discussed the probability or otherwise of Shahzad Mir being a Salar we quickly left the city and turned into the suburb, which was comparatively quiet; and the only result of the disturbance was that our faithful Duffadar was confined to the inn during the remainder of our stay in that place, while we ourselves never entered the city itself unless accompanied either by Lumberg or Rijnhart. |
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