A wandering student in the Far East/Ch'êngtu to Sui Fu
CHAPTER IX.
CH'ÊNGTU TO SUI FU.
I left Ch'êngtu in a rather inferior kuadza on December 17th.[1] The price demanded for the six or seven days' journey down the Min river to Sui Fu at its junction with the Yang-tsze was 90 taels, and the exorbitant sum finally decided upon was 70 taels. The European never seems to have the limitless amount of time at his disposal which the Easterner has, and he is consequently at a hopeless disadvantage when entering upon bargaining operations. As it was, it took me two days of valuable time to reduce the 90 taels demanded to 70. The crew of ten hands received precisely one-tenth of this sum between them, the foreman and helmsman receiving 2000 cash each (4s. 4d.) and the ordinary boatmen 800 cash each (1s. 7d.) for the journey of seven days,—257d. a-day for an able-bodied labourer working from dawn till dark.
By evening on the 18th we tied up at Chang-kou, at the junction of the Ch'êngtu branch of the river and the main stream which comes from Kuan Hsien. This latter place is the headquarters of the vast system of irrigation which gives the Ch'êngtu plain its immense agricultural prosperity, and which dates back over 2000 years. Two Chinese officials, Li the first and Li the second, father and son, are credited with the authorship of this great work, and in their memory two temples stand to this day overlooking the waters which they tamed. "Dig deep the bars; keep low the dykes," is the command given by Li, and carved in stone in the temple standing in his honour; and strange to say, "during the long succession of years since Li's death, through all the changes of dynasties and political turmoils of which Ssŭch'uan has been the scene, we read in the native history of the province that the annual alternate damming of the rivers and the digging out of their beds—which may be seen in operation to-day in the winter season—has never been pretermitted; and this while throughout the empire generally all the great works of old have been ruined by neglect and suffered to fall into irreparable decay."[2]
Early on the morning of the 21st we reached Chia-ting Fu, a considerable town built on a spit of land running out between the Min and Ya rivers, whose waters unite immediately below the city. Cliffs of red sandstone rise steeply from the water's edge, and these are honeycombed with numbers of Man-tzŭ caves, several of which I entered. The cave-dwelling aborigines are despised by the Chinese, who call them Man-tzŭ or wild people. Facing the town a huge Buddha, 304 feet in height, is carved crudely on the cliff, while in dim outline in the distance, looming faintly through the mist, I could just make out the far-famed summit of Mount O-mei, the sacred mountain of Western China.
The town wears an undeniable air of prosperity, and indeed there is said to be much money in the place, many of the rich salt-well owners making it their place of residence. It is also the centre of the white wax industry, and in a large warehouse I saw huge stacks of circular white cakes resembling small millstones. It is used chiefly for candle-making and paper-glazing, though it is also employed in a variety of minor ways—as a coating for medicinal pills, for instance.
Silk is another large industry, and is said to be good and cheap. Large shops open into the streets, in which the weavers may be seen at work. The pay of the workmen is 1 tael cent (25d.) a foot, and a skilful weaver will do 10 feet in the day, earning 4d. in addition to his board. German aniline dyes are used for colouring the silks, and tins of 
A street in Chia-ting Fu.
these were to be seen on sale. Inquiries among the piece-goods merchants elicited the information that there is a larger demand for black Italians than for any other class of the higher quality cotton goods; but I was also told that there was a very considerable demand for a thin striped material of Japanese make. This is much worn in summer and is cheap, a retail merchant only asking me 70 cash a foot, this being also the price of the lowest quality Manchester grey shirting sold.
In one of the busiest parts of the town many new and commodious shops were just being completed. A fire had burned down a whole district during the previous summer, and, surrounded by the new buildings, one site remained a charred and blackened rubbish-heap. It was here that the house in which the fire originated had stood, and a rubbish-heap it would remain, for public opinion—a force far stronger than any law—demanded that this should be so, as penalty for the cause of so much damage.
I left Chia-ting Fu on December 22nd, and, with a strong current behind me, reached Sui Fu early on the afternoon of the 23rd. Here I was welcomed by Mr and Mrs Faers of the China Inland Mission, who entertained me hospitably till I left again on the 26th.
Sui Fu bears an unenviable reputation for crime,—a reputation which, it is to be feared, is only too well founded. The fact that it is situated close to the point of contact of three provinces—Ssŭch'uan, Yün-nan, and Kuei-chow—accounts, no doubt, to some extent for its evil name, since a large proportion of the convictions are for highway robbery. It is the custom of the highwaymen, after committing an offence in one province, to slip across the frontier of one or other of the adjoining provinces, with a view to eluding capture by escaping beyond the jurisdiction of the district in which the crime has been committed. Nevertheless, criminals are brought to book in large numbers, and the magistrate responsible for the administration of the law appeared to be a veritable Judge Jefferies for the severity of his sentences. When calling upon him officially I was kept waiting in my chair at the entrance to the inner courtyard of his yamen. When the gates were flung open, behold a criminal kneeling on the ground with sturdy lictors standing on either side. My arrival happened to have coincided with the administration of 1000 strokes with the bamboo. At the completion of the first 500 blows, execution was stayed pending my audience, which lasted about twenty minutes, and resumed upon my departure.
My interest in Chinese reformatory methods was sufficiently aroused by this glimpse to induce me to pay an unofficial visit to the yamen courtyard on the following morning, and the insight into Chinese magisterial methods which half an hour's inspection gave me, more than repaid me for my trouble. In the street itself, immediately in front of the courtyard gateway, lay two stiff and twisted corpses, scantily clad in rags and tatters,—two hideous distorted human husks, pitchforked out of the adjacent prison just as they had died during the night. Here they would be left during the day in the hopes that some relative might turn up to claim and bury them. In the event of no one evincing any desire to perform this last rite for them, they would be disposed of without further ceremony by the authorities. Next I gazed into a cell known as the "Tiger's Mouth." On the securely barred door giving access to this dungeon is depicted a roaring tiger with jaws distended. The gaping throat does actually consist of a circular hole in the panel, perhaps 10 inches in diameter, which acts as a small window to the cell. Inside this chamber dwelt such prisoners as were condemned to life sentences, and who would consequently only emerge again dead or to die at the hands of the executioner. They appeared to be quite happy and contented, and were engaged in carrying on a lucrative trade with the outside world as pawnbrokers. One inmate of many years' standing was said to be worth many thousands of taels. Beyond the "Tiger's Mouth" was to be seen a motley collection of minor malefactors, clothed in rags and secured with chains, squatting in unsavoury groups on either side of the gateway. Some were chained together in pairs, and were obliged to eat, sleep, and have their being in such proximity to one another as a chain 18 inches in length necessitated. One pair of these artificially constructed Siamese twins I met taking a walk in the courtyard. "How long have you been chained together?" I asked. "Two hundred days," was the reply. But perhaps most pitiful of all were four narrow upright cages of wood, each containing a human victim. Amongst these behold my friend of the day before, who, after receiving 1000 strokes with the bamboo, had been caged up. These cages hang from the gateway arch, so that all who pass by may see and jeer. The lid of the cage is of wood, and closes round the victim's neck, which protrudes through a circular hole, the head thus being left outside the cage. A single narrow rung constitutes the floor of the cage, upon which the wretched inmate is constrained to stand hour after hour for the simple reason that if he did not he must infallibly fall through and break his neck. The particular individual in whom I was interested said that he had stood thus all night, and did not know for how many more days and nights he might have to go on doing so. He was fed by the gaoler, since his hands and arms were inside the cage and his head outside, and communication between the two consequently out of the question. I left appreciating, to some extent, the cheapness of life in China.
An entertainment of a very different sort was provided by the first annual "sports" of the newly established Sui Fu College. From eight in the morning until four in the afternoon a crowd of at least 10,000 onlookers watched and applauded a full programme of keenly contested races. The victors in feats of bodily prowess were the heroes of the day, and this in the heart of a country in which but yesterday the ideal scholar was a literary fossil, with claws on his hands several inches in length, incapable of doing any one thing (except to teach at school) by which he could keep soul and body together.[3] Truly here was a new China with a vengeance.
- ↑ Mr Belt had already left in another direction, and henceforth I travelled alone.
- ↑ 'The Far East,' by Mr Archibald Little. Two papers by Mr Joshua Vale, of the China Inland Mission, deal with these irrigation works in detail. They will be found in the Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. xxxiii. (1901) and vol. xxxvi. (1905).
- ↑ See Dr Smith's 'Chinese Characteristics,' p. 104.