Ningpo to Shanghai in 1857/Dzing to the Fong-je-ling
From Dzing-yuen to Coong-dong, a village of a hundred families on the top of a hill, the distance is seven le west. The next place reached, N. W. four miles, is Sing-coon-you, a hamlet of 50 families. From the road way, in the centre of a semi-circle of hills, the valley below, in a southerly and westerly direction, is studded with numerous villages and white washed houses, many of them, apparently, the dwellings of the workers among the huge groups of mountains adjacent. Mosen-shee one mile N. W. of Sing-coon-you, lies a little to the left of the road. It is a village said to number over 400 families. Thence to Tsung-jin the course is W. N. W. for about two miles. Tsung-jin, is an extensive village or township of over 3,000 families. Among other curiosities in this quarter, wild cat, fox, and bear skins are obtainable;and in the spring a small fruit of a pleasantly sour flavour, different from any seen in other parts of China. Joss stick and bricks are made here, and much of the native manufactured cloth is dyed.
The bed of a shallow stream running from the north at this place, is over 250 feet in width, and is crossed by a bridge of nine starlinged piers. But though so flourishing a place, the dealers object to giving cash in exchange for foreign dollars;—they say, as is said at nearly all the inland villages, they do not want silver, and would rather lose the sale of their goods than make what they deem such a barter exchange. Some fine elm like trees, called Fung-jee, are to be seen in this quarter;—the aspect of the region being that of a picturesque woodland; interspersed with what foreigners are used to call triumphal arches. These are square stone uprights, with lintels and plinths, intended to commemorate the virtue of some by-gone hero, or heroine. Widows who have lived virtuously are much honoured after their decease by memorials of this kind; indeed the majority of these ornaments appear to have been erected for such a purpose.
Still continuing W. N. W. the road runs over one or two hills on which tea is grown, though not in large quantities, for five miles until the foot of the pass called Shih-meaou-ling is reached. Here, for at least one good day's plodding, the traveller bids adieu to level country, and mounts and descends flights of steps and rugged paths till head and foot are well a-weary. Straw shoes for the Chinese pedestrians are in great demand here. The price of them, with straw wisp sandals, is only ten cash, or under a half-penny a pair. For baggage carriers they are a bad substitute for a shield to the foot, and are apt to cut the toes or create blisters. The women in this quarter, even of the poorest class, wear head ornaments of jade stone set in gold and blue feathers, resembling lockets, in the centre of a tiara of black silk, satin, or common cloth;and though used to working in the fields with the men, are all cramped into the detestible small foot system.
Half a dozen miles beyond the pass is the village of Keu-zhin of 100 families. At this place there is a temple, and two fine arched bridges of cobbled stone. After leaving Keu-zhin the road runs through a rocky glen, with one or two beautiful water falls, to the hamlet of Seang-ming, of 30 families. The distance from Keu-zhin to this place is about a mile and a third N. W.—West again, distant four miles, is the San-moong-ling to reach which, the road, very narrow, skirts the sides of mountains of frightful acclivity, studded from bottom to top with some of the loftiest bamboo trees in the world, here and there, on western sides, over patches of tea trees. It is hardly safe to attempt riding in a chair in this quarter; but in no part of the world can the beauty of the scenery which the traveller passes, until he reaches the hamlet of Shih-chong, be exceeded;the streams in the glens below being of considerable width, winding principally from the N. W. and running, angrily, to the southward, as though they hastened to become the fathers of useful rivers.
Shih-chong numbers some 60 families, all of them engaged in the manufacture of a coarse quality bamboo paper. The bamboos used for this purpose are usually two years old. Split and cut into three foot lengths, they are placed in vats, in some cases covered with lime, and left to soak in water until almost rotten. Some of these bamboo cut tings remain in vat for eight and nine months before using. This, however, is a long period, and one and two months are enough to render the pith of the bamboo fit for the water-power-worked pounding hammer. The process of manufacturing the paper is similar to that in the west. The pulp is thrown into vats which are fed with water through shoots leading from the hill streams, the pulp being taken up on fine bamboo screens. One pair of hands is able to throw off as many as 300 sheets an hour; a pile of 3 feet high, of sheets 2 by 1 foot square, being a fair day's work. The machine for expressing the water from the pile is clumsy enough, but effectual in reducing it to about a fourth of its cube. The drying houses are low buildings with walled ovens in the centre, and fed from the outside. To the exterior of these walls, as they slightly slope in from the base, the sheets are lightly pressed, and left until they dry and drop off, after which they are placed in stack, ready for market. This paper is often used in the lieu of horse-hair or straw for plaster work, and sells for 2,400 cash per pecul of 100 catties. A good deal of paper is made from straw, too, in this quarter, and also farther along on the borders of the River Tsien-tang. The good white paper seen in Shanghae is manufactured at Soo-chow, and, though of better fabric, is dearer than that made in the south.
From Shih-chong, still travelling W. N. W. the road runs through a continuous series of mountain passes; the rocks in some places lying up and down in heaps in admired confusion;—foaming brooks and water-falls adding the highest grace to the all-romantic scenery. Some of the timber cut here resembles the beech for closeness of grain, and would serve admirably for stocks for carriage wheels. In lengths of ten and twelve feet, large stacks of it are to be seen in the streams, of on their banks awaiting transport to a mart. So difficult is it for the charcoal carriers and native travellers in these defiles to obtain food, that they usually carry it, (cold rice and greens,) in small bags, and eat by the way side.
Nieu-koh-san four miles and a third from Shih-chong, is a small hamlet of 20 families; and, still ascending—still ascending—the next place reached, Tan-chay-woo, by a small arched bridge, numbers only three families. At the Ding here, the traveller misses the customary idol; but in place of it finds paintings of gods and goddesses,—red capped and clubbed hunters, and venerable ladies. The Ethnologist travelling through Chekiang finds much subject for working on in the marked tendency of the people to varied forms of worship. In each district there is more or less of superstition of a kind different from that of its neighbour. At one section the dings have small, at others, large idols;—at one, one class of paintings, at another, another class;—and northward, between the provinces of Anwhuy and Kiangsu, both idols and paintings disappear. It is hard for a foreigner to predicate from the disposition of the people in one provincewhat is likely to be expected in the province adjoining. In one district the inhabitants are highly philanthropic, keeping tea ready for the traveller's com fort, with payment to a priest to see that the kettle boils;—in another the tea has to be paid for, but in all the districts we are writing of, there is a laudable spirit of treating each other kindly, and doing for the neighbour what they would have done for themselves.
The broad mountain stream from the west is met at Tan-chay-woo by another stream from the north, following whose left bank the traveller, at two lé distance, arrives at Sun-chay-woo, the location of 2 or 3 families engaged in smelting iron sand;and a little further on is Djing-kong, a hamlet of 30 families, near the foot of a pass called Shang coo-ling. A farinaceous article called Leong-che-kee, is procured from the thin black roots of a fern growing in this quarter. Women and children are the manipulators, by beating the roots, which have an oily smell, on stones by the way side. Tea is grown in some quantity on the tops of the hills here; the ascents rising at an average of four feet in ten.
Descending, the course is about N. N. W. for one mile to the village of Shee-kong, of 150 families, and thence, still descending, trending somewhat to the southward of west for about seven lé, a Ding is arrived at, marking the boundary between the districts of Dzing and Tchi-ki.
So utilitarian are the Chinese in all their productions, that, on viewing the marked difference in the aspect of the foliage on the approach to the Tchi-ki district, the traveller is induced to stop by the descending way to enquire into the character of the massive trees, with ferny branches of a deep olive green not unlike those of the old Yew in England. Trees of this description are cultivated in large numbers and cut into excellent planking.
The Landscape painter, for a picture here, has to exhaust his pallet. The soil, of a red brown, is in parts cut up for planting; in others covered with the yellow flowered brassica before spoken of, or with maize or sedges;—then the limner has the green of wheat, the deeper tinted tea, the gold and silver wreathed bamboo, and the dark olive of the yew tree;—the hills, in some parts, rising perpendicularly from the stream bed below, and continually inducing the lover of nature in its rugged forms, an exclamation of pleasure and surprise.