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NEW FORCES IN OLD CHINA
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WITH MAPS AND 23 ILLUSTRATIONS
THE J^EW E'RA IJf THE THILITTIJHES
"By ARTHUR JUDSON BILOWN. D.D.
'^ec^et3ry of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.
Endorsed by John R.. Mott
" I have recently read and re-read ' The New Era in the Philippines,* by Dr. Brown. I have found it not only instruct- ive but most interesting and inspiring. I regard it as the best book on a mission field which has thus far appeared. It is also most timely. It really ought to be read by every pastor and Christian layman — in fact by all our citizens who have al. heart the real welfare of our new possessions."
Poirvted a^nd Well Writterx— The Observer
"The book is designed to give the precise information regarding the Philippines vvhicli the general reader, and particularly the Christian student, desires. ... A volume of surpassing interest and vv-orth. , . . The style is clear, strong, with much pleasing humor, and evidently meant to get at the bottom of every problem considered. . . . The book is very satisfying. "
The Christian Advocate Notes Its Breadth and Accuracy
" We do not hesitate to say that it is a superior book, from the
point of view of accurate statement, comprehensive knowledge,
ability to mass facts, manifest fairness of attitude toward the
numerous important and vital issues before the people and the
American government, breadth and saneness of vision as to the
future possibilities of the people. . . . It is a compendium
of valuable and accurate information, and an able and dispassionate
discussion of a number of the most serious questions evolved by
American occupation of the islands. ' '
The Outlook's Commervdation
" This is the best account of religious conditions in the Philippines that we have seen. It is the result of a personal visit to the archipelago and a study of its institutions. . . . Essential to ministers and others who would acquaint themselves with the religious conditions in the Philippines, and of value to all students uf the V rious aspects of the Filipino problem."
New Forces in Old China
An Unwelcome But Inevitable Awakening
By ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
Author of "The New Era in the Philippines"
New York Chicago Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
Copyright, 1904, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 6} Washington Street Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 50 St. Mary Street
72? my Friends in China
Preface
"^HE object of this book is to describe the operation upon and within old, conservative, exclusive China of the three great transforming forces of the modern
world Western trade, Western politics and Western religion.
These forces are producing stupendous changes in that hitherto sluggish iTiass of humanity. The full significance of these changes both to China and to the world cannot be compre- hended now. There is something fascinating and at the same lime something appalling in the spectacle of a nation number- ing nearly one-third of the human race slowly and majestically rousing itself from the torpor of ages under the influence of new and powerful revolutionary forces. No other movement of our age is so colossal, no other is more pregnant with mean- ing. In the words of D. C. Bougler, " The grip of the outer world has tightened round China. It will either strangle her or galvanize her into fresh life."
The immediate occasion of this volume was the invitation of the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary to deliver a se- ries of lectures on China on the Student Lectureship Founda- tion and to publish them in book form. This will account in part for the style of some passages. I have, however, added considerable material which was not included in the lectures, while some articles that were contributed to the Century Mag- azine, the American Monthly Review of Reviews and other magazines have been inserted in their proper place in the discus- sion. The materials were gathered not only in study and correspondence but in an extended tour of Asia in the years 1901 and 1902. In that tour, advantage was taken of every
5
6 Preface
opportunity to confer with Cliinese of all classes, foreign con- suls, editors, business men and American, German and British officials, as well as with missionaries of all denominations. Everywhere I was cordially received, and, as I look at my voluminous note-books, I am very grateful to the men of all faiths and nationalities who so generously aided me in my search for information.
No one system of spelling Chinese names has been followed for the simple reason that no one has been generally accepted. The Chinese characters represent words and ideas rather than letters and can only be phonetically reproduced in English. Unfortunately, scholars differ widely as to this phonetic spell- ing, while each nationality works in its own peculiarities wher- ever practicable. And so we have Manchuria, Mantchuria and Manchouria; Kiao-chou, Kiau-Tshou, Kiao-Chau, Kiau- tschou and Kiao-chow ; Chinan and Tsi-nan ; Ychou, Ichow and I-chou ; Tsing-tau and Ching-Dao; while Mukden is confus- ingly known as Moukden, Shen-Yang, Feng-tien-fu and Sheng- king. As some authors follow one system, some another and some none at all, and as usage varies in different parts of the Em- pire, an attempt at uniformity would have involved the correc- tion of quotations and the changing of forms that have the sanc- tion of established usage as, for example, the alteration of Chefoo to Chi-fu or Tshi-fu. I have deemed it wise, as a rule, to omit the aspirate (e. g., Tai-shan instead of T'ai-shan) as unintelligible to one who does not speak Chinese. Few for- eigners except missionaries can pronounce Chinese names cor- rectly anyway. Besides, no matter what the system of spell- ing, the pronunciation differs, the Chinese themselves in va- rious parts of the Empire pronouncing the name of the Imperial City Beh-ging, Bay-ging, Bai-ging and Bei-jing, while most foreigners pronounce it Pe-kin or Pi-king. I have followed the best obtainable advice in using the hyphen between the differ- ent parts of many proper names. For the rest I join the perplexed reader who devoutly hopes that the various commit-
Preface 7
tees that are at work on the Romanization of the Chinese lan- guage may in time agree among themselves and evolve a system that a plain, wayfaring man can understand without provoca- tion to wrath.
756 Fifth Avenue, New York City,
Contents
PART I
OLD CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE
I. The Ancient Empire . . . . . .15
II. Do We Rightly View the Chinese ... 25
III. Attitude Towards Foreigners — Character and
Achievements . . . . . -3?
IV. A Typical Province ...... 45
V. A Shendza in Shantung ..... 52
VI. At the Grave of Confucius .... 65
VII. Some Experiences of a Traveller — Feasts, Inns
and Soldiers ...... 84
PART II
THE COMMERCIAL FORCE AND THE ECONOMIC
REVOLUTION
VIII. World Conditions that are Affecting China . 10 1
IX. The Economic Revolution in Asia . . .111
X. Foreign Trade and Foreign Vices . . .121 XL The Building of Railways . . . .130
PART III
THE POLITICAL FORCE AND THE NATIONAL
PROTEST
XII. The Aggressions of European Powers . .145
XIII. The United States and China . . . .154
XIV. Diplomatic Relations — Treaties . . .165
9
10
Contents
XV. Renewed Aggressions . . . . .174
XVI. Growing Irritation of the Chinese — The Re-
form Party . . . . . .184
XVII. The Boxer Uprising . . . . • ^93
PART IV
THE MISSIONARY FORCE AND THE CHINESE
CHURCH
XVIII. Beginnings of the Missionary Enterprise — The
Tai-ping Rebellion and the Later Develop- ment . . . . . . .217
XIX. Missionaries and Native Lawsuits . . . 228
XX. Missionaries and Their Own Governments . 236 XXL Responsibility of Missionaries for the Boxer
Uprising ....... 249
XXII. The Chinese Christians .... 268
XXIII. The Strain of Readjustment to Changed Eco-
nomic Conditions ..... 280
XXIV. Comity and Cooperation .... 290
PART V
THE FUTURE OF CHINA AND OUR RELATION
TO IT
XXV. Is There a Yellow Peril .... 305
XXVI. Fresh Reason to Hate the Foreigner . .320
XX VII. Hopeful Signs . . . . . -333
XXVIII. The Paramount Duty of Christendom . -35' Index . . . . . . . '371
List of Illustrations
Railway Station, Paoting-fu
View of Canton, Showing House Boats
H. I. H. Prince Su and Attendants
A Rut in the Loess Region
Germans Building Railway Bridge in Shantung
A Shendza in Shantung
Climbing Tai-shan, the Sacred Mountain
The Grave of Confucius
Part of the Author's Escort of Chinese Cavalrymen
Watching the Author writing in his Diary at a noon
A Snap Shot .....
The Bund, Shanghai ..... American Cigarette Posters on a Chinese Bridge The Chinese Cart .....
The Old and The New ....
French Military Post, Saigon .... German Soldiers on the Bund, Tien-tsin . The British Legation Guard, Peking The Temple of Heaven, Peking Memorial Arch, Hall of the Classics, Peking Graduating Class, Presbyterian Theological Seminary
ton, 1904 ......
Approach to the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden
Peking ......
Two of China's Great Men — Yuan Shih Kai and
Chih-tung ......
Map
Facing
stop —
Can
City Chang
Page
Title
22
32
46
56 56
70 70 92
92 112 1 12 130 130 150 150
174 198 228
268
320
344 370
PART I
Old China and its People
H
THE ANCIENT EMPIRE
E must be dead to all noble thoughts who can tread the venerable continent of Asia without profound emotion. Beyond any other part of the earth, its soil teems with historic associations. Here was the birthplace of the human race. Here first appeared civilization. Here were born art and science, learning and philosophy. Here man first engaged in commerce and manufacture. And here emerged all the religious teachers who have most powerfully influenced mankind, for it was in Asia in an unknown antiq- uity that the Persian Zoroaster taught the dualism of good and evil ; that the Indian Gautama 600 years before Christ declared that self-abnegation was the path to a dreamless Nirvana ; that less than a century later the Chinese Lao-tse enunciated the mysteries of Taoism and Confucius uttered his maxims re- garding the five earthly relations of man, to be followed within another century by the bold teaching of Mencius that kings should rule in righteousness. In Asia it was 1,000 years after- wards that the Arabian Mohammed proclaimed himself as the authoritative prophet. There the God and Father of us all re- vealed Himself to Hebrew sage and prophet in the night vision and the angelic form and the still, small voice ; and in Asia are the village in which was cradled and the great altar of tlie world on which was crucified the Son of God.
We of the West boast of our national history. But how brief is our day compared with the succession of world powers which Asia has seen.
Chaldea began the march of kingdoms 2,200 years before
15
l6 New Forces in Old China
Christ. Its proud king, Chedor-laomer, ruled from the Per- sian Gulf to the sources of the Euphrates, and from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean, Then Egypt arose to rule not only over the northeastern part of Africa, but over half of Arabia and all of the preceding territory of Chaldea. Assyria followed, stretching from the Black Sea nearly half-way down the Persian Gulf and from the Mediterranean to the eastern boundary of modern Persia. Babylon, too, was once a world power whose monarch sat
" High on a throne of royal state, which far Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind." •
Persia was mightier still. Two thousand years before America was heard of, while France and Germany, England and Spain, were savage wildernesses, Persia was the abode of civilization and culture, of learning and eloquence. Her empire extended from the Indus to the Danube and from the Oxus to the Nile, embracing twenty satrapies each one of whose governors was well-nigh a king. Alexander the Great, too, at the head of his invincible army, swept over vast areas of Asia, capturing cities, unseating rulers, and bringing well-nigh all the civilized world under his dominion. And was not Rome also an Asi- atic power, for it stretched not only from the firths of Scot- land on the north to the deserts of Africa on the south, but from the Atlantic Ocean on the west to the River Euphrates on the east.
Altogether it is a majestic but awful procession, overwhelm- ing us by its grandeur and yet no less by its horror. It is a kaleidoscope on a colossal scale, whose pieces appear like fragments of a broken universe. Empires rise and fall. Thrones are erected and overturned. The mightiest creations of man vanish. Yea, they have all waxed "old as doth a gar- ment," and "as a vesture" are they "changed."
But were these ancient nations the last of Asia ? Has that
> Milton, " Paradise Lost," Book 11.
The Ancient Empire 17
mighty continent nothing more to contribute to the world than the memories of a mighty past ? It is impossible to believe that this is all. The historic review gives a momentum which the mind cannot easily overcome. As we look towards the Far East, we can plainly see that the evolution is incomplete. What- ever purpose the Creator had in mind has certainly not yet been accomplished. More than two-thirds of those innumerable myriads have as yet never heard of those high ideals of life and destiny which God Himself revealed to men. It is incredible that a wise God should have made such a large part of the world only to arrest its development at its present unfinished stage, inconceivable that He should have made and preserved so large a part of the human race for no other and higher pur- pose than has yet been achieved.
Within this generation, a new Asiatic power has suddenly ap- peared in a part of Asia far removed from the region in which the wise men of old lived and studied, and the might of that nation is even now checking the progress of huge and haughty Russia. But brilliant as has been the meteoric career of Japan, there is another race in Asia, which, though now moving more sluggishly, has possibilities of development that may in time make it a dominant factor in the future of the world. Great forces are now operating on that race and it is the purpose of this book to give some account of those forces and to indicate the stupendous transformation which they are slowly but surely producing.
The magnitude of China is almost overwhelming. In spite of all that I had read, I was amazed by what I saw. To say that the Empire has an area of 4,218,401 square miles is almost like saying that it is 255,000,000,000 miles to the North Star; the statement conveys no intelligible idea. The mind is only con- fused by such enormous figures. But it may help us to remember that China is one-third larger than all Europe, and that if the United States and Alaska could be laid upon China there would be room left for several Great Britains. Extending from
i8 New Forces in Old China
the fifty-fourth parallel of latitude southward to the eighteenth, the Empire has every variety of climate from arctic cold to tropic heat. It is a land of vast forests, of fertile soil, of rich minerals, of navigable rivers. The very fact that it has so long sustained such a vast population suggests the richness of its re- sources. There are said to be 600,000,000 acres of arable soil, and so thriftily is it cultivated that many parts of the Empire are almost continuous gardens and fields. Four hundred and nineteen thousand square miles are believed to be underlaid with coal. Baron von Richthoven thinks that 600,000,000,000 tons of it are anthracite, and that the single Province of Shen-si could supply the entire world for a thousand years. When we add to this supply^of coal the apparently inexhaustible deposits of iron ore, we have the two products on which material great- ness largely depends.
The population proves to be even greater than was supposed, for while 400,000,000 was formerly believed to be a maximum estimate, the general census recently taken by the Chinese Government for the purpose of assessing the war tax places the population of the Empire at 426,000,000. This, however, includes 8,500,000 in Manchuria, 2,580,000 in Mongolia, 6,430,020 in Tibet and 1,200,000 in Chinese Turkestan. Some of these regions are only nominally Chinese. Those on the western frontier were until comparatively recent years almost as unknown as the poles. Sven Hedin's description of those that he traversed is wonderfully fascinating. Only a daring spirit, the explorer of the type that is born, not made, could have pierced those vast solitudes and wrested from them the secret of their existence. That Hedin had no money for such a costly quest could not deter this Viking of the Northland. Kings headed the subscription and others so eagerly followed that ample funds were soon in hand. Princes helped with equipment and counsel. The Czar made all Russian railways free highways, and every local official and nomad chieftain exerted himself to aid the expedition. Hedin does not claim
The Ancient Empire 19
to give anything more tlian an ordered diary of his travels, to- gether with a description of the lands he explored and the peoples he found. But what a diary it is ! It takes the reader away from the whirl of crowded cities and clanging trolley-cars into the boundless, wind-swept desert and the solitude of majestic mountains where the lonely traveller wanders with his camels through untrodden wildernesses or floats down the interminable stretches of unknown rivers, while night after night he sleeps in his tiny tent or under the open sky. The author failed to reach the long-sought Lassa, the suspicious Dalai Lama refusing to be deceived or cajoled and sternly send- ing the inquisitive traveller out of the country. But the expedi- tion of three years and three days was rich in other disclosures of ruined cities and great watercourses and lofty plateaus and majestic mountain ranges. The population is sparse in those desolate wastes, and the scattered inhabitants are wild and un- couth and free.
Manchuria, however, is far from being the barren country that so many imagine it to be. It is, in many respects, like Canada, a region embracing about 370,000 square miles and of almost boundless agricultural and mineral wealth. The population, save in the southern parts, is not yet dense but it is rapidly increasing.
But in central and eastern China, the conditions are very different. Here the population can only be indicated by a figure so large that it is almost impossible for us to compre- hend it. Consider that the eighteen provinces alone, with an area about equal to that part of the United States east of the Mississippi River, have eight times the population of that part of our country.
"There are twice as many people in China as on the four continents — Africa, North and South America and Oceanica. Every third person who toils under the sun and sleeps under God's stars is a Chinese. Every third child born into the world looks into the face of a Chinese mother. Every third pair given in marriage plight their troth in a
20 New Forces in Old China
Chinese cup of wine. Every third orphan weeping through the day every third widow wailing through the night are in China, Put them in rank, joining hands, and they will girdle the globe ten times at the equa- tor with living, beating human hearts. Constitute them pilgrims and let two thousand go past every day and night under the sunlight and under the solemn stars, and you must hear the ceaseless tramp, tramp, of the weary, pressing, throbbing throng for five hundred years."*
There is something amazing in the immensity of the popula- tion. Great cities are surprisingly numerous. In America, a city of nearly a million inhabitants is a wonderful place and all the world is supposed to know about it. But while Canton and Tien-tsin are tolerably familiar names, how many in the United States ever heard of Hsiang-tan-hsien ? Yet Hsiang-tan- hsien is said to have 1,000,000 inhabitants, while within com- paratively short distances are other great cities and innumer- able villages. In the Swatow region, within a territory a hundred and fifty miles long and fifty miles wide, there are no less than ten walled cities of from 40,000 to 250,000 inhabit- ants, besides hundreds of towns and villages ranging from a few hundred to 25,000 or 30,000 people. Men never tire of writ- ing about the population adjacent to New York, Boston and Chicago. But in five weeks' constant journeying through the interior of the Shantung Province, there was hardly an hour in which multitudes were not in sight. There are no scattered farmhouses as in America, but the people live in villages and towns, the latter strongly walled and even the former often have a mud wall. As the country is comparatively level, it was easy to count them, and as a rule there were a dozen or more in plain view, I recall a memorable morning. It was Friday, June 28, 1 90 1. We had risen early, and by daylight we had breakfasted, and started our carts and litters. In our enjoy- ment of the cool, delicious morning air, we walked for several li. Just before the sun rose, we crossed a low ridge and from its crest, I counted no less than thirty villages in front of us, » The Rev. J. T, Gracey, D, D,, «' China in Outline," p. 10.
The Ancient Empire
21
while behind there were about as many more, the average popu' lation being apparently about 500 each. For days at a time, my road lay through the narrow, crowded street of what seemed to be an almost continuous village, the intervening farms being often hardly more than a mile in width.
Imagine half the population of the United States packed into the single state of Missouri and an idea of the situation will be obtained, for with an area almost equal to that of Missouri, Shantung has no less than 38,247,900 inhabitants. It is the most densely populated part of China. But the Province of Shan-si is as thickly settled as Hungary. Fukien and Hupeh have about as many inhabitants to the square mile as England. Chih-li is as populous as France and Yun-nan as Bulgaria.
The density of China's population may be better realized by a glance at the following detailed comparison between the population of Chinese provinces and the population of similar areas in the United States :
Area
Provinces Square miles Population
Hupeh, 71,410 35,280,685
Ohio and Indiana, 76,670 5,864,720
Honan, 67,940 35,316,800
Missouri, 68,735 2,679,184
Cheh-kiang, 36,670 11,580,692
Kentucky, 40,000 1,858,635
Kiang-si, 69,480 26,532,125
Kentucky and Tennessee, 81,750 3,626,252
Kwei-chou, 67,160 7,650,282
Virginia and West Virginia, 64,770 2,418,774
Yun-nan, 146,680 12,324,574
Michigan and Wisconsin, 111,880 3,780,769
Fukien, 46,320 22,876,540
Ohio, 40,760 3,072,316
Chih-li, 115,800 20,937,000
Georgia, 50,980 1,837.353
Shantung, 55,970 38,247,900
New England, 62,000 4,700,945
Shan-si, 81,830 12,200,456
Illinois, 56,000 3,826,851
Shen-si, 75.270 8,450,182
Nebraska, 76,840 1,058,910
22 New Forces in Old China
|
Kan-su, |
125,450 |
10,385,376 |
|
California, |
155.980 |
1,208,130 |
|
Sze-chuen, |
218,480 |
68,724,890 |
|
Ohio, Ind., 111., Ky., |
173.430 |
11,350,219 |
|
Ngan-hwei, |
54,810 |
23,670,314 |
|
New York, |
47,600 |
5,997.853 |
|
Kiang-su, |
38,600 |
13,980,235 |
|
Pennsylvania, |
44,985 |
5,258,014 |
|
Kwan-tung and Hainan, |
99,970 |
31,865,251 |
|
Kansas, |
81,700 |
1,427,096 |
|
Kwang-si, |
77,200 |
5,142,330 |
|
Minnesota, |
79,205 |
1,301,826 |
|
Hunan, |
83,380 |
22,169,673 |
|
Louisiana, |
45,000 |
1,110,569 |
Perhaps the most thoroughly typical city in China is Canton. The approach by way of the West River from Hongkong gives the traveller a view of some of the finest scenery in China. The green rice-fields, the villages nestling beneath the groves, the stately palm-trees, the quaint pagodas, the broad, smooth reaches of the river reflecting the glories of sunset and moon- rise, and the noble hills in the background combine to form a scene worth journeying far to see.
But Canton itself is unique among the world's great cities, and the most sated traveller cannot fail to find much that will interest him. After much journeying in China, we thought we had seen its typical places, but no one has seen China until he has visited Canton. With an estimated population of 1,800,- 000, it is the metropolis of the Empire. The number of people per acre may be less than in some parts of the East Side in New York, for the houses are only one story in height. But the crowding is amazing. The streets are mere alleys from four to eight feet wide, lined with open-front shops, so filled overhead with perpendicular signs and cross coverings of bamboo poles and mattings that they are in as perpetual shade as an African forest, and so choked with people that men often had to back into a shop to let our chairs pass. No wheeled vehicle can enter those corkscrew streets and we saw no animal of any kind save two cows that were being led to slaughter.
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The Ancient Empire 23
And the hubbub ! Such shouting and yelling cannot be heard anywhere else in the world. Our chair coolies were in a constant state of objurgation in clearing a way. Everybody seemed to be bellowing to everybody else and when two chairs met, the din shattered the atmosphere. A foreigner excites a surprising amount of curiosity, considering the number that visit Canton. Troops of boys followed us and there was a good deal of what sounded like cat-calling. But it was all good- natured, or appeared to be.
The unpretentious shop-fronts often beckon to mysteries that are well worth penetrating — tobacco factories where coolies stamp the leaves with bare feet ; tea, gold, dye and embroidery shops where designs of exquisite delicacy are exhibited ; silk- weaving factories where fine fabrics are made on the simplest of looms; feather shops where breastpins and other ornaments are made of tiny bits of feathers on a silver base — a work re- quiring almost incredible nicety of vision and such strain upon the eyes that the operators often become blind by forty. An- other curiosity is a shop where crickets are reared for fighting as the Filipino fights cocks and the Anglo-Saxon fights dogs. The Chinese gamble on the result and a good fighting cricket is sometimes sold for $100. The attendant put a couple in a jar for our alleged amusement and they began fighting fiercely. But I promptly stopped the melee as I did not enjoy such sport.
The river is one of the sights of China. It is crowded with boats of all sizes. The owner of each lives on it with his family, the babies having ropes tied to them so that if they tumble into the water, they can be pulled out.
Altogether, it is a remarkable city. Viewed from the famous Five-Story Pagoda, on a high part of the old city wall, it is a swarming hive of humanity. As one looks out on those myriads of toiling, struggling, sorrowing men and women, he is con- scious of a new sense of the pathos and the tragedy of human life. If I may adapt the words of the Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs on the heights above Naples, at the Church of San Mar-
24 New Forces in Old China
tino, on the way to St. Elmo — I suppose that every one who has ever stood on the balcony of that lofty pagoda "has noticed, as I remember to have noticed, that all the sounds coming up from that populous city, as they reached the upper air, met and mingled on the minor key. There were the voices of traffic, and the voices of command, the voices of affection and the voices of rebuke, the shouts of sailors, and the cries of itinerant venders in the street, with the chatter and the laugh of childhood ; but they all came up into this incessant moan in the air. That is the voice of the world in the upper air, where there are spirits to hear it. That is the cry of the world for help."»
1 " Address on Foreign Missions," pp. 178, 179.
II
DO WE RIGHTLY VIEW THE CHINESE
TOO much has been made of the peculiarities of the Chinese, ignoring the fact that many customs and traits that appear peculiar to us are simply the differ- ences developed by environment. Eliza Scidmore affirms that " no one knows or ever really will know the Chinese, the most comprehensible, inscrutable, contradictory, logical, illogical people on earth." But a Chinese gentleman, who was edu- cated in the United States, justly retorts : " Behold the Ameri- can as he is, as I honestly found him — great, small, good, bad, self-glorious, egotistical, intellectual, supercilious, ignorant, superstitious, vain and bombastic. In truth," he adds, "so very remarkable, so contradictory, so incongruous have I found the American that I hesitate." ^
The Chinese are, indeed, very different from western peoples in some of their customs.
" They mount a horse on the right side instead of the left. The old men play marbles and fly kites, while children look gravely on. They shake hands with themselves instead of with each other. What we call the surname is written first and the other name afterwards. A coffin is a very acceptable present to a rich parent in good health. In the north they sail and pull their wheelbarrows in place of merely pushing them. . . . China is a country where the roads have no carriages and the ships, have no keels; where the needle points to the south, the place of honour is on the left hand, and the seat of intellect is supposed to lie in the stomach ; where it is rude to take off your hat, and to wear white clothes is to go into mourning. Can one be astonished to find a literature without an alphabet and a language without a grammar ? " *
' " As a Chinaman Saw Us," pp. i, 2.
* Temple Bar, quoted in Smith's " Rex Christus," p. 1 15.
25
26 New Forces in Old China
It would never occur to us to commit suicide in order to spite another. But in China such suicides occur every day, because it is beheved that a death on the premises is a lasting curse to the owner. And so the Chinese drowns himself in his enemy's well or takes poison on his foe's door-step. Only a few months ago, a rich Chinese murdered an employee in a British colony, and knowing that inexorable British law would not be satisfied until some one was punished, he hired a poor Chinese named Sack Chum to confess to having committed the murder and to permit himself to be hung, the real murderer promising to give him a good funeral and to care for his family. An Englishman who thought this an incredible story wrote a letter of inquiry to an intelligent Chinese merchant of his acquaintance and received the following reply :
" Nothing strange to Chinamen. Sack Chum, old man, no money, soon die. Every day in China such thing. Chinaman not like white man — not afraid to die. Suppose some one pay his funeral, take care his family. • I die,' he say. Chinaman know Sack Chum, we suppose, sell himself to men who kill Ah Chee. Somebody must die for them. Sack Chum say he do it. All right. Police got him. What for they want more ? "
These things appear odd from our view-point and there are many other peculiarities that are equally strange to us. But it may be wholesome for us to remember that some of our customs impress the Chinese no less oddly. The Frankfiirter Zeiiung, Germany, prints the following from a Chinese who had seen much of the Europeans and Americans in Shanghai :
" We are always told that the countries of the foreign devils are grand and rich; but that cannot be true, else what do they all come here for? It is here that they grow rich. They jump around and kick balls as if they were paid to do it. Again you will find them making long tramps into the country ; but that is probably a religious duty, for when they tramp they wave sticks in the air, nobody knows why. They have no sense of dignity, for they may be found walking with women. Yet the women are to be pitied, too. On festive occasions they are dragged around a room to the accompaniment of the most hellish music."
Do We Rightly View the Chinese 27
A Chinese resident in America wrote to his friends at home a letter from which the following extract is taken :
" What is queerer still, men will stroll out in company with their wives in broad daylight without a blush. And will you believe that men and women take hold of each other's hands by way of salutation ? Oh, I have seen it myself more than once. After all, what can you expect of folk who have been brought up in barbarous countries on the very verge of the world ? They have not been taught the maxims of our sages ; they never heard of the Rites ; how can they know what good manners mean ? We often think them rude and insolent when I'm sure they don't mean it . they're ignorant, that's all." '
A call that I made upon a high official in an interior city developed a curious interest. He was a pale, thin man, apparently an opium smoker and a mandarin of the old school. But he was intelligent enough to ask me not only about " the twenty-story buildings of New York," but " the differences be- tween the various Protestant sects," and in particular about "the Mormons and their strength ! " Who could have im- agined that the Latter Day Saints of Utah could be known to a Chinese nobleman of Chih-li ? Verily, our own idiosyncrasies are known afar.
It will thus be seen that mutual recriminations regarding national peculiarities are not likely to be convincing to either party. Human nature is much the same the world over. From this view-point at least we may discreetly remember that
" There is so much bad in the best of us, And so much good in the worst of us, That it hardly behoves any of us To talk about the rest of us."
I do not mean to give an exaggerated impression of the virtues of the Chinese or what Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop calls " a milk-and-water idea " of heathenism. Undoubtedly, they have grave defects. Official corruption is well-nigh universal. A correspondent of the North- China Herald reports a well- > Smith, " Rex Christus," p. Ii6.
28 New Forces in Old China
informed Chinese gentleman of the Province of Chih-li as ex- pressing the conviction that one-half the land tax never reaches the Government. " But that is not all," said he.
" There are other sources of income for the hsien official. Thus here in this county, thirty-five or forty years ago, the Government imposed an extra tax for the purpose of putting down the Tai-ping rebellion, and the officials have continued to collect that tax ever since. Of course if the literati should move in the matter and report to Paoting-fu, the magistrate would be bounced at once ; but they are not likely to do so. The tax is a small one, my own share not being more than five dollars or so."
China's whole public service is rotten with corruption. Offices with merely nominal salaries or none at all are usually bought by the payment of a heavy bribe and held for a term of three years, during which the incumbent seeks not only to re- coup himself but to make as large an additional sum as pos- sible. As the weakness of the Government and the absence of an outspoken public press leave them free from restraint, China is the very paradise of embezzlers. " Any man who has had the least occasion to deal with Chinese courts knows that ' every man has his price,' that not only every underling can be bought, but that 999 out of every 1,000 officials, high or low, will favour the man who offers the most money." ^ Dishonesty is not, as with the white race, simply the recourse in emergency of the unscrupulous man. It is the habitual practice, the rule of intercourse of all classes. The Chinese apparently have no conscience on the subject, but appear to deem it quite praise- worthy to deceive you if they can.
Gambling is openly, shamelessly indulged in by all classes. As for immorality, the Rev. Dr. J. Campbell Gibson of Swatow says that " while the Chinese are not a moral people, vice has never in China as in India, been made a branch of religion." But the Rev. Dr. C. H. Fenn, of Peking, declares " that every village and town and city — it would not be a very serious ex-
' Rev. Dr. C. H. Fenn, Peking.
Do We Rightly View the Chinese 29
aggeration to say every home, — fairly reeks with impurity." The Chinese are, indeed, less openly immoral than the Japanese, while their venerated books abound with the praises of virtue. But medical missionaries could tell a dark story of the extent to which immorality eats into the very warp and woof of Chinese society. The five hundred monks in the Lama Temple in Peking are notorious not only for turbulence and robbery, but for vice. The temple is in a spacious park and includes many imposing buildings. The statue of Buddha is said to be the largest in China — a gilded figure about sixty feet high — colossal and rather awe-inspiring in "the dim religious light." But in one of the temple buildings, where the two monks who accompanied us said that daily prayers were chanted, I saw representations in brass and gilt that were as filthily obscene as anything that I saw in India. There is im- morality in lands that are called Christian, but it is disavowed by Christianity, ostracized by decent people and under the ban of the civil law. But Buddhism puts immorality in its temples and the Government supports it. This particular temple has the yellow tiled roofs that are only allowed on buildings as- sociated with the Imperial Court or that are under special Imperial protection. Mr. E. H, Parker, after twenty years' experience in China, writes,
" The Chinese are undoubtedly a libidinous people, with a decided in- clination to be nasty about it. . . . Rich mandarins are the most profli- gate class. . , . Next come the wealthy merchants. , . . The crapulous leisured classes of Peking openly flaunt the worst of vices. . . . Still, amongst all classes and ranks the moral sense is decidedly weak. . . . Offenses which with us are regarded as almost capital — in any case as infamous crimes — do not count for as much as petty misde- meanours in China." '
More patent to the superficial observer is a cruelty which appears to be callously indifferent to suffering. This manifests itself not only in most barbarous punishments but in a thou-
' " China," pp. 272, 273.
3© New Forces in Old China
sand incidents of daily life. The day I entered China at Chefoo, I saw a dying man lying beside the road. Hundreds of Chinese were passing and repassing on the crowded thor- oughfare. But none stopped to help or to pity and the sufferer passed through his last agony absolutely uncared for and lay with glazing eyes and stiffening form all unheeded by the care- less throng. Twenty-four hours afterwards, he was still lying there with his dead face upturned to the silent sky, while the world jostled by, buying, laughing, quarrelling, heedless of the tragedy of human life so near. And when in Ching-chou-fu, I stopped to see if I could not give some relief to a woman who was writhing in the street, I was hastily warned that if I touched her unasked, the populace might hold me responsible in the event of her death and perhaps demand heavy damages, if, indeed, it did not mob me on the spot. Undoubtedly the Chinese are often deterred from aiding a sufferer because they fear that if death occurs " bad luck " will follow them, a horde of real or fictitious relatives will clamour for damages, and perhaps a rapacious magistrate will take advantage of the opportunity to make a criminal charge which can be removed only by a heavy bribe. And so the sick and poor are often left to die uncared for in crowded streets, and drowning children are allowed to sink within a few yards of boats which might have rescued them. But everywhere in China, little attention is paid to suffering and many customs seem utterly heartless.
In spite, too, of the agnostic teachings of Confucius and tlieir own practical temperament, the Chinese are a very super- stitious people and live in constant terror of evil spirits. The grossest superstitions prevail among them, while beyond any other people known to us they are stagnant, spiritually dead, densely ignorant of those higher levels of thought and life to which Christianity has raised whole classes in Europe and America.
Some people who are ignorant of the real situation in China are being misled by an anonymous little book entitled "Letters
Do We Rightly View the Chinese 31
from a Chinese Ofificial." The author insists that Anglo-Saxon institutions are far inferior to the institutions of China. He declares that " our religion (Chinese) is more rational than yours, our morality higher and our institutions more perfect," and that there is less real happiness in Europe and America than in China. As for Christianity, he regards it as quite im- practicable. He holds that Confucianism is feasible and that Christianity is not, and much more to the same effect. There is some internal evidence that the author is not a Chinese at all, but a cynical European. At any rate, the book is an ex parte statement of the most glaring kind, omitting the good in Europe and America and the bad in China. One who has visited the Celestial Empire gasps when he reads that the Chi- nese houses are " cheerful and clean," that the Chinese live the life of the mind and the spirit to a far higher degree than the Christian peoples of the West, and that Chinese life has a dig- nity and peace and beauty which Europe cannot equal. " Such silence! Such sounds! Such perfume! Such colour!" the author rhapsodizes. Bishop Graves, of Shanghai, who has spent a quarter of a century in China and who is therefore pre- sumably competent to speak, declares :
" Far be it from me to belittle the beauty of the Chinese landscape ; but why did he not leave out that about the perfume ? Why, you can smell China out at sea ! However, it is just as easy to imagine the per- fume as the rest of it, while you are writing. . . . Exaggeration is the most conspicuous note of these ' Letters.' Any one who has not seen China can test whether this book is true to fact by comparing it with any narrative of sober travel, and if he happens to live in China, his own nose and eyes are a sufficient witness. . . . The writer takes the worst of our morals, the weakest of our religion, the most debasing of our industrial conditions, the most pernicious of our vices, and against them he sets not the best that China can show, but an exaggerated picture which is false to fact. This is not argument but trickery, because it pre- sumes on the fact that one's readers will know no better."
Indeed, the Rev. Dr. C. H. Fenn, who has resided in
32 New Forces in Old China
Peking for ten years, writes that he cannot believe that the author of " Letters from a Chinese Official " is a sincere man. He continues :
" I would be almost willing to assert that it is impossible for a man, brought up in China, then spending many years abroad, to return to China and write such a book in honesty and sincerity of heart. He could not possibly help knowing that nine-tenths of what he was writing about China was absolutely untrue, that her political, legal, social, domestic and personal life are rotten to the core, and that only in a few exceptional cases is any pretence even made of living according to the ethics of Con- fucius. It might be possible for an educated man, whose surroundings had always been of an exceptionally good character, and who had never gone outside of his own province or studied foreign books, to write with some enthusiasm of the beauties of Chinese life, but not for any one else."
Still, at a time when the Chinese are being so vociferously- abused, it is only fair that we should give them credit for the good qualities which they do possess. I ask with Dr. William Elliott Griffis : "In talking of our brother men, what shall be our general principle, detraction or fair play? Because lackadaisical writers picture the Christless nations as in the innocence of Eden, shall we, at the antipodes of fact and truth, proceed to blacken their characters ? Shall we compare the worst in Canton, Benares or Zululand, with the best in Lon- don, Berlin or Philadelphia? Surely God cannot look with complacency or hear with delight much of the practical slander spoken among white folks and Anglo-Saxons of His children and our brothers."
There has been too much of a disposition to think of the Chinese as a mass, almost as we would regard immense herds of cattle or shoals of fish. Why not rather think of the Chinese as an individual, as a man of like passions with our- selves? Physically, mentally, and morally he differs from us only in degree, not in kind. He has essentially the same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows, the same susceptibility to pain and the same capacity for happiness. Are we not told
Do We Rightly View the Chinese 33
that God ' ' hath made of one blood all nations of men ' ' ? We complacently imagine that we are superior to the Chinese. But discussing the question as to what constitutes superiority and inferiority of race, Benjamin Kidd declares that "we shall have to set aside many of our old ideas on the subject. Neither in respect alone of colour, nor of descent, nor even of the pos- session of high intellectual capacity, can science give us any warrant for speaking of one race as superior to another." Real superiority is the result, not so much of anything inherent in one race as distinguished from another, as of the operation upon a race and within it of certain uplifting forces. Any superiority that we now possess is due to the action upon us of these forces. But they can be brought to bear upon the Chinese as well as upon us. VVe should avoid the popular mistake of looking at the Chinese "as if they were merely animals with a toilet, and never see the great soul in a man's face." ' " There is nothing," says Stopford Brooke, " that needs so much patience as just judgment of a man. We ought to know his education, the circumstances of his life, the friends he has made or lost, his temperament, his daily work, the mo- tives which filled the act, the health he had at the time — we ought to have the knowledge of God to judge him justly."
We need in this study a truer idea of the worth and dignity of man as man, a realization that back of almond eyes and un- der a yellow skin are all the faculties and the possibilities of a human soul, to grasp the great thought that the Chinese is not only a man, but our brother man, made like ourselves in the image of God. Let us have the charity which sees beneath all external peculiarities our common humanity, which leads us to respect a man because he is a man ; which, no matter what complexion he may have, no matter where he lives, no matter to what degradation he has fallen, will take him by the hand and endeavour to elevate him to a higher plane of life. For him we need an enthusiasm for humanity which shall not be a
1 George Eliot.
34 New Forces in Old China
sentimental rhetoric, but a catholic, throbbing love, remember- ing that he is
" Heir of the same inheritance, Child of the self-same God, He hath but stumbled in the path We have in weakness trod."
Ruskin reminds us that the filthy mud from the street of a manufacturing town is composed of clay, sand, soot and water ; that the clay may be purified into the radiance of the sapphire ; that the sand may be developed into the beauty of the opal ; that the soot may be crystallized into the glory of the diamond and that the water may be changed into a star of snow. So man in Asia as well as in America may, by the transforming power of God's Spirit, be ennobled into the kingly dignity of divine son- ship. We shall get along best with the Chinese if we remem- ber that he is a human being like ourselves, responsive to kind- ness, appreciative of justice and capable of moral transforma- tion under the influence of the Gospel. He differs from us not in the fundamental things that make for manhood, but only in the superficial things that are the result of environment. From this view-point, we can say with Shakespeare : —
" There is some sort of goodness in things evil, Would men observingly distil it out."
Those who are wont to refer so contemptuously to the Chi- nese might profitably recall that when, in Dickens' " Christmas Carol," the misanthropic Scrooge says of the poor and suff'er- ing : " If he be like to die, he had better do it and decrease the surplus population,"— the ghost sternly replies :—
" Man, if man you be at heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is and where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Ah, God ! to hear the insect on the leaf pro- nouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust ! "
Ill
ATTITUDE TOWARDS FOREIGNERS— CHARACTER AND ACHIEVEMENTS
TO understand China's attitude towards foreigners, the following considerations must be borne in mind : — First, the conservative temperament of the Chinese. It is true but misleading, to say that they have "no word or written character for patriotism, but 150 ways of writing the characters for good luck and long life. ' ' For while the Chi- nese may have little love for country, they have an intense de- votion to their own customs. For nearly 5,000 years, while other empires have risen, flourished and fallen, they have lived apart, sufficient unto themselves, cherishing their own ideals, plodding along their well-worn paths, ignorant of or indifferent to the progress of the Western world, mechanically memorizing dead classics, and standing still comparatively amid the tre- mendous onrush of modern civilization, I say comparatively still, for if we carefully study Chinese history, we shall find that this vast nation has not been so inert as we have long sup- posed. The very revolutions and internal commotions of all kinds through which China has passed would have prevented mere inertia. But when we compare these movements and the changes that they have wrought with the kaleidoscopic trans- formations in Europe and America, China appears the most stationary of nations. She has moved less in centuries than western peoples have in decades. The restless Anglo-Saxon is alternately irritated and awed by this massive solidity, not to say stolidity. There is, after all, something impressive about it, the impressiveness of a mighty glacier which moves, indeed,
35
36 New Forces in Old China
but so slowly and majestically that the duration of an ordinary nation's life appears insignificant as compared with the almost timeless majesty of the Chinese Empire.
Second, the vastness of China. Her territory and popula- tion are so enormous that her people found sufficient scope for their energies within their own borders. They therefore felt independent of outsiders. The typical European nation is so limited in area and is so near to equally civilized and powerful peoples that it could not if it would live unto itself. The situa- tion of most nations forces them into relations with others. But China had a third of the human race and a tenth of the habitable globe entirely to herself, with no neighbours who had anything that she really cared for. It was inevitable, therefore, that a naturally conservative people should become a self-cen- tred and self-satisfied people.
Third, the character of adjacent nations. None of them were equal to the Chinese in civilization and learning, while in territory and population, they were relatively insignificant. Even Japan, by far the most powerful of them, has only a tenth of China's population, while her remarkable progress in intelli- gence and power is a matter of less than a couple generations. Until recently, indeed, Japan was as backward as China and was not ashamed to receive many of her ideas from her larger neighbour, as the number of Chinese characters in the Japanese language plainly show. As for China's other neighbours, who were they? Weak nations which abjectly sent tribute by com- missioners who grovelled before the august Emperor of the Middle Kingdom, or barbarous tribes which the Chinese re- garded about as Americans regard the aboriginal Indians. Gibson translates the following passage from a Chinese histor- ian as illustrative at once of China's haughty contempt of out- siders and of her reasons for it :
" The former kings in measuring out the land put the Imperial territory in the centre. Inside was the Chinese Empire, and outside were the bar- barous nations. The barbarians are covetous and greedy of gain. Their
Attitude Towards Foreigners 37
hair hangs down over their bodies, and their coats are buttoned on the left side. They have human faces, but the hearts of beasts. They are distinguished from the natives of the Empire both by their manners and tlieir dress. They differ both in their customs and their food, and in lan- guage they are utterly unintelhgible. . . . On this account the ancient sage kings treated them like birds and beasts. They did not contract treaties, nor did they attack them. To form a treaty is simply to spend treasure and to be deceived ; to attack them is simply to wear out the troops and provoke raids. . . . Thus the outer are not to be brought in- side. They must be held at a distance, avoiding familiarity. ... If they show a leaning towards right principles and present tributary offer- ings, they should be treated with a yielding etiquette ; but bridling and repression must never be relaxed for conforming to circumstance. Such was the constant principle of the sage monarchs in ruling and controlling the barbarian tribes."
It is not surprising, therefore, that when foreigners from the distant West sought to force their way into China, the Chinese, knowing nothing of the countries from which they came, should have regarded them in accord- ance with their traditional belief and policy regarding the in- feriority of all outsiders.
The resultant difficulty was intensified by the in- difference, to use no harsher term, of the foreigner to the fact that the Chinese are a very ceremonious people, ex- tremely punctilious in all social relations and disposed to re- gard a breach of etiquette as a cardinal sin. "Face" is a national institution which must be preserved at all hazards. No one can get along with the Chinese who does not respect it.
"It is an integral part of both Chinese theory and practice that realities are of much less importance than appearances. If the latter can be saved, the former may be altogether surrendered. This is the essence of that mysterious ' face ' of which we are never done hearing in China. The line of Pope might be the Chinese national motto : ' Act well your part, there all the honour lies '; not, be it observed, doing well what is to be done, but consummate acting, contriving to convey the appearance of a thing or a fact, whatever the realities may be. This is Chinese high art ;
38 New Forces in Old China
this is success. It is self-respect, and it involves and implies the respect of others. It is, in a word, ' face.' The preservation of « face ' fre- quently requires that one should behave in an arbitrary and violent man- ner merely to emphasize his protests against the course of current events. He or she must fly into a violent rage, he or she must use reviling and perhaps imprecatory language, else it will not be evident to the spectators of the drama, in which he is at the moment acting, that he is aware just what ought to be done by a person in his precise situation; and then he will have ' no way to descend from the stage,' or in other words, he will have lost • face.' " ^
Even in death this remains the ruling passion. Chi- nese coffins require much wood and are an expensive burden in this land where timber is scarce, for Confucius said that a coffin should be five inches thick. So the poorer Chi- nese thriftily meet this requirement by making the sides and ends hollow ! Thus " face " is saved.
In these circumstances, it was very important that the rela- tions of Europeans to China should be characterized not only by justice but by tact and at least decent respect for the feel- ings and customs of the people. The chief cause of China's hostility to foreigners undoubtedly lies in the notorious and often contemptuous disregard of these things by the majority of the white men who have entered China and by the Govern- ments which have backed them.
There is much in the Chinese that is worthy of our respect- ful recognition. Multitudes are indeed, stolid and ignorant, but multitudes, too, have strong, intelligent features. Thou- sands of children have faces as bright and winning as those of American children. More strongly than ever do I feel that Europe and America have not done justice to the character of the Chinese. I do not refer to the bigoted and corrupt Manchu officials, or to the lawless barbarians who, like the " lewd fellows of the baser sort " in other lands, are ever ready to follow the leadership of a demagogue. But I refer to the Chinese people
1 Smith, " Rex Christus," pp. 107, 108.
Attitude Towards Foreigners 39
as a whole. Their view-point is so radically different from ours that we have often harshly misjudged them, when the real trouble has lain in our failure to understand them.
Let us be free enough from prejudice and passion to respect a people whose national existence has survived the mutations of a definitely known historic period of thirty-seven centuries and of an additional legendary period that runs back no man knows how far into the haze of a hoary antiquity ; who are frugal, patient, industrious and respectful to parents, as we are not ; whose astronomers made accurate recorded observations 200 years before Abraham left Ur ; who used firearms at the beginning of the Christian era ; who first grew tea, manufac- tured gunpowder, made pottery, glue and gelatine ; who wore silk and lived in houses when our ancestors wore the undressed skins of wild animals and slept in caves ; who invented print- ing by movable types 500 years before that art was known in Europe ; who discovered the principles of the mariner's com- pass without which the oceans could not be crossed, conceived the idea of artificial inland waterways and dug a canal 600 miles long ; who made mountain roads which, in the opinion of Dr. S. Wells Williams, " when new probably equalled in engi- neering and construction anything of the kind ever built by Romans; " and who invented the arch to which our modern architecture is so greatly indebted.
In the Great Bell Temple two miles from Peking is one of the wonderful bells of the world. It is fourteen feet high, thirty-four feet in circumference at the rim, nine inches thick and weighs 120,000 pounds. It is literally covered inside and out with Chinese characters consisting of extracts from the sacred writings, and the Rev. Dr. John Wherry, who is an expert in the Chinese language, says that there is " not one imperfect character among them." The bell when struck by the big wooden clapper emits a deep musical note that can be heard for miles. Such a magnificent bell vividly illustrates the stage of civilization reached by the Chinese while Europe
40 New Forces in Old China
was comparatively barbarous, for the bell was cast as far back as 1406 in the reign of Yung-loh, and the present temple build- ings were erected about it in 1578. The Germans began using paper in 1190, but Sven Hedin found Chinese paper 1,650 years old and there is evidence that paper was in common use by the Chinese 150 years before Christ. Until a few hundred years ago, European business was conducted on the basis of coin or barter. But long before that, the Chinese had banks and issued bills of exchange. There has recently been placed in the British Museum a bank-note issued by Hung-Wu, Em- peror of China, in 1368.
The Chinese exalt learning and, alone among the nations of the earth, make scholarship a test of fitness for official position. True, that scholarship moves along narrow lines of Confucian classics, but surely such knowledge is a higher qualification for office than the brute strength which for centuries gave prece- dence among our ancestors. A Chinese writer explains as fol- lows the gradations in relative worth as they are esteemed by his countrymen : " First the scholar : because mind is superior to wealth, and it is the intellect that distinguishes man above the lower orders of beings, and enables him to provide food and raiment and shelter for himself and for other creatures. Second, the farmer : because the mind cannot act without the body, and the body cannot exist without food, so that farming is essential to the existence of man, especially in civilized society. Third, the mechanic : because next to food, shelter is a necessity, and the man who builds a house comes next in honour to the man who provides food. Fourth, the trades- man : because, as society increases and its wants are multi- plied, men to carry on exchange and barter become a neces- sity, and so the merchant comes into existence. His occupation — shaving both sides, the producer and consumer — tempts him to act dishonestly ; hence his low grade. Fifth, the soldier stands last and lowest in the list, because his business is to destroy and not to build up society. He consumes what others
Attitude Towards Foreigners 41
produce, but produces nothing himself that can benefit man- kind. He is, perhaps, a necessary evil," '
While the Government of China is a paternal despotism in form and while it is always weak and corrupt and often cruel and tyrannical in practice, nevertheless there is a larger measure of individual freedom than might be supposed. " There are no passports, no restraints on liberty, no frontiers, no caste prejudices, no food scruples, no sanitary measures, no laws except popular customs and criminal statutes. China is in many senses one vast republic, in which personal restraints have no existence." ^
We must not form our opinion from the Chinese whom we see in the United States. True, most of them are kindly, patient and industrious, while some are highly intelligent. But, with comparatively few exceptions, they are from the lower classes of a single province of Kwan-tung — Cantonese coolies. The Chinese might as fairly form their opinion of Americans from our day-labourers. But there are able men in the Celestial Empire. Bishop Andrews returned from China to characterize the Chinese as "a people of brains." When Viceroy Li Hung Chang visited this country, all who met him unhesitatingly pronounced him a great man. The New York TribiiJie characterizes the late Liu Kan Ji, Viceroy of Nanking, as a man who "rendered inestimable services to China and to the whole world," " a man of action, who acted with a strong hand and masterful leadership and at the same time with a justice and a generosity that made him at once feared, respected and loved."
After General Grant's tour around the world, he told Senator Stewart that the most astonishing thing which he had seen was that wherever the Chinese had come into competition with the Jew, the Chinese had driven out the Jew. We know the per- sistence of the Jew, that he has held his own against every
' Quoted by Beach, " Dawn on the Hills of T'ang," pp. 45, 46. 2E. H. Parker, ••China."
42 New Forces In Old China
other people. Despite the fact that he has no home and no Government, that he has been ridiculed and persecuted by all men, that everywhere he is an alien in race, country and re- ligion, he has laboured on, patiently, resolutely, distancing every rival, surmounting every obstacle, compelling even his enemies to acknowledge his shrewdness and his determination, till to-day in Russia, in Austria, in Germany, in England, the Jew is bitterly conceded to be master in the editorial chair, at the bar, in the universities, in the counting-house and in the banking office ; while the proudest of monarchs will undertake no enterprise requiring large expenditure until he is assured of the support of the keen-eyed, swarthy-visaged men who control the sinews of war. Generations of exclusion from agriculture and the mechanical arts and of devotion to commerce, have developed and inbred in the Jew a marvellous facility for trade. And yet this race, which has so abundantly demonstrated its ability to cope with the Greek, the Slav and the Teuton, finds itself outreached in cunning, outworn in persistence and over- matched in strength by an olive-complexioned, almond-eyed fellow with felt shoes, baggy trousers, loose tunic, round cap and swishing queue, who represents such swarming myriads that the mind is confused in the attempt to comprehend the enormous number. The canny Scotchman and the shrewd Yankee are alike discomfited by the Chinese. Those who do not believe it should ask the American and European traders who are being crowded out of Saigon, Shanghai, Bangkok, Singapore, Penang, Batavia and Manila. In many of the ports of Asia outside of China, the Chinese have shown themselves to be successful colonizers, able to meet competition, so that to-day they own the most valuable property and control the bulk of the trade. It is true that the Chinese are inordinately conceited ; but shades of the Fourth of July orator, screams of the American eagle ! it requires considerable self-possession in a Yankee to criticize any one else on the planet for conceit. The Chinese have not, at least, padded a census to make the
Attitude Towards Foreigners 43
world believe that they are greater than they really are. In June, 1903, the same New York newspaper that gave the hor- rible details of the burning of a negro by an American mob within thirty miles of Philadelphia announced that a Chinese, Chung Hui Wang, had taken the highest honours in the gradu- ating class at Yale University. Another New York journal, in commenting on the fact that Chao Chu, son of the former Chinese minister, Wu Ting Fang, was graduated in 1904 at the Atlantic City High School as the valedictorian of a class of thirty-one, remarked :
<' At every commencement there are honours enough to go around, and those won by the Celestial contestants will not be begrudged them. Yet it is not exactly flattering to smart American youth to realize that repre- sentatives of an effete civilization after a few years' acquaintance with Western ways can meet our home talent on its own ground and carry off the prizes of scholarship."
A British consular official, who spent many years in China and who speaks the language, declares that in his experience of the Chinese their fidelity is extraordinary, their sense of responsi- bility in positions of trust very keen, and that they have a very high standard of gratitude and honour. " I cannot recall a case," he says, "where any Chinese friend has left me in the lurch or played me a dirty trick, and few of us can say the same of our own colleagues and countrymen." The Hon. Chester Holcombe, who quotes this, adds — " The writer, after years of experience and intimate acquaintance with all classes of Chinese from every part of the Empire, is convinced that the characterization of the race as thus given by those who at least are not over-friendly does it only scant justice." ^
Many quote against the Chinese the familiar lines —
" for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar."
1 The Outlook, February 13, 1904.
44 New Forces In Old China
But whoever reads the whole poem will see the force of the London Spectator's opinion that it is a "satire of the Amer- ican selfishness which is the main strength of the cry against the cheap labour of the Chinese," and that " it would not be easy for a moderately intelligent man to avoid seeing that Mr. Bret Harte wished to delineate the Chinese simply as beating the Yankee at his own evil game, and to delineate the Yankee as not at all disposed to take offense at the ** cheap labour " of his Oriental rival, until he discovered that he could not cheat the cheap labourer half so completely as the cheap labourer could cheat him."
It is common for people to praise the Japanese and to sneer at the Chinese. All honour to the Japanese for their splendid achievements. With marvellous celerity they have adopted many modern ideas and inventions. They are worthy of the respect they receive. But those who have made a close study of both peoples unhesitatingly assert that the Chinese have more solid elements of permanence and power. The Japanese have the- quickness, the enthusiasm, the intelligence of the French ; but the Chinese unite to equal intelligence the plod- ding persistence of the Germans, and the old fable of the tor- toise and the hare is as true of nations as it is of individuals. Unquestionably, the Chinese are the most virile race in Asia. " Wherever a Chinese can get a foot of ground and a quart of water he will make something grow." Colquhoun quotes Richthoven as saying that " among the various races of man- kind, the Chinese is the only one which in all climates, the hottest and the coldest, is capableof great and lasting activity." And he states as his own opinion: " She has all the elements to build up a great living force. One thing alone is wanted — the will, the directing power. That supplied, there are to be found in abundance in China the capacity to carry out, the brains to plan, the hands to work."
IV
A TYPICAL PROVINCE
SHANTUNG is not only one of the greatest, but it is in many respects one of the most interesting of all the provinces of China. Its length east and west is about 543 miles and in area it is nearly as large as the whole of New England. The name, Shantung, signifies "the sun shining through the trees," but tillable land has become so valu- able that trees are now comparatively few save in the villages and temples and about the groves of the rich. But for the most part, Shantung resembles the great prairie regions of the western part of the United States, broken by occasional ranges of hills and low mountains. The soil is generally fertile, though in the southwestern part I found some stony regions where the soil is thin and poor. South of Chinan-fu one finds the loess, a light friable earth which yields so easily to wheel and hoof and wind and water that the stream of travel through successive generations has worn deep cuts in which the traveller may journey for hours and sometimes for days so far below the general level of the country that he can see nothing but the sides of the cut and in turn cannot be seen by others. The character of the soil and the power of the wind and rain have combined not only to excavate these long passages, but to cast up innumerable mounds and hills, often of such fantastic shapes that one is reminded of the quaint and curious formations in the Bad Lands of the Missouri, though the loess hillocks lack the brilliant colouring of the American formations.
Throughout the province as a whole, almost every possible square rod of ground is carefully cultivated by the industrious people, so that in the summer time the whole country appears
45
46 New Forces in Old China
to be continuous gardens and farms dotted with innumerable villages. Wheat appears to be the chief crop and, as in the Dakotas, the entire landscape seems to be one splendid field of waving, yellowing grain. But early in June the wheat disap- pears as if by magic, for the whole population apparently, men, women and children, turn out and harvest it with amazing quickness in spite of the fact that everything is done by hand. Men and donkeys carry the grain to smooth, hard ground spaces, where it is threshed by a heavy roller stone drawn by a donkey or an ox or by men, and several times I saw it drawn by women. Then it is winnowed by being pitched into the air for the wind to drive out the feathery chaff. The methods vividly illustrate the first Psalm and other Bible references — gleaning, muzzling " the ox when he treadeth out the corn," the threshing floor and " the chaff which the wind driveth away. ' '
One might suppose that after the wheat harvest, stubble fields would be much in evidence. But they are not, for the millet promptly appears. It is hardly noticeable when the wheat is standing. But it grows rapidly, and as soon as the wheat is out of the way, it covers great areas with its refreshing green, looking in its earlier stages like young corn. It is of two varieties. One is a little higher than wheat, with hanging head and a small yellow grain. The other is the kao-liang, which grows to a height of about twelve feet. When small, it is thinned out to one stalk or sometimes two in a hill so that it can develop freely. This stalk is to the common people almost as serviceable as the bamboo to tropical dwellers. It is used for fences, ceilings, walls and many other purposes. The grain of the two varieties is the staple food, few but the richer classes eating rice which is not raised in the north and is high in price. A third species of millet, shu-shu, is used chiefly for distilling a whiskey that is largely used but almost always at home and at night so that little drunkenness is seen by the traveller.
A RUT IN THE LOESS REGION
A Typical Province 47
Fuel is very scarce, trees being few and coal, though abundant, not being mined to any extent. So the people cook with stalks, straw, roots, etc., and in winter pile on additional layers of wadded cotton garments. Chinese houses are not heated as ours are, though the flues from the cooking fire, run- ning under the brick kang, give some heat, too much at times.
Silk is produced in large quantities and mulberry trees are so common as to add greatly to the beauty of the country. As the cocoons cannot be left on the trees for fear of thieves, the leaves are picked off and taken into houses where the worms are kept.
Poppy fields, too, are numerous. The flowers are gloriously beautiful. I often saw men gathering the opium in the early morning. After the blossoms fall off, the pod is slit and the whitish juice, oozing out, is carefully scraped ofl". High hills rising to low mountains add beauty to the western part of Shan- tung, while the more numerous trees scattered over the fields as well as in the villages make extensive regions look like vast parks.
The people are among the finest types of the Chinese, tall, strong and, in many instances, of marked intellectual power. To the Chinese, Shantung is the most sacred of the provinces, for here were born the two mighty sages, Confucius and Mencius.
Politically, the Province is divided into ten prefectures, each under a prefectural magistrate, called a Chik-fu, and with a capital which has the termination *' fu." I-chow-fu, for example, is a prefectural city. Each fu is subdivided into ten districts under a district magistrate or Chich-hsien, the capital, or county seat as we should call it, having the termination "hsien " or " hien ' ' as for example Wei-hsien. There are 108 of these hsien cities. Between the fu and the hsien cities are a few chou cities as Chining-chou. They are practically small fus, Chining-chou having four hsiens under it. The magistrate is called a Chou- kwan and is responsible directly to a Tao-tai who is an official
48 New Forces in Old China
between the prefectural magistrate or Chik-fu and the Gov- ernor. There are three Tao-tais in the province. At the provincial capitol are the treasurer or Fan-tai, the Nieh-tai or judge, the Hueh-tai or commissioner of education and the salt commissioner, Yuen-yun. These are all high officials. Over all is the Governor, virtually a monarch subject only to the nominal supervision of the Imperial Government at Peking. He is appointed and may at any time be removed by the Emperor, but during his tenure of office he has almost un- limited power.
My tour of China included two interesting months in this great province. As I approached Chefoo on the steamer from Korea, I was impressed by the beauty of the scene. The water was smooth and sparkling in the bright spring sunshine. The harbour is exceptionally lovely. The shore lines are irregular, terminating in a high promonotory on which are situated the buildings of the various consulates. To the right, as the traveller faces the city, is the business section with its wharves and well-constructed commercial buildings, while on the left is the wide curve of a fine beach on which front the foreign hotel and the handsome buildings of the China Inland Mission. Beyond the city, rises a noble hill on the slopes of which stand the buildings of the Presbyterian Mission. From the water, Chefoo is one of the most charming cities in all China.
Big, lusty Chinese in their wide, clumsy boats called sam- pans, swarmed in the harbour. Sculling alongside, the boat- man caught the rail of the steamer with his boat-hook and with the agility of a monkey scrambled up the long pole, dropped it into the water and began to hustle for business. The babel of voices bidding for passengers was like the tumult of Niagara hack-drivers, but we were so fortunate as to be met by Dr. W. F. Faries and the Rev. W. O. Elterich of the Presbyterian Mission and under their skillful guidance, we were soon taken ashore.
A closer view of the Chinese city proved less attractive than
A Typical Province 49
the captivating one fronfi tlie harbour. The population long ago over-ran the limits of the old city so that to-day most of the people are outside the walls. Within those ancient battle- ments, the streets are narrow and crooked, while the filth is in- describable. The visitor who wishes to see something of the work and to enjoy the hospitality of the noble company of Pres- byterian missionaries on Temple Hill must either pass through that reeking mess or go around it. There is, after all, not much choice in the routes, for the Chinese population outside the walls has simply squatted there without much order, and the corkscrew streets are not only thronged with people and donkeys and mules, but malodorous with ditches through which all the nastiness of the crowded habitations trickles. Why pestilence does not carry off the whole population is a mystery to the visitor from the West, especially as he sees the pools out of which the people drink, their shores lined with washerwomen and the water dark and thick with the dirt of decades. Byron's words in " Childe Harold " are as true of Chefoo as of Lisbon :
" But whoso entereth within this town,
That, sheening far, a celestial seems to be, Disconsolate will wander up and down
'Mid many things unsightly to strange e'e ; For hut and palace show like filthily.
The dingy denizens are reared in dirt. No personage of high or mean degree
Doth care for cleanness of surtout, or shirt, Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwashed, unhurt ! "
The first open port of Shantung was Teng-chou-fu, a quaint old city on the far northeastern point of the Shantung prom- ontory. It has been outstripped in importance by its later rival, Chefoo, and is now ignored by the through steamers and seldom visited by travellers. As the trip from Chefoo by land requires two long hard days over a mountain range and as time was precious, I decided to go by water. The regular coasting steamer was not running on account of danger from pirates,
^o New Forces in Old China
who had been unusually bold and murderous in attacking pass- ing vessels. But I succeeded in hiring a small launch. It was a trip of fifty-five miles along the coast on the open sea, but the weather was good and so we risked it. Several of the mission- aries took advantage of the occasion to visit friends in Teng- chou-fu so that a pleasant little party was formed.
We had intended to start at 7:30 A. M., but some of our lug- gage and chair coolies, who had been engaged to take us from Temple Hill to the launch at 6:30, did not come, and we had to press into service some untrained *' boys." Then, our chair coolies, who had been carefully instructed as to their destination and who had solemnly asserted that they knew just where to go, got separated from the others and calmly took us to the Union Church. We appreciated their apparent conviction that we needed to go to church, but we vainly tried to make them un- derstand that we wanted to go somewhere else. The delay would have become exasperating if a small English boy who knew Chinese had not helped us out. Then the two coolies who were carrying our valises and the lunch-baskets went an- other way and sat down en route "to rest." They would doubtless be sitting there yet if, after waiting till our patience was exhausted, we had not sent men to find them. But that is Asia.
However, all arrived at last and at 8:20 a. m. we cast off. The day was glorious and as the sea was not rough enough to make any one ill, we had a delightful trip along the coast with its bare, brown hills so much resembling the scenery of Cali- fornia. We reached Teng-chou-fu at 3:15 and that the pirates were not imaginary was evident for as we entered the harbour, they made a dash and captured a juuk less than a mile away. An alarm cannon was fired and soldiers were running to the beach as we landed.
While in Teng-chou-fu, we witnessed a pathetic ceremony. There had been no rain for several weeks. The kao-liang was withering and the farmers could not plant their beans on the
A Typical Province 51
ground from which the winter wheat had been cut. The peo- ple had become alarmed as the drought continued, and they were parading the streets bearing banners, wearing chaplets of withered leaves on their heads to remind the gods that the vegetation was dying, beating drums to attract the attention of the god, and ever and anon falling on their knees and praying — "O Great Dragon! send us rain." It was pitiful. This country is fertile but the population is so enormous that, in the absence of any manufacturing or mining, the people even in the most favoured seasons live from hand to mouth, and a drought means the starvation of multitudes.
A SHENDZA IN SHANTUNG
THE spring of 1901 was not the most propitious time for a tour of the province of Shantung. It was shortly after the suppression of the Boxer outbreak and the country was still in an unsettled condition. The veteran Dr. Hunter Corbett, who had resided in the province for a generation said, " We are living on a volcano and we do not know at what moment another eruption will occur." Students returning from the examinations at the capitol told the people that the Boxers were to rise again and kill all the for- eigners and Chinese Christians. The missionaries did not be- lieve the report, but they said that it might be believed by the people and cause a renewal of agitation as such rumours the year before had been an important factor in inciting the popu- lace to violence. But the interior of this great province was one of the objective points of my tour and I could not miss it. Besides, if the missionaries could go, I could. Wives, how- ever, were resolutely debarred. No woman had yet ventured into the interior and the authorities refused to approve their going. In case of trouble, a man can fight or run, but a woman is peculiarly helpless. Nor could we forget that the Chinese during the Boxer outbreak treated foreign women who fell into their hands with horrible atrocity. So the wives, rather against their will, remained in the ports.
Arrangements are apt to move slowly in this land of delibera- tion. The genial and efficient United States Consul at Chefoo, the Hon. John Fowler, joked me a little about my hurry to start, laughingly remarking that this was Asia and not New York, and that I must not expect things to be done on the
52
A Shendza in Shantung 53
touch of a button as at home. But finding that a German steamer was to leave the next day for Tsing-tau, the starting point for the interior, the energetic missionaries helped me to " hustle the East" to get off on it. The Chinese tailor gasped when I told him that I must have a khaki suit by six the fol- lowing evening, but when he learned that I was to sail and therefore could not wait, he promised rather than lose the job. The next day the steamer agent notified me that the sailing hour had been changed to four o'clock. I sent word to the tailor with faint hope of ever seeing that suit, and when a later message gave three o'clock as the real time, I abandoned hope. But the enterprising Celestial made his fingers fly, finished the suit by 2:50 p. M., and took it to the house of my hostess. Finding that I had already gone to the steamer, he hurried off to the wharf, hired a sampan, sculled a mile and panting but triumphant placed the suit in my hands just as the steamer was getting under way. His charge for the suit, including all his trouble and the cost of the sampan, was ^7 Mexican (^3.50).
Saturday found me in Tsing-tau, and Monday, I turned my face inland, accompanied by the Rev. J. H. Laughlin and Dr. Charles H. Lyon, and, as far as Wei-hsien, by the Rev. Frank Chalfant, all of the Presbyterian mission, besides Mr. William Shipway of the English Baptist mission, who was to accompany us as far as Ching-chou-fu. To-day, the traveller can jour- ney to Chinan-fu, the capital, in a comfortable railway car, but I shall always be glad that my visit occurred in the old days when the native methods of transportation were the sole dependence, for at that time the new German railway was in operation only forty-six miles to the old city of Kiao-chou.
The modes of conveyance in the interior of China are five — the donkey, the sedan chair, the wheelbarrow, the cart and the shendza (mule litter), and naturally the first problem of the traveller is to decide which one he shall adopt.
The donkey is all right to one accustomed to horseback riding. But there is no protection from the sun and rain and
54 New Forces in Old China
there are no foreign saddles. The traveller piles his bedding on the animal's back and climbs on top, sitting either astride or sideways. In either case, the feet dangle unsupported by stirrups. It is hard to make long trips in this way, to say nothing of the consideration that a man feels like an idiot in such circumstances. " The outside of a horse is indeed good for the inside of a man," but a mattress on top of a donkey is a different matter.
The chair is comfortable for short distances, but it is com- paratively expensive and, as no change of position is possible, one soon becomes tired sitting in the fixed attitude. In pity to your coolies, you walk up-hill and you are exposed to inclem- ent weather unless you hire a covered chair. This, however, is not only hot and stuffy, but it makes people think you an aristocrat, as only officials or the rich use such chairs in the country, though in cities they are a common means of convey- ance. Besides, I had travelled in a chair in Korea and I wished to try something else in China.
The Chinese wheelbarrow is a clumsy affair with a narrow seat on each side of a central partition. When large and with an awning, it is not so uncomfortable, but it is not well adapted to a long journey as it is slow and toilsome. When the mud is deep, progress is almost impossible. Moreover, the labour of the barrow-men constantly excites the sympathy of the humane traveller and the dismal screech of the wheel revolving upon its unoiled axle is worse than the rasp of filing a saw. The Chinese depend upon the shrieks of the wheel to tell them how the axle is wearing, but the disconsolate foreigner finds that his nerves wear out much faster than the wooden axle. In Tsing- tau, that agonizing screech proved too much even for the stolid Germans and they posted an ordinance to the effect that all barrow axles must be greased. The Chinese demurred, but a (tw arrests taught them obedience, so that now the streets of the German metropolis no longer resound with the hysterical wails and moans so dear to the heart of the Celestial.
A Shendza in Shantung ^^
The Chinese cart is a curious affair. There are no roads in the interior of China, except the ruts that have been made by the passing of many feet and wheels for generations. In dry weather, they are thick with dust and in the wet season they are fathomless with mud. Ahiiost everywhere they are dis- tractingly crooked, and in many places they are plentifully be- strewn with boulders of varying sizes. Instead of spending money in making roads, the Chinese have applied their inge- nuity to making an indestructible cart. They build it of heavy timbers, with massive wheels, thick spokes and ponderous hubs, and as no springs could survive the jolting of such a vehicle, the body of the cart is placed directly upon the huge axle. Then a couple of big mules are hitched up tandem and driven at breakneck speed. A runaway in an American farmer's wagon over a corduroy road but feebly suggests the miseries of travel in a Chinese cart. It may be good for a dyspeptic, but it is about the most uncomfortable conveyance that the in- genuity of man has yet devised. The unhappy passenger is hurled against the wooden top and sides and is so jolted and bumped that, as the small boy said in his composition, " his heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, stomach, bones and brains are all mixed up." I tried the cart for a while and gently but firmly intimated that if nothing better was available, I would walk. I am satisfied that nothing short of a modern battleship under full steam could make the slightest impression on the typical Chinese cart. In my humble opinion, a Chinese cart is like any other misfortune in life. When necessary, it should be taken uncomplainingly. But the person who takes it unnec- essarily has not reached the years of discretion and should be assigned a guardian.
I therefore turned to the shendza. All things considered, it is the best conveyance for a long interior journey in China. It consists of a couple long poles with a rope basket work in the middle and a cover of matting. It is borne by two mules, and has the advantage of protecting the traveller from the sun and
^6 New Forces in Old China
from light rains. An opening in the back gives him the benefit of any breeze while u is possible to get occasional relief by changing position, as he can either sit upright or lounge. Moreover, he can keep his bedding and a little food with him. He need not walk up hills in mercy to weary coolies and he can make the longer daily journeys which the superior endur- ance of mules permits. In ordinary conditions on level ground, niy mules averaged about four miles an hour. The motion is a kind of sieve-and-pepper-box shaking that is not so bad, provided the mules behave themselves, which is not often. My rear mule had a meek and quiet spirit. He was a dis- couraged animal upon which the sorrows of life had told heavily and which had reached that age when he appeared to have no ambition in life except to stop and think or to lie down and rest. The lead mule, however, was a cantankerous beast that wanted to fight everything within reach and went into hysterics every time any other animal passed him. As this oc- curred a score of times a day, the uncertainties of the situa- tion were interesting, especially when the rear mule paused or laid down without having previously notified the lead mule. At such times, the sudden stoppage of the power behind and the plunging of the power in front threatened the dislocation of the entire apparatus, and as there is no way for the traveller to get out except over the heels of a mule, life in a shendza is not always uneventful. But I soon got used to the motion and to the mules, and even learned to read and to doze in com- parative comfort while the long -eared animals plodded and jerked on in their own way.
The most trying thing to the humane traveller is the sore- ness of the mules' backs. I insisted on having mules whose backs were sound, but was told by both missionaries and Chinese that they could not be had, especially in summer, as the swaying and jerking of the shendza and the sweat and dust under the heavy pack-saddle always make sores. It was all too true. I examined scores of mules and every one had
GERMANS BUILDING RAILWAY BRIDGE IN
SHANTUNG
A SHENDZA IN SHANTUNG
A Shendza in Shantung ry
raw and bleeding abrasions and, in some cases, suppurating ulcers. For a Chinese, our head muleteer was careful of his animals and washed them occasionally, but no practicable care apparently can prevent a shendza from making a sore back. The only solace I had was the evident indifference of the mules themselves. They had never known anything better, and seemed to take misery as a matter of course.
Our party, with the goods we had to carry, for my mission- ary friends were returning to their stations with the expecta- tion of remaining, included three shendzas, two carts and a pack-mule for our provisions. But the " mule " turned out to be a donkey and unable to carry all we had planned for a larger animal. While wondering how we were to get our supplies carried, we learned that a construction train was about to start for the end of the track, which was said to be Kaomi, fifty- five li ' beyond Kiao-chou. We got permission to ride on the flat car. In the hope that we might be able to secure a mule or another donkey in Kaomi, we got aboard, leaving our shendzas and carts to follow. After a lovely ride of an hour through wheat-fields interspersed with villages, our train stopped twelve li from Kaomi, an unfinished culvert making further progress impossible. As our caravan had gone by a different route and as no coolies could be hired where we were, the question was how to get our goods transported. Fortunately, a German Roman Catholic priest, who was also on the construction train and who had wheelbarrows for his own goods, cordially told us to pile our luggage on top of his. We gratefully ac- cepted this kind offer, and giving his coolies some extra cash for their labour, they good-naturedly accepted the additional burden, while we footed the twelve li to Kaomi.
But the progress of the barrows was slow and it was half- past eight when we reached Kaomi. In the darkness we could not find the inn which the magistrate had set aside for foreign- ers and the Chinese whom we met gave conflicting replies. 1 A li is about a third of a mile.
58 New Forces in Old China
But at that moment, two resident Roman Catholic priests, Austrians, appeared and one of them recognized Mr. Laughlin as the associate of Dr. Van Schoick, a Presbyterian medical missionary who had sympathetically treated a fellow priest dur- ing a long and dangerous illness several years before. He promptly invited us to go with him, declaring that Dr. Van Schoick had saved the life of his dearest friend. He was so cordially insistent that we accepted his invitation. Our shendzas, carts and pack-mule were we knew not where, and we were hungry after our long day. Warned by my experi- ence in Korea that the traveller should never trust to the punctuality of natives and pack-animals, I had insisted on taking our bedding and a little food on the flat car. It was well that I did, for we did not see our shendzas that night as they arrived after the city gates had been shut so that they could not get in. But we had a little cocoa, tinned corn beef, condensed milk, butter and marmalade. Same German soldiers sent three loaves of coarse bread. Our priestly host added some Chinese bread, and so had a good supper and afterwards a sound sleep.
At half-past four the next morning, Mr. Laughlin remarked in a forty-horse power tone of voice that it was time to get up. By the time the reverberations had died away, we were so wide awake that further sleep was out of the question. Our cook was nowhere in sight, so we prepared our own breakfast from the remains of last night's meal.
Bidding a grateful farewell to our hospitable priests, we rode across an ancient lake bottom, low, flat, wheat-covered and hot enough to broil meat. At half- past ten o'clock, we reached Fau-chia-chiu, the boundary of the hinterland, where, near a temple just outside the wall, we found Governor Yuan Shih Kai's military escort awaiting us. It was after sundown when we reached Liu-chia-chuang, and we felt half inclined to spend the night there with some genial German military engineers, but our party had become separated during the day and as
A Shendza in Shantung 59
the others had taken a road that did not pass through Liu- chia-chuang, we pushed on to Hsi-an-tai, which we reached by a little after ten o'clock. By that time, it was so dark that it was impossible to go further and we found lodgment in a good- sized building which smelled to heaven. The odour was like that of a decomposing body. However, it was too late and we were too weary either to hunt up smells or to seek another lodg- ing place. So after a hasty supper out of our tinned food, we put up our cots and went to bed, Mr. Chalfant making a few pleasant remarks about the bedbugs that always swarm in such a building, the centipedes that sometimes crawl into the ears or nostrils of sleepers and the scorpions that occasionally fall from the millet-stalk ceiling on to the bed or scuttle across the floor to bite the person who unwarily walks in his bare feet. Under the influence of such a soporific, I soon fell asleep. The next morning we rose early, and while the cook was preparing our coffee and eggs, we followed the trail of that awful odour to a corner of the building, where, under some millet stalks, we found a rude cofiin which we had not noticed in the dim candle- light of the night before. A Chinese of whom we inquired said that it was empty. We could not in courtesy open a cofiin before dozens of interested Chinese, but it was very plain to our olfactories that such an odour required a prompt funeral.
As usual, a great but silent crowd watched me as I wrote while the mules were being fed and at Hsien-chung, where we stopped at noon to repair a shendza, Mr. Chalfant trans- lated a proclamation on a wall stating that an indemnity of 110,000 taels had to be paid for damage to the railway during the Boxer outbreak and that 14,773 ^^^^s had been assessed on Wei County. The people read it with scowling faces, but they said nothing to us, though they looked as if they wanted to.
At two o'clock, we entered the ruined Presbyterian com- pound, a mile southeast of the city of Wei-hsien. It was thrilling to hear on the scene of the riot Mr. Chalfant's
6o New Forces in Old China
account of the attack by about a thousand furious Boxers; to see the place just outside the gate where single-handed and with no weapon but a small revolver, he had heroically held the mob at bay for several hours until the swarming Boxers, awed by his splendid courage, divided, and while several hundred held his attention, the rest climbed over the wall at another place and fired the mission buildings. That the three missionaries escaped with their lives is a wonder. But Mr. Chalfant quickly ran to the house where Miss Hawes and Miss Boughton were awaiting him, hurried them down -stairs, and while the Boxers were smashing the furniture on the other side of a closed door, snatched up a ladder, assisted them over the compound wall at a point that was providentially un- guarded and hid them in a field of grain until darkness enabled them to make their way exhausted but unhurt to a camp of German soldiers and engineers nine miles distant and to escape with them to Tsing-tau. It was a remarkable ex- perience. If that door had not happened to be closed, and if a ladder had not been carelessly left by a servant beside the house, and if the attack itself had not occurred just before dark, undoubtedly all three would have been killed. On each of those three ifs, lives depended.
Mr. Fitch cordially welcomed us. Mr. Chalfant killed a centipede and various insects crawling on the walls near my cot and a little after nine I was asleep. The next day we took a walk through the city, impressed by its imposing wall and the throngs of people who followed us and watched every movement. Outside the wall, we saw a "baby house," a small stone building in which the dead children of the poor are thrown to be eaten by dogs ! I wanted to examine it, but was warned not to do so, as the Chinese imagine that foreigners make their medicine out of children's eyes and brains, and our crowds of watching Chinese might quickly be- come an infuriated mob.
Immediately on our arrival, we had sent our cards to the
A Shendza in Shantung 6l
district magistrate and in the afternoon he sent us an elaborate feast. As we were about to retire that evening, he called in a gorgeous chair with a retinue of twenty attendants. He stayed half an hour and was very cordial, and we had a pleasant inter- view. Wei-hsien is famous for its embroideries, and great quantities are made, the women workers receiving about fifty small cash a day (less than two cents). It was not necessary to go to the stores as in America. The shopkeepers brought a great number of pieces to our inn, covering the kang and every available table, chair and box with exquisite bits of handi- work. Lured by the sight I became reckless and bought four handsome pieces for 19,800 small cash ($6.06).
Resuming our journey on a warm, sunny day, we entered Chiang-loa at noon. It was market day, and the greatest crowd yet fairly blocked the streets. The soldiers had diffi- culty in clearing a way for us. But while much curiosity was expressed, there was no sign of hostility. Then we journeyed on through the interminable fields of ripening wheat. Soon, mountains, which we had dimly seen for several hours, grew more distinct and as we approached Ching-chou-fu to- wards evening, the scene was one of great beauty — the yellow- ing grain gently undulating in the soft breeze, the mountains not really more than 3,000 feet in height, but from our stand on the plain looking lofty, massive and delightfully refreshing to the eye after our hot and dusty journeying. The city has a population of about 25,000 and its numerous trees look so in- vitingly green that the traveller is eager to enter.
But in this case also, distance lent enchantment, for within, while there was not the filth of a Korean village, yet the narrow streets were far from clean. Not a blade of grass relieved the bare, dusty ground trampled by many feet, while the low, mud- plastered houses were not inviting. A Chinese seldom thinks of making repairs. He builds once, usually with rough stone plastered with mud or with sun-dried brick. The roof is thatched and the floor is the beaten earth, although in the
62 New Forces in Old China
better houses it is stone or brick. In time, the mud-plaster or, if the walls are of sun-dried brick, the wall itself begins to disintegrate. But it is let alone, as long as it does not make the house uninhabitable, while paint is unknown. So the gen- eral appearance of a Chinese town is squalid and tumble- down. Even the yamen of a district magistrate presents crumbhng walls, unkempt courtyards, rickety buildings and paper-covered windows full of holes. The palaces of the rich are often expensive, but the Asiatic has little of our ideas of comfort and order.
The Rev. J. P. Bruce and Mr. R. C. Forsyth, of the English Baptist mission, the only members of the station who were present, gave us a hearty welcome. The green shrubbery, the bath-tub, the dinner of roast beef and the clean bedroom, were like a bit of hospitable old England set down in China. None of the buildings here were injured by the Boxers. But the marauders took whatever they could use, as dishes, utensils, glass, linen, clothes, silver and plated ware, jewelry, etc., the total loss being ^4,000, including ;;^i,ooo for machinery. That machinery has an interesting history. One of the mem- bers of the mission, Mr. A. G. Jones, conceived the idea of relieving the poverty of the Chinese by introducing cotton weaving. Having some private means and being a mechanical genius, he spent two years and ;;^ 1,000 in devising the necessary machinery, much of which he made himself. He had completed the plant and was trying to induce the Chinese to organize a company of Christians who would operate the factory, when the building was burned by the Boxers and the machinery reduced to a heap of twisted scrap-iron.
The women we met in these interior districts had only partially bound feet, though they were still far from the natural size. It was surprising to see how freely the women walked, especially as several that I saw were carrying babies. But it was rather a stumpy walk. Women of the higher class have smaller feet and never walk in the public streets.
A Shendza in Shantung 63
We left Ching-chou-fu Monday morning, our genial hosts, including Mr. Shipway, who remained here, accompanying us a couple of miles. The trees were more numerous, and as the weather was cool, I greatly enjoyed the day. But the next day, we plodded under dripping skies and through sticky mud to Chang-tien, where a night of unusual discomfort in an inn literally alive with fleas and mosquitoes prepared us to enjoy a tiffin with a lonely English Baptist outpost, the genial Rev. William A. Wills, at Chou-tsian, which we reached at noon the following day, and then, thirty li further on, the gracious hospitality of the main station at Chou-ping. Only three men were present of the regular station force of seven families and two single women, but they gave us all the more abundant welcome in their isolation and loneliness. Of the 2,577 Chinese Christians of this station, 132 were murdered by the Boxers and seventy or more died from consequent exposure and injuries.
A vast, low lying plain begins forty li north of Chou-ping and extends northeastward as far as Tien-tsin. This plain is sub- ject to destructive inundations from the Yellow River and the scenes of ruin and suffering are sometimes appalling. Our inn at Luang-hsien the next night was a two-story brick building with iron doors, stone floors, walls two and a-half feet thick and rooms dark, gloomy, ill-smelling as a dungeon and of course swarming with vermin, as savage bites promptly testified. My missionary companion said that it was probably an old pawn- shop. Pawnbroking is esteemed an honourable, as well as lucrative, business in China, and the brokers are influential men and often have considerable property in their shops. The people are so poor that they sometimes pawn their winter clothes in summer and their summer ones in winter.
At noon the next day, we reached Chinan-fu, having made seventy li in six hours over muddy roads. Dr. James B. Neal of the Presbyterian mission was alone in the city and gave us hospitable welcome to his home and to the splendid missionary
64 New Forces in Old China
work of the station, though he rather suggestively stopped our cooHes when they were about to carry our bedding into the house. He was wise, too, for that bedding had been used in too many native inns to be prudently admitted to a well- ordered household.
As we walked through the city, the narrow streets were literally jammed, for it was market day. Foreigners had been scarce since the Boxer outbreak a year before. Besides, many of the people were from the country where foreigners are seldom seen anyway. So we made as great a sensation as a circus in an American city. A multitude followed us, and wherever we stopped hundreds packed the narrow streets. Our soldiers cleared the way, but they had no difficulty, for though the people were inquisitive they were not hostile. Three magnificent springs burst forth in the heart of the city, one as large as the famous spring in Roanoke, Virginia, which supplies all that city with water. It was about a hundred feet across. The water might easily be piped all over Chinan-fu. But this is China, and so the people patiently walk to the springs for their daily supply.
VI
AT THE GRAVE OF CONFUCIUS
WE were now approaching the most sacred places of China. On a hot July afternoon of the second day from Chinan-fu, the capital of the province, we saw the noble proportions of Tai-shan, the holy mountain. The Chinese have five sacred mountains, but this is the most vener- ated of all. Its altitude is not great, only a little over 4,000 feet, but it rises so directly from the plain and its outlines are so majestic that it is really imposing. To the Chinese its height is awe-inspiring, for in all the eighteen provinces there is no loftier peak.
Stopping for the night at the ancient city of Tai-an-fu at the base of the mountain, we set out at six the next morning in chairs swung between poles borne by stalwart coolies. My curiosity was aroused when I found that they were Mohamme- dans and, as they cordially responded to my questionings, I found them very interesting. Centuries ago, their ancestors came to China as mercenaries, and taking Chinese wives set- tled in the country. But they have never intermarried since. They have adopted the dress and language of the Chinese, but otherwise they continue almost as distinct as the Jews in America, They instruct their children in the doctrines of Islam, though the Mohammedan rule that the Koran must not be translated has prevented all but a few literati from obtaining any knowledge of the book itself. They have done little proselyting, but natural increase, occasional reenforcements and the adoption of famine children have gradually swelled their ranks until they now number many millions in various
65
66 New Forces in Old China
parts of China. In some provinces they are very strong, par- ticularly in Yun-nan and Kan-su where they are said to form a majority of the population. They are notorious for turbulence and are popularly known as " Mohammedan thieves." It must be admitted that they not infrequently justify their repu- tation for robbery, murder and counterfeiting. More than once they have fomented bloody revolutions, one of them, the great Panthay rebellion of 185 5-1 8 74, costing the lives of no less than two million Moslems before it was suppressed.
But those who bore me up the long slope of Tai-shan were as good-natured as they were muscular. There is no difficulty about ascending the mountain, for a stone-paved path about ten feet wide runs from base to summit. The maker of this road is unknown as the earliest records and monuments refer only to repairs. But he builded well and evidently with " an unlimited command of naked human strength," for the blocks of stone are heavy and the masonry of the walls and bridges is still massive.
As the slope becomes steeper, the path merges into long flights of solid stone steps. Near the summit, these steps become so precipitous that the traveller is apt to feel a little dizzy, especially in descending, for the chair coolies race down the steep stairway in a way that suggests alarming possibilities in the event of a misstep or a broken rope. But the men are sure-footed and mishaps seldom occur. The path is bordered by a low wall and lined with noble old trees. Ancient temples, quaint hamlets, numerous tea-houses and a few nunneries with vicious women are scattered along the route. A beautiful stream tumbles noisily down the mountainside close at hand, alternating swift rapids and deep, quiet pools, while as the traveller rises, he gains magnificent vistas of the adjacent moun- tains and the wide cultivated plain, yellow with ripening wheat, green with growing millet, and thickly dotted with the groves beneath which cluster the low houses of the villages.
Up this long, steep pathway to the Buddhist temples on the
At the Grave of Confucius 67
summit, multitudes of Chinese pilgrims toil each year, firmly believing that the journey will bring them merit. We reflected with a feeling of awe that
" The path by which we ascended has been trodden by the feet of men for more than four thousand years. One hundred and fifty generations have come and gone since the great Shun here offered up his yearly sacrifice to heaven. Fifteen hundred years before the bard of Greece composed his Epic, nearly one thousand years before Moses stood on Pisgah's mount and gazed over into the promised land, far back through the centuries vv^hen the world was young and humanity yet in its cradle, did the chil- dren of men ascend the vast shaggy sides of this same mountain, probably by this same path, and always to worship." '
After a night at Hsia-chang, we resumed our journey a little after daylight. The early morning air was delightfully cool and bracing, but the sun's rays became fierce as we entered the dry, sandy bed of the Wen River. By the time we reached the broad, shallow stream itself, I envied the two mules and the donkey that managed to fall into a hole, though I would have been happier if they had been thoughtful enough to discard my spare clothes and my food box before they tumbled into the muddy water. The whole day was unusually hot so that by the time we reached Ning-yang, we were ready for a night's rest which even fighting mules, vicious vermin, and quarrelling Chinese gamblers in the inn courtyard could not entirely destroy.
As we approached Chining-chou, the country became almost perfectly flat, a vast prairie. It was carefully cultivated every- where, the kao-liang and poppy predominating. The soil was apparently rich, and the landscape was relieved from monotony by the green of the cultivated fields and the foliage of the vil- lage trees. Dominating all is the rather imposing walled city of Chining-chou. The high, strong wall, the handsome gates and towers, the trees bordering the little stream and the crowded streets looked quite metropolitan. With its imme-
' The Rev. Dr. Paul D. Bergen, pamphlet.
68 New Forces in Old China
diate suburbs built Chinese fashion close to the wall, Chining- chou has 150,000 inhabitants. It is a business city with a considerable trade, the produce of a wide adjacent region being brought to it for shipment, as it is on the Grand Canal which gives easy and cheap facilities for exporting and import- ing freight. There is, moreover, no loss in exchange as the danger of shipping bullion silver makes the Chining business men eager to accept drafts for use in paying for the goods they buy in Shanghai. Consequently there is a better price for silver here than anywhere else in Shantung. The main street is narrow, shaded by matting laid on kao-liang stalks and lined with busy shops. Along the Grand Canal, there is a veritable " Vanity Fair " filled with clothing booths and deafen- ing with the cries of itinerant vendors.
But the loneliness of the missionary in Chining-chou is great, for he is far from congenial companionship. The trage- dies of life are particularly heavy at such an isolated post. Mr. Laughlin showed me the house where his wife's body lay for a month after her death in May, 1899. Then, with his nine-year old daughter, he took the body in a house-boat down the Grand Canal to Chin-kiang, a journey of sixteen days. What a heart-breaking journey it must have been as the clumsy boat crept slowly along the sluggish canal and the silent stars looked down on the lonely husband beside the coffin of his be- loved wife. Yet he bravely returned to Chining-chou and while I travelled on, he remained with only Dr. Lyon for a companion. I was sorry to part with them for we had shared many long-to-be-remembered experiences, while at that time there was believed to be no small risk in remaining at such an isolated post. But Dr. Johnson and I had to go, and so early on the morning of June 1 7, we bade the brave fellows an affec- tionate good-bye and left them in that far interior city, standing at the East Gate till we were out of sight.
Fortunately, the day was fine for rain would have made the flat, black soil almost impassible. But as it was, we had a
At the Grave of Confucius 69
comfortable, dustless ride of sixty li to Yen-chou-fu, a city of unusually massive walls, whose 60,000 people are reputed to be the most fiercely anti-foreign in Shantung. Comparatively few foreigners had been seen in this region and many of them had been mobbed. The Roman Catholic priests, who are the only missionaries here, have repeatedly been attacked, while an Eng- lish traveller was also savagely assaulted by these turbulent con- servatives. But the Roman Catholics with characteristic de- termination fought it out, the German minister coming from Peking to support them, and at the time of my visit, they were building a splendid church, the money like that for the Chin- ing-chou cathedral, coming from the indemnity for the murder of the two priests in 1897, which was in this diocese. Though great crowds stared silently at us, no disrespect was shown. On the contrary, we found that by order of the district magis- trate an inn had been specially prepared for us, with a plentiful supply of rugs and cushions and screens, while a few minutes after our arrival, the magistrate sent with his compliments a feast of twenty-five dishes. Another stage of nine miles brought us at four o'clock to the famous holy city of China, Ku-fu, the home and the grave of Confucius.
Leaving our shendzas at an inn, we mounted the cavalry horses of our escort and hurried to the celebrated temple which stands on the site of Confucius' house. But to our keen dis- appointment, the massive gates were closed. The keeper, in response to our knocks, peered through a crevice, and ex- plained that it was the great feast of the fifth day of the fifth month, that the Duke was offering sacrifices, and that no one, not even officials, could enter till the sacrifices were completed. "When will that be?" we queried. "They will continue all night and all day to-morrow," was the reply. We urged the shortness of our stay and solemnly promised to keep out of the Duke's way. The keeper's eyes watered as he imagined a present, but he replied that he did not dare let us in as his orders were strict and disobedience might cost him his position
yo New Forces in Old China
if not his life. So we sorrowfully turned away, and pushing through the dense throng which had swiftly assembled at the sight of a foreigner, we rode through the city and along the far- famed Spirit Road to the Most Holy Grove in which lies the body of Confucius. It is three li, about a mile, from the city gate. The road is shaded by ancient cedars and is called the Spirit Road because the spirit of Confucius is believed to walk back and forth upon it by night.
The famous cemetery is in three parts. The outer is said to be fifteen miles in circumference and is the burial-place of all who bear the honoured name of Confucius. Within, there is a smaller enclosure of about ten acres, which is the family burial place of the dukes who are lineal descendants of Confucius, mighty men who rank with the proudest governors of provinces. Within this second enclosure, is the Most Holy Cemetery itself, a plot of about two acres, shaded like the others by fine old cedars and cypresses. Here are only three graves, marked by huge mounds under which lie the dust of Confucius, his son and his grandson. That of the Sage, we estimated to be twenty-five feet high and 250 feet in circumference. In front of it is a stone monument about fifteen feet high, four feet wide and sixteen inches thick. Lying prone before that is another stone of nearly the same size supported by a heavy stone pedestal. There is no name, but on the upright monument are Chinese characters which Dr. Charles Johnson, my travelling companion, translated : "The Acme of Perfection and Learn- ing-Promoting King," or more freely — "The Most Illustrious Sage and Princely Teacher."
Uncut grass and weeds grew rankly upon the mounds and all over the cemetery, giving everything an unkempt appearance. One species is said to grow nowhere else in China and to have such magical power in interpreting truth that if a leaf is laid upon an abstruse passage of Confucius, the meaning will im- mediately become clear. There are several small buildings in the enclosure, but dust and decay reign in all, for there is no
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THE GRAVE OF CONFUCIUS
At the Grave of Confucius 71
merit in repairing a building that some one else has erected. As with his house, the Chinese will spend money freely to build a temple, but after that he does nothing. So even in the most sacred places, arches and walls and columns are usually crumb- ling, grounds are dirty and pavement stones out of place,
A feeling of awe came over me as I remembered that, with the possible exception of Buddha, the man whose dust lay before me had probably influenced more human beings than any other man whom the world has seen. Even Christ Himself has thus far not been known to so many people as Confucius, nor has any nation in which Christ is known so thoroughly accepted His teachings as China has accepted those of Confucius. Dr. Legge indeed declares that "after long study of his character and opinions, I am unable to regard him as a great man," while Dr. Gibson " seeks in vain in his recorded life and words for the secret of his power," and can only conjecture in ex- planation that "he is for all time the typical Chinaman; but his greatness lies in his displaying the type on a grand scale, not in creating it." But it is difficult even for the non-Chinese mind to look at such a man with unbiassed eyes. Surely we need not begrudge the meed of greatness to one who has moulded so many hundreds of millions of human beings for 2,400 years and who is more influential at the end of that pe- riod than at its beginning. Grant that "he is for all time the typical Chinaman." Could a small man have incarnated " for all time" the spirit of one-third of the human race? All over China the evidences of Confucius' power can be seen. Tem- ples rise on every hand. Ancestral tablets adorn every house. The writings of the sage are diligently studied by the whole population. When, centuries ago, a jealous Emperor ruth- lessly burned the Confucian books, patient scholars reproduced them, and to prevent a recurrence of such iconoclastic fury, the Great Confucian Temple and the Hall of Classics in Peking were erected and the books were inscribed on long rows of stone monuments so that they could never be destroyed again. As a
72
New Forces in Old China
token of the present attitude of the Imperial family, the Em- peror once in a decade proceeds in solemn state to this temple and enthroned there expounds a passage of the sacred writings. For more than two millenniums, the boys of the most numerous people in the world have committed to memory the Confucian primer which declares that "affection between father and son, concord between husband and wife, kindness on the part of the elder brother and deference on the part of the younger, order between seniors and juniors, sincerity between friends and as- sociates, respect on the part of the ruler and loyalty on that of the minister — these are the ten righteous courses equally bind- ing on all men; " that "the five regular constituents of our moral nature are benevolence, righteousness, propriety, knowl- edge, and truth; " and that " the five blessings are long life, wealth, tranquillity, desire for virtue and a natural death."
Surely these are noble principles. That their influence has been beneficial in many respects, it would be folly to deny. They have lifted the Chinese above the level of many other Asiatic nations by creating a more stable social order, by incul- cating respect for parents and rulers, and by so honouring the mother that woman has a higher position in China than in most other non-Christian lands.
And yet Confucianism has been and is the most formidable obstacle to the regeneration of China. While it teaches some great truths, it ignores others that are vital. It has lifted the Chinese above the level of barbarism only to fix them almost immovably upon a plane considerably lower than Christianity. It has developed such a smug satisfaction with existing condi- tions that millions are well-nigh impervious to the influences of the modern world. It has debased respect for parents into a blind worship of ancestors so that a dead father, who may have been an ignorant and vicious man, takes the place of the living and righteous God. It has fostered not only premature marriages but concubinage in the anxiety to have sons who will care for parents in age and minister to them after death.
At the Grave of Confucius 73
It makes the child virtually a slave to the caprice or passion of the parent. It leads to a reverence for the past that makes change a disrespect to the dead, so that all progress is made exceedingly difficult and society becomes fossilized. "What- ever is is right " and " custom " is sacred. Man is led so to centralize his thought on his own family that he becomes selfish and provincial in spirit and conduct, with no outlook beyond his own narrow sphere. Expenditures which the poor can ill- afford are remorselessly exacted for the maintenance of ancestral worship so that the living are often impoverished for the sake of the dead. ^151,752,000 annually, ancestral worship is said to cost — a heavy drain upon a people the majority of whom spend their lives in the most abject poverty, while the develop- ment of true patriotism and a strong and well-governed State has been effectively prevented by making the individual solicitous only for his own family and callously indifferent to the welfare of his country, Confucianism therefore is China's weakness as well as China's strength, the foe of all progress, the stagna- tion of all life.
Confucianism, too, halts on the threshold of life's profound- est problems. It has only dead maxims for the hour of deepest need. It gives no vision of a future beyond the grave. It is virtually an agnostic code of morals with some racial varia- tions. Wu Ting Fang, formerly Chinese Minister to the United States, frankly declares that " Confucianism is not a re- ligion in the practical sense of the word," and that "Confu- cius would be called an agnostic in these days." To "the Venerable Teacher " himself, philosophy opened no door of hope. Asked about this one day by a troubled inquirer, he dismissed the question with the characteristic aphorism — "Im- perfectly acquainted with life, how can we know death?" And there the myriad millions of Confucianists have dully stood ever since, their faces towards the dead past, the future a darkness out of which no voice comes.
But just because their illustrious guide took them to the
y4 New Forces in Old China
verge of the dark unknown and left them there, other teachers came in to occupy the region left so invitingly open. Less rational than Confucius, their success showed anew that the human mind cannot rest in a spiritual vacuum and that if faith does not enter, superstition will. Taoism and Buddhism proceeded to people the air and the future with strange and awful shapes. Popular Chinese belief as to the future is grew- somely illustrated in the Temple of Horrors in Canton with its formidable collection of wooden figures illustrating the various modes of punishment — sawing, decapitation, boiling in oil, covering with a hot bell, etc. At funerals, bits of perforated paper are freely scattered about in the hope that the inquisitive spirits will stop to examine them and thus give the body a chance to pass. In any Chinese cemetery, one may see little tables in front of the graves covered with tea, sweetmeats and sheets of gilt and silver paper, so that if a spirit is hungry, thirsty or in need of funds, it can get drink, food or money from the gold or silver mines (paper).
In the Temple for Sickness, in Canton, where multitudes of sufferers pray to the gods for healing, we saw an old woman kneeling before a statue of Buddha, holding aloft two blocks of wood and then throwing them to the floor. If the flat side of one and the oval side of the other were uppermost, the omen was good, but if the same sides were up, it was bad. Others shook a box of numbered sticks till one popped out and then a paper bearing the corresponding number gave the issue of the disease. The stones of the court were worn by many feet and the pathos of the place was pitiful.
Theoretically, " Confucianism is a system of morals, Taoism a deification of nature and Buddhism a system of metaphysics. But in practice all three have undergone many modifications. . . . With every age the character of Taoism has changed. The philosophy of its founder is now only an antiquarian curi- osity. Modern Taoism is of such a motley character as almost to defy any attempt to educe a well-ordered system from its
At the Grave of Confucius 75
chaos." ^ As for Buddhism, its founder would not recognize it, if he could visit China to-day. The lines : —
" Ten Buddhist nuns, and nine are bad ; The odd one left is doubtless mad "
are suggestive of the depth to which the religion of Guatama has fallen.
Indeed, it would be a mistake to suppose that the Chinese people are divided into three religious bodies as, for example, Americans are divided into Protestants, Roman Catholics and Jews. Each individual Chinese is at the same time a Con- fucian, a Buddhist and a Taoist, observing the ceremonies of all three faiths as circumstances may require, a Confucian when he worships his ancestors, a Buddhist when he implores the aid of the Goddess of Mercy, and a Taoist when he seeks to propitiate the omnipresent fung-shuy (spirits of wind and water), and he has no more thought of inconsistency than an American who is at the same time a Methodist, a Republican and a Mason. Dr. S. H. Chester says that when he was in Shanghai, he saw a Taoist priest conducting Confucian worship in a Buddhist temple. Even if inconsistency were proved to the Chinese, he would not be in the least disturbed for he cares nothing for such considerations. " Hence it is that the Chi- nese religion of to-day has become an inextricable blending of the three systems." ^ " The ancient simplicity of the state re- ligion has been so far corrupted as to combine in one ritual gods, ghosts, flags and cannon. It has become at once essen- tially polytheistic and pantheistic."*
The result is that the average Chinese lives a life of terror under the sway of imaginary demons. He erects a rectangular pillar in front of his door so that the dreaded spirits cannot enter his house without making an impossible turn. He gives
'Smith, "Rex Christus," pp. 62, 72.
' Gibson, " Mission Methods and Mission Policy in South China."
'Williams, " Middle Kingdom."
^6 New Forces in Old China
his tiled roof an upward slant at each of the eaves so that any spirit attempting to descend will be shunted off into space. Nor is this superstition confined to the lower classes. The haughty, foreign-travelled Li Hung Chang abjecdy grovelled on the bank of the Yellow River to propitiate an alleged demon that was believed to be the cause of a disastrous flood, and as late as June 4, 1903, the North- China Daily News published the following imperial decree :
'< Owing to the continued drought, in spite of our prayers for rain, we hereby command Chen Pih, Governor of Peking, to proceed to the Dragon temple at Kanshan-hsien, Chih-li Province, and bring from thence to Peking an iron tablet possessing rain-producing virtues, which we will place up for adoration and thereby bring forth the much-desired rain."
And so the followers of the most " rational " of teachers are among the most superstitious people in the world. In attempt- ing to clear the mind of error, the great agnostic simply left it " empty, swept and garnished for seven other spirits worse than the first."
As in the deepening twilight we thoughtfully left the last resting-place of the mighty dead, a platoon of thirty Chinese soldiers approached, drew their swords, dropped upon one knee and shouted. The movement was so unexpected and the shout so startlingly strident that my horse shied in terror and I had visions of immediate massacre. But having learned that politeness is current coin the world over, as soon as I could control ray prancing horse, I raised my hat and bowed. Whereupon the soldiers rose, wheeled into line and marched ahead of us to our inn in the city. Dr. Johnson explained that the words shouted in unison were : " May the Great Man have Peace," and that the platoon was an escort of honour from the yamen of the district magistrate !
On the way, we stopped to visit the temple of Yen, the famous disciple of Confucius who mourned for his master six years. The grounds are spacious. There is a remarkably fine tree, tall, graceful and with silvery white bark. A huge stone
At the Grave of Confucius 77
turtle was reverently kissed by one of our escort, who fondly believed that he who kissed the turtle's mouth would never be ill. But as usual in China, the temple itself, though originally it must have been beautiful, is now crumbling in decay.
It was late when we returned, and as we were about to retire, wearied with the toils of the day, the district magistrate called with an imposing retinue and cordially inquired whether we had seen all that we wished to see. When we replied that we had been unable to enter the great temple, he graciously said that he would have pleasure in informing the Duke, who would be sure to arrange for our visit. The result was a message at two o'clock in the morning to the effect that we might visit the temple at daylight in the interval between the cessation of the sacrifices of the night and their resumption at seven o'clock in the morning. Accordingly we rose at three o'clock, and after a hurried breakfast by candle-light, we proceeded to the temple. About a hundred Chinese were awaiting us, among them two men in official dress. We did not deem it courteous to ask who or what they were, but we supposed them to be from the magistrate's yamen, and as they were evidently familiar with the temple, we gladly complied with their cordial invitation to follow them.
I wish I had power to describe adequately all we saw in that vast enclosure of about thirty acres, with its stately trees, its paved avenues, its massive monuments, and, above all, its imposing temple and scores of related buildings. One was the Lieh Kew Kwei Chang Tien, the Temple of the Wall of the Many Countries. Here are 1 20 tablets, each about sixteen by twenty-two inches, and in the centre three larger ones measur- ing two feet in width by four and a-half feet in height. In front of these is a stone three and a-half feet by four and a-half, and bearing the inscription : " Tribute from the Ten Thousand Countries of the World." The Chinese solemnly believe that in these tablets all the nations of the earth have acknowledged the preeminence of Confucius.
jS New Forces in Old China
Then we visited three gloomy buildings where the animals for sacrifice are killed — one for cattle, one for sheep and one for pigs. Beyond them, we entered temples to the wife of Con- fucius, to his parents and to the " Five Generations of Ancestors," though the last-mentioned contains tablets to nine generations instead of five. On every side are scores of monu- ments, erected by or in honour of famous kings, some of them by the monarchs of dynasties which flourished before the Chris- tian era.
Most notable of all is the great temple of the sage himself, standing well back on a spacious stone-paved terrace, around which runs a handsome marble balustrade. The eye is at once arrested by the twenty-eight noble marble pillars, ten in front, ten in the rear and four at each end. The ten in front are round and elaborately carved, as magnificent a series of columns as I ever saw. The others are smooth, octagonal pillars, but traced with various designs in black.
Within, there are twelve other columns about four feet in diameter and twenty-five feet high, each cut from a single tree and beautifully polished. Naturally, the central object of interest is a figure of Confucius of heroic size but impossible features. In front is the tablet with costly lacquered orna- ments and pedestals, and an altar on which were a bullock and two pigs, each carefully scraped and dressed and lying with heads towards the statue and tablet. In several other temples, notably in the one to the Five Generations of Ancestors, other animals were lying, some evidently offered the day before and others awaiting the worship of the day now beginning. Altogether I counted nineteen sacrificial animals — one bullock, eight sheep and ten pigs. The great temple is of noble pro- portions, with an overhanging roof of enormous size but con- structed on such graceful lines as to be exquisitely beautiful. But within dust reigns, while without as usual the grass and weeds grow unchecked.
Last of all we visited the library, though the name is a
At the Grave of Confucius
79
misnomer, for there are no books in it and our courteous guides said there never had been. We ascended the narrow stairs leading from the vast, empty, dusty room on the lower floor through an equally empty second story to the third and top- most story, which is the home of hundreds of doves. Going out on the narrow balustrade under the eaves in the gray dawn of the morning, I looked upon the gorgeous gilded roof of the temple near by and then down upon the many ancient build- ings, the darkly solemn pines, the massive monuments resting on ponderous stone turtles, and the group of Chinese standing among the shadows and with faces turned curiously upward. Suddenly a dove flew over my head and then the sun rose slowly and majestically above the sombre tree-tops, throwing splendid floods of light upon us who stood aloft. But the Chinese below were in the sombre shades of a night that for them had not yet fully ended. I would fain believe that the physical was a parable of the spiritual. All the maxims of the Acme of Perfection and Learning-Promoting King have not brought the Chinese out of moral twilight. After all these centuries of ceaseless toil, they still remain amid the mists and shadows. But their faces are beginning to turn towards the light of a day whose sun already touches the mountain-tops. Some even now are in that " marvellous light," and it cannot be long before shining hosts of God shall pour down the mountainsides, chasing on noiseless feet and across wide plains the swiftly retreating night "until the day dawn and the shadows flee away."
At the outer gate, we bade good-bye to the dignified officials who had so hospitably conducted us through this venerable and historic place and who had taken such kindly pains to explain its ancient relics and customs. Who were they ? we secretly wondered. Imagine our feelings when the lieutenant in com- mand of our escort afterwards informed us that they were the guardian of the temple and the Duke himself !
Leaving the city of the mighty dead, we journeyed through
mm. *i iiiii
8o New Forces in Old China
a lovely region guarded by distant mountains. At the walled city of Si-sui, sixty li distant, soldiers met us and apparently the whole population lined the streets as we rode to our inn, where the yamen secretary was awaiting us with a feast. This inn, too, had been specially cleaned, and there were cushions, red cloths for the seats, and a screen for the door. In the afternoon, the country became rougher. But while the soil was thinner, the scenery was finer, an undulating region traversed by a shining river and bounded by mountains which gradually drew nearer. One hundred and ten li from Ku-fu, we stopped for the night at Pien-kiao, a small city with an unusually poor inn but a magnificent spring. It gushed up over an area twenty-five feet square and with such volume that the stream ran away like a mill-race. The Emperor Kien Lung built a retaining wall about the spring and a temple and summer- house adjoining. The wall is as solid as ever, but only a few crumbling pillars and fragments remain of the temple and pavilion. The Emperor affirmed that he was told in a vision that if he would build a stone boat, the waters of the spring would float it to Nanking whither he wished to go. So he built the boat of heavy cut stone, with a twelve-foot beam and a length of fifty-five feet. It is still there with the prow five feet above the ground, but the rest of the boat has sunk almost to the level of the earth about it. Is the old Emperor's idea any more absurd to us than our iron boats would have been to him ? The sun struggled long with heavy mists the following morn- ing and the air was so cool that I had to wrap myself in a blanket in the shendza. By eight, the sun gained the victory and we had another breezy, perfect June day. But the road was stony and trying beyond anything we had yet seen. The villages were evidently poorer, as might be expected on such a rocky soil. The people stared silently and did not so often re- turn my smiles. Whether they were sullen or simply boorish and unaccustomed to foreigners I could only conjecture. Few white men had been seen there.
At the Grave of Confucius 8l
A hard day's journey of 140 li through a rocky region brought us to Fei-hsien. Rain was falHng the next morning and the Chinese muleteers do not like to travel in rain. But the prospect was for a steady pour and as we were in a wretched inn and only ninety li from Ichou-fu, we wanted to go on. A present of 600 small cash for each muleteer (twenty cents) overcame all scruples. Just as I had comfortably ensconced myself in my shendza with an oilcloth on top and a rubber blanket in front, I saw a centipede on my leg, but I managed to slay him before he bit me. By nine, the rain ceased and though the clouds still threatened, we had a cool and comfortable ride through hundreds of fields of peanuts, indigo and millet to I-tang, where we stopped for tiffin at a squalid inn kept by a tall, dilapidated looking Chinese, who re- joiced in the name of Confucius. He was really a descendant of the sage and was very proud of the fact that his bones were in due time to rest in the sacred cemetery at Ku-fu.
By 5:40 p. M. we reached Ichou-fu, where the solitary Rev. W. W. Faris was glad to see another white man. A stay of several days was marked by many pleasant incidents. There was much of interest for a visitor to see. The mission work at Ichou-fu, Presbyterian, includes two hospitals, one for men and one for women, a chapel and separate day schools for boys and girls. The church has about a hundred members and in the outstations there are ten other organized churches besides ten unorganized congregations. All these churches and congregations provide their own chapels and pay their own running expenses. Here also the officials were most courteous. The Prefect, who promptly called with a retinue of fifty soldiers and attendants, was a masterful looking man who conversed with intelligence on a wide variety of topics. The day before our departure, we gave a feast to the leading men of the city in return for their many courtesies. Every invita- tion was accepted and thirty-five guests were present. They remained till late and were apparently highly pleased.
82 New Forces in Old China
Late in the evening, a youth who had painfully walked i8o li, came to Dr. Johnson's dispensary and presented the follow- ing note of introduction :
"Our office a servant who getting a yellow sick, which suffered a few year and cured for nothing, he trusted me to beg you to save his sick and I now ordered him to going be- fore you to beg you remedy facely. With many thanks to you,
" Yours sincerely,
"V. T. Gee."
Having done all that was possible in so short a time to "save his sick," we resumed our journey, thirty Chinese Christians accompanying us to the River I, a li from the city. The atmosphere was gloriously clear and on the second day out, crossing some high ridges, we had superb views of wide cultivated valleys, and of Ku-chou, a famous city that is said to contain more literary graduates than any other city of its size in the province.
Then followed a more level country with interminable fields of kao-liang and many orchards of walnuts, pears and cherries, while low mountains rose in the background. Men and horses were tired after our long and hard journey, and the mules' backs were becoming very sore. But the end drew near and the fifth day from Icho\v-fu we reached Yueh-kou, the border of the German hinterland. The German line is near Kiao- chou, but the rule is that Chinese soldiers must not come be- yond this point, loo li from the line, and that German soldiers shall not cross it going the other way except on the line of the railroad. Here therefore our escort had to leave us, as Chinese and Germans have agreed that any armed men cross- ing the line may be fired on, and even if there should be no casualty, both the German and Chinese authorities might justly have protested if Americans violated the compact. I suggested going on without an escort to our proposed night stop thirty li further. But my more experienced companions thought it dangerous to spend the night alone at an inn within this belt,
At the Grave of Confucius 83
as the villagers near the line were as bitter against foreigners as any in the province, the German brusqueness and ruth- lessness having greatly exasperated them.
So we spent the night at Yueh-kou, No one interfered with us the next day and by getting an early start, we covered ninety long li to Kiao-chou by noon. After five weeks in a mule litter, it seemed wonderful to make 138 li in three hours in a railway car. By 6:50 p. M., we reached Tsing-tau, having, the missionaries said, succeeded in "hustling the East to a remarkable degree." My note-book reads — "A bath, clean clothes, a hot supper and a good night's sleep removed the last vestige of weariness."
VII
SOME EXPERIENCES OF A TRAVELLER— FEASTS, INNS AND SOLDIERS
T
"^HE hardships of interior travelling were less than I had supposed. It is true that there were many ex- periences which, if enumerated, would make a for- midable list. But each as it arose appeared insignificant. As a whole, the trip was as enjoyable as any vacation tour. The weather was as a rule fine. The sun was often hot in the middle of the day, but cool breezes usually tempered the heat of the afternoon, while the nights required the protection of blankets. There was some rain at times, but not enough to impede seriously our progress. It was altogether the most perfect May and June weather I have ever seen. Nor was it exceptional, according to Dr. Charles Johnson who has spent many years in North China. But of course I saw Shantung at its most favourable period. July and August are wet and hot, while the winters are clear and cold.
I found a trunk an unmitigated nuisance. Though it was made to order for a pack-mule, no pack-mules could be hired in that harvest season, and the trunk was too heavy for one side of a donkey, even after transferring all practicable articles to the shendza. So it had to be put in a cart, and as a cart can- not keep up with a shendza, I was often separated from my trunk for days at a time. Besides, a couple valises would have held all necessary clothing anyway. I took a light folding cot and a bag held a thin mattress, small pillow, sheets and two light blankets, so that I had a very comfortable bed under the always necessary mosquito net.
84
Some Experiences of a Traveller 85
We also took a supply of tinned food to which we could usually add by purchase en route chickens and eggs, while oc- casionally in the proper season, we could secure string-beans, onions, cucumbers, apricots, peanuts, walnuts and radishes. So we fared well. The native food cannot be wisely depended upon by a foreigner. He cannot maintain his strength, as the poorer Chinese do, on a diet of rice and unleavened bread, while the food of the well-to-do classes, when it can be had, is apt to be so greasy and peculiar as to incite his digestive ap- paratus to revolt. Indeed, a Chinese feast is one of his most serious experiences. Most heartily, indeed, did I appreciate the kindly motives of the magistrates who invited me to these feasts, for their purpose was as generously hospitable as the purpose of any American who invites a visitor to dinner. But the Chinese bill-of-fare includes dishes that are rather trying to a Christian palate, and good form requires the guest to taste at least each dish, for if he fails to do so, he makes his host "lose face" — a serious breach of etiquette in China. For example, here is the menu of a typical Chinese feast to which I was invited, the dishes being served in the order given, sweets coming first and soup towards the last in this land of topsy-turveydom :
1. Small cakes (five kinds), sliced pears, candied peanuts, raw water-chestnuts, cooked water-chestnuts, hard-boiled ducks' eggs (cut into small pieces), candied walnuts, honied walnuts, shredded chicken, apricot seeds, sliced pickled plums, sliced dried smoked ham (cut into tiny pieces), shredded sea moss, watermelon seeds, shrimps, bamboo sprouts, jellied haws. All the above dishes were cold. Then followed hot :
2. Shrimps served in the shell with vinegar, sea-slugs with shredded chicken, bits of sweetened pork and shredded dough — the pork and sea-slugs being cooked and served in fragrant oil.
3. Bamboo sprouts, stewed chicken kidneys.
4. Spring chicken cooked crisp in oil.
86 New Forces in Old China
5. Stewed sea-slugs with ginger root and bean curd, stewed fungus with reed roots and ginger tops (all hot).
6. Tarts with candied jelly, sugar dumplings with dates.
7. Hot pudding made of " the eight precious vegetables," consisting of dates, watermelon seeds, chopped walnuts, chopped chestnuts, preserved oranges, lotus seeds, and two kinds of rice, all mixed and served in syrup — a delicious dish.
8. Shelled shrimps with roots of reeds and bits of hard- boiled eggs, all in one bowl with fragrant oil, biscuits coated with sweet seeds.
9. Glutinous rice in little layers with browned sugar be- tween, minced pork dumplings, steamed biscuits,
10. Omelette with sea-slugs and bamboo sprouts, all in oil, bits of chicken stewed in oil, pork with small dumplings of flour and starch,
11. Stewed pigs' kidneys, shrimps stewed in oil, date pie.
12. Vermicelli and egg soup.
13. Stewed pork balls, reed roots, bits of hard-boiled yolks of eggs, all in oil.
14. Birds' nest soup.
The appetite being pretty well sated by this time, the fol- lowing delicacies were served to taper off with :
15. Chicken boiled in oil, pork swimming in a great bowl of its own fat, stewed fish stomachs, egg soup.
16. Steamed biscuit.
Tea was served from the beginning and throughout the feast. It was made on the table by pouring hot water into a small pot half full of tea leaves, the pot being refilled as needed. The tea was served without cream or sugar, and was mild and de- licious. Rice whiskey in tiny cups is usually served at feasts, though it was often omitted from the feasts given to us. The Chinese assert that the alcohol is necessary " to cut the grease." There is certainly enough grease to cut.
The guests sit at small round tables, each accommodating about four. There are, of course, no plates or knives or forks
Some Experiences of a Traveller 87
though small china spoons are used for the soups. All the food is cut into small pieces before being brought to the table, so that no further cutting is supposed to be necessary. Each article of food is brought on in a single dish, which is placed in the centre of the table, and then each guest helps himself out of the common dish with his chop-sticks, the same chop- sticks being used during the entire meal. It is considered a mark of distinguished courtesy for the host to fish around in the dish with his own chop-sticks for a choice morsel and place it in front of the guest. With profound emotion, at almost every feast that I attended in China, I saw my considerate hosts take the chop-sticks which had made many trips to their own mouths, stir around in the central dish for a particularly fine titbit and deposit it on the table before me. And of course, not to be outdone in politeness, I ate these dainty morsels with smiles of gratified pride. As each of the Chinese at the table deemed himself my host, and as the Chinese are extremely polite and attentive to their guests, the table soon became wet and greasy from the pieces of pork, slugs and chicken placed upon it as well as from the drippings from the chop-sticks in their constant trips from the serving bowls.
However, two small brass bowls, fitting together, are placed beside each guest, who is expected to sip a little water from the upper one, rinse his mouth with it and expectorate it into the lower one. The emotion of the foreign visitor is intensified when he learns that it is counted polite to make all the noise possible by smacking the lips as a sign that the food is de- licious, sucking the tea or soup noisily from the spoon to show that it is hot, and belching to show that it is enjoyed. Often, a dignified official would let his tea stand until it was cold, but when he took it up, he would suck it with a loud noise as if it were scalding hot, as he was too polite to act as if it were cold.
But the American or European, who inwardly groans at a Chinese repast and who felicitates himself on the alleged superior methods of his own race, may well consider how his
88 New Forces in Old China
own customs impress a Celestial. A Chinese gentleman who was making a tour of Europe and America wrote to a relative in China as follows :
" You cannot civilize these foreign devils. They are beyond redemp- tion. They will live for weeks and months without touching a mouthful of rice, but they eat the flesh of bullocks and sheep in enormous quantities. That is why they smell so badly ; they smell like sheep themselves. Every day they take a bath to rid themselves of their disagreeable odours, but they do not succeed. Nor do they eat their meat cooked in small pieces. It is carried into the room in large chunks, often half raw, and they cut and slash and tear it apart. They eat with knives and prongs. It makes a civilized being perfectly nervous. One fancies himself in the presence of sword-swallowers. They even sit down at the same table with women, and the latter are served first, reversing the order of nature,"
So I humbly adapted myself as best I could to Chinese cus- toms and learned to like many of the natives' dishes, though to the last, there were some that I merely nibbled to "save the face" of mine host. Some of the dishes were really excellent and as a rule all were well-cooked, although the oil in which much of the food was steeped made it rather greasy. My di- gestive apparatus is pretty good, but it would take a copper- lined stomach to partake without disaster of a typical Chinese feast. But for that matter so it would to eat a traditional New England dinner of boiled salt pork, corned beef, cabbage, tur- nips, onions and potatoes, followed by a desert of mince pie and plum pudding and all washed down by copious draughts of hard cider.
Chinese inns do not impoverish even the economical traveller. Our bill for our tiffin stop was usually loo small cash, a little more than three cents, for our entire party of about a score of men and animals. For the night, the common charge was 700 cash, twenty- three cents. Travellers are expected to provide their own food and bedding and to pay a small extra sum for the rice and fodder used by their servants and mules, but even then the cost appears ridiculously small to a foreigner. Still,
Some Experiences of a Traveller 89
the most thoroughly seasoned traveller can hardly consider a Chinese inn a comfortable residence. It is simply a rough, one-story building enclosing an open courtyard. The rooms are destitute of furniture except occasionally a rude table. The floor is the beaten earth, foul with the use of scores and per- haps hundreds of years. The windows are covered with oiled paper which admits only a dim light and no air at all. The walls are begrimed with smoke and covered with cobwebs. Across the end of the room is the inevitable kang — a brick plat- form under which the cooking fire is built and on which the traveller squats by day and sleeps by night. The unhappy white man who has not been prudent enough to bring a cot with him feels as if he were sleeping on a hot stove with " the lid off."
The inns between Ichou-fu and Chining-chou were the poor- est I saw, and if a man has stopped in one of them, he has been fairly initiated into the discomforts of travelling in China. But wherever one goes, the heat and smoke and bad air, together with the vermin which literally swarms on the kang and floor and walls, combine to make a night in a Chinese inn an ex- perience that is not easily forgotten. However, the foreign traveller soon learns, perforce, to be less fastidious than at home and I found myself hungry enough to eat heartily and tired enough to sleep soundly in spite of the dirt and bugs. But the heat and bad air as the summer advanced were not so easily mastered, and so I began to sleep in the open courtyard, find- ing chattering Chinese and squealing mules less objectionable than the foul-smelling, vermin-infested inns, since outside I had at least plenty of cool, fresh air.
There is no privacy in a Chinese inn. The doors, when there are any, are innocent of locks and keys, while the Chinese guests as well as the innkeeper's family and the people of the neighbourhood have an inquisitiveness that is not in the least tempered by bashfulness. But nothing was ever stolen, though some of our supplies must have been attractive to many of the
go New Forces in Old China
poverty stricken men who crowded about us. On one oc- casion, an inn-employee, who was sent to exchange a bank-note for cash, did not return. There was much excited jabbering, but Mr. Laughlin firmly though kindly held the innkeeper re- sponsible and that worthy admitted that he knew who had taken the money and refunded it. So all was peace. The inn- keeper was probably in collusion with the thief. This was our only trouble of the kind, though we slept night after night in the public inns with all our goods lying about wholly unpro- tected. Occasionally, especially in the larger towns, there was a night watchman. But he was a noisy nuisance. To con- vince his employers that he was awake, he frequently clapped together two pieces of wood. All night long that strident clack, clack, clack, resounded every few seconds. It is an odd custom, for of course it advertises to thieves the location of the watchman. But there is much in China that is odd to an American.
On a tour in Asia, the foreigner who does not wish to be ill will exercise reasonable care. It looks smart to take insufficient sleep, snatch a hurried meal out of a tin can, drink unboiled water and walk or ride in the sun without a pith hat or an umbrella. Some foreigners who ought to know better are care- less about these things and good-naturedly chaff one who is more particular. But while one should not be unnecessarily fussy, yet if he is courageous enough to be sensible, he will not only preserve his health, but be physically benefited by his tour, while the heedless man will probably be floored by dysen- tery or even if he escapes that scourge will reach his destination so worn out that he must take days or perhaps weeks to re- cuperate. I was not ill a day, made what Dr. Bergen called "the record tour of Shantung," and came out in splendid health and spirits just because I had nerve enough to insist on taking reasonable time for eating and sleeping, boiling my drinking water, and buying the fresh vegetables and fruit with which the country abounded. From this view-point. Dr.
Some Experiences of a Traveller 91
Charles F. Johnson, who escorted me from Chhiing-chou to Tsing-tau, was a model. With no loss of time, with but trifling additional expense and with comparatively little extra trouble, he had an appetizing table, while water bottles and fruit tins were always cooled in buckets of well water so that they were grateful to a dusty, thirsty throat. It is not difficult to make oneself fairly comfortable in travelling even when nearly all modern conveniences are wanting and it pays to take the neces- sary trouble.
Throughout the tour, we were watched in a way that was suggestive. When United States Consul Fowler first told me that Governor Yuan Shih Kai would send a military escort with me, I said that I was not proud, that I did not care to go through Shantung with the pomp and panoply of war, that I was on a peaceful, conciliatory errand, and preferred to travel with only my missionary companions. But he replied that while the province was then quiet, no one could tell what an hour might bring forth, that in the tension that existed even a local and sporadic attack on a foreigner might be a signal for a new outbreak, that the Governor was trying to keep the people in hand, and that as he was held responsible for consequences he must be allowed to have his own men in charge of a foreign party that purposed to journey so far into the interior. So, of course, I yielded.
When I lifted up my eyes and looked on the escort at Kiao- chou, I felt that my fears of pomp and panoply had been groundless, for the "escort" consisted of two disreputable- looking coolies who had apparendy been picked up on the street and who were armed with antiquated flint-locks that were more dangerous to their bearers than to an enemy. I am sure that these "guards" would have been the first to run at the slightest sign of danger. We did not see them again till we reached Kaomi, where we gave them a present and sent them back, glad to be rid of them. We afterwards learned that they were only the retainers of the local Kiao-chou yamen
92 New Forces in Old China
to see us to the border of the hinterland, which Governor Yuan's troops were not permitted to cross.
But the men who met us at the border were soldiers of another type — powerful looking cavalrymen on excellent horses. Remembering the stories we had heard regarding the murder of foreigners by Chinese troops who had been sent ostensibly to guard them, we were relieved to find that there were only three of them, and as there were three of us, we felt safe, for we believed that in an emergency we could whip them. When on leaving Wei-hsien the number increased to five and then to six, we became dubious. But we concluded that as we were active, stalwart men, we might in a pinch manage twice our number of Chinese soldiers or, if worst came to worst, as we were unencumbered by women, children or luggage, we could sprint, on the old maxim,
" He that fights and runs away Will live to fight another day."
But when a little later, the force grew to eleven and then to fifteen, we were hopelessly out-classed, especially as they were well-mounted and armed not only with swords but with mod- ern magazine rifles.
The result, however, proved that our . _ars were groundless, for the men were good soldiers, intelligent, respectful, well- drilled, and thoroughly disciplined. They treated us with strict military etiquette, standing at attention and saluting in the most approved military fashion wher 'ver they spoke to us or we to them. I was not accustomed to travelling in such state. Our three shendzas meant six nuiles and three mule- teers, one for each shendza. Our cook and "boy" each had a donkey, and a pack-mule was necessary for our food sup- plies. So including the men and horses of the escort, we usually had nineteen men and twenty animals and a part of the time we had even a larger number. We therefore made quite a procession, and attracted considerable attention. I suspect,
PART OF THE AUTHOR'S ESCORT OF CHINESE CAVALRYMEN
WATCHING THE AUTHOR WRITING IN HIS DIARY AT A inOON STOP - - A Snap Shot
Some Experiences of a Traveller 93
however, that some of those shrewd Chinese were not deceived as to my humble station at home for one man asked the mis- sionary who accompanied me whether I travelled with an escort in America !
The lieutenant commanding our escort said that he received forty-two taels a month,' the sergeants eleven taels, and the privates nine taels. The men buy their own food, but their clothing, horses, provender, etc., are furnished by the Govern- ment. This is big pay for China. The lieutenant further said that Governor Yuan Shih Kai had thirty regiments of a nomi- nal strength of 500 each and an actual strength of 250, making a total of 7,500, and that the soldiers had been drilled by German officers at Tien-tsin. There are no foreign officers now connected with the force, but there are two foreign edu- cated Chinese who receive 300 taels a month each. He further said that all the men with us had killed Boxers and that he was confident that they could rout 1,000 of them. An illus- tration of the reputation of these troops occurred during my visit in Paoting-fu a little later. A messenger breathlessly reported that the Allied Villagers, who had banded themselves together to resist the collection of indemnity, had captured a city only ninety li southward and that they intended to march on Paoting-fu itself. Three thousand of Yuan Shih Kai's troops had been ordered to go to Peking to prepare for the return of the Emperor and Empress Dowager, but the French general at Paoting-fu had forbade them coming beyond a point a hundred li south of Paoting-fu, so that they were then en- camped there awaiting further orders. The Prefect hastily wired Viceroy Li Hung Chang in Peking asking him to order these troops to retake the recaptured city, as the Imperial troops were " needed here," a euphemism for saying that they were useless. Li Hung Chang gave the desired order and the seasoned troops of Yuan Shih Kai made short work of the Allied Villagers.
At any rate, those who escorted me through Shantung were ' A tael equals sixty-five cents at the present rate of exchange.
94 New Forces in Old China
certainly good soldiers. They had splendid horses and took good care of them, while several evenings they gave us as fine exhibitions of sword drill as I ever saw. I was interested to find that seven of them belonged to a total abstinence society, though none of them were Christians. I became really at- tached to them. They were very patient, although my journey compelled them to make a long and hard march for which they received no extra pay. On the last evening of the trip, I gave them a feast in the most approved Chinese style. I made a little farewell address and gave the officer in charge the follow- ing letter which seemed to please them greatly : —
"June 27th, 1901. " To His Excelleitcy,
" General Yuan Shih Kai,
" Governor of the Province of Shantung, China, " Sir :
" In completing my tour of the Province of Shantung, I have pleas- ure in expressing my high appreciation, and that of the missionaries of the Presbyterian Cliurch who accompanied me, of the excellent conduct of the soldiers who formed our escort under the command of (Lieutenant) Wang Pa Chung. Both he and his troopers were courteous and faithful, atten- tive to every duty and meriting our admiration for the perfection of their discipline.
" We regret the death of one of their horses, but we are satisfied that the soldier was in no way to blame. The animal died in the inn court- yard early in the morning.
" I have had pleasure in giving the officer and his men a feast. In addition I offered them a present, but the Wang Pa Chung declined to accept it.
" Thanking you for your courtesy in detailing such good soldiers for our escort,
" I have, sir, the honour to be
" Your obedient servant,
(Signed) "Arthur J. Brown."
I was impressed by the refusal to accept the present, which was a considerable sum to Chinese. But the men were evi- dently under strict orders. The lieutenant was polite and
Some Experiences of a Traveller 95-
grateful, but he said that he "could not accept a gift if it were ten thousand taels."
During the whole tour, these soldiers watched us with a fidel- ity that was almost embarrassing at times. Not for a moment did they lose sight of us except when we were in the mission compounds. If we took a walk about a village, they followed us. Eating, sleeping or travelling, we were always watched. Several times we tried to escape such espionage, or to induce the soldiers to turn back. We did not feel our need of them, nor did I desire my peaceful mission to be associated with mil- itary display. Besides, if hostility had been manifested, a dozen Chinese soldiers would have been of little avail among those swarming millions. But our efforts and protests were vain and we had no alternative but to submit with the best grace possible.
Nor was this all, for many of the magistrates whose districts we crossed en route added other attentions. Indeed, they ap- peared to be almost nervously anxious that no mishap should befall us. I had sent no announcement of my coming to any one except my missionary friends, nor had I asked for any favour or protection save the usual passport through the United States Consul. But the first Tao-tai I met politely inquired about my route, and, as I afterwards learned, sent word to the next mag- istrate. He in turn forwarded the word to the one beyond, and so on throughout the whole trip. As we approached a city, uniformed attendants from the chief magistrate's yamen usually met us and escorted us, sometimes with much display of banners and trumpets and armed guards, to an inn which had been prepared for our reception by having a little of its dirt swept into the corners and a few of its bugs killed. Then would come a feast of many courses of Chinese delicacies. A call from the magistrate himself often followed, and he would chat amicably while great crowds stood silently about.
There was something half pathetic about the attentions we re- ceived. Our journey was like a triumphal procession. For
96 New Forces in Old China
example, twenty li from Chang Ku a messenger on horseback met us. He had evidently been on the watch, for after kneel- ing he galloped back with the news of our approach. Soon a dozen soldiers in scarlet uniforms appeared, saluted, wheeled and marched before us to an inn where we found rugs on the floor and kangs, a cloth on the table and two elevated seats covered with scarlet robes. Attendants from the yamen with their red tasselled helmets were numerous and attentive. Basins of water were brought and presently the magistrate sent an elaborate feast. As we finished the repast, the magistrate himself called. He was very affable and made quite a long call. In like manner the district magistrate of Fei-hsien sent his secretary, personal flags and twenty soldiers twenty li to meet us. They knelt as we approached and shouted in unison — "We wish the great man peace 1 " So as usual we entered the town with pomp and circumstance, our own escort added to the local one making a brave show.
And these were typical experiences. We could not prevent them and to resent them would have made the official " lose face " and so embittered him. At Pien-kiao, where a hundred of Governor Yuan Shih Kai's troops were stationed, the whole garrison turned out, meeting us a couple of miles from the cily and escorting us to our inn with blares of trumpets which Dr. Johnson said were only sounded for high officials. We were awakened at three o'clock the next morning by the bellowing of calves and the braying of mules in the inn court- yard, and as we had our longest day's journey ahead of us, we rose, breakfasted at four by candle-light and were on the road at a quarter of five. But in spite of the early hour, the whole garrison again turned out and lined the road at "present arms " as we passed.
Think of the mayor of an American city of fifty or a hun- dred thousand habitants hastening to call in state on three unknown travellers, who were simply stopping for luncheon at a hotel, and sending a couple dozen policemen to escort them in
Some Experiences of a Traveller 97
and out of town ! The Shantung Chinese are a strong, proud, independent people, and it must have cost them something to be so effusive to foreigners. There was doubtless in it some real regard for Americans and American missionaries. But policy was probably also a factor. The officials felt that any further attack on foreigners would be a pretext for further foreign aggression, an excuse for Germany to advance from Kiao-chou, and they were anxious not to give occasion for it. Each official was apparently determined to make it plain that he was doing his duty in trying to protect these foreigners so that if they got hurt it would not be his fault. Perhaps, too, he was not averse to showing the populace that foreigners had to be guarded. I was half ashamed to travel in that way. But I could not help myself. Sometimes I felt that the guard was not so much for us as for the Chinese, assuring nervous officials that foreigners should have no further excuse for aggression and warning the evil-disposed that they must not commit acts which might get the officials into trouble.
Whatever the reasons were, they were plainly impersonal. No one of us had any official status nor were we as individuals of any consequence whatever to Chinese officials. We were simply white men and as such we were regarded as repre- sentatives of a race which had made its power felt. Perhaps the soldiers and the orders of Governor Yuan Shih Kai had much to do with the quietness of the people, but some way I felt perfectly safe. Whether any attack would have been made if I had been allowed to journey quietly with my one or two missionary companions, I am not competent to judge. Foreigners who had lived many years in China told me before starting that my life would not be safe beyond rifle shot. They have told me since that the profuse attentions that we re- ceived were mere pretence, that the very officials who wel- comed us as honoured guests probably cursed our race as soon as our backs were turned, and that if the people had not un- derstood from the presence of troops and from the magistrates'
c)8 New Forces in Old China
marked personal attentions that we were not to be molested, we might have met with violence in a dozen places. The opinions of such experienced men were not to be lightly set aside.
All I can say is that on these suppositions the Chinese are masters of the art of dissimulation, for in all our journeyings through the very heart of the region where the Boxers origi- nated, and where the anti-foreign hatred was said to be bitter- est, we saw not a sign of unfriendliness. The typical ofificial re- ceived us with the courtesy of a "gentleman of the old school." The vast throngs that quickly assembled at every stopping place, while silent, were respectful. We tried to behave de- cently ourselves, to speak kindly to every man, to pay fair prices for what we bought; in short, to act just as we would have acted in America. And every man to whom we smiled, smiled in return. Wherever we asked a civil question we got a civil answer. Coolies would stop their barrows, farmers leave their fields to direct us aright. In all our travelling in the interior, amid a population so dense that we constantly marvelled, we never heard a rude word or saw a hostile sign. I naturally find it difficult to believe that those pleasant, obliging people would have killed us if they had not been re- strained by their magistrates, and that the officials who exerted themselves to show us all possible honour would have gladly murdered us if they had dared.
And yet less than a year before, the Chinese had angrily des- troyed the property and venomously sought the lives of for- eigners who were as peaceably disposed as we were, ruthlessly hunting men and women who had never done them wrong, and who had devoted their lives to teaching the young and healing the sick and preaching the gospel of love and good will. Why they did this we shall have occasion to observe in a later chapter.
PART II
The Commercial Force and the Economic
Revolution
VIII
WORLD CONDITIONS THAT ARE AFFECTING CHINA'
SEVERAL outside forces have pressed steadily and heav- ily upon the exclusiveness and conservatism of the Chinese, and though they have not yet succeeded in changing the essential character of the nation, they have set in motion vast movements which have already convulsed great sections of the Empire and which are destined to affect stu- pendous transformations. The first of these forces is foreign commerce.
To understand the operation of this force, we must consider that its impact has been enormously increased by the extension of facilities for intercommunication. The extent to which these have revolutionized the world is one of the most extraordinary features of our extraordinary age. It is startlingly significant of the change that has taken place that Russia and Japan, na- tions 7,000 miles apart by land and a still greater distance by water, are able in the opening years of the twentieth century to wage war in a region which one army can reach in four weeks and the other in four days, and that all the rest of the world can receive daily information as to the progress of the conflict. A half century ago, Russia could no more have sent a large army to Manchuria than to the moon, while down to the opening of her ports by Commodore Perry in 1854, the few wooden vessels that made the long journey to Japan found an unprogressive and bitterly anti-foreign heathen nation with an edict issued in 1638 still on its statute books declaring — "So long as the sun shall continue to warm the earth, let no Chris- tian be so bold as to come to Japan ; and let all know that the King of Spain himself, or the Christian's God, or the great God
' Part of this chapter appeared as an article in the American Monthly Review of Reviews, October, 1904.
lOI
102 New Forces in Old China
of all, if He dare violate this command, shall pay for it with his head."
Nor were other far-eastern peoples any more hospitable. China, save for a few port cities, was as impenetrable as when in 1552 the dying Xavier had cried — "O Rock, Rock, when wilt thou open ! " Siam excluded all foreigners until the cen- tury's first quarter had passed, and Laos saw no white man till 1868. A handful of British traders were so greedily deter- mined to keep all India as a private commercial preserve that, forgetting their own indebtedness to Christianity, they sneered at the proposal to send missionaries to India as "the maddest, most expensive, most unwarranted project ever proposed by a lunatic enthusiast," while as late as 1857, a director of the East India Company declared that " he would rather see a band of devils in India than a band of missionaries. " Korea was rightly called "the hermit nation " until 1882; and as for Africa, it was not till 1873 that the world learned of that part of it in which the heroic Livingstone died on his knees, not till 1877 that Stanley staggered into a West Coast settlement after a desperate journey of 999 days from Zanzibar through Central Africa, not till 1884 that the Berlin Conference formed the In- ternational Association of the Congo guaranteeing that which has not yet been reahzed " liberty of conscience" and "the free and public exercise of every creed."
Even in America within the memory of men still living, the lumbering, white-topped "prairie schooner" was the only conveyance for the tedious overland journey to California. Hardy frontiersmen were fighting Indians in the Mississippi Valley, and the bold Whitman was " half a year " in bearing a message from Oregon to Washington.
The Hon. John W. Foster tells us in his " Century of Amer- ican Diplomacy " that "General Lane, the first territorial gov- ernor of Oregon, left his home in Indiana, August 27, 1848, and desiring to reach his destination as soon as possible, travel- ling overland to San Francisco and thence by ship, reached his
World Conditions that are Affecting China 103
post on the first of March following — the journey occupying six months. At the time our treaty of peace and independence was signed in 1 783, two stage-coaches were sufficient for all the passengers and nearly all the freight between New York and Boston." It is only seventy years since the Rev. John Lowrie, with his bride and Mr. and Mrs. Reed, rode horseback from Pittsburg through flooded rivers and over the Allegheny Mountains to Philadelphia, whence it took them four and a-half months to reach Calcutta.
Nor was this all, for scores of the conveniences and even necessities of our modern life were unknown at the beginning of the nineteenth century. To get some idea of the vastness of the revolution in the conditions of living, we have but to remind ourselves that " in the year 1800 no steamer ploughed the waters ; no locomotive traversed an inch of soil ; no photo- graphic plate had ever been kissed by sunlight ; no telephone had ever talked from town to town ; steam had never driven mighty mills and electric currents had never been harnessed into telegraph and trolley wires. " ' " In all the land there was no power loom, no power press, no large manufactory in textiles, wood or iron, no canal. The possibilities of electricity in light, heat and power were unknown and unsuspected. The cotton gin had just begun its revolutionary work. Intercom- munication was difficult, the postal service slow and costly, literature scanty and mostly of inferior quality. ' ' ^
How marvellously the application of steam as a motive power has united once widely separated regions. So swiftly have the changes come and so quickly have we adapted our- selves to them that it is difficult to realize the magnitude of the transformation that has been achieved. We can ride from Pittsburg to Philadelphia in eight hours and to Calcutta in twenty-two days. The journey across our own continent is no longer marked by the ox-cart and the campfire and the bones
1 The Rev. Dr. Theodore Cuyler.
2 Address of the Bishops of the M. E. Church, 1900.
104 New Forces in Old China
of perished expeditions. It is simply a pleasant trip of less than a week, and in an emergency in August, 1903, Henry P. Lowe travelled from New York to Los Angeles, 3,241 miles, in seventy-three hours and twenty-one minutes. Populous states covered with a network of railway and telegraph lines invite the nations of the world to join them in celebrating at St. Louis the " Purchase " of a region which a hundred years ago was as foreign to the American people as the Philippines now are. The Rev. Dr. Calvin Mateer, who in 1863 was six months in reaching Chefoo, China, on a voyage from whose hardships his wife never fully recovered, returned in a com- fortable journey of one month in 1902. To-day, for all prac- tical purposes, China is nearer New York than California once was.
No waters are too remote for the modern steamer. Its smoke trails across every sea and far up every navigable stream. Ten mail steamers regularly run on the Siberian Yenisei, while the Obi, flowing from the snows of the Little Altai Mountains, bears 302 steam vessels on various parts of its 2,000-mile journey to the Obi Gulf on the Arctic Ocean. Stanley could now go from Glasgow to Stanley Falls in forty-three days. Already there are forty-six steamers on the Upper Congo. From Cape Town, a railway 2,000 miles long runs via Bula- wayo to Beira on the Portuguese coast, while branch lines reach several formerly inaccessible mining and agricultural regions. June 22, 1904, almost the whole population of Cape Town cheered the departure of the first through train for Victoria Falls, where the British Association for the Advancement of Science has been invited to meet in 1905. Uganda is reached by rail. Five hundred and eighty miles of track unite Mom- basa and Victoria Nyanza. Sleeping and dining cars safely run the 575 miles from Cairo to Khartoum where only five years ago Lord Kitchener fought the savage hordes of the Mahdi. The Englishman's dream of a railroad from Cairo to the Cape is more than half realized, for 2,800 miles are already
World Conditions that are Affecting China 105
completed. In 1903, Japan had 4,237 miles of well managed railways which in 1902 carried 111,211,208 passengers and 14,409,752 tons of freight. India is gridironed by 25,373 miles of steel rails which in 1901 carried 195,000,000 passen- gers. A railroad parallels the Burmese Irrawaddy to Bhamo and Mandalay, In Siam you can ride by rail from Bangkok north- ward to Korat and westward to Petchaburee. The Trans- Siberian Railway now connects St. Petersburg and Peking. In Korea, the line from Chemulpho to Seoul connects with lines under construction both southward and northward, so that ere long one can journey by rail from Fusan on the Korean Strait to Wiju on the Yalu River. As the former is but ten hours by sea from Japan and as the latter is to form a junction with the Trans-Siberian Railway, a land journey in a sleeping car will soon be practicable from London and Paris to the capitals of China and Korea, and, save for the ferry across the Korean Strait, to any part of the Mikado's kingdom. The locomotive runs noisily from Jaffa to venerable Jerusalem and from Beirut over the passes of Lebanon to Damascus, the oldest city in the world. A projected line will run from there to the Moham- medan Mecca, so that soon the Moslem pilgrims will abandon the camel for the passenger coach. Most wonderful of all is the Anatolian Railway which is to run through the heart of Asia Minor, traversing the Karamanian plateau, the Taurus Mountains and the Cilician valleys to Haran where Abraham tarried, and Nineveh where Jonah preached, and Babylon where Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, and Bagdad where Haroun-al-Raschid ruled, to Koweit on the Persian Gulf. In a single month forty-five Philadelphia engines have been ordered for India. The American locomotive is to-day speed- ing across the steppes of Siberia, through the valleys of Japan, across the uplands of Burmah and around the mountainsides of South America. "Yankee bridge-builders have cast up a highway in the desert where the chariot of Cambyses was swallowed up by the sands. The steel of Pennsylvania spans
io6 New Forces in Old China
the Atbara, makes a road to Meroe," and crosses the rivers of Peru. Trains on the two imperial highways of Africa — the one from Cairo to the Cape and the other from the upper Nile to the Red Sea — are to be hauled by American engines over American bridges, while the ** forty centuries " which Napoleon Bonaparte said looked down from the pyramids see not the soldiers of France, but the manufacturing agents of Europe and America. Whether or not we are to have a political im- perialism, we already have an industrial imperialism.
Walter J. Ballard declares * that the aggregate capital in- vested in railways at the end of 1902 was ^36,850,000,000 and that the total mileage was 532,500 distributed as follows : —
Miles
United States 202,471
Europe 180,708
Asia 41,814
South America 28,654
North America (Except U. S.) 24,032
Australia 15,649
Africa 14.187
Jules Verne's story, "Around the World in Eighty Days " was deemed fantastic in 1873. But in 1903, James Willis Sayre of Seattle, Washington, travelled completely around the world in fifty-four days and nine hours, while the Russian Minister of Railroads issues the following schedule of possi- bilities when the Trans-Siberian Railroad has completed its plans : —
From St. Petersburg to Vladivostok ID days
" Vladivostok to San Francisco 10 "
" San Francisco to New York 4^ "
" New York to Bremen 7 "
•' Bremen to St. Petersburg I^ "
Total 2,2, days
As for the risks incident to such a tour, it is significant that ' New York Sun, July 13, 1903.
World Conditions that are Affecting China I07
for my own journey around the world, a conservative insurance company, for a consideration of only fifty dollars, guaranteed for a year to indemnify me in case of incapacitating accident to the extent of fifty dollars a week and in case of death to pay my heirs ^10,000. And the company made money on the arrangement, for I met with neither illness nor accident. With a very few unimportant exceptions, there are now no hermit nations, for the remotest lands are within quick and easy reach.
And now electricity has ushered in an era more wondrous still. Trolley cars run through the streets of Seoul and Bangkok. The Empress Dowager of China wires her decrees to the Provincial Governors. Telegraph lines belt the globe, enabling even the provincial journal to print the news of the entire world during the preceding twenty-four hours. We know to-day what occurred yesterday in Tokyo and Beirut, Shanghai and Batanga. The total length of all telegraph lines in the world is 4,908,921 miles, — the nerves of our modern civilization. And it is remarkable not only that Europe has 1,764,790 miles, America 2,516,548 miles and AustraUa 277,479 miles, but that Africa has 99,409 miles and Asia 310,685 miles, Japan alone having, in 1903, 84,000 miles beside 108,000 miles of telephone wires.
I found the telegraph in Siam and Korea, in China and the Philippines, in Burma, India, Arabia, Egypt and Palestine. Camping one night in far Northern Laos after a toilsome ride on elephants, I realized that I was 12,500 miles from home, at as remote a point almost as it would be possible for man to reach. All about was the wilderness, relieved only by the few houses of a small village. But walking into that tiny hamlet, I found at the police station a telephone connecting with the telegraph office at Chieng-mai, so that, though I was on the other side of the planet, I could have sent a telegram to my New York office in a few minutes. Nor was this an ex- ceptional experience, for the telegraph is all over Laos, as in- deed it is over many other Asiatic lands.
io8 New Forces in Old China
From the recesses of Africa comes the report that the Congo telegraph line, which will ultimately stretch across the entire belt of Central Africa, already runs 800 miles up the Congo River from the ocean to Kwamouth, the junction of the Kassai and Congo Rivers. A Belgian paper states that "a telegram dispatched from Kwamouth on January 15th was delivered at Boma half an hour later. For the future, the Kassai is thus placed in direct and rapid communication with the seat of Government, and Europe is also brought close to the centre of Africa. Only a few years ago, news took at least two months to reach Boma from the Kassai, and the reply would not be received under another two months, and this only if the parties were available and the steamer ready to start."
More significant still are the submarine cables which aggre- gate 1,751 in number and over 200,000 miles in length and which annually transmit more than 6,000,000 messages, annihilating the time and distance which formerly separated nations. When King William IV of England died in 1837, the news was thirty-five days in reaching America. But when Queen Victoria passed away January 22, 1901, at 6:30 p. M., the afternoon papers describing the event were being sold in the streets of New York at 3:30 p. m. of the same day ! As I rose to address a union meeting of the English speaking resi- dents of Canton, China, on that fateful September day of 190 1, a message was handed me which read, " President McKinley is dead." So that by means of the submarine cable, that little company of Englishmen and Americans in far-off China bowed in grief and prayer simultaneously with multitudes in the home land.
Not only Europe and America, but Siberia and Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia, Korea and the Kameruns, Laos and Persia are within the sweep of this modern system of intercommunication. The latest as well as one of the most important links in this world system is the Commercial Pacific Cable between Manila and San Francisco.
World Conditions that are Affecting China 109
President Roosevelt gave a significant illustration of the per- fection of this system when, on the completion of the Commercial Pacific Cable July 4, 1903, he flashed a message around the earth in twelve minutes, while a second message sent by Clarence H. Mackay, President of the Pacific Cable Company, made the circuit of the earth in nine minutes.
What additional possibilities are involved in the wireless system of telegraphy we can only conjecture, but it is already apparent that this system has passed the experimental stage and that it is destined to achieve still more amazing results. A startling illustration of its possibilities was given by the Japanese fleet March 22, 1904. A cruiser lay off Port Arthur and by wireless messages enabled battleships, riding safely eight miles away, to bombard fortifications which they could not see and which could not see them.
Commerce has taken swift and massive advantages of these facilities for intercommunication. Its ships whiten every sea. The products of European and American manufacture are flooding the earth. The United States Treasury Bureau of Statistics (1903) estimates that the value of the manufactured articles which enter into the international commerce of the world is four billions of dollars and that of this vast total, the United States furnishes 400,000,000, its foreign trade having increased over 100 per cent, since 1895. While the bulk of the foreign trade of the United States is with Europe, American business men are gradually awaking to the greatness of their opportunity in Asia. A characteristic example of their aggress- iveness was given when President James J. Hill, of the Great Northern Railroad, testified before a Government Commission, October 20, 1902 : —
" We arranged with a line of steamers to connect with our road so that we could get the Oriental outlet. I remember when the Japanese were going to buy rails, I asked them where they were going to buy, and they said in England or Belgium. I asked them to wait until I telegraphed. I wired and made the rates, so that we made the price ^1.50 a ton lower
no New Forces in Old China
and sold for America 40,000 tons of rails. Then I got them to try a little of the American cotton, telling them if it was not satisfactory I would pay for the cotton, and the result was satisfactory."
In these ways, the interrelation of nations is becoming closer and closer, their separation from the world's life more and more dilificult. Dr. Josiah Strong well observes : —
" Until the nineteenth century, there was but little contact between different peoples throughout the world. They were separated, not only by distances hard to overcome, but by differences of speech, of faith, of mental habit and mode of life, of custom and costume, of government and law, and isolation tended steadily to emphasize the divergence which al- ready existed. Thus increasing differences of environment perpetuated and intensified the differences of civilization which they had created. In other words, until the nineteenth century, the stream of tendency down all the ages was towards diversity. Then came the change, the results of which are, in their magnitude and importance, beyond calculation. Steam annihilated nine-tenths of space, and electricity has cancelled the remainder. Isolation is, therefore, becoming impossible, for the world is now a neighbourliood. This means that differences of environment will, from this time on, become constantly less. The swift ships of commerce are mighty shuttles which are weaving the nations together into one great web of life."
IX
THE ECONOMIC REVOLUTION IN ASIA '
t 1 ^HE result of the operation of this commercial force is I an economic revolution of vast proportions. Wher- M ever I went in Asia, I found wider interest in