Ningpo to Shanghai in 1857/Ning-kong-jow to Haou-long
Four lé from Ning kong jow, in a Sou' westerly direction, is a village called Pow she hoe The scenery on the road is most pleasing; the high cliffs overhanging the stream giving it the character of the country about the Swiss Lakes. Fishing with cormorants is common here;—the house wives busy with cotton spinning.
About three miles from Pow she ho in a Nor' westerly direction is the Heaven Struck rock, a spot of considerable note among the natives of the district. The path way to it is cut out of solid brown lava like rock,—the hill angling up at about 80° to a height of seven or eight hundred feet. Teen tung gun is the native name of the locality. The stream at this place, though shallow, flows rapidly from the Eastward.
A little to the northward of Teen tung gun is the village of Tching koe with 1,000 families. Good blue Bricks and Tiles are made at Tching koe,—the size of the former, 13 inches by 7 by 2 being quite out of parliamentary standard. They are half burnt as in the south. In building they are placed edgeways—hollows of from three to nine inches being left throughout each wall. This mode of building is the same throughout the province. These bricks are sold at the Kiln at 1600 Cash per thousand, or, according to their cube, somewhat dearer than Bricks in the South. The tiles are two cash each—also dearer then the better burnt Kwang tung tiles.
Nor' west from Tching koe, distant Five lé, is the village of Chong ching with 600 families. On the road to it some of the cultivation is found to be taken up with young firs. These fir sprigs are at first planted in rows four or five inches apart, as many as four thousand being seen in an area of twenty yards by ten. Arrived at the age of three years they are taken up and planted on the hills, sometimes in little crevices over rock where nothing else would thrive. In such a way, the hills may be soon covered for miles, and where they are not so, the ground is under preparation for them. The cultivators and proprietors of these Fir plantations have various ways of disposing of their Crops. The first gain is from the loppings of a certain quantity of the branches,—then, when mature, the whole of the branches are sold; afterwards they make sale of the poles, with or without the bark, and lastly the roots. Men grubbing for roots and preparing the soil for a crop of Maize may be seen on hills of most desperate angle. The maize stumps are not removed, but are left to enrich the soil before firs are again planted, or they are burnt and worms destroyed.
To reach Haoulung the traveller has to retrace the path from Chong ching to Tching koe. At the latter place is a free ferry, a boat and hauling line being provided by the country people for whoever may want them. The stream here though the water is shallow, is of considerable width, and the traveller cannot help noticing how very much ground is lost to the public by the inability to restrain the streams within narrower channels. Rather to want of pecuniary means than to lack of engineering skill, this inability has to be attributed. From Tching ko to Haou loong the distance is 6 miles, almost due South.
Haou loóng within the memory of the oldest inhabitant in 1857 had never been visited by foreigners, and that old gentleman, the oldest inhabitant, one of several of eighty years of age and upwards, was a patriarch of the Clan Tzing;—a clan showing in its ancestral Hall the tablets of twenty generations. The tablets spoken of,—though alike in shape to the tablets usually seen, viz pieces of half-inch durable board, about a foot long and two or three inches wide, with a small stand,—are here painted green and picked with gold; the characters denoting the name of the honoured spirit being also gilt. Of one thousand families in Haou loong seven hundred glory in the name of Tzing.
The tax on land here is 450 Cash per year per mow (6) or, according to the rate of currency, about fourteen Shillings per acre. Neighbouring villages pay 300 cash per mow only,—the villagers having objected, vi et armis, to pay more. But the Tzings are loyal men. One of their clan, in 1856, received the degree of Sutsai. They look upward for the Celestial glance, and, like sycophants all the world over, bear uncomplainingly the burdens their more independent countrymen resist. Four hundred and fifty cash a mow, however, is not so high a rate as is levied in other parts of the province. On a professed annual value of 6,000 cash, ten per cent is known to be taken. (7) That the land tax generally is deemed a trying burden is evidenced by the fact that in many cases, as told of by Dr Medhurst in the account of his visit to Teen muh san in 1854, and by other writers, the landholders require bambooing before it can be got from them; and the unfortunate proprietors hail the advent of a revolution as a means to relieve them from payment of the impost. And with justice, indeed, may the people complain, when, for whatever tax they pay, they see nothing in the shape of return. The Government, to all intents and purposes, is conducted by the people themselves. The laws of society outraged, the offender is taken to the ancestral hall of his clan, or to the nearest monastery. There, the superior of his tribe, if the offender is a native, or the superior elder if a stranger, investigates the complaint, enforces the punishment, and at once ends the matter. The bamboo for infliction of punishment hangs in the Monastery kitchen ready for the culprit. There is no imprisonment—no law's delay. When offences are really serious, as defined by the Ta tsing leu lee (Code of the present dynasty) a messenger is sent to the Yuen or district town with a report, and, if the offenders are several in number, soldiers are despatched to bring them to the Yamun, where the complaint being detailed (the investigation ends with the patriarchs) punishment is inflicted according to the scale. (8)
Whether the incoming Government can amend this system is doubtful, whether they will attempt to alter it, and whether Government generally can or will be conducted at a cheaper rate than the present, are problems, the solution of which remains in the womb of the future. One thing is certain—the mode of obtaining office must be altered. Western writers point to China's system of giving office to men who have distinguished themselves in a literary way as something excellent. The idea, speaking generally, is a fallacy. No matter how excellent a man's ability—the first office can only be obtained by purchase after the literary degree has been conferred;—succeeding steps by the same means;—so that, in reality, he who can extort with the greatest ability is the man most likely to make his way. The present Governor of Hang-chow, a detestor of foreigners, is a remarkable instance of this. Brought up in full view of the machinery of Government at Foo chow fu where his father held an office only a step removed from that of a runner, and barely enabled to compete at the literary examintions by reason of want of qualification, (no child of a runner of a Government office being permitted to present himself for three generations,) he has been able to raise himself,—and no doubt but he is a man of great energy—to his present high position. But these are the men who form the great bars to China's progress. Once in office they extort right and left—the man with the longest purse, so able to buy office and play counter foil, being the only party likely to be satisfied with the system—a system which, throughout, flourishes on its own rottenness.