# Illustrations of China and Its People/Volume 3

ILLUSTRATIONS OF
CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE.
VOL. III.
ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE.
A SERIES OF TWO HUNDRED PHOTOGRAPHS, WITH
LETTERPRESS DESCRIPTIVE OF THE PLACES
AND PEOPLE REPRESENTED.
BY J. THOMSON, F. R. G. S.
"Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light."
Milton, Paradise Lost, Book III.
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOLUME III.
LONDON:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, AND SEARLE,
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1874
[All Rights Reserved.]
CHISWICK PRESS :—PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS,
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Plate I. Plate II. Plate III.
Plate IV. Plate V.
Plate VI. 1 1
Plate VII. Plate VIII. Plate IX. Plate X. Plate XI. Plate XII.
Plate XIII. Plate XIV. Plate XV.
Plate XVI.
The Fukien Temple, Ningpo.
Tseen-chang-yen Waterfall, Snowy Valley.
The Monastery of the Snowy Crevice.
Sung-ing-day Fall, Snowy Valley.
A Wayside Shrine.
Ningpo Ladies.
Shanghai Bund in 1869.
Part or Shanghai Bund in 1872.
Shanghai Bund.
The Lung-hwa-ta or " Pagoda of the Dragon's Glory.'
Shanghai Wheelbarrows.
Spinning Cotton.
The Cangue Punishment.
The Cage Punishment.
Kwanyin Temple, Puto Island.
Silver Island, River Yangtsze.
Golden Island, River Yangtsze.
Scene in Nanking Arsenal.
Nanking.
The Ming Tombs, Nanking.
Foreign Drilled Troops.
Interior of Workshop, Nanking Arsenal.
Ruins of the Porcelain Tower, Nanking.
Kiu-kiang (Foreign Settlement).
Street Groups, Kiu-kiang.
The Wharf, Kiu-kiang.
Sawyers at Work.
The Ribbon Loom.
Ruins at Talping-koong.
Hankow (Native Town).
Hankow (Foreign Settlement). ​Plate XVII. 32 Wu-chang Tower.
33 Boat's Crew at Breakfast.
34 Interior of Native Travelling Boat.
35 Our Chinese Interpreter.
Plate XVIII. 36 Cave Dwellings, I -Chang Gorge, River Yangtsze.
37 Szechuan Trading Boat.
38 Szechuan Trading Boat.
39 Chinese Gunboat, Upper Yangtsze. Plate XIX. 40 I -Chang Gorge.
41 Natives.
42 Coal Mine.
43 Making Fuel. Plate XX. 44 Coal Miners.
45 Drying Fuel.
46 Coolie and Creel, Szechuan.
47 A Mountain Hut, Province of Hupeh. Plate XXI. 48 Mi-tan Gorge, Upper Yangtsze. Plate XXII. 49 Tsing-tan Rapid, Upper Yangtsze. Plate XXIII. 50 Lu-kan Gorge, Upper Yangtsze. Plate XXIV. 51 Wu-shan Gorge, Province of Szechuan.
Note. — The numbers corresponding with fhe afoot list will be found marked in ihe lower left corner of each subject.
The Photographs are printed in Permanent Pigment by the Autotype Msthankal Printing Process, Sy Messrs. Spencer, Sawver, Bird, and Co., London. ​
NINGPO, PROVINCE OF CHEH-KIANG.
THEH-KIANG is the smallest among the eighteen provinces of China, but for all that it has a history of considerable importance, its products are numerous and valuable, and its commerce great. Hangchow-fu, the capita], lias long been renowned for its magnificence. The great Venetian traveller pronounced it an Eastern paradise; but, in common with most places of note in China, it has experienced many vicissitudes of fortune, there have been seasons of trial and suffering when its ancient glory was like to depart from the city, and the culminating catastrophe overtook the place in 1861, when the Taiping rebels overthrew it. On that occasion the leader of the "great peace" sent his army to besiege the city and to lay it waste, a task which was most effectually carried out by the motley followers of the " Tien Wang," or " Heavenly King," as he styled himself. Famine, with a train of horrors such as recall the history of the siege of Jerusalem, was followed by the fall of the town, and then the populace were unsparingly slaughtered, and the palaces were destroyed. But there is something to be told of Cheh-kiang of deeper interest even than this, for in that province, at a spot called Huang-ke, Yu, the famous founder of the first dynasty of China, is reported to have met his end. If the records of the " Shoo King " are to be credited, Yu was one of the greatest men that ever lived. When he entered upon his labours the Empire had been desolated by a great flood, and he is said to have shown an engineering capacity almost superhuman by deepening the rivers, draining the land, and conducting the streams into their original channels. Yu flourished perhaps something more than a century subsequent to the period of the Noachian deluge the flood which Yu successfully dealt with may probably have been caused by a change in the course of the Great Yellow River similar to what occurred for the ninth time (according to Chinese accounts) between the years 1851 and 1853. At any rate, the overflow of the river during Yu's time is referred to in the "Shoo Kinc."
The province of Cheh-kiang is rich and productive, and in its mountain regions presents some of the most charming scenery which China has anywhere to show.
Ningpo, the port now thrown open to foreign trade, was one of the first places to which the Portuguese resorted after their expulsion from the south. At that spot they established themselves on the river Yang in 1522, and there, according to Chinese records, owing to their barbarous conduct, some twenty years later met with a fearful retribution at the hands of the Chinese. Their settlement was then destroyed, their ships were burned, and 800 of their detested race were slain.
Ningpo stands on the left bank of the Yang, about twelve miles inland. On the 3rd April, 1872, I crossed over to the place from Shanghai in the steamer " Chusan." It was daybreak when I entered the river, and the somewhat harsh outlines of the islands and the Chinhai promontory were mellowed in the morning light, while a multitude of fishing boats with their sails spread to catch the gentle breeze contributed to enliven the scene. Fukien timber junks, laden till they looked like floating wood yards, were labouring on their voyage up the stream. One feature full of novelty to the foreign visitor is the endless succession of ice houses lining the bank at short intervals, and stored with ice for use in the exportation of fresh fish during summer.
FUKIEN TEMPLE.
MONG the chief attractions of the town of Ningpo, is the Tien-how-kung, or " Queen of Heaven" Temple, the meeting house of the Fukien Guild. I have chosen this edifice as the frontispiece of this volume partly because it affords one of the finest examples of temple architecture in the Empire, and partly because the subject of Chinese guilds and trades unions is exceedingly important in connection with the social economy of the people.
The student of architecture will find the picture worthy of the closest scrutiny, for even the minutest details among the ornaments of the building are full of deep significance in reference to native art and the Buddhist or Hindoo mythology. ​It will be noticed that the stone pillars of the central edifice are remarkable for grotesque yet beautiful designs, where the dragon, the national emblem of China, is seen to be the leading figure. This dragon has been cut in high relief round each pillar, and made by this means to appear as if sustaining the temple; the same reptile may be discovered carved in low relief on the blocks of stone between the steps, and supporting also the ornament which forms the apex of the roof above. The dragon wields a potent influence over the people of the Empire; it forms one of the fundamental principles of their system of geomancy, and is supposed to exist in every mountain and stream throughout the land : its control is as firmly believed in by the Chinese masses as are the benign effects of the sunshine upon the earth. The dread of disturbing the repose of the dragon spirit as he broods over the soil of China, forms one of the chief obstacles to the advance of Western science, to the opening of mines, and to the construction of railroads and telegraphs across the interior of the country. It will be seen that the pillars of the temple here shown have no capitals, and that they are furnished by way of substitute with ornamental brackets made so as to throw the weight of the massive roofs down the centre of the shafts. Brackets such as these are in common use, and are applied to a variety of purposes. The central roof, for example, is supported by a system of ornamental triple brackets, which combine great strength with lightness and elegance of design. They are strong enough to prop up the heavy superstructure, by which a cool shade is obtained, and, at the same time, sufficiently open to admit light and air into the inner hall. It is impossible to describe in detail the fitness and charm of such a building as this. I must rather allow the picture to speak for itself, and conclude with a few remarks on guilds.
There is no country in which the benefits of union and combination are better understood than in China. Here, first of all, we find the principle of unity in the government of the land, the officers being chosen from the people, and owing their positions solely to their knowledge and high attainments. In the same way every profession or trade has its guild or union, governed by men distinguished for their wisdom and high standing in their several crafts; and every individual member of each trade, if he desires peace and prosperity, must subscribe to the rules laid down for the common interest of the whole. These unions have each their temple or guild hall in every city or village, and are under the protection of some local god. In these temples they hold their gatherings, frame their rules, and enjoy their feasts.
There are masters' guilds, where, at stated times, the current prices of products and manufactures are fixed, and there arc servants' guilds, where, in like manner, the wages of labour arc regulated. Judging from the great antiquity of some of these guild houses, trades unions and combinations, which are of recent development in our own land, have been in operation in China for many centuries.
The Fukien Temple was originally founded during the twelfth century. It was at different times destroyed and rebuilt, and was finally raised to its present magnificent proportions about the beginning of the eighteenth century. ​
PLATE II. WATERFALL, SNOWY VALLEY.
SNOWY VALLEY.
LEFT Ningpo for Snowy Valley on the 4th of April. My conveyance was a native house-boat hired to take me some eighteen miles up stream to Kong-Kai. It was nearly midnight when 1 started from the Ningpo wharf, and we hoped to reach Kong-Kai village about 9 o'clock next morning. But, as usual, the boatmen no sooner got clear of the floating bridge and city than they dropped anchor to wait, as they pretended, for the tide, but in reality to gain time and money. Induced, after much delay, to stick to their bargain and proceed, they landed me at the allotted time at Kong-Kai. My party was made up of four coolies to transport my baggage, together with two Chinamen who had been in my service for some years, and who were the constant companions of my travels. We set out for the hills, enjoying as we advanced the sweet perfume of bean and of rape fields, which stretched in a golden meadow to the distant margin of the uplands in front. Everything shone with freshness and beauty in the morning licdit; the country around us seemed a perfect garden of cultivation. In the midst of a scene such as this it was painful to find, in the village of Kong-Kai, a festering sore on the face of the landscape, and to be forced to exchange the balmy breath of the fields for the foul air of mud-polluted alleys. As I stood at this hamlet on its old bridge, a striking contrast presented itself to my gaze. Looking towards the hills through the pale green foliage of an overhanging tree, you might discern the river flowing between its reedy banks and reflecting the feathery plumes of bamboo and the more distant objects of the landscape. There, too, gliding on his loaded raft down stream, was the owner of a cargo of earthenware, resting on his oar, basking in the sun, and smoking the pipe of leisure and contentment. To the left, towards Kong-Kai, a small temple reposed in the deep shade of an ancient tree, and there were squalid villagers trooping out from the mire of a lane that formed the leading thoroughfare. One group had scaled the treacherous height of a dung-heap which had sunk, faint with its own odours, against the gateway of the shrine. The temple, the lanes, the shops and houses of the village, wore an air of dreary decay and blight thoroughly in keeping with its opium-wasted inhabitants. Here we procured mountain-chairs for the eighteen-mile journey to Teen-tang Monastery. The chair-bearers looked worn and feeble, but as I walked a good deal they were not overtaxed.
It was a great relief to turn one's back upon the village and inhale the pure air of the plain. We passed several hamlets on the way, and in these the people seemed cleaner and in better condition. The women and children of this district adorn their raven tresses with the bright flowers of the azalea, a plant found in great profusion on the surrounding hills. The halting-places were little wayside temples. In one I met two old women, the priestesses of the shrine; they were most haggard, ill-favoured crones, and it was with grave forebodings that I allowed them to prepare my repast As they leant over a fire of reeds in the dim light of an inner court, with hideous idols glaring around, I should not have been surprised had I seen them vanish in the smoke, and once I half suspected that I was being made the victim of some spell or incantation, for I observed one of these beldames stretch forth her withered hand to pluck a leaf from some strange plant which grew in a pot near the altar, and then she dropped the herb mysteriously into the cup of tea which she handed me. I sipped the decoction daintily, eyeing the old priestess the while, but nothing came of it. Probably she divined the drift of my thoughts, for her oaken face shrank up into a weird grin. The tea was good, but the cakes brought from behind a smiling goddess were as preternaturally tough.
The dilapidated outer porch of one of these wayside temples is represented in No. 5. Skilfully modelled images, the size of life, are here seen guarding the portals, and my lean chair-bearers are also pictured gambling with an itinerant fruit-seller.
Farms and clumps of fine old trees studded the well-tilled plain, and the haystacks piled up curiously round the trunks of trees added to the peculiarity of the scene.
The ascent of the mountains to the Monastery of the Snowy Crevice afforded a succession of the finest scenery to be met with in this part of China. The azaleas, for which the place is celebrated, were in full bloom, manthng the hills and valleys with rosy hues, and throwing out their blossoms in clusters of surpassing brilliancy against the deep green foliage which binds the edges of the path. The mountains in many places were thickly wooded, ​while jagged rocks from amid the folds of the foliage shot up their bold cliffs in striking contrast. But it was just before reaching the richly-tilled lands of the Monastery that we came across the finest scene. Here, as we looked back, from the altitude of about 1,500 feet, the eye wandered over an endless multitude of hills. A single cloud rested on a distant summit, as if to watch the windings of a stream which ran, wrapped in the glory of the evening sun, like a belt of bright gold dividing the valleys, and girdling the far-off mountain sides. As the sun declined, the hill-tops seemed to melt and merge into the fiery clouds, deep shadows shot across the path, swallowing up the woody chasms, and warning us that night was near at hand. Darkness had set in before we reached the Monastery. Here we met with a cordial welcome, a hooded bonze in holy stole leaving his evening reckoning on his amber rosary to light us to our quarters. From him I gathered the startling intelligence that foreign champagne was better than Samshu, and with a parting salutation he left us for the night.
The Monastery of the Snowy Crevice (see No. 3) rests in a fertile valley on the margin of a pure mountain stream, and is overshadowed by hills clad in pine forests and bamboo. The stately tree in front is supposed to have been planted by the pious founder of the shrine about the end of the ninth century. The building has been often renewed since then, and so, perhaps, has the tree.
Every monastery is popularly supposed to be ancient, and some, according to tradition, were never built at all, but created for the pious of pre-historic times. One of the stories connected with this place relates that in 1264 a. j>. the Emperor Li-tsung dreamed a dream about the temple, and accordingly named it "The Famous Hall of Dreams." This formed one of the most important events in its history, for the dream was followed by substantial presents. There is also another legend which tells us of an anchorite, and of an emperor, who essayed in vain to slay the holy man, till at last he fell down and worshipped him because he had never come across anybody whom he could not slay before. This monarch had just put a million of the common sort of his subjects to death, and he was athirst at that time for some victim of rarer eminence and sanctity than any of the others whom he had brought to their end. He died a pious priest, and left some suitable presents behind him too. Something like this is not unknown even at the present time. There are monks, I am told, in those places, who have lived lives of crime, and who find it expedient to retire to these choice retreats to die pleasantly, chanting " Ometo Fuh." Such holy ones, rescued from the grasp of justice and the jaws of the pit, take good care to live as long as they can. Many of the priests of the Buddhist faith are doubtless, judged by its laws, good and true men, and the majority are hospitable, and civil to strangers. They seldom neglect, however, to let one know the value of the presents they have received from other foreigners who, on previous occasions, have visited their abodes.
At this place I was conducted by an aged monk to view the "Thousand Fathom Precipice." I had to cling to a tree and then look down into the abyss. In this position I was deafened by the roar of the Tseen-changyen Fall (see No. 2), but could discern nothing for a cloud of mist that floated beneath my feet. At last I was startled from my contemplation by a vulture that shot out from the face of the rock, and caught a tiny bird as it hovered above the cloud. I afterwards descended to the fall through a steep, shady path in the woods. The great height of the fall may be guessed by looking at the full-grown trees above. It exceeds 500 feet, and descends about as many more in cascades over the rocks before it reaches the valley. No picture can convey an idea of the romantic beauty of the place. The variously-coloured rocks were covered with ferns and flowering shrubs, and the water, broken over the mossy ledges, fell like the delicate folds of a bridal veil. Climbing over huge boulders and beneath bamboo clumps, I reached the stone basin below, where the spray was lit with a hundred rainbow hues, scattering a thousand gems on the ferns, which seemed to bend their leaves and catch the burden of the fall.
No. 4 presents another striking scene in Snowy Valley, the fall commonly known as " Sung-ing-day," and approached by a picturesque bridge of a single arch concealed beneath the creepers that overgrow it. The water here descends into a deep, narrow chasm, and groups of tall, dark pines look sombrely over the verge of this precipice into the dark abyss below, where the river seeks a new channel through a rough and broken bed. The peaceful cultivated hills above and the rugged foreground present a combination as rare as it is striking.
The costume of the women of Ningpo is represented in No. 6. Almost the only point in which this
SHANGHAI.
THE treaty of Nanking was concluded in 1842; but even before that time Shanghai was a place of considerable trading importance. By the treaty referred to, the port was thrown open to foreign trade, and its advantageous position led to so rapid an increase of its commerce, that it soon became the chief emporium of China. Shanghai city stands on the east of the province of Kiangsu, and on the verge of a vast productive plain, which, prior to the accession of the Chow dynasty, formed part of the old province of Yang-Chow, itself one of the nine provinces under the administration of the famous Yu. During the time of Yu, however, this part of the province was probably under water; at any rate, it was not until the beginning of the eleventh century, when the Sung dynasty occupied the throne, that Shanghai became a trade resort Previous to this date the port was at a place called Tsing-lang-chien, twenty-five miles inland, on the banks of the Woosung Kiang, at present known as the Soochow Creek, but in those days a considerable stream, and navigable for sea-going vessels. When the present Wong Poo was nothing more than a small canal, the latter gradually deepened, while the former got filled up, and this necessitated the opening of Shanghai as a trade mart. During the Mongol dynasty it was a place of great importance. Under the Ming, it had a troubled career, for its wealth drew down upon it periodical raids and invasions at the hands of the Japanese. For this reason it was converted into a walled city, at the request of the landed gentry, in 1544, and from that time it made gradual progress, and was raised in 1842 to the dignity of a treaty port, since which event it has enjoyed almost uninterrupted prosperity. The Chinese records of the successful raids of the Japanese are not without interest and significance. At that early time the Japanese successes over their Chinese foes, who always greatly outnumbered them, were due to their discipline, daring, and weapons. In connection with this subject let us glance at the relative positions and prospects of the countries. The geographical situation of Japan with respect to China bears a striking resemblance to that in which Great Britain stands to the Continent of Europe. In the one, progress is being fostered with a swift and nervous energy, with an impetus that may carry it too far, while the other remains almost in statu quo, or else adopts, with proud reluctance, those tardy measures of reform which have been pressed upon her by a closer intercourse with foreign nations, while, with rare exceptions, her rulers and people remain blindly wedded to their ancient petrified policy of exclusive ness, looking back for inspiration to the doctrines which their dead sages have handed down. But some of my readers will point to the arsenals and shipbuilding yards of Shanghai, Foochow, Nanking, and Tientsin; to the foreign college of Peking, and to the foreign customs administration. These they will count as signs of slow, determined progress. They may be so, and yet the arsenals and their products may, after all, be only intended to defend the ancient state of things. The foreign customs administration pays, whereas, if it were left in the hands of their own officials, there would be a lack of revenue. The Peking College has its native supporters in high places, but they have to fight against great odds for its maintenance. Adam Schaal and Ricci had greater and warmer supporters two centuries ago, and what came of it all ? I found a coolie drying his jacket on one of their finest astronomical instruments, on the wall of Peking. China will sooner or later be forced to press forward in the march of civilization, as her Japanese neighbours are fast discovering the secrets of Western power. When that time arrives, the Chinese will find the elements of all they are in search of at the foreign settlements in Shanghai, where the schools, the splendid commerce, the merchant palaces, the fleets of steamers, the local foreign government, the opulence of the inhabitants, and the condition of the streets and dwellings, offer an instructive contrast to the condition of the Chinese walled city which lies to the south of the foreign settlements. The labour of centuries has brought this city to its present state, and the result is little to the credit of the authorities who rule there.
The site granted for the erection of the foreign settlements was partly a marshy waste in 1843; it was, however, eagerly accepted by Capt. Balfour, then consul for Britain, and the transformation wrought there within little more than twenty-five years is one of which the settlers have just reason to be proud. It was here, too, that the system of a foreign inspectorate of customs was inaugurated in 1854; and owing to the success of the innovation, it has since been extended to all the treaty ports.
The Taiping rebellion placed a temporary check upon the trade of Shanghai, although at the same time many ​and rapid fortunes were made in supplying house accommodation to the Chinese, who flocked thither lor protection. The relief of Soochow, however, by the troops under Colonel Gordon, brought with it a time of reaction, as the new Chinese quarter was deserted by the refugees, and the houses left tenantlcss. The place, however, soon recovered itself, and has since continued to progress. The published trade statistics show that the commerce of Shanghai has been steadily on the increase. The nature of the trade has, however, changed, as a part of the foreign trade is passing into the hands of Chinese merchants, who have readily adopted the use of telegraphs and steamers in carrying on their business operations. No. 7 shows the condition of the Bund in front of the British concession in 1869. It has been much improved since that time by the erection of imposing buildings, and by the laying-out of a public garden on the waste land in the foreground. The foreign houses, when seen from the river, present a very striking appearance, partaking, as they do, of a variety of massive and graceful designs. The British concession occupies a space nearly square, facing the stream, and surrounded by creeks; the roads run almost parallel to the Bund, and have others which cross them at right angles, and thus the actual settlement is divided into all but rectangular blocks. The roads parallel with the Bund are now named after the provinces of the Empire, in proper order from east to west, while the cross streets are called after the chief cities, following in similar order from north to south. Thus we have the " Flowery Land " in miniature, with these important differences — good roads, properly paid officials, and a responsible and efficient local government The American concession is contained in a strip of land on the north, to be approached by a bridge over the Soochow Creek; while the French are found on a plot to the south between the British concession and the native city. The settlement has now extensive suburbs dotted with picturesque villa residences standing in their own garden ground. It also boasts a splendid club, and other societies of various sorts for the promotion of art, science, literature, and good fellowship. During the proper season, shooting is a favourite pastime among the residents, as the surrounding country abounds in hares, pheasants, partridges, quails and snipe, while water fowl may be met in numbers on the creeks and inland lakes. During the winter months the climate is cold and bracing; in summer the temperature averages go Fahrenheit. Shanghai, notwithstanding the summer heat, is in all respects one of the most agreeable ports in China.
Note. — I am indebted to Mr. Smith, of the Shanghai American Mission, for a translation of facts connected with the early history of Shanghai, taken from the Chinese work, " The Mirror of History." ​
PART OF SHANGHAI BUND IN 1872.
SINCE 1869, the date at which the previous illustration was taken, the foreign settlement at Shanghai has been steadily improving. No. 8 is a photograph executed in 1872, and designed to give some notion of the improvements to which reference has been made. At least two new buildings have been erected within the past four years, one being the Oriental Bank, bisected by the flagstaff in the picture. The view was taken from behind the gate of the public gardens. No. 9 shows the style of buildings at the southern extremity of the Bund, and the state of the ground fronting them in 1869.
Among the few objects of historical note to be found in the neighbourhood of Shanghai is the Lung-hwa-ta, or "Pagoda of the Dragon's Glory," to the east of the village of Shi-ka-wei, on the banks of the Hwang-pu. This pagoda is one of the most ancient structures in the province, and the temple to which it belongs is a favourite native resort during the Ching ming or spring festival, the time for offering sacrifices to the spirits of deceased ancestors. Tradition tells us that the pagoda was erected about a. d. 230, when the Han dynasty occupied the throne. But this statement is untrustworthy, and information much more reliable assigns the edifice to a considerably later date. A distinguished emperor of the Sung dynasty, about a. d. 800, conferred upon it the title Kung Siang, "total resignation." This practice is one of the remarkable features connected with those ancient shrines. Emperors have invariably given names to them, and these names form the starting-points of their history. In this instance the name has proved inapplicable, as the monument has been at various times battered, broken, and levelled to the ground by the ruthless Japanese, and has risen again on the old site to its old proportions. The great Yunglo rebuilt it once about the beginning of the 15th century, and at another time the temple enjoyed imperial favour at the hands of a Ming empress. On this last occasion the present was not an empty name, but gold and silver, as well as a god, for it seems that at that time the old gods of the temple had fallen out of repair. The pagoda shown in No. 10 is 120 feet high. It is ascended by a winding staircase, and from the summit a commanding view of the surrounding country can be obtained. ​
THE SHANGHAI WHEEL- BARROW.
IT may seem incredible to some of my readers when I inform them that, in Shanghai, wheelbarrows are substituted for cabs! Such a conveyance is shown in No. 11, and, after all, is not unpleasant, when one has grown accustomed to its use. These wheelbarrows, if they have no other advantages to recommend them, are at any rate cheap, and comparatively safe. There is here no risk lest the steady-going coolie who propels the vehicle should shy at a sheet of paper, or lamp-post, or bolt with his burden. For all this, the wheelbarrow is not in much favour with the foreign residents, and at one time, indeed, was threatened with abolition, as the screeching of the wheels on the dry axles disturbed the even flow of business in the offices of the foreign residents. To ensure silence the constant use of oil was enforced, and thus the difficulty was got over. There are a number of wheelbarrow stands scattered over the settlements, for these conveyances are in constant demand among the natives, and present a striking feature on the Bund, when the hours of business are at an end. Then the Chinese merchants and their servants are wheeled along in their bright silks and satins to enjoy the cool breezes off the river, their faces aglow with good humour and enjoyment. 1 have frequently seen the filial feeling and economy of the race displayed in a fearfully overburdened wheelbarrow, laden with a whole family, who thus reaped the full benefit of a single hire. The unfortunate coolie, streaked with perspiration over his dusty face, was all the while straining every nerve with the effort to propel his patrons and doing his utmost to make the ride agreeable in order that he might secure a regular hire. The Chinese coolie is a willing and constant labourer in whatever sphere you find him at work. He has to fight a hard battle for existence, and he fights it manfully* conquers, and is, as a rule, contented, although he has nothing to show for it all, when the day is done, except the barest necessaries. Who, therefore, can wonder at him if he seeks a cheap elysium in the dreams of the opium pipe ? Wheelbarrows are not only used for passengers, they are also extensively employed for the inland transport of goods; I have met with them in different provinces, travelling in trains, laden with native and foreign produce, armed each with a long matchlock, and, in some instances, partly propelled by a sail.
COTTON SPINNING MACHINE.
IN China some of the finest mechanical appliances are found in a rudimentary form, containing, so to speak, the germs of our own more complex machines. No. 12 presents to the reader a simple spinning machine driven by the foot. To me it was full of interest, as its work is very effectually performed. The left foot is placed upon the beam, which rests in a crescent-shaped axis of iron, so as to keep it in position, while the other extremity of the beam lias a pivot which works in an aperture in the wheel. The right foot of the spinner imparts to this beam the eccentric motion which sets the wheel agoing, a belt on the wheel communicating the rotation to three upper spindles whose motion is as many times accelerated as the circumference of each spindle is contained in the circumference of the wheel. By this contrivance a great velocity is obtained The spindles not only spin the cotton, but they act as bobbins, and reel the thread as it is spun. Here we have the early dawn of that complex system of mechanism, which now feeds the looms of Bradford and Manchester. The picture has an additional attraction as showing the winter dress of a Shanghai mother and child of the labouring class.
In a great cotton-growing province like Kiangsu, cotton may be had cheaply in the cities, and it is therefore used freely to pad the winter costume of the poor; while in the country it is raised by the small farmers, and then dressed, spun, and woven by the women and children of their households into domestic fabrics. The band round the head is that commonly worn by the women of Shanghai, and the ample hood of brilliant coloured cloth is in use for children all over China.
CHINESE LAW COURTS AND PUNISHMENT.
THE administration of justice in Chinese courts of law is conducted on principles different from those which prevail among Western nations. There are no counsel for the prosecution, or to defend the accused. Instead of these, certain officers attached to the Yamuns of the Mandarins, and in the pay of the presiding judge, make law their special study, and are expected to guide him in all technical points. These men, however, are not recognized by their government. In addition to these functionaries there arc clerks, or Shiye, who attend to the business of the courts, and draw up the depositions; but there ​are other persons to be courted by the parties in a suit, who arrange the gifts and bnng the ease before their superiors. In a Chinese court no oaths are administered to the witnesses, and the truth, or some convenient substitute for it, is only disclosed under the dread of punishment, or by actual torture. Should money flow freely from the friends of an offender, truth and justice, it is said, run a fearful risk of being shunted to the wall, and crime condoned. Poorer culprits, who have no rich allies to aid them, frequently come worst off. In dealing with these offenders, virtue, justice, and purity assert themselves in the righteous judge. Penniless pilferers are bambooed, caged, triced up by the thumbs, or suspended by cords, while lying lips are beaten to a pulp, as a suitable lesson to the deceitful and dishonest pauper. I have in my possession a photograph, which I took in Amoy, of a poor and therefore profitless thief, who was strung up by the thumbs until the flesh rotted from the bones. He had been a bungling robber, and, unfortunately for himself, had nothing in him of the daring burglar, who could share his rich booty with conniving detectives. It is an easy task to write about one's impressions of the imperfect administration of justice, gathered from one's own experience in the country and from books. I have no doubt however that any native official thoroughly acquainted with Chinese law and its administration could, with equal ease and honesty, point out many advantages which their system offers in dealing with the criminal class of their countrymen, and be able to prove that it is quite common to find judges, and magistrates, actuated in the discharge of their duties by a simple desire to do what is deemed right, according to the usage of their land. The people dread their courts of law, and call their prisons hell. The following is a description from a native source of the duties which a magistrate and his subordinates may be required to perform during a season of local tranquillity. The underlings of the Yamun, or magistrate's office, found it expedient to foster a dispute between two peaceably-disposed neighbours named Hang and Chang. The quarrel at length broke into open hostility, and Hang was advised by these underlings to prosecute Chang; Hang therefore paid them a small fee, and proceeded to the Yamun dressed in his best attire. Hang, having bribed the gatekeepers, was admitted to the presence of the magistrate, who received him with marked courtesy, and informed him that he had heard of his renown as a man esteemed among his neighbours for his lovingkindness and filial piety. Hereupon Hang craved pardon for the liberty he had taken in coming before a man of such transcendent virtue and wisdom, assuring him how the thought, that one of such rare qualities should be so poorly paid, had caused him weary days and sleepless nights. Hang further begged as an honest citizen to lay a gift at the great man's feet. This was too much for the magistrate, who replied with an air of scorn, "Never, Hang, never! My wants are few. Your kind intention is sufficient. But stay; should you wish to share your savings with the poor, leave the present, and I will divide it among my many charities. Is there anything I can do for you in return?" Hang then stated his case. "Ah!" said the irate judge, "Chang— you say Chang assaulted you? That arch-disturber of the peace shall be speedily brought to justice." Chang, who had been posted up in all that passed at the interview, proceeds to lay his complaint, and the fees and presents bestowed by him exceed those of Hang. Chang in his turn is received with marked respect, and informed that the official eye had long rested on and sought out the vile haunts of Hang, who was a dangerous and desperate ruffian. Chang's virtues were extolled, and his presents received in the same spirit of resignation. A day was appointed for the trial, Hang confidently expecting to find Chang a manacled prisoner, while Chang felt sure of gazing upon the fettered Hang. But the merciful judge informed them of the bitter regret it caused him to think of such a feud existing between two distinguished citizens, and advised them to save their good name, and settle the difference between themselves. The fees and presents were not returned, and, strange as it may seem, the needy poor remained as needy and as poor as ever.
THE CANGUE.
THE cangue, or collar of wood, is one of the lighter punishments of China, inflicted for minor offences, such as petty theft. The nature of the crime, as well as the name and residence of the delinquent, if he has any, are inscribed in prominent characters on cards, and fixed to the cangue. The wearer is usually located in front of the house or shop where the offence was committed, and is forced to depend for food on the charity of passers-by as the imposing dimensions of the wooden encumbrance prevent him feeding himself.
THE CAGE.
CRIMES of the worst order are sometimes punished by starvation in a cage (see No. 14) so constructed that the prisoner has the choice of either suspending himself by the neck to relieve his toes, which just touch the board, or of standing on his toes to relieve his neck. During my short visit to Foochow a murderer was executed by this process, his cage being exposed on the great stone bridge across the river Min. His crime was one of a most revolting and fiendish type. He had murdered a litfle girl, mutilating her to a fearful extent in order to secure the gold bracelets and bangles with which his victim had been adorned. The people were forbidden to minister to his wants with even a drop of cold water, so that he became maddened with agony, and strangled himself in his wild
THE ISLAND OF PUTO.
PUTO is one among a group of more than one hundred islands which stud the Chusan Archipelago. With the single exception of Puto, all the rest of these isles are included in the jurisdiction of the district of Tinghai, in the Ningpo dependency. Puto is under the independent rule of the abbot of the great Buddhist monastery dedicated to the goddess Kwanyin, an important deity in the theogony of China, and whose name the monastery bears. This islet, which is not over four miles long, forms the chief Buddhist centre of the Empire, and is peopled solely with bonzes and nuns, the inmates of some sixty temples scattered among hills and dales there. This ecclesiastical population is said to number 2,000 souls, and its ranks are recruited from time to time by the purchase of young slaves, who are trained by the monks to devote their lives to the spirit-crushing service of the Buddhist faith, and finally are drafted, many of them, as mendicants to the mainland to seek support for the maintenance of the monasteries, and of the lusty, lazy monks, the pious paupers who spend their years in drowsily chanting to Buddha, and who, if dirt and sloth will foster the growth of piety, must indeed be accounted holy men. The lives of these Buddhist recluses are very low-pitched. They are not engaged, as a rule, in any active works of charity or benevolence, and the highest praise that can be accorded to them is, that they refrain from inflicting harm as well as from doing good. The greatest among them I ever saw was said to be a living Buddha; he was very dirty and very silent, looking more of a mummy than a man. A spider might have crawled down his capacious throat, or woven its silken curtain over his half-closed eyes, and yet not have disturbed his tranquillity, or roused his dormant faculties into action, so thoroughly, judging from the comatose signs of his Buddhahood, did he seem to have attained perfect repose. But I dare not be too severe, as I have met with hospitality at the hands of many of the less devout members of the creed. At the same time, I am bound to state with equal candour that the faithful mendicants, or Buddhist tOUterSj never failed to seek a recompense.
The chief monastery of Puto is shown in No. 1 5. The group of sacred buildings, embowered in rich foliage, and backed by the granite-topped hill, the bright colours of the roofs and walls, the sacred lotus lake spanned by a bridge of marble, together make up a picture of rare, romantic beauty. But the monks of China have always surrounded their retreats with the elements of the beautiful in nature, and have exhausted the resources of native art and architecture to embellish their shrines. Puto, the sacred isle, with its picturesque rocks and ravines, its woods and its temples, forms no exception to the rule. As we cross the marble bridge, and enter the wide portal to explore the multitude of courts and dormitories, the romance of the scene vanishes in the thick vapours that float above the altars, and which veil the smiling or glaring gods or goddesses, emblems of the holy ones, or of the fierce guardians of the Buddhist faith.
Temples were for the first time erected on this island as early as 550 a.d. The revenues for the support of these various religious establishments are derived from three sources : — the rent of church lands, the contributions of pilgrims, and the labours of the mendicant priests. The buildings seem to be gradually falling into decay, but in this respect the temples of Puto by no means stand alone. It is only fair, however, to add, that among many earnest Buddhists it is deemed a more pious act to build a fresh edifice than to restore an old one; and as to the resident priests, even if they had the means and energy to repair the buildings of their temple, they yet regard any zeal on such matters as indicating too marked an anxiety about purely mundane affairs. This, however, applies more especially to Buddhism in the countries where it probably retains more of its original purity than in China. ​
THE RIVER YANGTSZE.
THE introduction of railways into China has found many earnest advocates, and no one can deny the advantages which may be expected from the accomplishment of such a project. But there are numerous obstacles to so sweeping a measure of reform, and one which the Chinese might urge, with some fairness, is that their rivers, creeks, and canals already supply them with a vast network of intercommunication, extending over the richest provinces of the Empire.
The Yangtsze is the greatest river in China, and the longest but two in the world. It flows from an unexplored source in the mountains of Thibet for about 3,000 miles, and discharges into the China Sea. At present it is known to be navigable for steamers to the I-chang Gorge, a distance of over 1,100 miles above Shanghai, but I have no doubt that ere long it will be found possible, with suitable vessels, to ascend the gorges and rapids, and extend the steam-traffic over two-thirds of the entire length of the stream.
From the earliest times the watercourses of China have occasioned trouble to the people, and perplexity to their rulers. Ever since the days of Yu, the first emperor of a known Chinese dynasty, the channels of the rivers have been subject to constant change. Summer after summer, when the mountain snows have melted in the north, the flooded streams have burst their banks, and carried death and destruction over the vast and fertile districts of the plains below; indeed it appears to me that the prevention of disaster, and the security of the Empire in prosperity and peace, have always been directly dependent upon the exercise, by the government, of a vigilant and effective supervision over the watercourses and embankments throughout the country. The shifting of the Yellow River in 1 85 1-3, with the calamities necessarily consequent upon the deviation of that stream, might have been avoided had efficient measures been adopted during the dry season for strengthening the bank and deepening the original channel. Mr. N. Elias, who explored the breach, says: "The main pressure, during the flood season, had come to bear on the upper or weaker part of the embankments and, no measures having been taken to strengthen them, or deepen the channel, the great catastrophe happened which, with its consequences, had been predicted by the Abbe Hue some years before." In Pechihli, a year after the Tientsin massacre, an inundation arising from similar negligence laid waste part of that province, and the distress which that disaster inflicted upon the people, and which I witnessed on my way to Peking, produced an impression which will never be effaced from my memory. It seems to me, then, that before the introduction of railways can be urged with any degree of force, pressure ought to be put upon the authorities to induce them to throw open the interior to trade, and to grant foreign merchants, and their commodities, unrestricted use of the arteries of communication which already exist in the lakes, the rivers, and the canals. Such a step would pay the government, besides tending to secure the people against floods, and to prepare them, with the expansion of commerce, for the railroads and telegraphs that must follow in the end. The Chinese would not be slow to appreciate the substantial advantages of such a concession.
SILVER ISLAND.
I WILL now carry the reader with me on a journey to the gorges of the Upper Yangtsze, about 1,200 miles from Shanghai. In the spirit of a faithful cicerone, I will present to his notice the usual objects of interest, as well as a host of others, which, from their grandeur or novelty, will have superior claims upon his attention. Starting from Shanghai in one of the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company's commodious steamers, with a saloon which offers the ease and luxury of a drawing-room, and where the agonies of jnal de mer are quite unknown, we proceed for about 140 miles up the river to Chinkiang. A few miles below that city we pass the mouth of the Grand Canal, perhaps the greatest of the public works in China; at any rate, one which has proved infinitely more useful than the famous Chinese Wall. Here in mid-stream, just below the town, we come upon the rock known among foreigners as Silver Island (see No. 16). This is one of the most picturesque objects on the lower river, and, like Puto, is entirely occupied with Buddhist edifices, over which a chief priest or abbot exercises supreme control. The monastery there is an imposing pile of buildings above the broad granite steps of the landing, while other quaint temples and shrines are to be seen peeping out from among the woods which cover this sacred and beautiful retreat. ​
GOLDEN ISLAND.
KIN-SHAN, or Golden Island, has attractions of its own no less remarkable than those of the sister islet below Chin-kiang. It is, however, an island no longer, for the alluvial deposits of the Yangtsze's floods have joined it so completely to the right bank of the river, that I had no difficulty in finding room on dry-land for taking the photograph here numbered 17. The pagoda-crowned rock presents the boldest and most striking object in the neighbourhood, and it is almost surplusage to say that it has on that account been appropriated as a suitable site for Buddhist buildings. During the rebel occupation, which extended from 1853 to 1857, these edifices were destroyed by the so-called Christian followers of the Tien-Wang, who left wreck and ruin behind them on every spot where they had carried on their operations. It is strange that they should have allowed this pagoda to remain upright, yet they did so, but not until they had stripped it of its costly ornaments, so as to leave it standing like a battered and broken obelisk, a monument which will testify to future generations that it is desolation and destruction, in vulgar parlance, which have been described as " heavenly progress " in the language of the Taipings. The temples are now in better repair than they have been for years.
Chin-kiang-fu stands at the junction of the grand canal with the Yangtsze, a site of great importance. For this reason the place was one of those most desperately defended during the hostilities of 1842, and its fall materiallyhastened the negotiations for peace which ended in the conclusion of the treaty of Nanking. But as to the three Treaty-ports on the Yangtsze, it was not until 1861 that they were formally opened to foreign trade, the delay arising from the disturbed condition of the country so long as the Taiping rebellion remained unsubdued, The foreign settlement stands on the bank of the river, close to the Grand Canal, while on the western extremity is the Yin-shan, the true Silver Hill, whose name is sometimes erroneously applied to the island in midstream. There is the usual Bund in front of. the foreign houses, facing the river. Some idea of the position of the settlement in relation to Golden Island will be gathered from the distant view of part of the river in which the foreign houses are to be seen. The trade of this port suffered during the rebellion; it speedily, however, recovered, and was greatly aided by a system of transit passes, which was introduced for the first time in 1864, and which has operated favourably in the development of foreign trade. The value of the trade of the port was ,£1,840,769 in 1868, and ,£3,212,769 in 1871. During the past year the trade again appears to have decreased, but this is a depression which has been felt, more or less, all over China. ​
NANKING ARSENAL.
NANKING is not open to foreign trade; if it were, the mode by which strangers disembark from the steamers would be different from what it is. Three officers of the Viceroy's household, with myself, my servants and baggage, had to scramble into a small boat after dark, and were landed at the dry est part of the bank, whence boatmen led the way up to a straw shed, erected for the accommodation of passengers who might be waiting for the departure of the steamers. A few dim lanterns nickered about the walls of this building, and lit up the faces of a crowd of Chinamen, who were squatting on the earthern floor, or reclining on wooden benches. In this place I was constrained to spend the night, in an atmosphere of garlic and tobacco smoke; and here, too, I learned, to my deep regret, of the death of Tseng-quo-fan. This great man, one of the foremost statesmen of his time, died on the 14th of March. Through the kindness of our Minister at Peking, I had obtained a letter of introduction to Tseng-quo-fan, from Li-hung-chang, a comrade who had fought with him during the Taiping campaign, and now the Viceroy of Pechihli, and it was most unfortunate that I had deferred my visit to Nanking until my return from the Upper Yangtsze. My letter was now forwarded to his son, who sent a courteous reply, expressing regret that I had not arrived in time to take his father's portrait. Tseng-quo-fan, a native of Siang-Hiang, in Honan, distinguished himself during early life at the literary examinations, and rose rapidly to the highest rank as Commander-in-Chief of the troops in the Yangtsze Valley and southern provinces. He aided Col. Gordon against the Taipings, and was instrumental in crushing the rebellion. He was a member of the Grand Secretariat, and after the fall of Nanking was created a noble of the second class. He was then at the zenith of his power, and it was even said that his wide-spread influence was dreaded at the Court of Peking. In 1868 he became Governor-General of Pechihli; but he was removed from that office immediately after the Tientsin massacre, and for the third time appointed Governor-General of the Liang Kiang.
The Arsenal was built under the auspices of Li-hung-chang. It was the first of its kind in China, and stands near the site of the great Porcelain Tower outside the south gate of the city. The " Monastery of Gratitude," as well as the tower, were destroyed by the rebels, and the present Arsenal is partly built out of the bricks which had been employed in these structures. The chants of bygone days that used to issue from the Buddhist courts, filling the air with their dreary monotones, are to-day replaced by less peaceful sounds— by the whirr of engines, the clang of steamhammers, and the reports of guns or rifles, which are being tested for use. The Arsenal is conducted upon the most advanced scientific principles, and superintended by Dr. Macartney. It is a startling innovation on the old style of things in China. If the Chinese first taught us the use of guns (they are said to have employed them at the siege of Khai-fung-fu, in 1232), we are certainly repaying the obligation with interest by instructing them how our deadliest weapons are to be made. In this Arsenal many hundred tons of guns and ammunition are yearly manufactured, and I have no doubt its products have proved of great service in the prompt suppression of the Mahometan outbreak in the Provinces of Kangsu and Shensi. In No. iS my readers will recognize a mitrailleuse; on the right of it a torpedo, and rocket tube, a pile of shells, a howitzer, a rocket-stand, and a field-gun carriage. The mitrailleuse had just been finished, and was fired in my presence. A native workman is engaged in describing the instrument to one of his officers. This picture shows that, however much the Chinese may have neglected to cultivate the Western sciences which pertain to peace, they have sought to make themselves masters of those which relate to war. ​
NANKING.
NANKING became the imperial capital during the fourth century of our era. China was split up at that time into a Northern and a Southern Empire; but Yang-Kien, an emperor of the Soui dynasty, united the two divisions, and removed his court to Peking. Hung- Woo, the first of the Ming emperors, made Nanking again the imperial capital, and restored it to its former glory. This monarch was one of the most remarkable rulers which China has ever possessed. Before his advent, the empire groaned under the yoke of the successors of KubU Khan, and longed to get itself free. Then Choo-Yuen-Chang, better known as Hung-Woo, arose, and was accepted as the deliverer of his country. His name is still much revered as a wise and just ruler, under whose sway the kingdom prospered. He had raised himself from the lowest ranks of the people, his father having been nothing more than a poor labourer. He was succeeded by his grandson, who, after a troubled reign of four years, was driven from the throne by Hung-Woo's son, Yung-Io, "the Successful," and the latter again removed the court to Peking. Since Yung-lo's time Nanking has had a troubled career. It once more enjoyed the honour, this time a questionable one, of being raised to a capital by the Tien-Wang, the Heavenly King, or, to call him by his most familiar title, the Taipmg rebel chief. This event occurred in 1853. Probably the past twenty years have, on the whole, been the most notable in the history of the city, yet thirty years ago it was the scene of the signing of the treaty which secured the opening of a number of ports to foreign trade. The ground in front of No. 19 has been inch by inch contested between the imperial forces and the rebels, and it is strewn with the graves and bones of Taipings and Imperialists, mingled together in kindred dust. Here in 1864 the rebellion received the decisive blow, and the city, in the background of the picture, fell into the hands of the conquerors. When things were at the worst for the rebels, the Tien- Wang sat calmly within the city walls, confident in the Divine origin of his own mission, and assured that deliverance would, therefore, be sent from above. He believed in God, in Christ as a messenger from Heaven to mankind, and in himself as an instrument appointed by the Almighty to work out the redemption of China. He built himself a sumptuous palace in the imperial quarter of Nanking, and there he dwelt in sublime serenity, looking down upon his enemies with pity and disdain, as they mustered in the tombs of the great Ming rulers for the final attack upon his capital. When his soldiers were famishing around him, he still trusted in God; and when they asked for bread, he filled their mouths with a new doxology, enjoining them to sing it until heaven should send relief. One of the last commands of this prince of peace was, that in the wording of all documents his generals and others should use the terms, " Heavenly Father, Heavenly Brother, and Heavenly King." This was his heavenly Trinity, and according to his own modest estimate he was himself the last person of the three. Whoever disobeyed this command was to be drawn asunder by horses — a truly mild and merciful way of disposing of unruly heavenly subjects. The state of the city became hourly more like hell than heaven, and at length, three days before its capture, the king is said to have perished by his own hand. The Imperialists laid the town waste, and devoted three days to the slaughter of the rebels. But many had already committed suicide before the Imperialist troops were in possession, and the bodies of numbers of the women of the Tien-Wang's household are said to have been found outside the palace gate. The son of the rebel emperor is supposed to have been cut to pieces in attempting to make his escape.
The photograph numbered 19 was taken from a hill outside the southern gate. The wall, it will be perceived, is of great height here, in some places seventy feet, and thirty feet at its base. Very prominent among the groups of buildings seen above the wall are those towering over the south gate, restored to their ancient splendour, while outside the ramparts an extensive suburb has sprung up around the Arsenal, on the site once occupied by the "Porcelain Tower." The most conspicuous object among those which still remain in connection with the " Monastery of Gratitude," is a huge white marble tablet on the back of a tortoise. This is seen in the picture just below the south gate, outside the wall, and about half an inch to the right of the gate. The wall has a circumference of about twenty-two miles, being nearly two miles greater than the circuit of the walls which enclose the Imperial and Chinese cities at Peking. But in Nanking a considerable part of the space within the wall is under cultivation. Much of the city has been restored, and its old trade was reviving during the time of my visit, but there was still a wilderness of ruin in the Tartar quarter nearest the Ming tombs, bearing a deplorable aspect of desolation. I saw a brace of pheasants rise from the ruins of an old homestead. The people were building new streets of the old material in the places furthest from the wall. Nanking is still celebrated for the rich quality of its silks and satins. ​
THE MING TOMBS, NANKING.
THE Ming Tombs at Nanking contain the remains of Hung-woo, the first emperor of the dynasty, as well as those of his grandson, who followed him on the throne. The tomb of Hung-woo, who died in 1398 after a reign of thirty-one years, stands on the western slope of the hills near the eastern wall of Nanking. A portion of this splendid mausoleum is shown in the distance on the right of No. 20, while the approach to the once imposing structure is guarded by stone statues of warriors in full panoply, and by a double row of colossal animals, also sculptured in stone These ancient examples of Chinese sculpture will, however, bear no comparison with the productions of cotemporary European art, yet there is a native ideal in the whole which shows itself most conspicuously in the calm, majestic repose and benign expression of the warriors, who seem pleased with the task imposed of guarding the ashes of the dead. The statues probably represent the life-guards who in those days waited upon the emperors. Their weapons and armour look heavy and cumbrous, although in active war they might have proved as formidable as any in use at that period in Europe. A poor native assured me in confidence that giants, tall as these statues, existed in those days. Be that as it may, Hung-woo must have had brave and disciplined soldiers to aid him in fighting his way to the throne, though the arms of the mailed guards where he sleeps offer a strange contrast to the weapons now manufactured at Nanking Arsenal close by.
FOREIGN DRILLED TROOPS.
NO. 21 shows a company of Chinese troops, a remnant of the "Ever-victorious" Anglo-Chinese force who have been trained to European discipline and drill. We miss the solid bearing and benign expression of the old stone warriors, but opium when the latter flourished was probably unknown. There are 150 of these foreign-drilled and foreign-equipped soldiers at Ningpo, under the command of two foreign officers, Colonel Cook and Major Watson. During the rebellion there was a regiment of them 1,000 strong, but now they are used as the Ningpo city guard. Of native officers there are to the Ningpo force a sergeantmajor, two corporals, two lance-corporals, one artillery sergeant, one corporal, and a lieutenant of infantry. The police of Nanking are also under four foreign inspectors.
Large bodies of foreign-drilled troops are stationed at Canton, Foochow, Shanghai, and other parts of the Empire, and these forces are supplied with modern rifles, guns, and ammunition. The pay of privates (and in Ningpo they are regularly paid), is, in the Ningpo force, six dollars a month, or about one shilling a day, including a summer and a winter suit of clothes. The summer suit is white with blue facings, and the winter dress dark blue with green facings, and a dark green turban.
One of the workshops in the Nanking Arsenal is shown in No. 22, where guns are turned, drilled, and rifled. A native workman may be seen at his post guiding a great foreign turning-lathe.
The departments most interesting to me were the one where rifle-caps were being punched and filled by machinery, and another where the guns were being cast with such solidity and perfection as to rival the finest
KIU-KIANG (FOREIGN SETTLEMENT).
KIU-KIANG is the second open port on the Yangtsze, 445 miles above Shanghai. This port was selected as a suitable place for foreign trade, because of its close proximity to the Po-Yang Lake, and to the vast system of water communication which branches from this point into the interior. But as the lake is closed against steam traffic, and as Kiu-kiang stands fifteen miles above the confluence of the lake with the Yangtsze, it has never taken a leading commercial position. In 1868, the total value of its trade was estimated at ,£3,344,355. while in 1872 that amount had fallen to .£2,940,210. Were it permissible to navigate the Po-Yang Lake with any other but native craft, the returns would probably be greatly increased, although its position above the junction of the two streams, instead of below them, would tend to neutralize the effect of so advantageous a concession.
The Taiping rebels were in Kiu-kiang in 1853, and their progress left behind it a ruined and depopulated city. It was not until the port was opened to foreign trade (in 1861), and the presence of a small foreign community had inspired feelings of confidence and security, that the natives flocked back to rebuild the town. It is walled round, and adjoins the lower extremity of the foreign quarter; and this, as will be seen from No. 24, runs parallel to the bank of the river, yet still far enough from the verge to leave room for a broad carriage-way in front of the houses.
The strength of the current during summer, and the threatened destruction of the Bund, have made it necessary to support the bank with an elaborate facing of hard-wood stakes. This structure, however, is usually partially destroyed by the rise of the river from year to year, and is a constant source of anxiety and solicitude to the foreign municipal committee. ​
STREET GROUPS, KIU-KIANG.
HOW many out of the total industrial population of China pursue their occupations in the public streets, and may truly be described as "journeymen tradesmen," is a point on which no estimate can be formed. But in every large city these sort of people are to be counted by the thousand, and though in our own towns we should class them as tinkers or costermongers, this nomenclature would by no means comprehend the accomplished handicraftsmen whom we fall in with at every street corner in China, men far too poor ever to aspire to the dignity of a settled shop, seeking their employment in the public highways, and by wandering from door to door. Our venerable friend Ahong, on the extreme left of No. 25, has spent his days in the streets of Kiu-kiang. He knows what hardship is, and can tell strange stories of the rebels, who for a time disturbed the even flow of the trade there. Ahong is a maker of soup, and so was his father before him. Born of a "bouillon"-producing family, he early became a graduate in the mysteries of the small kitchen which he carries about on his rounds, meeting his regular customers at the stated hours, in certain parts of the town. He is pictured here as he receives, with an air of native sang-froid, the polite acknowledgments of a purchaser who has sat down to discuss a bowlful of his savoury broth. It would be well for our poor in England if we could import a regiment of such cooks as these men, who can produce wholesome and nutritious food out of the scantiest materials, and at a very moderate cost Old Ahong will regale a patron with a bowl of his best for a halfpenny.
The gentleman in the centre of the picture is a public scribe, and is here seen writing a letter at the dictation of a lady. But his epistolary services, if those were all he had to depend upon, would not pay him; for the people, most of them, can conduct their correspondence for themselves. He therefore combines the avocations of a fortune-teller and physician with that of a penman, laying claim as an oculist to special skill, in professing himself able to cure seventy-one disorders of the human eye. His successes are said to be confined solely to this organ. On his table is opened a long list of the diseases with which he professes to deal. This catalogue he consults from time to time to refresh his memory as to the scope of his professional powers. As a soothsayer, he foretels the effects of the letters which his customers desire him to write, whether their contents pertain to law, or love, or commerce. He will also select the lucky day for a wedding, and raise, if required, the curtain of the future, so as to afford his dupe a sunny glimpse into the regions of the unknown. He is a crafty old rogue, and trades on human credulity with astounding success. His table, chair, and apparatus are of the most portable kind; and these he folds up at night and carries away with him under his arm. The figure behind him is one of the begging pests of Kiu-kiang
Next to this group we observe the itinerant barber, a man who performs a variety of professional operations on the organs of sense. He is not a surgeon, as was the case of old in Europe, but he must possess a delicate acquaintance with each of the "gateways of knowledge" situated in the human head. To Shave the sconce and leave the usual disc of hair at the back supporting the tail is the rudest of his achievements. Besides this, he has to trim the eyebrows, cheeks, and chin, to remove refractory hairs from the nostrils and the ears, and to tickle the tympanum so as to open a free highway for the enchanting noises of the Flowery Land. The rolling eyes of his customers are cleansed and dressed after a process that it makes one's blood run cold to contemplate.
The little cabinet upon which this gentleman seats his clients contains four drawers. The upper one holds his earnings, the next receives his tiny instruments, and in the third perhaps a dozen razors are to be found, whereof each in its day has reaped acres of Celestial pates. The lowest drawer contains his towels, combs, and brushes, while on his left he has a water-basin, with a small furnace of charcoal beneath. Tradition tells us that the staff he carries as a sign of his order was presented by an ancient emperor to a distinguished member of the profession, as a reward for the skill with which, when a mosquito had settled upon the Imperial countenance, he cut the insect with a swoop of his razor in twain, leaving its legs and half the body, unconscious of the disaster, still planted on the bridge of the potentate's nose.
The two remaining figures on the right represent a wood-turner and his customer. The latter is examining the make and finish of a wooden ladle.
I might have gone on to fill volumes with such groups as these, for the representatives of almost every trade are to be found in the thoroughfares of China. In my concluding volume I shall hope to continue this phase of native life, giving some important additions from the metropolis, Peking. ​
KIU-KIANG WHARF.
THE buildings in the background of No. 26 comprise the house and offices of Messrs. Russell and Co., a firm whose splendid steamers have contributed greatly to develope the traffic on the Yangtsze. In the foreground we see a portion of a floating gangway used by the steamers to disembark passengers and cargo. On the landing stage, two Chinese assistants are superintending the discharge of foreign manufactures in bales. These bales are slung between two coolies, and carried on a bamboo pole; the number passed into the warehouse is checked after a system which it may not be uninteresting to describe : there is a small strip of bamboo to correspond with every bale, and this the bearers, as they traverse the gangway, hand to a trustworthy native assistant. He, in his turn, delivers the total number of his strips to be entered in the books.
SAWYERS AT WORK.
THE Chinese contrivance for supporting a block of wood while they cut it up is a very simple and ingenious one. Like most of the appliances which that people have invented, it effectually performs the work for which it was originally designed; but it wears such a primitive look that we might reasonably expect, had we lived in that land 2,000 years ago, we should have found the same type of men doing the same description of work with the same appliances and in the same methodical fashion. This is among the most startling characteristics of China, and one viewed by a foreigner with continual surprise, accustomed as the latter is to Western progress, and inspired with an insane desire for novelty, as the Chinese themselves might describe him. These men of China, at some distant period of the past, must have had people of inventive genius among them who devised their present simple mechanical appliances, each one, in its own sphere, adapted to do a certain kind of work in a way which left nothing to be desired by succeeding generations. There is something in all this which might have attractions for Mr. Ruskin. The natives at the present time would rebel against the introduction of steam for the achievement of any result which can be brought about in the old way, and by the nimble hands of their working millions. I know a case where an entire village community of silk-spinners threatened to strike because their chief employer proposed to add a few extra reels and spindles to the ancient machine. I asked the master, who was a Cantonese, why he did not introduce the foreign method of reeling. " Ah," said he, " I have had enough of that. I once tried to effect a very slight alteration in the old machine, intending to introduce foreign apparatus in the end; but I was nearly ruined by the attempt." I suppose, in this way, inventive genius and its efforts at improvement must have been suppressed; and so the Chinese, having at an early time brought everything to comparative perfection, have rested since from generation to generation, content to go on, in filial piety, doing as their forefathers did. Perhaps they have found more true happiness in their simple ways than our civilized millions of people can realize in the glorious nineteenth century.
Our own sawyers and saw-pits are being numbered with the things of the past, and engines whose saws fly through a goodly tree in a few seconds have taken their place. Thus the furniture of our houses is now-a-days half constructed by steam. How different is this from the practice which still prevails in China ! There, the carpenter ​goes to work in front of his shop on a rough-hewn tree propped above a tripod, of which the tree forms one of the legs (see No. 27). The same man dresses the wood when he has sawn it up, and fashions it into chairs and tables, unless in busy towns, where the labour is more divided. Their largest saws have simple double handles passed through the two extremities of the blades. They are also cross-cut, and set just as ours are. There are besides a variety of saws gradually diminishing in size till they are reduced to the breadth of a watch-spring. These finer instruments are used for cutting out the most delicate ornaments in wood.
THE RIBBON LOOM.
THE ribbon loom is made chiefly of bamboo. Of this material all its inner frames are constructed, and those for holding the warp, as well as the transverse ones which support the woof, are all of them formed from the smallest stems of the same plant. Bamboo is also employed for fashioning the series of treadles which are worked by the foot, like the pedals of an organ. In employing this little machine, head, feet, and hands are all called into active operation, and the result produced is the most beautiful silk ribbon, richly embroidered with a variety of choicely-coloured flowers. This loom has in its construction the elements of the more complex one used by the Chinese in the manufacture of their ornamental silken fabrics — a machine so perfect as to enable a skilled workman to weave any pattern or picture that may be desired.
The nuns represented in No. 29 are at a place called Tai-ping-koong, ten miles from Kiu-kiang, in the hill country behind that town. A highly-tilled plain of rich alluvial soil intervenes between the hills and the town, studded with prosperous-looking farms, and shaded with willow-trees on every side. Not an available acre of land to be found here but what was laid under sedulous cultivation. At the time of my visit, the young rice just showed its green blades above the irrigated fields, splendid crops of peas and beans were in flower, the terraced sides of the hills were planted with vegetables, while the heights above were covered with pine and shrubs to supply fuel for winter. Most of the people I saw in this district were comfortably, and a few of them richly dressed, while all wore on their sleek faces a satisfied air of quiet prosperity and content. Indeed, this portion of the Kiangsi Province called up something of that ideal China which the story-books of our childhood suggest to us. From the hills, the plain wore the semblance of a vast landscape garden; there was many a green knoll, crowned with fine old trees, while rustic bridges spanned a multitude of willow-shaded streams.
The two towers shown in this picture are unlike anything I have met with elsewhere in China. They are said to be the ruins of a Buddhist monastery, one of the greatest which has ever been founded in the Celestial Empire. Judging from the mounds which mark its foundations, this sanctuary must have covered an extensive area. I found among a number of interesting blocks of sculptured stones which had been used in building a small modern temple in the rear, one or two representing the backs of foreign books as they appear in the shelves of a library. Possibly this may point to Ricci's mission to that part of the province about the year 1590, on which occasion the famous Jesuit missionary is reported to have enjoyed great popularity among the inhabitants of that locality,
I also visited the tomb of the celebrated sage, Chu-fu-tze. There is nothing striking or remarkable about its appearance. The hill, however, in which the sage rests commands an extensive view of the plain, and the lakes or
HANKOW.
HANKOW is tlie highest point up the Yangtsze river at which foreign merchants are allowed at present to reside. It holds a most important position at the angle formed by the junction of the Han with the Yangtsze. The former, in ancient times, was known as the Mien river; and it was not until the last decade of the fifteenth century that it created its present channel, and those advantages of site to which Hankow in a great measure owes its prosperity. Previous to this change in the course of the Han, the town of Hanyang monopolized the trade, and is said to have been a flourishing port in the remote period treated of in the native " History of the Three States." Hankow, under the Ming rule, rose to be the commercial centre of the Empire, and indeed its prosperity during the centuries which followed steadily increased, meeting with its first severe check at the hands of the Taipings who in 1855, sacked and burned the town.
Wu-chang-fu, the capital of Hupeh, Hanyang, and Hankow, all stand in close proximity on a vast plain, with nothing except the confluent rivers to divide them from one another. Above Hanyang there is a low range of hills. Standing on a summit I had a wonderful panorama before me. Wu-chang was to be seen on the south bank of the Great River, and beneath my feet were the closely-packed houses and narrow alleys of the town of Hanyang; while beyond, across the Han, and separated by the tortuous windings of this important tributary, I could discern the crowded dwellings of Hankow, and further on the imposing buildings where the foreign settlers reside (see No. 30). The area covered by these three towns is probably the most densely-populated space in the Empire, the native population of Hankow alone having been estimated in 1872 at 600,000. In striking contrast to these populous towns is the country surrounding them, a district thinly scattered over with tiny hamlets and solitary peasant homes. The fact is that the alluvial plains are usually flooded in summer, and farmers are discouraged from settling there, as they run the risk of losing their labour and their capital. Many of the huts are built on artificial mounds. Descending to the Han, I found a busy and interesting scene. The narrow river was so crowded with native trading craft of all descriptions and sizes, that only a narrow channel for the passage of boats could be obtained. A small fleet of vessels from Szechuan had been built of undressed planks of pine, and had been simply put together for the down river voyage to Hankow, there to be broken up when their cargoes had been disposed of, and sold for firewood. The chief exports of Hankow are tea, tobacco, silk, and oil.
HANKOW (FOREIGN SETTLEMENT).
iANKOW, as I have already indicated, stands on the left bank of the Yangtsze, and is separated from a Hanyang by the Han, at the point where that stream falls into the Great River.
3 The foreign settlement there has a frontage to the Yangtsze, but the plot of ground on which it
has been built is unfortunately lower than that occupied by the native town. Why this site should have been selected it is impossible to tell. The mistake is one which the natives themselves would never have committed, and it has entailed great suffering during times of flood. But the Chinese, with characteristic impartiality, raised little objection when the foreigners fixed upon the site. All they did was to demand an exorbitant price, though they ultimately consented to sell the land in lots, costing 2,500 taels apiece. During ​the time of my visit in 1871, the inner walla of the rooms in the lower fiats of the foreign houses still retained the water marks caused by the floods in the preceding year. This flood had covered the Bund to a depth of about seven feet, when throughout the settlement boats were the only means of communication. The kitchens, or outhouses, had either been destroyed or rendered useless, so that native barges had to be hired for the accommodation of the servants, and for cooking. Boats were punted into the halls, and inner staircases were transformed into jetties; dining-rooms became swimming baths; furniture fell to pieces; the boundary walls of the property settled down into the mud; and, in some instances, the houses themselves sank on their foundations, and threatened altogether to tumble down. Poultry and cattle had to be sent to the hills, or stowed in the upper bedrooms, till the flood should abate, while natives to the number of 40,000 sought refuge on the Hanyang Hill. But it was in the districts above the Tung-ting Lake that the suffering and disaster occasioned by the inundations attained their greatest proportions. There whole towns were flooded out, and crops were destroyed and washed away. " At I-chang more than half the houses are submerged to their very roofs. Kwei-chow is more than half in ruins." " Wan-hsien has suffered little; but the suburbs, which were at least five times as extensive as the town itself, have been swept away;" and so on, run the notices of disaster in the Customs Report of 1870. Besides all this, a disaffected portion of the suffering population of Hupeh rose in rebellion, and were reported to have formed a project for advancing against Hankow.
The Chinese built a great wall, at a cost of ,£80,000, from the Han to the Yangtsze, which sweeps round the back of the settlement. This wall was intended as a protection against organized raids from the banditti of the plain. It has proved most effective as a breakwater, and it gets the credit of saving the settlement from being swept into the Yangtszc by the flooded stream from the Han.
The river bank in front of the Bund was faced with stone, at a great cost, to a depth of sixty feet. But soon after the opening of the port in 1861 funds were freely lavished by the foreign merchants in carrying out such works as would add to the security and adornment of a place which seemed likely to become the greatest emporium in China. Costly and elegant residences were erected, and Hankow has thus been rendered one of the finest foreign settlements in the Flowery Land. These early expectations of a vast trade have never been fully realized, and land and house property, in 1871, had greatly fallen in value. Were I-chang to be opened to foreign trade — a step which has been strongly advocated for a long time — much of the present trade of Hankow would probably be monopolized by the new port. Native competition has had its share in taking part of the import trade out of the hands of foreign agents, inasmuch as the Chinese merchants have found that they can effect a saving by visiting Shanghai in the river steamers, and making their purchases direct from the home markets for themselves. This is a disadvantage which will increase rather than diminish as our trade with China expands; and it may reasonably be expected, in process of time, that the Chinese will have their own establishments in Manchester and London.
The British concession at Hankow has a river frontage of Soo yards, with a great depth inshore. To the westward of this, additional land is taken up by the houses of the agents for the Steam Navigation Companies; while on the east there is the unoccupied French settlement, which boasts a Consulate, imposing on the outside but apparently falling into decay internally.
The number of foreign residents, including missionaries, is about a hundred.
The trade under foreign flags, in 1871, was valued at ^14,000,000. Hankow is the centre of the districts which produce Congou teas. ​
THE WU-CHANG TOWER.
WU-CHANG Tower, one of the most remarkable objects in this part of the Upper Yangtsze, stands upon the extremity of a low range of hills which bisect the city of that name, and which terminate abruptly just below the town on the left bank of the river. A corresponding range, already noticed, rises on the opposite bank above the town of Hanyang.
As to the tower, it was built originally in the early half of the sixth century, when the Chin dynasty was on the throne, and the site then selected was the house of a wine-seller named Hsing. The tower was demolished by the Taipings, and barely three years have elapsed since it was completely restored. It now rests on a platform of solid masonry, rising boldly from the bank of the river, and the sole relic of the original structure is an ancient monument to be seen in front of the tower, upon which, if we are to believe the legend, the saintly founder alighted from the sky to partake there of a spiritual repast, and wake the echoes with a melody on his flute. It was in the year b.c. 202, or thereabouts, that this important incident occurred, and we are told that the sage, whose name was Fli Wei, managed his aerial flight on the back of a stork. Storks may still be found, but there are no musical sages to use them now. In Plate XVII., No. 32, a picture of this tower is to be seen, but it was not without difficulty that I obtained it. I found the court in front of the edifice filled with the customary crowd of idlers who loiter in the precincts of the temples — beggars, fortune-tellers, hawkers, city roughs, and street boys. I was therefore compelled to retire within the city wall, in order to avoid the throng. The gate was then shut to, but still the mob managed to scale the ramparts, perfectly civil, indeed, but intensely curious to watch my operations, some doubtless imagining that I intended to open fire on the town, as they saw my camera pointed through the ramparts. The weather was against me as well, for a high wind, charged with clouds of sand, was blowing up stream, and stirring up so great a tempest that the only native boats to be seen as we crossed the river were the well-equipped craft which bore " The Great Peace-Save Life Boats " inscribed in huge black characters on their sides.
FROM HANKOW TO THE WU-SHAN GORGE, UPPER YANGTSZE.
DURING the journey which I now propose to describe I was so fortunate as to have two American gentlemen for my companions. At Hankow we hired two native boats to convey us as far as I-Chang. In the smaller of these two craft our Chinese interpreter, the cook, and "the boys," or native attendants, were accommodated; the larger one was for ourselves. This arrangement proved in some respects a good one : we were not over-crowded, and we escaped the noxious odours of Chinese cookery; but, on the other hand, grievous delays arose, for the boats were of unequal sailing powers, and their crews were inclined to exert themselves as little as possible.
Of three of the illustrations on Plate XVII. No. 33 represents our boat's crew at breakfast; No. 34, the interior of our cabin; No. 35, our interpreter "Chang."
On the 20th January, 1 87 1 , with British and American flags Hying, our expedition quitted Hankow; but we soon lowered our needless colours, and settled down to the tedious process of poleing the boats past the native craft, which lined the bank in thousands.
When night set in we cast anchor at the foot of Ta-tuen-shan, ten miles above Hankow. Our boat was divided by bulkheads into three compartments : the after one for the accommodation of the skipper, Wang, and his wife; the next formed our sleeping bunk; and the forward one, furnished with a stove, was converted into a sort of sitting-room. We passed an intensely cold night, for the wind blew through every crevice into the cabin, and we were forced next morning to make a liberal application of paper and paste to prevent a repetition of the inconvenience. Our sleep was further disturbed by a violent altercation between Wang and his spouse; the latter, seemingly a hot-tempered woman, and a true Tartar, having overruled her more youthful husband's wish to go and purchase provisions ashore. These people can hardly be said to go to bed, — they wear their beds around them. Their clothes are padded with cotton to such an extent, that, during the day, they look like animated bolsters. They never change their clothes, oh no! not until the winter is over; and then they part with the liveliest company in the world. The boatmen are a miserably poor lot; nine of them sleep in a ​compartment of the hold about five and a half feet square, and disagreeable indeed is the odour from that hold in the morning, for the boatmen keep the hatches carefully closed and smoke themselves to sleep with tobacco or opium, according to their means and choice. To get the poor fellows up early was a very difficult task; one by one they crawled out to face the cold north wind | and then came the time when their energy was most displayed. To their tiny enemies, which had to run to cover in the intricacies of their patched and padded coats, no quarter was given; and, this business concluded, they would commonly quarrel with their captain, Wang, or else among themselves; and at last, at about seven or eight o'clock, all hands would turn to and heave the anchor up, hoisting it by a capstan of simple make. As we advanced we were favoured with a slight wind, the sails were then spread, and the men squatted about the deck to enjoy their pipes, and the cheering prospect of a fair breeze, and no work to be done. The Yangtsze was now about a mile broad, and its waters were of a dark chocolate hue. The banks were low, furrowed or terraced with high-water marks left by the floods. These clay walls have a dark and tragic history, if one could but decipher it. Fragments of projecting wood here and there crop out from the clay,— the broken remnants, it may be, of some homestead, deposited with the liSris of a long-forgotten flood. It is slow travelling in these China boats; the old stage-coach had the speed of lightning in comparison with them. During the early part of the voyage we suffered greatly from cold, as the coal we had with us would not burn, and the back draught from the sail filled the cabin with smoke.
A fair run brought us, at eleven o'clock, to "Farmer's Bend," by far the most unsatisfactory part of the Yangtsze, for here the river makes a dtlour of about twenty-two miles to the north and west, returning so nearly to the same point that a straight canal half a mile long would join the two extremities of the curve. The wind died away at sunset, and we anchored for the night at Pai-tsu, forty-six miles above Hankow. Next morning we were up early, but could effect no start till seven o'clock; for Wang was in his bed aft, and his crew were forward, stowed snugly in the hold. An interesting dialogue therefore ensued. The skipper pointed out to his men the propriety of their turning to; and they, in reply, insisted that it was a captain's duty to be himself the first at his post. On this, our second day, in West Reach, we passed a long sand-spit not shown on the Admiralty chart, and next morning we sighted the Pan-thi rock, which rises in mid stream about a quarter of a mile distant from the left bank. As this rock is submerged in summer, it would be dangerous for a steamer to venture too near the bank. At this place the river was about two miles wide, and at the end of the reach is the entrance to the lake stream, which debouches from the mouth of the Tung-Ting Lake. Very beautiful scenery is to be found in this district of the Yangtsze. The banks at the season of our visit presented a bold and striking front to the vast expanse of water, while in the vapoury distance we could descry a line of white sails, those of a fleet of trading junks, as if pictured in the clouds, travelling far away into space, and leaving only small portions of the hindmost vessels discoverable by the naked eye. Beyond the Tung-Ting Lake the Yangtsze is known to the natives simply as the Ta-Kiang or Great River, and up to the point of confluence of the two streams a steamer of six feet draught would find no difficulty, even at this season, when the waters are at their lowest, in ascending the river. Any one experienced in river navigation would usually find the channels and shoals ​where they might most naturally be expected; and the greatest difficulty, as I imagine, would be experienced during the summer months, when the banks are submerged, and no objects suitable for bearings are to be seen. At that period there are no trees nor landmarks of any kind to be met with in many of the long and difficult reaches, so that a steamer would run a great risk of grounding on the stiff clay banks, unless guided by a system of buoys. All the shoals consist of soft alluvial deposits; and, as I believe, when the Upper Yangtsze shall have been thrown open to steam traffic, it will be found necessary to make frequent surveys of the river, as the shoals and channels continually shift. Such a survey, even if made at low water in one season, would only lead to disaster were it relied upon the following year. We have had a day of snow, and there being no wind the men were compelled to track the boat up stream with a bamboo line affixed to the mast. After this, for some days' time, the routine of sailing and tracking was only equalled in monotony by the sameness of the scenery around. There was an endless flow of still and silent water, and level plains on either bank, without a single object of interest to break the even line. At length, on the 2 7 th, we landed at a pretty rustic hamlet, beautiful in its quiet repose, and where everything seemed to have gone to rest for the winter. This village stretched along the crest of an embankment, and was backed by skeleton trees, whose snow-clad branches stood out coldly against a leaden sky. The sloping banks, too, were covered with snow, while the red light of reed fires gleamed from the open doorways, and sparkled in the oyster-shell windows. There was no one astir, not a foot-print had marred the icy mantle in which the soil was wrapped; only on a level patch the leaves of a winter crop shot up in rows, and formed a pale green pattern on a snow-white ground. Our interpreter Chang was, I regret to say, of little service; for no member of our party understood his dialect thoroughly, and I found my own Hainan men, who spoke the Kwang-tung dialect and Malay fluently, of much greater use. Chang, however, had influence with the boatmen, who looked up to him on account of his literary attainment; he was useful as a master of ceremonies in the presence of native officials, and he also kept a careful journal. He esteemed himself our protector, and it was truly gratifying to notice how he courted the society of the officials to whom we had credentials, and before whom our interpreter exhibited us, at the same time introducing to their notice our foreign wine and our cigars -commodities with which he had been laudably sedulous to make himself acquainted beforehand. There he is, presented to the reader in No. 35, just after he had been droning, in an obscure corner of the cabin, over a whole classical commentary. The figure to the left is one of the boatmen, while a Ningpo boy is looking from the cabin door; the characters are faithfully rendered, and are engaged in the several occupations with which half their time was engrossed. The boat was under weigh in mid-stream when I executed this picture. We next halted at Shang-chai-wan, a small town, where we were able to purchase some excellent coal. It was about mid-day, but the boatmen, who had gone ashore with their captain, showed no inclination to return, although a steady breeze was blowing up the river at the time. At four o'clock, therefore, two of us ascended to search for the missing Wang, and quickly found him enjoying the nectar of a wine-shop close at hand. We did not venture into the town, as a great mob had collected around us. Foreigners were a rare sight to them, and my ​friend put them in good humour by purchasing a stock of cakes from an old man, which he distributed among the children in the crowd. The old man looked as if he had dressed himself in an ancient bed quilt, and glazed it waterproof by a surface coating of dirt. Our writer Chang announced that he was suffering from a severe cold, and sent one of the crew ashore to purchase a bottle of wine. It was instructive to notice the way in which he gave the order : while still inside the cabin he carefully counted the cash which his purse contained; and then, stepping out, handed it to the man with an air of perfect trust, remarking as he did so. " I do not know its contents; take what you require, and replace the balance." It contained in reality about sixpence.
On the 29th we had a visit from two Hunan custom-house officials; we also noted two cotton-laden junks ashore, at a place where the stream was apparently running with a five-knot current. Next day we found the banks dotted with huts made of pine-branches and millet-stalks; they reminded me of the pine-raft huts which I had seen below the Tung-Ting Lake, bound down to Hankow, but which I omitted to notice in the proper place. These rafts are of enormous size, and not unfrequently carry a small village on their decks. These villages are lifted on to the bank at Hankow, and there the wood is piled up for sale. About noon on the 318t, at She-show-hien, we passed a dangerous sand-spit, shooting out from the low land opposite the town. Here we bought two fish, one like a salmon, and the other of a kind which Captain Blakistow has already described. This fish has a long sword above its wide and toothless mouth, and it is said to employ that weapon for dislodging its finny prey from the mud, the wide mouth being at the same time brought into use as a trap. Its length, from the extremity of the sword to the tip of the tail, was four feet two inches, the sword being fourteen inches long. The belly was white, the tail and fins white and red. The back and head were slate-colour. She-show-hien, a town in itself of little commercial importance, formed one of the strongholds of the Taipings, by whom it was left partly in ruins. The place is surrounded by the first important hill-ranges we have seen since we had quitted Hankow.
We reached the great trading mart, Sha-si, about three hundred miles above Hankow, at one o'clock on Feb. 2nd. Here the river is one and a-half miles broad, and presents a splendid unobstructed channel. The town is on the left bank, in one of the finest reaches of the Yangtsze, and the lower river steamers would find an ample depth of water for anchoring close in-shore. An eligible site for a foreign settlement, beyond reach of the floods, and clear of the native population, might be found on a hill on the right bank, on the opposite side to the town. There is also another site lower in position, and below the city, which would probably be more advantageous for the purposes of trade. It was difficult to buy coal here, although we knew that it existed in great quantities in Hunan. Mines are, indeed, to be met with at Tsang-yang-hien, a few miles above Sha-si, and the coal there is good in quality; but hitherto it has been little in demand. Coal is also worked at Pa-tong-hien and Wu-shan-hien in the gorges above I-Chang; but except where made into fuel, which they cast in moulds, it is only sparingly in use.
We were now entering the mountain region of the Upper Yangtsze, and we could see in the distance the dim outline of what Blakistow calls the » Mountains of the Seven Gates," which rise about three thousand feet ​above the bed of the stream. The river at this point is from four to five miles broad, its bottom is hard and pebbly, and dangerous shoals abound.
As it was now getting dark, the men were advised to anchor; but they persisted in pushing on, and at last in mid-stream they ran the boat aground. They had to work for half an hour to get her off again, and then she drifted back to the old spot, and came eventually to anchor. Wang informed us that we must keep strict watch here, for we were in the midst of a region of pirates. We kept watch all night accordingly, and it was my lot to go first on duty. I spent the time in writing letters, with my revolver close at hand. Once, thinking that I could hear whispering and a hand upon the window, I grasped my pistol, and made up my mind to have a dear struggle for life. Listening, I heard the heavy breathing of the men piled in a sleeping mass in the forehold, and unconscious that a scene of bloodshed might the next moment ensue; then there was a noise in the cabin; and at last appeared my companion to relieve me on the watch. He had himself been the author of my unfounded alarm.
Feb. 4 th.— Passed a rocky point, where men were fishing with otters. These animals, which appeared quite tame and tractable, were attached to the boats by long cords. They dived readily if gently pushed by their proprietors, and coming up when they had made a capture, freely yielded their prey to the fishermen. The towns and villages which bordered the river in this portion of the provinces of Hupeh and Hunan wore an air of solid prosperity, which contrasted favourably with the regions below. The same was observable in the well-tilled soil and in the general aspect of the people. The dogs are of a breed which differs from any I have seen elsewhere. They are short-haired, and carry long pointed ears, like the hunting dogs of Southern Formosa.
Feb. 5 th brought us in sight of I-Chang Pagoda. Here the hills on the right bank fall in a series of bold cliffs into the river, and above rise the mountains in a chaos of cloud-piercing peaks and crags. Among other objects we noticed a monastery perched on a pinnacle of rock 1,200 feet above us, and overlooking a precipice 600 feet in depth. This sanctuary perhaps approached as nearly to heaven as it was possible for human hands to convey it. At I-Chang we witnessed a naval review. About a dozen boats, such as that shown in No. 39, made up the Imperial fleet, and I was much impressed with the strangeness of the scene, for behind these puny war-boats the deep blue ranges of I-Chang upreared their lofty masses, and shut us in all round with an amphitheatre of hills. The boats were moored in double line, and each was gay with flags and streamers of brilliant and beautiful hues. Their artillery practice was, however, defective; the firing being very irregular, and the guns, some of them, unwilling to be discharged at all. Indeed, when the sham fight was all over, we could still hear the guns going off at intervals during the night. We visited one of these fighting craft, and among other things which we found on board were rifle-stands supporting wooden rifles, placed, as it would seem, in conspicuous places to strike terror into the hearts of an enemy.
The town of I-Chang sweeps in a crescent shape round a bend on the left bank of the river, and is divided into two halves by a canal. The one half occupies high land, while the other is on lower ground, and comprises a large suburb, which suffered severely in the floods of 1870, but has since that time been rebuilt. ​ There are two or three unoccupied sites at I-Chang which are adapted for a foreign settlement. Building materials are also to be had in great variety and abundance. As to the steam navigation of the river up to this point, I have no hesitation in saying that small boats of light draught could reach I -Chang without difficulty, even when the waters are at their lowest, while during summer the steamers which now ply on the Lower Yangtsze would meet no obstacles greater than those they have already to surmount between Shanghai and Hankow.
We left our Hankow boats at I -Chang to await our return from the gorges, and hired a suitable rapid boat to carry us to Kwei-chow-fu, in Szechuan. Our new crew consisted of twenty-four wiry-looking fellows, men accustomed to the dangers of the gorges, and to the poor fare and hard work to be encountered there.
We left this inland port on the 7th Feb., and in a few hours afterwards had entered the mouth of I-Chang Gorge, fourteen miles above the city. This rocky defile presents a spectacle in imposing contrast to the level plains through which wc had been journeying for so many hundred miles. The mountains here vary in height from 500 to 2,500 feet, and the Great River flows through a narrow cleft, in some places not more than a hundred yards across. The channel is everywhere deep and clear, gloomily overshadowed by the rocky walls which frown in gigantic precipices on both sides of the stream, and not unfrequently darkened with still greater intensity by a lowering sky. Rude fisher-huts, perched here and there upon the lofty cliffs, afford the only evidence of the presence of man. A few miles further on we came upon several houses of a better class, surrounded by patches of orchard ground. The inhabitants here obtain a livelihood by selling the produce of their gardens to the passing boats. To these more civilized dwellings there succeeded abodes of a most primitive type — cave hovels, closed in front with a bamboo partition, and fitted with doorways of the same material (sec Plate XVIII. No. 36). These cabins were erected in the most inaccessible positions beneath overhanging cliffs, and their smoke-begrimed interiors reminded me of the ancient cave dwellings which sheltered our forefathers at Wemyss Bay in Scotland. It is in just such desolate spots as these that the frugality and industry of the Chinese race are most conspicuously exhibited. A number of the hardy natives live by fishing, while others arc engaged in the stone-quarries close by; and wherever it is at all possible, the thin soil on the face of the rocks is scraped and planted, and vegetables, tended with ceaseless care, grow up there and mature. This is indeed taking bread out of a stone. It is here that the stone used for building and for embankments lower down the river is found in greatest abundance; and I was interested to note how, by the action of the water on the rocks, the softer fugitive particles had been washed away, leaving strange grottoes and caverns with grotesque columns to support the superincumbent masses.
A snowfall on the 8th mantled the mountain tops in white, but in the gorge took the shape of a refreshing shower, and brought out the bright hues of the plum-blossom, in an orchard hard by where we had made fast for the night. At this spot the river gave no soundings with ten fathoms of line. It was now the first night of the Chinese New Year, and the boatmen accordingly apprised us of their intention to spend the afternoon at the village of Kwang-loong-Miau, on the right bank of the river. This hamlet is surrounded with pine, and backed by a mountain 2,000 feet in height. A number of our crew proceeded to a temple to make ​sacrifice, and later in the evening I was called upon to adjust a dispute. Chang protested that his honourable name had been sullied by the drunken behaviour of the boatmen; I, however, discovered quickly that our venerated interpreter was himself not without sin, being, indeed, unable to stand erect. The crew spent the night in drinking, gambling, and opium-smoking, rioting noisily, and firing crackers from time to time. In the morning the skipper sacrificed a cock to the river goddess and cast some wine upon the waters. After the libation he himself partook of the beverage with a liberality that made a deep impression on the thirsty boatmen, to whom he finally relinquished the well-nigh emptied flask. Two or three miles above the village we encountered the first rapid; and here, at a small hamlet, we lost much time in engaging additional hands, at holiday rates, to tow us up the stream. This task they accomplished by fixing a strong bamboo tug-line to the masthead, while a second rope was made fast to a rock at the top of the rapid, and hauled in on deck, so that we might be kept in position, if the towing line gave way. The water here was flowing at the rate of about seven knots, and the rapid, which was a dangerous one, had but a single narrow channel, surrounded above and below by jagged spikes of rock, which showed above water at that season of the year. I gather from the narratives of Captain Blakistow and Mr. Swinhoe that when the river has risen, there is no rapid at this point at all, and no special danger to be encountered. It would, however, be of the greatest importance to ascertain, by actual careful survey, the exact positions of these rocks, for a steamer might be easily impaled on any one of them during the period when they are submerged. Numbers of them could be removed by blasting when the waters are low; and this may be said of many other rocks in various parts of the gorges. The river is usually at its lowest during the month of February; and in July and Aumist the floods attain their greatest height. At that time in the gorges, the waters apparently rise full seventy feet above their lowest level, the increase being of course greatest where the passage is most contracted. The drum seen in front of No. 34 is an instrument which can be heard above the roar of the rapid and yell of the trackers, and its sounds are supposed to nerve the men to greater exertion. In this instance the trackers, fifty in number, each with his bamboo loop slung over the shoulders and attached to the towing-line, were crawling forward inch by inch, hands and feet firmly planted in the rocks, on the bank, till at length they launched the labouring boat into the smooth waters above. The Lu-kan Gorge, which we entered on the afternoon of the ofh, presented a scene yet grander than any which we had hitherto encountered. Here, the mountains were more than 3,000 feet high, and sheer precipices of 1,000 feet rose up from the very margin of the water (see Plate XXIII. No. 50). Many of the rocks at this place contain strange vertical borings formed apparently with a sort of natural sand drill. Small hard pebbles, imprisoned in recesses of soft rock, have, with the aid of particles of sand and water, in time pierced these deep vertical shafts, and the attrition of the water upon the face of the rocks at last brings the tunnelled apertures to light. The second rapid occurs at Shan-tow-pien. Here %ve found two wrecks; and these made up in all nine wrecks of native craft, which we had noticed since we quitted I-Chang. The owner of one of these shattered boats, a very aged man, was living in a small cabin which he had made out of spars and matting; and there he had been waiting for a week. He seemed extremely wretched, and we volunteered ​our help, but he made signs to us to go away. Next morning, we ascended a smaller rapid (see No. 37), just below the great rapid of Tsing-tan, at the mouth of the Mi-tan Gorge. As the Tsing-tan Rapid would present the greatest obstacle to steamers, I have made it the subject of two plates, (Plate XXI. No. 48 and Plate XXII. No. 49). In the first of these we have a general view of the entrance to the pass, and of the position of the village of Tsing-tan. The rapid is just below the village, and above the point at which our boat is seen under sail. The small boat, with two men on board, is one of the life boats always in attendance below the rapid. It is customary for the Chinese traders to unship their cargoes below, and have them transported overland to the smooth water above; there they reload their vessels; and this precaution they take, not because the channel is too shallow, but in order that the boats may have less weight on them when ascending or descending the rapids. No. 49 is an instantaneous photograph of the rapid, taken from the village above. It was obtained, I may add, under the most trying circumstances; for the villagers, who had never seen any such devilry as manufacturing pictures without a pencil, had thought fit to pelt me with missiles, and I narrowly escaped a stroke from an oar, as I took refuge in my boat. In vain Chang reasoned with the mob; we quietly secured the photograph, pocketed the insult and decamped. My two companions were all the while in their boat on the other side, preparing for the ascent of the stream. No doubt some of these villagers had heard the popular fiction that mystic pictures such as mine were made out of the eyes of Chinese babes. This rapid is one of the grandest spectacles in the whole panorama of the Upper Yangtsze. The water presents a smooih surface as it emerges from the pass. Suddenly it seems to bend like a polished cylinder of glass, falls eight or ten feet, and then, curving upwards in a glorious crest of foam, it surges away in wild tumult down the river. At this season sundry sunken rocks enhance the perils of shooting this rapid. On our way down we persuaded Chang to come into the boat with us; but as the vessel plunged and groaned in an agony of straining timbers, he became perfectly sick with panic fear. The inhabitants of Tsing-tan all make a living in some way out of the rapid. A few are pilots, the rest trackers, and besides all this there are many wrecks which help them to get along. We had here to hire fifty trackers, to aid in towing our boat up stream. The speed of this rapid was estimated at about eight knots, but I see no reason why the kind of steamer which lilakistow has suggested should not navigate this, and indeed, any of the rapids on the Yangtsze, the steam power to be detached, and made available either for towing the vessel up or for retarding her in swift and hazardous descents. Were the river open to steam navigation and foreign trade, daring and scientific skill would be forthcoming to accomplish the end in view,
We made fast for the night at the small town of Kwei, in Hupeh. This is built on sloping ground beneath the cliffs, on the left bank of the river. It was puzzling to imagine on what the people can subsist. There were no cultivated lands, no boats, nor signs of any sort of trade; the only being we encountered was a solitary beggar, and he was anxious to depart from Kwei. There are a number of coal mines near Patung, and in the rocks where the coalbeds are found the limestone strata have been thrown up from the stream in nearly perpendicular walls. The coal is slid down from the pit's mouth to a depot close to the water's edge, along grooves cut for that purpose on the face of the rock. The exact appearance of the entrance to one of these mines will be gathered from Plate XIX. No. 42. ​The workings are usually sunk obliquely, for a very short distance, into the rock, and arc abandoned in places where to our own miners the real work would have barely begun. They sink no perpendicular shafts, nor do their mines require any system of ventilation. The miners, of whom a group are shown in Plate XX., No. 44, work daily from seven A.M to four P.M., and their wages average 300 cash a day, or about seven shillings a man per week. They use a small oil lamp fixed to the head, similar to that which our miners employed before the Davy lamp was invented. Others of the villagers work at the mines; some are coalporters, and carry their burdens in creels fastened to their backs, after the plan shown in No. 46. At this sort of work the men can earn two hundred cash a day. The young children manufacture fuel. This fuel is made by mixing the coal, which here is of inferior quality, with water, then casting it in moulds and drying it in the sun. The process is shown in No. 43, while in No. 45 we see the fuel ready for exportation. Each block weighs 1$ lbs. and it is sold at the pit's mouth for about five shillings a ton. The Chinese still work their coal in a very imperfect manner, and they use it very sparingly for fuel, even in those provinces where it might be most abundantly obtained. Baron von Richthofen has assured us there is plenty of coal in Hupeh and Hunan, and that the coal field of Szechuan is also of enormous area. He further adds that at the present rate of consumption the world could be supplied from Southern Shasi alone for several thousand years, and yet, in some of the places referred to, it is not uncommon to find the Chinese storing up wood and millet stalks for their firing in winter, while coal in untold quantities lies ready for use in the soil just under their feet. These vast coal-fields will constitute the basis of China's future greatness, when steam shall have been called in to aid her in the development of her inland mineral resources. Wu-shan Gorge, which we entered on the morning of the iSth, is more than twenty miles in length. The river here was perfectly placid, and the view which met our gaze at the mouth of the gorge was perhaps the finest of the kind that we had encountered. The mountains rose in confused masses to a great altitude, while the most distant peak at the extremity of the reach resembled a cut sapphire, its snow lines sparkling in the sun like the gleams of light on the facets of a gem. The other cliffs and precipices gradually deepened in hue until they reached the bold lights and shadows of the rocky foreground. (See No. 51.)
The officers of a gunboat stationed at the boundary which parts Hupeh from Szechuan warned us to beware of pirates, and they had good reason for so doing. The same night, at about ten o'clock, an intense darkness having fallen upon the gorge, we were roused by the whispering of a boat's crew alongside us. Hailing them we got no answer, and we therefore next fired high, in the direction whence the sound proceeded; our fire was responded to by a flash and report from another direction. After this we kept watch during the entire night, and were again roused at about two o'clock to challenge a boat's crew that was noiselessly stealing down upon our quarters. A second time we were forced to fire, and the sharp ping of the rifle ball on the rocks had the effect of deterring further advances from our invisible foe. The disturbers of our repose must have been thoroughly acquainted with this part of the gorge, for even by day it is somewhat dark there, and at night-time is of such pitchy blackness that no trading boat would then venture to move from its rock-bound moorings.
On the 14th, as we were tracking up a small rapid, we were obliged to cut the bamboo line adrift, for the ​boat had been caught in an eddy by a sudden gust of wind, and was on the point of heeling over. Freed from the tension of the tracking rope, she righted herself and spun away down the rapid till she settled on the right bank about half a mile below the scene of the accident. The breadth of the river now parted us from our men, and it was with great difficulty, and at an exorbitant rate, that we were at last enabled to hire a boat to bring them all across.
We reached Wu-shan-hien, in Szechuan, at about three o'clock, and we terminated our journey at this point, distant over 1,200 statute miles from Shanghai. It had been our intention to ascend the short pass which still separated us from Kwei-chow-fu, but we were detained by a storm of sand and wind, against which we could make no headway with our craft. In Wu-shan Gorge there are a number of caves, and we were told that one of them is used as a prison. This prison cavern was pointed out high up in the face of a precipice. It can only be reached by chains which are hung down over the rock. In another cave, nearly as inaccessible, we found an aged hermit, who had been living there alone on herbs and meditation for many years past.
PLATE XVIII. No. 36. CAVE DWELLINGS, I -CHANG GORGE, RIVER YANGTSZE.
No. 37. SZECHUAN TRADING BOAT.
No. 38. SZECHUAN TRADING BOAT.
No. 39. CHINESE GUNBOAT, UPPER YANGTSZE.
PLATE XIX. No. 40. IN I-CHANG GORGE.
No. 41. NATIVES.
No. 42. COAL MINE.
No. 43. MAKING FUEL.
PLATE XX.
No. 44. COAL MINERS.
No. 45. DRYING FUEL.
No. 46. COOLIE AND CREEL, SZECHUAN.
No. 47. A MOUNTAIN HUT, PROVINCE OF HUPEH.
PLATE XXI.
No. 48. MI-TAN GORGE, UPPER YANGTSZE.
PLATE XXII.
No. 49. TSING-TAN RAPID, UPPER YANGTSZE.
PLATE XXIII. No. 50 LU-KAN GORGE, UPPER YANGTSZE.
PLATE XXIV.
No. 51. WU-SHAN GORGE, PROVINCE OF SZECHUAN.
* ↑ "Chinese Classics," by J. Legge, D.D., vol. iii. p. 61.
* ↑ "China," par M. Panthier, p. 466.
* ↑ "The Autobiography of the Chung-Wang," p. 64. Shanghai, 1865.
* ↑ Oyster shells, reduced in thickness until they become semi-transparent, are still used in many parts of China as substitute for glass. The shells are framed in small squares in the windows of the houses.