Читать книгу Intimate China: The Chinese as I Have Seen Them - Archibald Mrs. Little - Страница 13

Table of Contents

Large Farmsteads.—Wedding Party.—Atoning for an Insult.—Rowdy Lichuan.—Old-fashioned Inn.—Dog's Triumphal Progress.—Free Fight.—Wicked Music.—Poppy-fields.—Bamboo Stream.

It is very unusual to make the journey from Ichang to Chungking by land; but one year in the spring-time the thought of the dog-roses and the honeysuckle tempted us, as also the prospect of getting to our destination a few days earlier; so we crossed the river at Ichang, and set off over the mountains, at first all white and glittering with new-fallen snow. How delicious oranges tasted, when we took alternate bites of them and crisp mountain snow!

Here and there were large farmsteads, where a whole clan lived together, thus avoiding the loneliness of English country life, as also the insecurity. How it works, and whether there is some natural law by which no family increases beyond a certain number, or how it is decided when the moment comes that some members have to go out into the world to seek their fortunes, and who it should be, I do not know. But it is obvious that the Chinese plan leads to a great deal of pleasant sociability; and as it is always the eldest man of the family whose authority is (nominally) absolute, this must lead to a certain continuity of régime, very different from what it would be, if, as with us, a young eldest son every now and then became the head. It also leads to the erection of very large and very beautiful homesteads, with generally a beautiful temple near at hand.

It was a pretty sight one day to watch a wedding party behind us winding up and down the mountainsides, seven men carrying flags, seven or eight ponies with red cloth saddles, a red State umbrella carried by itself, two sedan-chairs, and music, which last sounded quite pleasantly in the fresh country air. They were going to fetch the bride, we were told; but our last sight of them was sad. For, encountering an opium caravan, one of the wedding party was saucy, and a free fight ensued, branches being torn off the trees, whilst all the cavaliers, now mounted, stood huddled together on a hill, declaring they knew nothing about it instead of dashing in to the rescue. Meanwhile, one at least of the wedding party was carried off prostrate and bleeding, and the opium caravan, with its heavy carrying-poles, was having it all its own way.

Once we thought we were going to spend the night, as we always tried to do, at a lonely inn; but there was a village just beyond it, and the villagers came over, and were rather troublesome in their curiosity. What was particularly annoying was that our room was only partly boarded over at the top with loose, dirty boards; and when we closed the door, all who could rushed up ladders into the rafters to look down, or on to the loose boards above us, staring down at us, and covering us and our dinner with dust. This had to be stopped; so we opened the door again. And I got so tired of the people, I went outside to walk up and down the road in the moonlight, though certainly we had had quite enough walking; for our little pony had lost two shoes, and with so many miles yet to go had to be spared a good deal. Even in the moonlight, however, a growing crowd followed me, staring and giggling, till impatiently I remonstrated. On which a man stepped forward as spokesman. "We are nothing but mountain people," he said, "and anything like you we have never seen before! So we do just want to look." On this it was impossible not to show oneself off answering beforehand all the questions I knew they would otherwise ask, on which they laughed merrily, quite delighted. But we really wanted to go to bed some time or other; and so far I had not been able to wash at all except just my face and hands, which after a long day across mountains is hardly satisfactory. So now we tried the expedient of being exceedingly polite, and wishing them all good-night. After this had been repeated two or three times, the door being shut after each good-night, the people dispersed, some each time taking the hint and going away. But, alas! it seemed some were going to sleep up above us; and as there was nothing to prevent their staring down at us as much as they liked over the ends of the loose planks, I had to wait till my husband had undressed comfortably by candle-light, and put the candle out, and then, as so often before, go to bed in the dark. Certainly, a man has great advantages in travelling.

Another day one of our coolies had a fight with one of his substitutes about pay. Every man we pay always sweats the work out to some one else. The substitute boxed his ears. He called his substitute's mother dreadful names. They were both from the same town, which made it worse. In a second all our men had thrown down their loads, and were flying down the hill to join in the fight. As we had just passed through a little village, I thought, of course, my husband, who was behind, had been attacked; whilst he came hurrying up to learn what had been done to me. Meanwhile, our cook, the real fighting man of our party, had rushed in to have his innings, just as ignorant as either of us as to what had really occurred. Whatever it was, we felt sorry for the poor substitute, overpowered by the members of our party; so we at last succeeded in stopping the tail-pulling and cudgelling, but not before the poor man's face was all bleeding. Some ten miles farther on we came to a wayside house, with two venerable-looking Chinamen sitting in the seat of justice, and the whole party had to go in. It was decided our coolies were in the wrong. And I was delighted to hear that such an insult as they had offered to the man's mother could not be atoned for by money. They had publicly to k`otow (bow till they touched the ground with their foreheads), and to apologise.

At Lichuan occurred our first mobbing, the more unfortunate as most of our coolies came from there. Our cook had, as we thought, very imprudently engaged rooms for us in an inn outside the walls, and evidently not the best inn. To make it worse, it had an entrance back and front, and the room assigned to us had three large windows. So often we had no windows at all, it seemed particularly unfortunate we should have three there; for in poured a howling crowd, and the windows were at once a sea of faces. We thought it best to bolt the door of the room, setting our soldier-coolie on guard over it. And the only thing to do with the windows seemed to be to close the shutters and wait inside in the darkness, hoping the crowd would go away when there was nothing more to see. But there were eyes and fingers at every crack—and the room was all cracks—and the people coughed to attract our attention, and called to us to come out; while to judge by the sounds—but one can never do this in China—there seemed to be fierce fighting between some of them and our coolies. Presently my husband went out, and tried to reason with them, telling them if it was only himself they should be free to come into his room, and see him all the time; but they knew themselves it was not proper to look into women's apartments. They seemed too low and rude a crowd for reasoning; so then he went to the landlord. And there were one or two furious onslaughts, and then as many or more men as were driven out from before came in from behind. And the landlord said he was powerless. Once they broke the shutters open, and my husband really frightened them, rushing out and asking who was trying to steal our things, and saying he would have the thieves arrested and taken to the yamen. This was an excellent idea, and quieted them for a little while. But then it all began again.

And meanwhile our combative cook, getting ready our dinner in the midst of all the hurly-burly, was evidently with difficulty putting a restraint on himself. We had to light a candle to dine by, and this let Bedlam loose again. It was our first really hot day, and we were very tired; but it was evident there was to be no rest for us that evening. Then, just as in a very disconsolate state we were going to bed, between twenty and thirty very smartly dressed women actually came to call upon us, introduced, as it were, by a Christian from Wanhsien, who was on a visit to her relations. She came in, shaking hands very affectionately at once, and sitting down to talk, as if she were our dearest friend; whilst she pronounced the people very bad people, and said she was going away again directly. But whether she was a real Christian or not we did not know, although we have since heard all about her, and that she is a very enthusiastic convert. There were not enough seats to offer the other women one each. It was very late, and the noise pretty great; so, after we had admired their large, hanging, silver earrings, and they had taken stock of us, as it were, they went away again, and then—out with the lights and to bed! But there were fingers feeling, feeling at the cracks, and rude coughs, and noises for hours after that.

Next day we took care to be off before daybreak, and it was from the open country beyond we saw the sun rise over Lichuan; but the general appearance of the town was as if it had long ago set. All the hazy temples looked dilapidated, and the inhabitants had a decidedly opium-eating air. And worst of all, there were no horseshoes to be had. But the little pony still trotted bravely on with shoes on its two fore feet. It is rice that specially flourishes round Lichuan, and the reflections in the paddy-fields were very lovely all that day. There was a thunderstorm in the evening; but nothing like so magnificent as what we had a night or two before, when we took refuge in a schoolhouse, where the master delighted my husband by his very educated Chinese.

But then came the question of putting up for the night again. Every one seemed agitated, and kept hurrying on in front, as if not wanting to be questioned; and meanwhile we never stopped! Yet every one was complaining of not feeling well; and there were the barrier mountains in front, and nothing now visible between us and them but one of those large isolated farmhouses, of which we had seen so many. There was a network of rice-fields in front of it, the whole river here being spread out over the fields; and there, with a screen of gnarled willows before it, the old farmhouse stood, raised on a little platform, looking down on the waste of waters. Could it be possible that we were going to ask hospitality of a private house? It seemed so, for there was the Boy coming back from the house to greet us. "Come in quickly, Mississy. No man must see you. And you no must say anything. My have say all a mistakey, you no belong woman, you one man." "But why is that? Why did you say I was a man?" "This belong old-fashion Chinese inn—no can have one woman. The last inn say no got any room, because no will have one woman. So my go on very fast, and say you one man. The people no savee. Only come in quickly now." Would a stricter moralist have thought it necessary to repudiate the falsehood, and explain? It was late, and we were tired, and I went quickly to the inner room. Then the Boy began to explain further. According to him, it is in China the height of impropriety for a man and a woman in travelling to share the same room. When a Chinese mandarin travels, his wife goes into the women's quarter with the other women. Unfortunately, in these inns there was no women's quarter; so at Lichuan, where it seems the difficulty had begun, the Boy had said if the landlord would give me another room I would occupy it, but there had been none for me. The last inn had refused us outright; and this being a regular old-fashioned inn and farmhouse, the Boy had felt quite sure it would do likewise if it knew. All this was a new idea to us. And as we saw all the women of the household taking peeps at us from the window over the buffalo-stable opposite, we fancied their suspicions had been aroused, and that after all they knew I was a woman. All across the mountains there had been a great wondering as to what I was, and I had often heard the country people beseeching the coolies to tell them. When I sat in my chair in my long fur coat, and my husband rode the pony, they had no doubt at all but that I was a man, and a mandarin, and he my outrider; and they used to ask about me in this spirit, and in one village all stood with bated breath whilst I was carried by. But with the fur coat, which is greatly worn by mandarins, my dignity departed, and, on foot or on horseback, I was altogether an anomaly. The hair seemed to be the hair of a woman; but, then, the feet were surely the feet of a man!

Next day, however, our falsehood was revealed; for it poured pretty well all day: the rain had streamed in on my husband's bed during the night, and wet most of his things; one of the coolies was very ill with cold, the cook pretty sick, my husband ditto; and we settled to stop the day. And it being so chilly, we were but too thankful to leave our very draughty, damp rooms, and to go and sit in one of the family's rooms in the farmhouse part, where a fire of chaff and shavings on the floor made a great smoke and a little warmth, and where all the huge family interviewed us by turns, as we turned over picture-books. The men of the family had a most lively game of cards going on, and all our coolies likewise settled to cards. But some of the family were reading the Yi King, which, as the head of the house said, was the foundation of all wisdom, and is one of the most difficult of all Chinese classics. This rather delighted me, just as it did in the boat coming down to find our coolies and some junk-owners going down with us all amusing themselves with puzzles I had always known as Chinese, but never before seen in China, in especial the complicated cross puzzle made roughly out of bits of bamboo.

FREE SCHOOL.

By Mrs. Archibald Little.

One day we passed a beautiful free school, built by some wealthy man for the advantage of his poorer neighbours in this remote region.

It was after this began the little dog's triumphant progress. People had enjoyed seeing him everywhere. But now, on the borderland between the two provinces of Hupeh and Szechuan, they really revelled in him. Mothers brought out their babies, who cooed with delight; boys danced backwards down the street before him, clapping their hands. Not the most advanced opium-smoker but his pallid face relaxed into a smile at catching sight of our little Jack; and everywhere we moved to a chorus of "Lion-dog! Lion-dog!" and general happy smiles. I could not but recall how in one town, too dirty even to dine in, the crowd had surveyed us, and at last one boy had said, "Well! their animals are good-looking," then felt all that his speech implied, and looked confounded. But we had again and again heard people admiring the pony's condition, and saying, "At least foreigners know how to take care of animals." So my husband was well satisfied, and I was too, being again asked to sell little Jack, whom the people thought we must be taking to market, or why did we take him along the road with us? A Taoist priest had even come down from his temple to ask that the dog might be presented to it. So we felt that at least our animals were appreciated, whatever we might be.

This was all very well when they did not pelt us. But they did sometimes. And in one town out of the crowd came a really well-dressed man, and seized hold of my foremost chair-coolie—I was always carried through the towns—crying out, "You said it was a friend of yours!" The coolies offered no resistance. Before that I had been vainly urging them to carry me faster; they had appeared to be waiting for something. But my husband now sprang forward, and seized the well-dressed man, when, to his surprise, the latter showed fight. And then all the people on the bank above us began to pelt, throwing rather better than usual too. My husband was hit in several places. Our fighting cook was hit too, but, I believe, flatters himself he gave quite as good as he got. Even the decidedly non-fighting Boy's pugnacious instincts were roused. "Only I thought it would be so dleadful for you, Mississy," he said afterwards. So he did not fight. As for me, I honestly own I never once looked behind, having a great regard for my eyes when any earth-throwing begins. And the coolies now hurried me away with a will, as my husband had dragged off their assailant by his pigtail, and deposited him in a paddy-field. Several of the onlookers, being unpleasantly hurt, now told our party the whole thing had been got up by the well-dressed man and one or two more, well known in the place, and regular bullies, who had distributed cash among the crowd to get us pelted simply out of hatred to foreigners.

At the next town we were again a little pelted. But when we got back to the main road, travelling along once more beside the telegraph-wires, the people were what we call in China very civil; in any other country it would be outrageously insolent and ill-mannered. And before we got there we had to sleep one night in one of the most stinking, dirty towns we ever passed through. We arrived late, so were happily not well seen; and the people there, having a guilty conscience, thought that we were officials sent to stop them from gambling or some other bad practice. So we should have had a quiet resting-time but for all night long the most dreadful sort of music going on near at hand. It was the kind of music that Wagner might have liked for a motif. But the Boy said it was horribly wicked, and not even a thing to mention before a lady. As far as I could make out, it was incantations over a sick person, not made by any priest, he said, but by the people themselves, and with witches and dancing. But he spoke of it with such horror, it seemed wrong to question him. It had a weird, wicked sound; but it did not keep us awake. Only, whenever I woke, I heard it still going on; and it seemed quite in character with the general look of the place and the sweet sickly opium smell as we entered the small town. We went away early next morning through a regular thick fog; and directly we escaped from the filth of the town, we were in the prosperous-looking, healthy poppy-fields again.

POPPIES AND TERRACED RICE-FIELDS.

By Mrs. Archibald Little.

For five days we travelled through a perfect flower-show of poppies, not the wild field-poppy of England, but like those we have in our gardens, standing up tall and stately about five feet high. Most were white, a delicate, fair, frail blossom; others were white, with fringed petals edged with pink; others altogether pink, or mauve, or scarlet, or scarlet-and-black, or, perhaps best of all, crimson, which, when looked up at on a bank standing out against the brilliantly blue sky, made our eyes quite ache with colour-pleasure. But how sad to hear in a letter from a friend in the Kweichow Province: "Ten years ago the price of rice per basin was 7 cash. Now, owing to the poppy taking the place of what ought to produce food for the people, the price is 20 cash for the same quantity of rice. And the people are wretchedly poor and ill-clad, whilst their poor bodies are wasting away from the constant use of the drug." One whole day we wandered along a pleasant path beside a limpid stream, beautiful, tall, bending bamboos making a refreshing breeze over our heads, with their cool green feathery foliage. If all the world could be traversed by paths like that, who would ever travel but on foot? But in the end we arrived at beautiful Chungking in a boat, as is usual with this river-encircled city.