WE PAY OFF SHUKR ALI—LANCHEO TO CHONG WEI—OFFICIAL INCIVILITY—LOSE RUBY—SHAHZAD MIR MISTAKEN FOR A REBEL.
Soon after daybreak on the 25th October we bade farewell to the missionaries, and, accompanied by Ridley and Rijnhart, made our way to the inn on the far side of the river, from which our carts were to start, and in which our men had slept the previous night. Our baggage was now of the most miscellaneous description, for in addition to the instruments, clothes, and flowers which we had brought with us, there were the curios we had bought, and last, but not least, provisions of bread, meat, vegetables, and butter for a seven days\' journey across a sandy desert country, where little could be bought, the inns providing accommodation, but scarcely anything else.
We were determined not to starve any more, and made due preparations to guard against doing so. To carry these numerous articles, as well as ourselves and our men, we had engaged two carts, each drawn by a mule and a pony. As when hiring baggage mules, so again now a regular contract had to be drawn up and signed by the contracting parties. Our agreement was that each cart was to carry 500 Chinese pounds, equal to 666 English pounds, including passengers, and to land us in Chong Wei on the 31st October. There is also another and bigger sort of cart in this part of China, which carries 1,200 pounds, and is drawn by three animals, but it was not suited to our requirements. 333
THE ONLY WAY TO DRIVE IN NORTH CHINA.
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As usual in making a start, the first day there was considerable delay, and even after everything was ready as far as we were concerned our carters flatly refused to start till another party, consisting of two officials—one military, the other customs-house—who were going to Ning-Shia-Fu, were also prepared to make a move, and this was not till just 11 a.m., some five hours after leaving the mission-house.
Our last care before starting was to pay off Shukr Ali, whom we were sending back to Ladakh via Yarkand. The inn which we were leaving for Chong Wei was also the inn from which the carts make their departure for Yarkand, so we arranged with the innkeeper that he was to keep Shukr Ali until a caravan should be starting, leaving him a sum of money for board and lodging, Ridley, moreover, very kindly promising to see that the innkeeper did not defraud him or delay his departure.
Some months later we heard that Shukr Ali had arrived in Kashgar, where he presented himself to the British Resident, Captain Macartney, and coolly stated that he had been defrauded of a portion of his just dues. He appears, however, to have omitted to mention the fact of his desertion with the remainder of our flour, or any of his many sins of omission and commission by which he had forfeited all claim to any consideration. We did, indeed, send him Rs. 40 in answer to the appeal of the Resident, but with a special request that he should be made to clearly understand that he was in no way entitled to it. I can only hope that this was done. Had it not been for the fact that his behaviour up to the 2nd August was infinitely better than that of the other men, we would certainly never have taken him back into our service.
The usual method of cart travelling in China is to make an early morning start, to halt a couple of hours about midday, and then to go on till sunset, or rather later; but as the animals travel at a walk the whole time, the amount of 336 ground covered is not very great—in fact, if you manage to do forty miles in a day you may congratulate yourself on having done well. Our first day\'s journey was only seventy li, or about twenty-three miles, and then we halted for the night at Shui-Peh-Ho. The following day, during our midday halt, we made the acquaintance of some of our fellow-travellers, after which they generally used to come and converse with us while we were having our meals, and occasionally made themselves very entertaining. The road was dull and uninteresting in the extreme, very rough and very sandy, which made the work uncommonly hard for the animals; scarcely a sign of cultivation anywhere, except just round the small groups of houses occasionally to be seen, which seem to have no raison d\'être, except to supply the wants of destitute travellers, should any come along the road. In some places things are so bad that the unfortunate people have to send several miles for their water, but somehow the advisability of shifting to a more favourable part of the country never seems to strike them.
One day the monotony of our journey was broken by a slight fracas between the carters and ourselves, they having made up their minds to stop for the day at 2 p.m., while we were equally determined that they should go on another fifty li. Halting so early made it quite impossible for them to land us in Chong Wei on the day they had agreed upon, but this did not appear to affect them in the least, and threats of taking them to the Yamen at Chong Wei were equally unavailing, so that I am bound to confess that they fairly beat us, and we remained stuck in a little village for the rest of the day.
On the 31st October, the day our cart journey should have ended, we were woken up at 2 a.m., the carters saying they were in a hurry to start. Nothing loth, we made a hasty breakfast, rolled up our blankets, and made every preparation for departure. Our fellow-travellers moved off, but there were 337 no signs of our carts getting ready, so we went outside to inquire what had happened to them, and were informed that one pony had run away, and that the men had gone in search of it, so there was nothing to do but to return to the inn and await events. Soon tiring of this, I decided to stroll on ahead, never doubting that the others would soon follow me in the carts.
The men had already gone on, so, taking Ruby with me, I set off down the road, which soon developed into a succession of sand hills, with many cart ruts in several places nearly two feet deep—anything but pleasant walking in the dark. It did not take me long to catch up to the men, but by this time I had been deserted by Ruby, the faithful companion of so many days\' travelling. This troubled me little at the time, as I quite made up my mind that, not relishing the keen morning air, she had returned to the inn to put in as much more sleep as possible.
After going about thirteen miles I came to a small village, where I tried to get some bread, but my endeavours being unsuccessful, whether owing to some flaw in my Chinese or not I cannot say, I decided to walk on to the next place. On I went, following the cart tracks, which formed an apology for a road, down the bed of a narrow stream, and between high cliffs, till I at length emerged on the banks of what was undoubtedly our old friend the Yellow River. I knew I could not be mistaken in this, as there is no other river in this part of China with anything like the same volume of water. The tracks led me along the left bank of the river, till they eventually stopped abruptly at the water\'s edge. High above me I could see a track across some forbidding-looking sand hills, but to reach it one had a difficult piece of ground to negotiate which was utterly impracticable for carts. I knew there was no other road by which the carts could go, and, as far as I could see, there was no possibility of their getting any further. It was now about 338 midday. We were all very hungry, and quite at a loss what to do, so, in default of any better plan, I made up my mind to wait where I was till Rijnhart and Malcolm should arrive; so, choosing a shady spot, I lay down, and was soon fast asleep.
It was about 5 p.m. when I woke, refreshed by sleep, but still very hungry, and anxious for the arrival of the carts, which, however, were nowhere to be seen; but just as it was getting dusk, a boat came round a bend of the river, being dragged up the far side by sturdy Chinamen. They went a short distance further up the river than where I was, and then dropped across to my side. This was evidently a ferry-boat, and was in the habit of meeting carts and travellers at intervals during the day, so, feeling sure it was certain to take me somewhere, I got on board with the men, expecting to be ferried across to some village on the far side, which was hidden by the curve of the bank, but to my astonishment we went straight down the river, about half a mile. Here the boat stopped, and out we all got. The boatmen moored the boat for the night, and then started off across some fields. I followed in silence, wondering what the upshot of it all was likely to be. There I was, a stranger in a strange land, destitute of money and food, and quite unable to speak the language, or make myself understood except occasionally by signs. And in this Shahzad Mir, Esau, and Lassoo, were of no help; they were indeed only extra mouths to feed, and no money to do it with. After walking about half a mile we came to a small group of houses, and one of the boatmen, a good sort of fellow, made signs for us to follow him into one of them. Here we found an old lady, evidently his wife, and to our great delight our demands for "momo" (bread) and "tsa" (tea) were promptly complied with. We had indeed fallen upon our feet, for in addition to these luxuries the room was clean and comfortable, but all efforts to make our host and hostess understand that we would like some eggs availed us nothing. Even when we all four sat in a row, each 341 making the noise he imagined was most like a laying hen, our object never dawned upon them, and at last, when it became obvious that they thought this was only our way of enjoying ourselves, we gave up in despair and went to sleep.
ON THE ROAD FROM LANCHEO, CHINA.
Next morning, after more bread and tea, I went out and anxiously looked up the river for signs of the ferry-boat or the carts, but nothing occurred till about midday, when the carters arrived leading their animals, and now, for the first time I really grasped the meaning of the abruptly ending cart road, the steep track over the sand hills, and the ferry-boat. The carts are dragged down as far as possible by the animals, which are then unharnessed, led up the steep cliff and across the sand hills down to the village in which I had passed the night, and in the meanwhile the carts are shipped on to the ferry-boat and brought down until the road again becomes fit for wheeled traffic.
Soon after Rijnhart and Malcolm arrived with the carts in the boat, which this time came right down to the village, but, to my great sorrow, Ruby was not with them, nor had they seen her. It certainly seemed hard that, after travelling so many miles, she should be lost when comparatively near the goal. It appeared that the pony had not returned the previous morning till nearly seven, and that the carters had again struck work and insisted on stopping for the night at the village through which I had passed after my unsuccessful attempt to get bread. They had said that they could not possibly get to the ferry that night, and that, as they had no intention of sleeping in the open, they would go no further.
However, now that we were all united, our first care was to start off the men in the carts for Chong Wei, while we got a raft for ourselves to take us down the river. The whole party was in motion again by 2 p.m., and about half an hour before sunset we got down to our landing place, a sort of coal wharf about two miles from the city of Chong Wei. 342
We had previously agreed with our carters to go to a certain inn in the east suburb, so we made our way there as quickly as possible, expectin............