The Awakening of China Part 3

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CHAPTER VI

PROVINCE OF SHANTUNG

_Kiao-Chao--Visit to Confucius's Tomb--Expedition to the Jews of K'ai-fung-fu--The Grand Ca.n.a.l--Chefoo_

In Shantung the people appear to be much more robust than their neighbours to the south. Wheat and millet rather than rice are their staple food. In their orchards apples, pears and peaches take the place of oranges.

At Kiao-chao (Kiau-Chau) the Germans, who occupied that port in 1897, have built a beautiful town opposite the Island of Tsingtao, presenting a fine model for imitation, which, however, the Chinese are not in haste to copy. They have constructed also a railway from the sea to Tsinan-fu, very nearly bisecting the province. Weihien is destined to become a railroad centre; and several missionary societies are erecting colleges there to teach the people truths that Confucius never knew. More than half a century ago, when a missionary distributed Christian books in that region, the people brought them back saying, "We have the works of our Sage, and they are sufficient for us." Will not the new arts and sciences of the West convince them that their Sage was not omniscient?

In 1866 I earned the honours of a _hadji_ by visiting the tomb of Confucius--a magnificent mausoleum surrounded by his descendants of the seventieth generation, [Page 31]

one of whom in quality of high priest to China's greatest teacher enjoys the rank of a hereditary duke.

On that occasion, I had come up from a visit to the Jews in Honan.

Having profited by a winter vacation to make an expedition to K'ai-fung-fu, I had the intention of pushing on athwart the province to Hankow. The interior, however, as I learned to my intense disappointment, was convulsed with rebellion. No cart driver was willing to venture his neck, his steed, and his vehicle by going in that direction. I accordingly steered for the Mecca of Shantung, and, having paid my respects to the memory of China's greatest sage, struck the Grand Ca.n.a.l and proceeded to Shanghai. From K'ai-fung-fu I had come by land slowly, painfully, and not without danger. From Tsi-ning I drifted down with luxurious ease in a well-appointed house-boat, meditating poetic terms in which to describe the contrast.

The ca.n.a.l deserves the name of "grand" as the wall on the north deserves the name of "great." Memorials of ancient times, they both still stand unrivalled by anything the Western world has to show, if one except the Siberian Railway. The Great Wan is an effete relic no longer of use; and it appears to be satire on human foresight that the Grand Ca.n.a.l should have been built by the very people whom the Great Wall was intended to exclude from China. The ca.n.a.l is as useful to-day as it was six centuries ago, and remains the chief glory of the Mongol dynasty.

Kublai having set up his throne in the north, and completed the conquest of the eighteen provinces, ordered the construction of this magnificent waterway, [Page 32]

which extends 800 miles from Peking to Hangchow and connects with other waterways which put the northern capital in roundabout communication with provinces of the extreme south. His object was to tap the rice-fields of Central China and obtain a food supply which could not be interfered with by those daring sea-robbers, the redoubtable j.a.panese, who had destroyed his fleets and rendered abortive his attempt at conquest. Of the Great Wall, it may be said that the oppression inseparable from its construction hastened the overthrow of the house of its builder. The same is probably true of the Grand Ca.n.a.l. The myriads of unpaid labourers who were drafted by _corvee_ from among the Chinese people subsequently enlisted, they or their children, under the revolutionary banner which expelled the oppressive Mongols.

Another port in this province which we cannot pa.s.s without an admiring glance, is Chefoo (Chifu). On a fine hill rising from the sea wave the flags of several nations; in the harbour is a cl.u.s.ter of islands; and above the settlement another n.o.ble hill rears its head crowned with a temple and groves of trees. On its sides and near the seash.o.r.e are the residences of missionaries. There I have more than once found a refuge from the summer heat, under the hospitable roof of Mrs.

Nevius, the widow of my friend Dr. J. L. Nevius, who, after opening a mission in Hangchow, became one of the pioneers of Shantung. In Chefoo he planted not only a church, but a fruit garden. To the Chinese eye this garden was a striking symbol of what his gospel proposed to effect for the people.

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CHAPTER VII

PROVINCE OF CHIHLI

_Taku--Tientsin--Peking--The Summer Palace--Patachu--Temples of Heaven, Earth, and Agriculture--Foreign Quarter--The Forbidden City--King-Han Railway--Paoting-fu_

Crossing the gulf we reach Taku, at the mouth of the Peiho, and, pa.s.sing the dismantled forts, ascend the river to Tientsin.

In 1858 I spent two months at Taku and Tientsin in connection with the tedious negotiations of that year. At the latter place I became familiar with the dusty road to the treaty temple; and at the former witnessed the capture of the forts by the combined squadrons of Great Britain and France. The next year on the same ground I saw the allied forces repulsed with heavy loss--a defeat avenged by the capture of Peking in 1860.

In the Boxer War the relief force met with formidable opposition at Tientsin. The place has, however, risen with new splendour from its half-ruined condition, and now poses as the princ.i.p.al residence of the most powerful of the viceroys. Connected by the river with the seaboard, by the Grand Ca.n.a.l with several provinces to the south, and by rail with Peking, Hankow and Manchuria, Tientsin commands the chief lines of [Page 34]

communication in northern China. In point of trade it ranks as the third in importance of the treaty ports.

Three hours by rail bring us to the gates of Peking, the northern capital. Formerly it took another hour to get within the city.

Superst.i.tion or suspicion kept the railway station at a distance; now, however, it is at the Great Central Gate. Unlike Nanking, Peking has nothing picturesque or commanding in its location. On the west and north, at a distance of ten to twenty miles, ranges of blue hills form a feature in the landscape. Within these limits the eye rests on nothing but flat fields, interspersed with clumps of trees overshadowing some family cemetery or the grave of some grandee.

Between the city and the hills are the Yuen Ming Yuen, the Emperor's summer palace, burnt in 1860 and still an unsightly ruin, and the Eho Yuen, the summer residence of the Empress Dowager. Enclosing two or three pretty hills and near to a lofty range, the latter occupies a site of rare beauty. It also possesses mountain water in rich abundance. No fewer than twenty-four springs gush from the base of one of its hills, feeding a pretty lake and numberless ca.n.a.ls. Partly destroyed in 1860, this palace was for many years as silent as the halls of Palmyra. I have often wandered through its neglected grounds. Now, every prominent rock is crowned with paG.o.da or pavilion. There are, however, some things which the slave of the lamp is unable to produce even at the command of an empress--there are no venerable oaks or tall pines to lend their majesty to the scene.

Patachu, in the adjacent hills, used to be a favourite [Page 35]

summer resort for the legations and other foreigners before the seaside became accessible by rail. Its name, signifying the "eight great places," denotes that number of Buddhist temples, built one above another in a winding gorge on the hillside. In the highest, called Pearl Grotto, 1,200 feet above the sea, I have found repose for many a summer. I am there now (June, 1906), and there I expect to write the closing chapters of this work. These temples are at my feet; the great city is in full view. To that shrine the emperors sometimes made excursions to obtain a distant prospect of the world.

One of them, Kien Lung, somewhat noted as a poet, has left, inscribed on a rock, a few lines commemorative of his visit:

"Why have I scaled this dizzy height?

Why sought this mountain den?

I tread as on enchanted ground, Unlike the abode of men.

"Beneath my feet my realm I see As in a map unrolled, Above my head a canopy Adorned with clouds of gold."

The capital consists of two parts: the Tartar city, a square of four miles; and the Chinese city, measuring five miles by three.

They are separated by imposing walls with lofty towers, the outer wall being twenty-one miles in circuit. At present the subject people are permitted to mingle freely with their conquerors; but most of the business is done in the Chinese city. Resembling other Chinese towns in its unsavoury condition, this section contains two imperial temples of great sanct.i.ty. One of these, the Temple of Heaven, [Page 36]

has a circular altar of fine white marble with an azure dome in its centre in imitation of the celestial vault. Here the Emperor announces his accession, prays for rain, and offers an ox as a burnt sacrifice at the winter solstice--addressing himself to Shang-ti, the supreme ruler, "by whom kings reign and princes decree justice."

The Temple of Agriculture, which stands at a short distance from that just mentioned, was erected in honour of the first man who cultivated the earth. In Chinese, he has no name, his t.i.tle, Shin-nung signifying the "divine husbandman"--a masculine Ceres. Might we not call the place the Temple of Cain? There the Emperor does honour to husbandry by ploughing a few furrows at the vernal equinox.

His example no doubt tends to encourage and comfort his toiling subjects.

Another temple a.s.sociated with these is that of Mother Earth, the personified consort of Heaven; but it is not in this locality.

The eternal fitness of things requires that it should be outside of the walls and on the north. It has a square altar, because the earth is supposed to have "four corners." "Heaven is round and Earth square," is the first line of a school reader for boys. The Tartar city is laid out with perfect regularity, and its streets and alleys are all of convenient width.

Pa.s.sing from the Chinese city through the Great Central Gate we enter Legation Street, so called because most of the legations are situated on or near it. Architecturally they make no show, being of one story, or at most two stories, in height and hidden [Page 37]

behind high walls. So high and strong are the walls of the British Legation that in the Boxer War of 1900 it served the whole community for a fortress, wherein we sustained a siege of eight weeks. A marble obelisk near the Legation gate commemorates the siege, and a marble gateway on a neighbouring street marks the spot where Baron Ketteler was shot. Since that war a foreign quarter has been marked out, the approaches to which have been partially fortified.

The streets are now greatly improved; ruined buildings have been repaired; and the general appearance of the old city has been altered for the better.

Two more walled enclosures have to be pa.s.sed before we arrive at the palace. One of them forms a protected barrack or camping-ground for the palace guards and other officials attendant on the court. The other is a sacred precinct shielded from vulgar eyes and intrusive feet, and bears the name "Forbidden City." In the year following the flight of the court these palaces were guarded by foreign troops, and were thrown open to foreign visitors.

Marble bridges, bal.u.s.trades, and stairways bewilder a stranger.

Dragons, phoenixes and other imaginary monsters carved on doorways and pillars warn him that he is treading on sacred ground. The ground, though paved with granite, is far from clean; and the costly carvings within remind one of the saying of an Oriental monarch, "The spider taketh hold with her hands and is in kings'

houses." None of the buildings has more than one story, but the throne-rooms and great halls are so lofty as to suggest the dome of a cathedral. The roofs are all covered with tiles of a [Page 38]

yellow hue, a colour which even princes are not permitted to use.

Separated from the palace by a moat and a wall is Prospect Hill, a charming elevation which serves as an imperial garden. On the fall of the city in 1643 the last of the Mings hanged himself there--after having stabbed his daughter, like another Virginius, as a last proof of paternal affection.

From the gate of the Forbidden City to the palace officials high and low must go on foot, unless His Majesty by special favour confers the privilege of riding on horseback, a distinction which is always announced in the _Gazette_ by the statement that His Majesty has "given a horse" to So-and-So. No trolleys are to be seen in the streets, and four-wheeled carriages are rare and recent. Carts, camels, wheel-barrows, and the ubiquitous rickshaw are the means of transport and locomotion. The ca.n.a.ls are open sewers never used for boats.

Not lacking in barbaric splendour, as regards the convenience of living this famous capital will not compare with a country village of the Western world. On the same parallel as Philadelphia, but dryer, hotter, and colder, the climate is so superb that the city, though lacking a system of sanitation, has a remarkably low death-rate.

In 1859 I first entered its gates. In 1863 I came here to reside.

More than any other place on earth it has been to me a home; and here I am not unlikely to close my pilgrimage.

On my first visit, I made use of Byron's lines on Lisbon to express my impressions of Peking. Though there are now some signs of improvement in the city [Page 39]

the quotation can hardly be considered as inapplicable at the present time. Here it is for the convenience of the next traveller:

"...Whoso entereth within this town, That, sheening far, celestial seems to be, Disconsolate will wander up and down, 'Mid many things unsightly to strange ee: For hut and palace show like filthily: The dingy denizens are rear'd in dirt; Ne personage of high or mean degree Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt..."

(_Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto the First_, st. xvii.)

Returning to the station we face about for the south and take tickets for Paoting-fu. We are on the first grand trunk railway of this empire. It might indeed be described as a vertebral column from which iron roads will ere long be extended laterally on either side, like ribs, to support and bind together the huge frame. Undertaken about twelve years ago it has only recently been completed as far as Hankow, about six hundred miles. The last spike in the bridge across the Yellow River was driven in August, 1905, and since that time through trains have been running from the capital to the banks of the Yang-tse Kiang.

This portion has been constructed by a Belgian syndicate, and their task has been admirably performed. I wish I could say as much of the other half (from Hankow to Canton), the contract for which was given to an American company. After a preliminary survey this company did no work, but, under pretext of waiting for tranquil times, watched the fluctuations of the share market. The whole enterprise was eventually [Page 40]

taken over by a native company opposed to foreign ownership--at an advance of 300 per cent. It was a clever deal; but the Americans sacrificed the credit and the influence of their country, and a grand opportunity was lost through cupidity and want of patriotism.

This iron highway is destined in the near future to exert a mighty influence on people and government. It will bring the provinces together and make them feel their unity. It will also insure that communication between the north and the south shall not be interrupted as it might be were it dependent on sea or ca.n.a.l. These advantages must have been so patent as to overcome an inbred hostility to development. Instead of being a danger, these railways are bound to become a source of incalculable strength.