Three Years in Western China; a narrative of three journeys in Ssǔ-ch'uan, Keui-chow, and Yün-nan ... With an introduction by Archibald Little

Introduction

BY ARCHIBALD LITTLE, F.R.G.S. LONDON : GEORGE PHILIP & SON, 32 FLEET STREET, E.C LIVERPOOL: 45 to 51 SOUTH CASTLE STREET. 1S90.

Preface

. The following pages are intended to present a picture of Western China as the writer saw it in 1882, 1883, and 1884. Chapter VII., in a somewhat modified form, was read at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on the 22nd of February, and published in the Proceedings for June, 1886 ; Chapter XI. was read at the Aberdeen meeting of the British Association in September, 1885 ; and Chapter XII. was addressed to a special meeting of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce on the 12th of May, 1886. The remaining Chapters are now published for the first time, and, if they meet with half the favour bestowed upon the Parliamentary Papers in which the journeys were first, and somewhat roughly, described, the writer will con sider himself amply rewarded for the work which want of leisure has compelled him to neglect so long.

The Author. Wenchoiv, China, September 6, 1889. PAGE CONTENTS. Chapter I. UP THE YANG-TSZE TO WESTERN CHINA. Western China and the interest attaching to it — The way thither — An unsuccessful attempt to reach Ichang — Ichang at last — Difficulties of navigation — Commercial importance of Ichang — My native passenger-boat, opium-smoking skipper, and crew — The navigability of the Upper Yang-tsze by steamers — Dangers and difficulties of the Ching T'an Rapid — Up and down the rapid — The poppy — Ch'ung-k'ing. 1 Chapter II. CH'UNG-K'ING TO THE CAPITAL OP KUEI-CHOW. My overland caravan— Harvesting opium— Field-fishing— Wood-oil — The manufacture of paper — Salt carriers — Silkworms and thenfood — Rice or Pith paper, and its manufacture — The Kuei-chow frontier — Minerals — First meeting with Miao-tzii — Poetical description of Cliinese inns — T'ung-tzii, its poppy valley and tunnelling — Ingenious bamboo water-wheels — Scant population amid ruins of fine houses — Coal-dust as fuel — The AVu Chiang River — Destruction of the iron suspension bridge — Northern Kuei-chow, a Miao-tzii graveyard — Opium-sodden inhabitants — — The capital of the Province — An interview with the Governor of Kuei-chow 14 Chapter III.

WESTWARD TO YUN-NAN. White wax insects — Terrific hailstorm and its effects — Miao-tzii houses and women — An-shun Fu — Limestone cave — Pai-shui waterfall — CONTENTS. VIII PAGE 35 54 Reception at Lang-t'ai T'ing— Lang-wang Mountain and the " Cave of the Spirits "—Caught in a thunderstorm— The pebbly strand of the Mao-k'ou River— Pack-animals and their treatment —The Yiin-nan frontier— A cart at last— Exploring a cave—Under ground rivers — Exceptional courtesy— Goitre— Breeding ground of the Yiin-nan pony— Trade route to Tonquin— Marching knee-deep in mud and water— Poverty of inhabitants— Queen's Birthday dinner in a back yard— Chinese inquisitiveness— The Sung-ming Lake — A local escort — A glorious view — Yiin-nan Fu Chapter IV. THROUGH NORTH-EASTERN YUN-NAN TO THE YANG-TSZE. The city of Yiin-nan Fu — P'u-erh tea — Opium-smoking, chair-bearers, and personal care — Exposure of robbers' heads — Chinese school — Rainbow superstition — Entertainment at Tung-ch'uan Fu — A successful ruse— Stopped by a mountain torrent — Lodged in a byre — On the banks of the Niu-lan River — The Chao-t'ung plain and its lakes — Stories of Lolo bloodshed — Down from the plain — Narrow escape of a porter — Back to Ssu-ch'uan — Descent of the Nan-kuang River — Down the Yang-tsze to Ch'ung-k'ing ...

Chapter V. FROM CH'UNG-K'ING TO THE CAPITAL OF SSU-CH'UAN. Fu-t'ou-kuan — The country and its products — Chinese New Year — Charcoal from bracken — Ramie fibre and grass-cloth — Down a tributary of the T'o — The T'o and its commercial importance — The salt wells of Tzu-liu-ching — Sugar and safflower — The Ch'eng-tu plain — Beggars — The capital of Sssi-ch'uan 70 Chapter VI. THROUGH LOLODOM AND THE VALLEY OF CHIEN-CH'ANG. A Tibetan criminal in a cage — The armed ruffians of Chiung Chou —A floating bamboo bridge— Brick tea for Tibet — Fraternizing with Tibetan pilgrims on the summit of the Flying Dragon Pass — Chinese originality — Over the Ta Hsiang Ling Pass — A non- CONTENTS. IX PAOE Chinese race — Across the Ta-tu River under Sifan protection — In the country of the Lolos — Lolo language — Sifan language — Asbestos cloth — A dangerous country — Lolo rogues — Over the Hsiao Hsiang Ling Pass — Lolo women — The valley of Chien-ch'ang — Ning-yuan Fu 88 Chapter VII.

THROUGH CAINDU TO CARAJAN. Earthquakes — The reception of foreigners at Ning-yuan — The fertility of the Ning-yuan plain — Goitre and the salt supply — Historical hailstorm — A Tibetan caravan — Crossing the Ya-lung River — A riot at Hang-chou — Reception at Yen-yuan and increased protection — Brine wells of Pai-yen-ching — Driven back by mountain barriers — The Yiin-nan frontier — A sight of the Yang-tsze — Results of the Mohammedan rebellion — The Lake of the Black Mist — On the banks of the Golden River — A deserted town — The plague — First glimpse of the snow-capped Tsang-shan — A magnificent view — On the shores of the Erh Hai — Ta-li Fu at last. 112 Chapter VIII. TA-LI FU TO YUN-NAN FU. A view from the walls of Ta-li — The Mohammedan rebellion — A dying patriot's prayer — Tibetan dogs — Amherst pheasants — A visit to the marble quarries — False musk — Min-chia maidens — The Ta-li plain — Playful gusts from the Tsang-shan — Good-bye Ta-li — A folklore hunting ground — The Erh Hai and the Mekong — Trade with Upper Burmah — Canton peddlers — Hsia-kuan, or the "Lower Fortress" — Ruined cities — Wretched roads — Half-starved — The foreigner and the camel — Marked courtesy at Ch'u-hsiung Fu — Yiin-nan salt wells — A sackful of mails — A roadside trial — Across the Yiin-nan lake — Three days in Yiin-nan Fu — Trade with Western China and the introduction of railways. 131 Chapter IX.

THROUGH THE WEST OF KUEI-CHOW TO THE YANG-TSZE. The advantages of scholars en route to Examinations— Highroad converted into a reservoir— Quartered in a chimney— Intolerable inquisitiveness— Travellers, beware of T'ang-t'ang !— The Yiin-nan- CONTENTS. X PAGE Kuei-chow border— Lakes and their drainage— Again among the Miao-tzii— The valley of the Ch'i-hsing River— Bark paper— " Heaven's Bridge" and its mining catastrophe— The copper traffic —Across the Ch'ih-shui River into Ssii-ch'uan— Over the Hsiieh shanPass—A child of nature— A refractory roadside deity— Down the Yung-ning River— A narrow escape— Down the Yang-tsze to Ch'ung-k'ing 147 Chapter X. TO THE WHITE WAX COUNTRY, THE SACRED MOUNT O-MEI, AND THE HIGHEST NAVIGABLE POINT ON THE YANG-TSZE. An unfortunate start — North to Ho Chou— Chinese soy — Varnish and its collection — Young trees from the old — Light-hearted peasants — The garden of Ssii-ch'uan — Otter fishing — Man-tzii caves — A great sugar country — Glimpse of O-mei — Chief silk country in Western China — Ascent of O-mei — Sweet tea of O-mei — The Golden Summit — The Glory of Buddha — Pilgrims and their devotions — O-mei beggars — A difficult descent — Official obstruction — Sick followers — On the banks of the Ta-tu — Man-tzii raids — Down with fever — Guerilla warfare — Hard-up for food — An exhausting march — The welcome Yang-tsze — Its highest navigable point — Down the upper rapids — Death of my horse-boy — Back to Ch'ung-k'ing 161 Chapter XL CHINESE INSECT WHITE WAX.

References to Insect White Wax in Europe and China — Area of production — Chief wax insect producing country — The insect tree —The insect "buffalo" beetle, or parasite — The insect scales — The transport of insects to the wax producing districts — Method of transport — The wax tree — How insects are placed on the wax trees — Wax production — Collection of the wax — An ignominious ending — Insect metamorphosis — Uses of the wax— Quantity and value 189 Chapter XII. THE TRADE OF WESTERN AND SOUTH-WESTERN CHINA. The waterways, trade-routes, condition, and commercial prospects of Yiin-nan— Trade-routes to Kuei-chow and the mineral wealth of CONTENTS. XI PAGE the province — The waterways of Ssii-ch'uan — General trade of Ssii-ch'uan — Foreign trade of Ssii-ch'uan and how it is conducted — The defects in the present system and the remedy — The rapids and the difficulties they present — Advantages to be gained from the opening of Ch'ung-k'ing — The Yang-tsze the only route — Trade bound to the Yang-tsze 202 Chapter XIII.

THE PHO. Non-Chinese races of Western and South-Western China — Imperfect knowledge regarding them — A traveller's difficulties — Pho language approaching extinction — The Miao-tzii rebellion — Relationship of the Miao-tzti tribes — Art among the Pho — Music and dancing — Characteristics of the Pho language — English-Pho Exercises and Vocabulary 224 Note on Opium Cultivation in China and India LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. I. taoist priest from honan at ichang Frontispiece. ii. river yang-tse, five miles below wushan ... facing page & III. ICHANG GORGE : SALT JUNK, PROPELLED BY OARS, MAST BEING UNSHIPPED FOR DOWNWARD VOYAGE „ „ 80 IV. KIHMANG KU YANG (A TRIBE OF THE MIAU TSZ', INHABITING THE DISTRICT OF KWANGSHUN) . . . „ „ 170 (Facsimile of Native Drawing, showing early Cave-Dwellings.) V. MONASTERY ON CONGLOMERATE ROCKS NEAR ICHANG „ „ 210 VI.

RIVER YANG-TSE. MATAN GORGE, NEAR KWEI-CHOW „ „ 214 vii. entrance to niu-kan gorge, foot of kung-ling rapid: junk bound up under sail „ „ 218 YHI. LUKU HEH, OR BLACK MIAU (A TRIBE OF THE MIAU TSZ', INHABITING PACHAI AND TSINGKIANG) ... „ „ 220 (Facsimile of Native Drawing). MAP. SOUTH-WEST CHINA, SHOWING AUTHOR'S ROUTE. At end of the Volume. NOTE TO THE ILLUSTRATIONS. The frontispiece and illustrations facing pp. 80, 210, and 218, have been re produced from photographs by the kind permission of Mrs. Archibald Little. Those facing pp. 8 and 214 are also from photographs lent by Mr. John Thomson, of 70a, Grosvenor Street. The two facsimile reproductions of Native Drawings of the Miau Tsz', or Aboriginal Tribes, are taken from a volume of sketches by a native traveller in the possession of Dr. William Lockhart. The design on the cover represents the sacred Mountain of O-mei, and has been copied from a native drawing belonging to the Author.

INTRODUCTION.

. O Western China has acquired new importance since this book was written, by the elevation of the city of Chungking (or Ch'ung-ch'ing, as the name is now spelt by purists), its commercial metropolis, to the rank of a treaty port. This important advance was effected by a supplementary article to the Chefoo Convention of 1876, entered into by Her Majesty's Minister at Peking and the Chinese Government on the 31st March, 1890. By this latest step, the interesting regions described in Mr. Hosie's travels are now thrown open to direct intercourse with Europe, and the latest information obtainable on the country becomes a necessity to all who would take a share in the development of its trade, or learn to estimate its possibilities. It is only in quite recent years that the veil that formerly overshadowed this remote portion of the Chinese empire has been withdrawn.

Marco Polo had indeed described his travels through Szechuen, which he calls " the province of Sindafu, which still is on the confines of Manzi (Thibet), and the capital city of which is also called Sindafu," and had told the world of its wealth and fertility, but his stories gained no credence

INTRODUCTION.

. XIV for some six hundred years, until their remarkable general accuracy was demonstrated by Colonel Yule in his inimitable edition of the great traveller's record. Even Europeans, who had made their home in China, lived on in ignorance of the Great West. Engaged for the most part in business on the Eastern sea-board, they had no contact or concern with this distant region, and if a rare traveller or missionary alluded to it occasionally, the passing interest left little behind beyond a misty impression of a kind of Rasselas' Happy Valley, shut in by almost impassable mountains, which it would take longer to reach than to make a trip to Europe. The laudable attempt of the Indian Government to open up a trade route from India through Burmah into Western China, first brought this region into popular notice.

By the extinction of the Mohammedan rebellion in Yiin-nan in the winter of the years 1872-3, and the falling into Chinese hands of the Panthay capital, Tali-Fu, on the 19th January, 1873, the way was once more clear. Arrangements were accordingly entered into with the Chinese Government through Her Majesty's Minister in Peking, then Mr., now. Sir Thomas Wade, for the reception in Yiin-nan of a British mission from Burmah. Whereupon the Indian Government despatched an expedition to survey and to open up the old trade route via Bhamo, the town at which the navigation of the Irrawady ceases and the land route begins. Colonel Horace Browne, accompanied by Dr. Anderson and Mr. Ney Elias, with a guard of fifteen Sikhs, sailed from Calcutta for Ban-

INTRODUCTION.

. XV goon on the 21st November, 1874; and on the 15th February, 1875, the expedition started from Tsitkaw, the Burmese frontier town (15 miles from Bhamo) for Manwine, a Shan village, tributary to China, and four marches from Tsitkaw. Mr. Margary, a young interpreter of great promise, and a member of H.M. Consular service in China, had been sent from China to meet the expedition and escort it over the frontier. On the present occasion he rode on in advance, and on the 21st February was treacherously murdered at the instigation (it is be lieved) of the Viceroy, by Le-see-tai, the Military Governor of Momein or Teng-ytieh-ting, a city of Yiin nan proper. On the following clay, at the village of Tsurai, in sight of Manwine, Colonel Browne and his party were surrounded and attacked by a force of several hundred Chinese and Kachins, under the com mand of a nephew of Le-see-tai.

The steadiness of the Sikh guard, aided by the Burmese contingent who were accompanying them to the Chinese frontier, enabled the expedition to ward off the attack, and so saved their heads from going to adorn the walls of Momein in company with that of poor Margary. But the party were compelled to beat a retreat ; and thus, although the Chinese Government had furnished them with Imperial passports and promised every assistance in opening up the route, the undoubtedly wished-for respite from the presence of the dreaded foreigner on their southern frontier was temporarily gained. A year later, Sir Thomas Wade, H.M. Minister, and the Grand Secretary, Li-hung-chang, met at Chefoo, in

INTRODUCTION.

. XVI Northern China, when the " Yiin-nan case," as it was called, was settled by 'the agreement of the Chinese to pay an indemnity on account of the families of the officers and others killed in Yiin-nan, and to make ar rangements " in order to the framing of such regulations ' as will be needed for the conduct of the frontier trade ' between Burmah and Yiin-nan." So far but little progress has been made in the development of this trade, which is generally estimated at a value of £500,000 annually, the principal article of import being raw cotton from Burmah, and opium the staple export. A really great trade can never be carried on over the road from Ta-li Fu to Bhamo as it now is — a footpath only passable by mules and pack-coolies, and on which mounted men are often compelled to dismount and lead their animals a great part of the way.

Looking roughly at the map, nothing appears more promising : the whole distance from Bhamo to Yiin-nan Fu in an "air" line is only 360 miles, but the path covers 967 miles over an Alpine country, with a total ascent of 26,000 feet. The distances are much greater than one would imagine looking at a map on the usual scale awarded to these regions : thus, after reaching Ta-li, the traveller has still 1433 miles (or, in an air-line, 1075) to cover before Ch'ung-k'ing, the veritable metropolis of Western China, is reached. Now that Upper Burmah has come under British rule, the order and progress accompanying it will lead in time to an improvement in the road up to the British boundary, the line of which has still to be deliminated ; and the farther East this is pushed, the better for all concerned.

INTRODUCTION.

. XVII Once over the frontier into China, there is little hope of improvement, at least in our generation. In the beneficent race to reach this region, while we have been talking, the French have been acting. While our successive Ministers in China have been arg-uina year after year with the Peking Government upon how to open up new trade routes to Thibet and to Western China, the French, who had been vainly trying for permission to approach from the South, finally put an end to the fruitless discussions in which they were in volved by seizing the country bodily, and removing it for ever from the utterly incompetent suzerainty of the Chinese. The result is that. the French have won the race : by annexing Tonquin to their Indo-Chinese Em pire, their frontier now marches co-terminous with the Southern boundaries of the Chinese provinces of Kwang si and Yiin-nan, which they are thus enabled to penetrate at the most favourable points.* The Red Biver provides a natural outlet to the sea for the produce of South-West China; the distance from Laokai, on the Yiin-nan frontier, to Hanoi, the new French capital of Tonquin, being under 200 miles.

This stream, better known by its native name of Song-koi, takes its rise in the mountains to the south of Ta-li Fu, in Yiin-nan, and debouches at * While thus praising French wisdom in withdrawing the talent from the "slothful servant," I must point out to readers unacquainted with the East, that wherever other European nations acquire Asiatic territory, among their first cares is an endeavour to keep out British goods by prohibitive taxation, whereas our colonies and dependencies are freely open to " Jew, Turk, infidel, and heretic," all alike : hence our natural and just desire to restrict the extension of French and Eussian influence in Asia as far as we are able. b

INTRODUCTION.

. XVIII Haiphong, in the Gulf of Tonquin, at a distance of about 500 miles from the great neighbouring entrepot of Honcr-kono* ; Hanoi being situated on its banks at a short distance from the embouchure. In July of last year, 1889, the French succeeded in reaching Lao kai, the frontier town situated at the head of navigation, after a journey of eight steaming days from Hanoi. This was in a " sternwheeler," 105 feet long, and more monorues are now building at Hanoi, so as to keep up a regular communication. The French have further succeeded in stipulating for reduced export and import duties on their frontier, so that they have everything in their savour. The Chinese, who might compete with them on their own rivers, notably by the " West River," which runs almost parallel with the Red River entirely through Chinese territory, as well as by the Yang-tsze, which is navigable up to the boundaries of Yiin-nan and Szechuen, do, on the contrary, little to encourage the development of their own resources, while the regulations of the ruling authorities greatly handicap their own trade to the advantage of foreign com petitors.

This " West River " takes its rise in the west of Yiin-nan, flows athwart the two Chinese provinces of Kwang-si and Kwang-tung, washes the walls of the great city of Canton, and enters the sea by the Bocca Tigris, immediately opposite Hong-kong ; it is navigable up to the town of Pe-se, on the Yiin-nan frontier, and would be a great trade artery but for the obstructive policy of the Chinese Government. The West River has far more natural advantages than the

INTRODUCTION.

. XIX Red River, possessing a larger body of water and far less fall in its bed, and hence much easier rapids ; but it is handicapped by the prohibition of steam, and by double duties, as compared with the rival French route. It is further open to the French to improve the navi gability of the Red River by clearing out the more dangerous channels ; while on Chinese rivers, not a stone may be touched nor a bar be dredged. The Chinese authorities allege the opposition of the people whenever improvements in communication ai-e suggested ; but all who have lived in China, and seen the telegraph wire crossing the land, and one steam service after another opened up unresisted know that this is a bogey, raised to cover their not unnatural repugnance to foreign interference with their affairs. o The next important step in obtaining access to Western China, was made in the curiously worded article of the Chefoo Convention quoted above, opening Ch'ung-k'ing conditionally to British trade.

Thus runs the article :— " The British Government will, ' further, be free to send officers to reside at Ch'ung ' king to watch the conditions of British trade in Ssii ' ch'uan (Szechuen). British merchants will not be ' allowed to reside at Ch'ung-k'ing, or to open estab ' lishments or warehouses there, so long as no steamers ' have access to the port. When steamers have suc ' ceeded in ascending the river so far, further arrange ' ments can be taken into consideration." It was under the terms of this article that Mr. Hosie was stationed " three years in Western China," a period which he employed to such good purpose in

INTRODUCTION.

. XX collecting the valuable information given in the present work. Mr. Hosie started from Wuhu (a port on the Yang-tsze, situated about 300 miles above Shanghai) to take up his post in Ch'ung-k'ing at the end of October, 1881. The 300 miles to Hankow were accomplished in one of the fine river steamers of American type that ply on the Lower River in the usual two days, but the 400 miles thence to Ichang occupied no less than eight days, the shoal water in this section of the river having delayed the twin-screw steamer " Y-ling," in which he then proceeded and which was laden to six feet draft, by causing her constantly to ground. He reached Ichang on the 17th December only, where he hired the luxurious native passenger boat known as a "Kwa-tse," for the sum of forty-five pounds sterling, to convey him to his destination, Ch'ung-k'ing, 450 miles farther.

It was from this centre that he set out on his various journeys of exploration, North, South, and West, covering in all a distance of over five thousand miles. His first journey, occupying sixty-eight days in the spring of 1882, led due south from Ch'unar-k'ing through the province of Kwei-chow, the " Chinese Switzerland," and home of the Miao-tse or aborio-inal O inhabitants, now almost exterminated by the Chinese, — to Kuei-yang Fu, the capital, thence westward to Yiin-nan Fu, the metropolis of Yiin-nan, and from there back to Ch'ung-k'ing across the mountains of north eastern Yiin-nan, and down the Nan-kwang river to the Yang-tsze. It was on this journey that Mr. Hosie first met with the white-wax insects, the rearing of which forms, with that of the silkworm, one of the

INTRODUCTION.

. XXI most interesting illustrations of the ingenuity of the Chinese in applying the minute labours of insects to wholesale industrial purposes, and which he so ably describes. His second journey, occupying from February to July 1883, covered a much larger extent of ground, and enabled him to describe a still more interesting region. Setting out from Ch'ung-k'ing in a north-westerly direction, he traversed the celebrated plain of Cheng tu, the one large expanse of level ground in Western China, a plateau situated one thousand feet above sea level, at the foot of the Thibetan mountains, containing an area of 2400 square miles, and a population of about three and a half millions, of which M. v. Richthofen, who visited it in 1872, thus speaks : — " There are few 'regions in China that, if equal areas are compared, can ' rival with the plain of Cheng-tu Fu as regards wealth ' and prosperity, density of population and productive ' power, fertility of climate and perfection of natural ' irrigation ; and there is no other where, at the present ' time, refinement and civilisation are so generally ' diffused among the population."

Thence Mr. Hosie turned south-west past the country of the Lolo, that unique aboriginal tribe de scribed by Francis Gamier and by Colborne Baber* to * Mr. E. Colborne Baber's " Travels and Besearches in Western China," which is in every respect one of the finest books of travel ever written, contains a full description of this interesting people, and of their peculiar writing, which Mr. Baber was so fortunate as to discover. His work, originally buried in the Blue-Book in which it appeared as a report to the Government, was subsequently published by the Eoyal Geographical Society in 1882, as "Supplementary Papers, No. 1," and has hardly attracted that attention from reviewers, and so from the general public, which it most undoubtedly merits.

INTRODUCTION.

. the renowned valley of Chien-ch'ang, which Baber, who visited it in 1877, and Colonel Yule, who has so pains takingly traced each step of the Great Venetian, have identified as Marco Polo's Cain-du, the chief place of birth and early development of the white-wax insect, before he is transported, by running coolies who travel only by night, for his finishing " education " to the prefectural district of Kia-ting, 200 miles to the north-east — -thence past the snow-capped mountains of the Tsang shan, and the "Sun-bridge" across the Gold-dust river (as the Yang-tsze is here called) to Ta-li Fu, the peer less capital of Western Yiin-nan, the Carajan of the great Marco. From this point Mr. Hosie turned his face homewards, and passing east again through Yiin-nan Fu, the eastern capital of the province, and thence north by the valley of the Ch'i-hsing to the navigable Yang-tsze river, he once more reached Ch'ung-k'ing after six months' absence.

Mr. Hosie's third journey was made in the summer of 1884, mainly with a view to collecting information upon the subject of Chinese Insect Wax, for the benefit of the Royal Gardens at Kew. He started on this occasion, passing up the valley of the Kia-ling, the river which, coming from the north, falls into the Yang-tsze under the walls of Ch'ung-k'ing ; the main river, and this, its affluent, combining to form the narrow peninsula upon which the city stands. Three days' march brought him to the mart of Ho-chow, situated at the junction of the Fu river, an affluent that here flows into the Kia-ling from the west, and celebrated for its manufactures of Soy, made from the

INTRODUCTION.

. XXIII Soy bean, large plantations of which exist in the neigh bourhood ; hence through highly cultivated, typical Szechuen luxuriance, to the districts of Kia-ling and O-mei, in which flourish the celebrated white wax trees, — a species of ash known to the Chinese as the Pai-la-shu. From this point he made the ascent of the grand mountain of O-mei, a region entirely de voted to the worship of Buddha, to Avhom the whole mountain is said to have been exclusively dedicated by the pious Emperors of the Tang dynasty, in the eighth century of our era ; the oldest shrine dating as far back as the Chin dynasty, a.d. 265. Descending the pre cipitous slopes of the great O-mei mountain, which towers among the clouds, a vast limestone rock eleven thousand feet high, Mr. Hosie turned south across a poor, mountainous country to the banks of the Golden river, which he descended from a point situated fifty miles above Blakiston's highest.

He and his party suffered considerable hardship on this journey, being all struck down by fever, to which one of them, the native ma-fu or groom, unfortunately succumbed. The result of these extensive explorations is an elaborate monograph on the province of Szechuen, such as has not yet been written of any other of the eighteen provinces into which China proper is divided. It pro vides a mine of information to the traveller and to the merchant, and appears at a most opportune moment, now that, by the establishment of Ch'ung-k'ing as a treaty port, this rich and interesting land is at last officially thrown open to Western enterprise. For many years after the signing of the Chefoo con-

INTRODUCTION.

. XXIV vention, the article relating to the opening of Ch'ung k'ing, which we have quoted above, remained a dead letter, except in so far as it led to the stationing of a British official in Szechuen, with the object of examining into the resources of the country and the consequent possibilities of its trade. No attempt was made to give effect to the peculiar negative clause in the article, which provided that Ch'ung-k'ing should not be opened to British trade as long as no steamers had access to the port. This clause appeared, as its Chinese framers doubtless intended it should do, more as a deterrent than an encouragement to would-be pioneers, and Bri tish merchants resident in Shanghai, the commercial metropolis and head-centre of British trade in China, took little or no interest whatever in it.

For my own part, it was not until the year 1883, when I ventured on a pleasure journey to Ch'ung-k'ing, that, although then resident in Shanghai, and at the various Lower Yang-tsze ports for nearly a quarter of a century, I first formed any conception of the wealth and prosperity of Western China, and of the consequent value to foreign merchants of the concession so grudgingly given by the framers of the Chefoo Convention. The impression made upon me by the wealth, public spirit, and hospitality of the merchants of Ch'ung-k'ing I have described at length, in my volume " Through the Yang-tsze Gorges." After my return, having meanwhile studied the word ing of the Treaty, and basing my application upon the conclusion that two negatives make an affirmative, I applied to our Minister at Peking as to whether I was entitled to take a steamer to Ch'ung-k'ino-, and so fulfil