Gleanings from fifty years in China

Front matter

LIBRARY

ANNEX

JIttiaca, Nita ^atk

Foreword

BY R. S. GUNDRY, C.B.

The death of Mr. Archibald Little, who passed away at Falmouth in the autumn of 1908, after a long period of failing health, will be felt as a loss not only by his friends but by all who are interested in China. For his experience was in some respects unique. A merchant by the accident of career, he was a scholar and a traveller by bent of character and preference. Others have had larger and more successful commercial relations ; others have travelled more extensively ; others have acquired a more profound knowledge of the Chinese language ; others have evinced a keen and S57mpathetic insight into the Chinese mind and turns of thought ; others have recorded their experiences in thoughtful and sympathetic language. Mr. Little's forte was that he possessed all these qualifications in a sufficient degree to make him a capable pioneer, an interesting talker, an instructive writer, and a sympathetic host or guest with educated Chinese. I have said that the bent of his mind and tastes was towards science and travel rather than towards commerce ; and circumstances chanced, perhaps, to confirm the inclination; for he had hardly arrived in China (under engagement as tea-taster to a German firm), in 1859, ere the hindrance to commerce caused by the presence of the T'aip'ings gave him leisure to travel through the region they occupied, extending from the head waters of the Tsientang to the Poyang Lake — a journey which his knowledge of Chinese materially helped him to accomplish. It was perhaps ,'the experience thus gained which encouraged him to vi FOREWORD

start on his own account, in 1862, at the newly opened port of Kiukiang, where he created a successful business which he merged two years later in a new firm, Latimer, Little & Co., which he assisted in founding at Shanghai. This was wound up after a short term ; but he continued in business at Shanghai, in partnership with his brother, Mr. R. W. Little, till circumstances led him, in the early 'eighties, to turn his attention to the Upper Yangtse and Szechuan. Mr. Little's preferred amusement was yachting, and it may have been to some extent inchnation which led him to start (in 1884) a winter service between Hankow and Ichang, in the little steamer Y-ling. Hitherto steamers had run above Hankow only in summer, but Mr. Little's example was promptly followed by the existing lines, one of which — the Shanghai Steam Navigation Company (since bought up and merged in the " China Merchants S. N. Co.") — eventually purchased or chartered the Y-ling.

It was now that the most congenial (to himself) and interesting (to others) portion of Mr. Little's career began. Chungking was not formally opened to foreign trade till 1890, though provision had been made by Sir Thomas Wade in the Chefoo Convention (1876) that British merchants might reside there as soon as steamers gained access to the port. Mr. Little established himself there, however, in 1887, and induced a few friends to join him in buUding a stem-wheel steamer with which he hoped to pioneer the ascent of the rapids. The Ruling was, however, before her time. The Convention which declared Chimgking open provided that traffic should be carried on in Chinese-built boats, and that only when Chinese steamers should convey cargo to Chungking and back might British steamers proceed there on the same footing. The Chinese authorities— - technically justified by this clause — refused to allow ' the experiment, and he was compelled to sell the Kulini ' to the China Merchants S.N. Co., by whom she is, I believe, still run successfully on the lower Yangtse. \

FOREWORD vii

The Treaty of Shimonoseki between China and Japan swept away these restrictions, and Mr. Little — ambitious to be the first to take a British steamer up the rapids — designed and built, entirely out of his own resources, the little steam yacht Lee-chuen, with which (accompanied by Mrs. Little, but acting as his own captain and engineer), he set out from Shanghai in January, 1898, to make the attempt. The Lee-chuen's power was insufficient to enable her to surmount the worst rapids without tracking ; but he got through, and received a cordial welcome on reaching Chungking. The achievement encouraged certain of his friends to join him in building a more powerful steamer, which was manufactured (if we may use the term) in England, but sent out and put together in Shanghai. The Pioneer was a distinct success, but Mr. Little had only made one trip in her, between Ichang and Chungking (A.D. 1900), when the Boxer troubles led to her being taken up by H.M. Government to bring down British subjects who were held to be in jeopardy in the remote regions of the Upper Yangtse ; and how effectually she served the purpose may be judged from the fact that she arrived at Ichang with ninety-seven European and sixty Chinese passengers on board. She was soon after purchased, armed, manned with bluejackets, and is plying still on those waters as H.M. gunboat Kinsha.

It was while engaged in his earher trips on the Upper Yangtse that Mr. Little collected material for the interesting book (published in 1888) entitled Through the Yangtse Gorges, which established his reputation as a graphic and sympathetic writer on China. This was followed some years later (1901) by Mount Omi and Beyond, which introduced us to the little-known region of Szechuan on the Thibetan Border and to a phase of Chinese Ufe, untouched as yet by foreign intercourse, which his linguistic acquirements and experience enabled him to depict with the perception and sense of humour that had delighted his readers in the previous work.

viii FOREWORD

Mrs. Little was his companion also on this journey ; and " Mount Omi " is embellished by excellent photographs taken by her under frequently difl&cult conditions. Mr. Little's magnum opus, however, though like other similar opera less familiarly known than his books of travel, is the descriptive work on the geography and geology of the Far East undertaken in connection with " The Regions of the World " series published at Oxford under the direction of Mr. Mackinder. It is upon this work — written, as he says in the preface, literally in intervals of business, but with the advantages of travel and local observation — that his friends would be content, probably, that his reputation as a scholar should rest. When it was published (in 1905) he was nearing the end of his career, though few who met him during his stay in England at that time would have anticipated that the final visit to China which he was contemplating would so fatally exhaust vitahty which had, it is to be feared, been heavily drawn upon by earher experiences. He returned to England in broken health, in 1907, and retired shortly to Falmouth, in the hope that rest and the mild air of the West country would enable him to resume the active work which he desired. The limit had, however, been passed. He retained hope and interest in affairs till nearly the end, but it was evident in the autumn of 1908, that the end was near ; and it came, on November 5, peacefully as his friends would wish.

He had looked forward, among other projects, to preparing for publication the essays which have been collected in the present volume ; and no one can be more conscious than those who have set themselves to carry out his purpose, how much its execution has suffered from the want of his guidance.

The essays are varied in topic and character, and varied they must have remained ; but he would have been able to avert some repetitions and to impart, perhaps, a certain coherence to chapters dealing with kindred topics and regions. By no one but the author, however.

FOREWORD ix

can such a task be safely undertaken, especially where fuU knowledge and ripe judgment have inspired the original page. There is risk, even in a touch, of marring or distorting the thought ; so the papers have been reprinted practically as he left them — to speak for themselves.

Mrs. Little published separately, a few months ago, a description, written by him at the time, of a journey " Across Yunnan " which came with peculiar appropriateness in view of the recent opening of the French Yunnan-Tongking railway. Here, in the following pages, are further descriptions of the picturesque West country which he made so peculiarly his own — supplemented by reflections on its natural resources and commercial possibiUties, and on the misgovemment which stunts its development and depresses the condition of the people. Peculiarly illustrative, too, of his familiarity with the people and their language, is his essay on the Chinese drama and its instructive value for the people, who subscribe to pay for performances that teach them historical lore from which he derived instruction in turn. Interesting and instructive also, are the hitherto unpublished chapters on Missionaries and Confucianism, which measurably complement each other and bear testimony to his faculty of sympathetic insight.

It is possible that he might, in course of revision, have modified the expression of his views on specific points ; but a recollection of frequent conversations and intimate intercourse during his stay in England in 1905, convinces me that they were broadly unchanged. Nor was a mind that could evolve the poem — ^if it may be so character^ed — written " In a Buddhist Monastery " one likely or liable to change. Inspired by high thought and large tolerance, those lines are the expression, obviously, of a reflective and philosophical mind — a mind which had arrived at conclusions by observation and through knowledge, and singularly qualified, therefore, to compose such a legend — I had almost written epitaph — as the Abbot

X FOREWORD

desired to have inscribed on stone, in his monastery, as a record of their conversation.

There is in it, too, a tinge of the dreaminess which was, to his intimates, a lovable feature — some might call it a weakness — of Archibald Little's character. It is a quality which helped him, no doubt, to ssmipathise with and conciliate the confidence of the Chinese people ; for he comprehended their joys and sorrows and appreciated their good qualities as keenly as he criticises the shortcomings of their rulers. It was this perception — added of course to his familiarity with the language — that opened to him sources of information, in literature and conversation, which enabled him to add so many interesting touches to the descriptions of travel in which he excels.

There is, naturally — the admission may be emphasised — occasional repetition and some little overlapping in papers written independently, at intervals more or less long. But it was more than difficult, as I have already remarked, to eliminate without weakening ; and stress is laid on the fact that each essay — almost each chapter — ^is a separate production, in order to ask that the book be regarded as the collection of " Gleanings " which it professes to be. As such, they will, it is believed, be welcomed by aJl who were interested in his previous writings. For there are, here, the same characteristics of knowledge and perception — the same capacity for insight and sympathetic appreciation that inspired his more finished works — priceless qualifications, rarely combined, for describing a little-known region and, despite much voluminous writing, a little-understood government and people.

Ofiicial recognition and distinctions have often been awarded for achievements and services less than Archibald Little was able to render — for it was the expansion of British trade and the honour of the British name, rather than personal profit, that he kept in view. But he hved and died without any such mark of honour. His friends may in some sense regret the omission ; but no man needed or coveted titles or decorations less.

EDITORIAL NOTE

Archibald Little was a man of marked individuality and force of character. The eldest son of a physician, whose name is still honoured throughout Europe and America for his original work in certain branches of surgery and pathology, he was born in the city of London in 1838. After a few years at Saint Paul's School, he had the good fortune to be rescued from the purely classical education to which all public schools then condemned their scholars, and was sent when fourteen years old to Berlin. There he not only learnt German thoroughly, but also received a sound general education and acquired methodical habits which stood him in good stead all his life.

During the close on fifty years spent in China, varied by frequent visits to England, the following pages were written. The two Plays have not before been published, nor two other chapters, that on Missionaries, and the other largely dealing with the same subject, but entitled Confucianism. Of the others several have appeared in the North-China Herald and other periodicals in China, whilst Western China, Ex Oriente Lux, Two Cities, The Value of Tibet, The Partition of China, The Dangers of the Upper Yangtse, and The Chinese Drama have appeared respectively in the Quarterly and North American Reviews, the Fortnightly, Spectator, Asiatic Quarterly, Geographical Journal and Nineteenth Century. To the Editors of all these periodicals I tender hearty thanks for the permission so cordially given to reproduce them, and for the kind help they afforded me in tracing them. To some it may seem lowering the writer's literary reputation to include the xii EDITORIAL NOTE

earlier papers, Yachting in the Chusan Archipelago and the Retrospect of Events in China for the year 1873, but to this day I have come across no other account of that Archipelago, and the Ughthearted enjoyment of this paper, together with its keen appreciation of the beauties of Nature, made me unwiUing to set it aside ; while the latter article may easily be useful to those compilers of books who seek contemporary light upon past events, shewing also such a determined effort to do the very best for his Society as characterised Archibald Little to the last, when, although already too ill for the effort, he wrote the chapter on Confucianism that concludes the volume, to help a cousin charged with providing a paper on the subject for a clerical society.

Borrowing Boots, the ancient Chinese farce, translated for home acting in 1880, and in later years once performed at the Queen's Hall for the benefit of the Anti-Footbinding Society of China, well illustrates the article written years afterwards for the Nineteenth Century, and both that and the other translation, The Rat's Plaint, originally issued by Mr. Hasegawa, of Tokyo, in a highly illustrated edition on cr^pe paper, cast much light upon Chinese manners and customs, as may also be said of Plot and Counterplot, an attempt at producing an original play in the Chinese style, when his mind was already saturated with Chinese lore. Reviewers may object to the varied nature of the contents of this volume. In truth it was hard to hit upon any subject in which the author was not vividly interested, and thus in the loneliness of life up country in China he would be absorbed first in one subject, then in another ; at one time hoping to estabUsh steam communication with the West of China — which has never ceased since he led the way in his own little steamer, Lee-chuen ; at another discovering a coal mine, and hoping almost to the last to get it worked as a model business and great regenerating centre, where men should be paid for their business work, and, if they could, purify and elevate the people around them ; without

EDITORIAL NOTE xiii

any thought of salaries therefor, as also without any interferences from home Mission Boards — generally quite incapable of appreciating either the conditions of the workers in China or of those worked for.

The writer's life, during the twenty-two years that it was shared by me, was beset with troubles and anxieties ; to some indeed it may seem a long series of disappointments, even of failures. But he was the first to run steamers between Hankow and Ichang in winter, and the first to put a steamer upon the waters of the Upper Yangtse, thus opening out this long stretch of inland navigation and adding immensely to the amenities as also to the safety of residence in the Far West of China ; he discovered, obtained a concession for and worked for a while the best coal-mine in the world after Cardiff, until petty and faithless obstruction on the part of the Chinese Government made it impossible to continue. He would never carry on business in any but the very best articles, and that he succeeded in this was shewn by the constant counterfeiting of his trade mark in later years.

The general anti-footbinding movement of China owed its inception to him. He had grieved over the agonies of footbinding, years before I ever saw China. He inspired and stimulated all my hesitating efforts ; he first suggested my interviewing Chinese Viceroys on the subject, then facilitated the interviews and always readily spared me for any work the movement entailed. Indeed, from the moment I became his wife, he always insisted that I must fear nothing, neither danger nor fatigue, whilst by his side, never finding fault with, but always applauding every humblest effort. Can we any of us do more for one another ?

His books speak for themselves. Future writers may improve upon The Far East, here a little and there a little ; no other man could probably have written the original book when he did, shewing how the history of the Far East had been influenced by its geography and geology as was the method of Mr. Mackinder's Kingdoms xiv EDITORIAL NOTE

of the World series. The Yangtse Gorges is still the standard work upon the subject, and Mount Omi and Beyond one of the most delightful books of travel. If Across Yunnan is less so, it is from missing the author's final touches and additions. They are the full-eared sheaves garnered into volumes. These pages are the gleanings from a long life spent with Chinese among Chinese, a life that to the last he said had been a happy life, nothing to complain of, and very much to enjoy. Even at seventy he retained the hopeful, joyous character of the boy, to the last guileless and unsuspecting, though with the added kindliness of years. The lack of his intellectual and always inspiring companionship has made it all the greater effort to collect these pages and write these few lines.

A. E. N. L.

Contents

' PART I

trade and politics

Western China : its Products and Trade

Part II

travel The Romance of Chinese Travel .

The New Rapid and the arrival of

First Steamer in Chungking The Dangers of the Upper Yangtse Szechuan Revisited Yachting in the Chusan Archipelago Retrospect of Events in China the

134 140

150 171 194

Part III

drama and legend

The Chinese Drama ....

Borrowing Boots ....

216 225 xvi CONTENTS

PART IV religion and philosophy

In a Buddhist Monastery .... 286

Missionaries 289

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Archibald Little Frontispiece

FACE PAGE

Chang Chih-tung 37

The Hua Lo at Michang 59

Peking as a watch tower outside the walls of the

Manchu City 77

Group of Officials at Shasi in Hupeh Province . 103

SZECHUAN ponies SENT DOWN TO TAKE PART IN AN AMATEUR

Circus in Shanghai 126

S.S. Pioneer on her first Voyage .... 141

The First Rapid in the Upper Yangtse . . . 143

A Quiet reach in the Upper Yangtse . . . 147

Officers of the Chinese Police Force . . . 165

Temple at Poo-Too with Bridge and Lotus-Pond . 179

Buddhist Nuns 192

Chinese Actors 220

Prostration before the Boots 236

Literary Official reviewing troops in West China . 256

The Fortification Staff, British Legation, Peking,

1900 .......... 289

Chinese Mandarin on his travels about to step out

OF Sedan Chair 302

GLEANINGS FROM FIFTY YEARS IN CHINA

Part I : Trade and Politics WESTERN CHINA: ITS PRODUCTS AND TRADE

Western China is no longer the terra incognita from which, until quite recently, rare travellers alone lifted the veil at long intervals, to be followed by relapses into absolute seclusion. Since the outbreak of the great Mahometan revolt in 1856, and the subsequent establishment of a Panthay Sultan in Ta-li-fu, up to the present day, public attention has been increasingly directed to this region, until now an extensive literature has grown up around it. Its latent resources and its actual trade not seldom form the theme of economists and newswriters, while the interest felt in the great Chinese race is now so general, that no apology is any longer needed for approaching what was once a recondite subject, and for presenting to the general reader fresh pictures of the varied regions that go to make up the Empire of China. If it cannot be said literally of a lady of fashion of our day, as was said in Juvenal's Rome, —

at least the spirit of enquiry is abroad, and the metropolis of the modem world is as anxious for news from beyond the pale of European civilisation as it is dependent upon these outlying regions for the daily supply of its material wants. China alone rivals the wide British dominion in populousness and in the industry and activity of its inhabitants, And every step that brings us nearer together is deserving of careful record and attention. Progress in this direction is necessarily slow, but so far it has been persistent. We cannot force the ultra-conservatism of the Chinese with a rush ; we must make up our minds to a long siege, and be content to sit down before the walls watching for every opportunity, and not faihng to make the most of each one as it occurs. China holds geographically a position on the Eurasian Continent analogous to that of the United States on the American Continent, while in actual area and in the extent of her natural resources she even exceeds the possibihties of the Great Republic. But her resources lie largely undeveloped, and her means of intercommunication are still lamentably deficient. With continued peace, and a consequent growth of confidence in the goodwill and in the aims of the European nations that now touch her frontiers, and with whom she has only so recently become acquainted, we may expect many changes in advance in the coming generation. What has been done in this respect in the past generation many writers have tried to describe to us. Of the eighteen provinces of China proper, Szechuan is the largest and the finest, and, until quite recently, was that least known to Europeans. Marco Polo was the first traveller who gave any description of Western China to the outside world, but his memoirs lay practically dormant and discredited until resuscitated, only a few years back, in the admirable edition of his travels published by the late Colonel Yule. The story of the adventurous journey of the Abbe Hue and Father Gabet in 1844 across China to Lhassa was the next to tell us of the richness and beauty of this distant land. In 1861, Captain Blakiston, in his attempted expedition from Shanghai to Tibet, traversed the province of Szechuan as far west as Ping-shan, the head of navigation on the Upper Yangtse, and incidentally gave us a peep into the wealth and populousness of the West. The late T. T,

Cooper followed a few years later over the same ground, and, though foiled in his endeavour to get beyond Bathang, he has left us an amusing picture of the people in his Pioneer in Pigtails and Petticoats. The expedition of Margary in 1875 may, however, be said to mark the era of the real commencement of a practical interest in this region, and the rise of a sustained endeavour to render it available as a field for European enterprise. In that year the Indian Government, in a laudable anxiety to open up a trade route through Burmah to South- Western China, despatched an expedition, under Colonel Horace Browne, to proceed via Bhamo to Yunnan-fu.

Margary, an officer in the British Consular service in China, was deputed to meet the expedition from the China side, and to act as its interpreter, and guide it across the frontier. He proceeded through the province of Yunnan in safety, and met Colonel Browne at his halt in the wild Kakhyen country, midway between Bhamo and Ta-li-fu, but on returning to China to announce the advent of the expedition he was foully murdered at a place called Momein or T^ng-yueh-chow, a town situated on the head waters of the Salween, some distance within the Yunnan frontier. The fact of his having been murdered by Chinese soldiers, — stabbed in the back without any quarrel or fracas, — coupled with that of the hostile attack by well-armed Kakhyens and Chinese the following day on Colonel Browne's party, which was only saved from total destruction by the determined stand made by his Sikh guard, leaves little doubt that the Chinese Government instigated the opposition, leaving the local authorities to devise the means. This is an old story in our intercourse with the Chinese. The Central Government, driven into a corner, gives a reluctant assent to the general proposition, and then sets to work to defeat its consequences in detail. And in this case, as in many others, the tortuous policy has succeeded. Although Bhamo has since fallen into our possession by the conquest of Upper Burmah, and the British Indian frontier now marches coterminous with the Chinese, no further steps to improve this route have yet been taken.

The investigation into the facts of Margary's murder was undertaken by Messrs. Grosvenor and Baber, who, in accordance with the agreement entered into by our Minister in Peking with the Chinese Government, were ordered to make inquiries on the spot. This expedition gave us further valuable knowledge of the country in their journals and in the Blue-books which resulted, while leaving Httle doubt that, the murder was the result of an atrocious plot on the part of the Yunnan Viceroy. The demand of our Government for redress ended in a meeting to discuss the matter, held in Chefoo, between Sir Thomas Wade and the trusted counsellor and envoy of the Chinese Government, Li Hung-chang. The representative of the British Government, fortified by the report of the Grosvenor Commission of Enquiry, originally demanded an examination into the conduct of the Yunnan Viceroy, Ts^n Yii-ying, in whose jurisdiction the murder had been committed, but he ultimately yielded to the representations of Li as to the impossibihty of the Chinese Government putting a Viceroy on his trial, and accepted the compromise known as the Chefoo Convention. By this Convention, which was signed at Chefoo in the summer of 1876, the Chinese paid 10,000/. blood money to the relatives of the murdered consular agent, and agreed to open five new ports to foreign trade, of which Pakhoi on the west coast of Kwangtung. Wen-chow in Fu-kien, with Wu-hu and I-chang on the Yangtse river, were opened unconditionsilly. Not one of these ports has, so far, justified by its trade the maintenance of the Consul which its opening to British residents has been held to necessitate. The last concession, and in our opinion the only valuable one of the whole, was the opening of Chungking as soon as it should have been proved accessible to steamers. This most unfortunate " condition precedent " robbed the only real equivalent, offered for our abandonment of the demand that Margary's murderers should be brought to trial, of half its value, while it opened the door to that endless quibbhng in which Chinese diplomatists are past masters.

Such as it was, the convention was signed. The fleet that had been sent north, threatening the Chinese with reprisals should they persist in their refusal to punish Margary's miirderers, was withdrawn, and in due course the new ports were opened. So insignificant are the regions which they serve, that, up to the date of writing these pages, these four new ports combined only give occupation to five resident European merchants, and of these five three are Germans. Little attention was paid to Chungking, the " condition precedent " being considered too onerous and too risky for any prudent merchant to run. In order to be allowed eventually to settle in the port, he must first build a steamer fit to navigate the rapids, then get permission for her to run, and if he succeeded in getting up to Chungking and back without mishap, he would still have to wait an indefinite time for the practical result. For thus ran the wording of this celebrated negatively-worded convention : —

" British merchants will not be allowed to reside in Chungking or to open establishments or warehouses there so long as no steamers have access to the port. When steamers have succeeded in ascending the river so far, further arrangements can be taken into consideration."

But what if he lost his steamer in the first attempt ? The Chinese might easily assert that this fact proved the river not to be navigable, and so endeavour to dispose of the question once for all. Even if, backed up by a minister in Peking, of more energy and determination than falls to the share of the average official, he should succeed in obtaining permission to make a second, or a series of attempts, where was the man of business possessed of the inexhaustible resources that might be needed ? In this way Chungking was forgotten, and the Convention generally regarded as one more of the many sham triumphs of a diplomacy content to rest on the practical successes of a past and more vigorous generation. At length, in 1883, I made a journey up to Chungking, subsequently described in Through the Yangtse Gorges, and was so much impressed with the capabilities of the region that on my return I set to work to get it opened up. A preliminary application for permission for a steamer to run, made at my request to the Tsung-li Yamen by the then British Charge-d'affaires in Peking, Mr, N. R. O'Connor, produced a favourable although somewhat indefinite reply. I felt, however, so far encouraged to proceed that, failing to find the required support in China, I came to England in 1885 in the hope of arousing pubHc interest here. For, strange as it may seem, European residents in China are somewhat sceptical of the benefits derivable from new ports. They are not unnaturally wholly absorbed in their own special business, in which too, as a rule, all their available capital is engaged, A new port in their neighbourhood takes away some business from the old-estabhshed firms at the existing ports, and often compels them in self-defence to incur the expense, risk, and labour of establishing a branch at the rival entrepbt. Although there is indisputable evidence that the general trade between Great Britain, her colonies, and China, besides the profits in the new canying trade thereby opened up to British vessels, is largely increased by the admission of new regions to the rank of a privileged " treaty port " ; yet much of the produce, that formerly came to the old port, may now find its way to the new, while native buyers, if they find their wants supplied nearer home, will cease to make the more distant journey to the original mart. Hence the lack of enthusiasm in progress in China on the part of those supposed to be most interested, which is a surprise at first until we remember how strong is the conservatism of vested interests, with their rooted antipathy to any change that may disturb them.