the heat of peking—-the wall by moonlight—tongshan—“your devoted milkman”—the eye of the mistress—a little fort—in case of an outbreak—the temple of the sleeping buddha—a runaway bride—the san shan an—my own temple courtyard—the missing outfit—the language officer—friends in need.
it was david, i think, who said in his haste, that all men are liars, but i suppose he was right, if he meant as he probably did, that at one time or another, we are all of us given to making rash statements. i expect it would be a rash statement to say that peking in the summer is the hottest place in the world, and that the heat of west africa, that much-maligned land, is nothing to it, and yet, even when i think over the matter at my leisure, i know that the heat, for about six weeks, is something very hard to bear. i suspect it is living in a stone house inside the city walls that makes it so hot. could i have slept in the open i might have taken a different view. i slept, or rather i did not sleep, with two windows wide open, and an electric fan going, but, since peking mosquitoes are of the very aggressive order, bred in the imperial canal, the great open drain that runs through the city, it was always necessary to keep the mosquito curtains drawn. if anyone doubts that a house with mosquito-proof 351windows and doors is an airless death-trap, let him try and sleep under mosquito curtains, while hoping for a breath of cool air from the electric fan. fully half the air is cut off, but as the mosquito curtains are raised during the daytime, the air over the bed is renewed daily. in that abomination a mosquito-proof house, it is never renewed.
since it was a choice between little air and plenty of mosquitoes. i chose the shortage of air, and generally went to bed with a deep soup plate full of cold water, and a large sponge. it made the bed decidedly wet, but that was an advantage.
i did not go away because the war had started between the north and the south, and no one knew exactly what was going to happen. to be at the heart of things is often to be too close, wiser eyes than mine saw nothing. once there was a rumour that the southern army would march on peking, and that promised excitement, but in the city itself, though there was martial law, there was no excitement, and the only pleasant thing to do was to go on moonlight evenings and sit on the wall. there was a cool breath of air there, if there was anywhere, and at any rate the moonlight lent it a glamour, and the fireflies, that came out after the rain, gave the added touch that made it fairyland.
but at last the heat was too much even for me, who am not wont to complain of whatever sort of weather is doled out to me, and i accepted the invitation of a friend to stay at tongshan, which is a great railway centre, a place where there is a coal mine, and some large cement works run by capable and efficient germans.
and at tongshan i lived in the house that was 352held for defence during the boxer trouble. the barrier at the gate—the barrier that is at the gate of all chinese houses, to keep off evil spirits, who can only move in a straight line—was so curious that i took a photograph of it, and against the walls that surround the grounds were the look-out places which the railwaymen manned, and from which they kept watch and ward.
i have always liked the feeling of living in a fort—a place where men have helped to make history, but i have observed that it is always the immediate trifle that is to the fore that counts, and my friend's servants were a perpetual joy and delight to me. they used to write her letters. there was one, a touching one, from the milkman i shall remember with joy. a “cunningful” cook had misrepresented him, and he wished to be taken into favour again, and he signed himself distractedly “your devoted milkman.” the cow was brought round so that it might be milked before the eyes of the buyer, and only a chinaman, surely, would have been capable of concealing a bottle of water up his sleeves and letting it run slowly down his arm as he milked, so that the cow was unjustly accused of giving very poor milk. besides, when the cow's character was cleared, who knew from where that water had been taken, and how much dirt it had washed off the arm down which it ran. no pleading took that milkman into favour again, despite the tenderness expressed in his signature. another man had been away, and returning, wished a small job as watchman at six dollars a month, and begging for it by letter, he signed himself fervently “your own ah foo.” but the crowning boy was the no. 1 boy. he was a 353delicious person without intending it. when first my friend engaged him, she acquired at the same time a small dog, and she soon realised that the rigorous chinese winter was hard on dogs, and that ben must have a little coat. the question was how to make the coat. no. 1 boy came to the rescue.
mr ——— at the railway station had a dog, and “marcus,” said the boy, “have two coats.”
“oh well borrow one and copy it,” said his mistress, relieved.
“my tink,” said the boy confidentially, and he sank his voice, “missie bolly, more better not send back.” and he looked at her to see if this wisdom would sink in.
“boy!”
“marcus have two coats,” repeated he reproachfully.
0496
the owner of marcus, on the story being told to him, when the coat was borrowed with every assurance it should be returned, admitted that if occasionally he saw among his accounts a coat for marcus he always paid for it, and supposed the old one had worn out. thinking it over, he thought perhaps he had supplied a friend or two, or more possibly his friends' servants. no. 1 boy made a mistake in taking his mistress into his confidence, instead of charging her for “one piecey dog coat.”
but, of course that is the trouble with missies, as compared with masters, they have such inquiring minds. there was once a man of violent temper who was in the habit of letting off steam on his no. 1 boy. he abused him roundly, and even beat him whenever he felt out of sorts, yet greatly to the surprise of all his friends, the boy put up with him, and made him a very excellent servant. presently he married, and then, much to his surprise, before a month was out the boy, who had been faithful and long-suffering for so long, came and gave notice.
“but why?” asked the astonished man.
“master beat,” said the boy laconically.
“d——n it,” said the man, “i've beaten you a dozen times before. why do you complain now?”
“before time,” explained the boy solemnly, “when master beat, my put down one dollar, sugar, one dollar flour. now missie come, no can. my go.”
he did not mind a beating so long as he could make his master pay for it, but when an inquiring mistress questioned these little items for groceries that she knew had never been used, he gave up the place, he could no longer get even with his master. it was a truly chinese way of looking at things.
these were some of the stories they told me in the house they had fortified against the boxers and held till the ships sent them a guard. and once the sailors came there was no more danger, it was the luckless country people who feared. the older men pitied and understood the situation, but the mischievous young midshipmen took a fearful joy in scaring the problematical enemy.
“who goes there?”
“belong my,” answered the shivering coolie, endeavouring to slip past, and in deadly terror that the pointed rifle would go off. they were ground between two millstones those unfortunate peasants. the boxers harried them, and then the foreigners came and avenged their wrongs on these who had done probably no harm. always it is these helpless serfs who suffer in case of war. other classes may suffer—these are sure to.
they will never hold this house again should necessity arise, for the well that gave them water has gone dry.
of course everyone hopes and says, that the necessity never will arise again but for all that, they are not, the foreign settlers in china, quite as certain of their safety as one would be in a country town in england, for instance. they came in to afternoon tea and tennis, men and women, and they gave all attention to the amusement in hand, a lighthearted, cheerful set of people, and then one little speech and one saw there was another side. there was always the might be. everything was going on as usual, everywhere around were peaceable, subservient people, and yet—and yet terrible things had happened in the past, who could say if they would not happen again. every now and again, not dominating the conversation, but running a subcurrent to it, would come up the topic of the preparations they had made in case of “another outbreak.”
one woman kept a box of clothes at tientsin.
“i wonder you don't,” she said looking at her hostess. “no, my dear, don't you remember yet, i never take sugar. thank you. you ought to think about it, you know. it is really so awkward if one has to rush away in a hurry to find oneself without clothes.”
another woman laughed, and yet she was very much in earnest.
“that's not the first thing to worry about. there, that was vantage to them,” she interpolated, taking an interest in the game of tennis, “that young 356woman's going to make a nice little player. no, what i think is that the place they have chosen to hold is far too far away. want your clothes in tientsin? i'm not at all sure you'll get over that mile and a half from your house in safety, and i've farther still to go, with two little children too. why don't you get your husband to——— oh there they've finished! now have i time for another set?”
“it's after six.”
“good gracious! and baby to bath! i must go. you speak to your husband about another place, my dear. he'll have some influence.”
“no, i wouldn't try to hold any place again,” said my host, thinking of the past, “i should be on the train and off to tientsin at the first hint of danger.”
“but suppose you couldn't get away in time?”
“well, of course, that's possible,” he said thoughtfully, “and the chinese are beggars at pulling up railways.”
i listened, and then i understood how people get used to contemplating a danger that is only possible, and not actually impending.
“if anything happens to yuan shih k'ai,” but then, of course, though that is not only a possible, but even a probable danger, everyone hopes that nothing will happen to yuan shih k'ai, just as if anything did happen to him, they would hope things would not be as bad as they had feared, and if their worst fears were realised, then they would hope that they would be the lucky ones who would not be overwhelmed. this is human nature, at least one side of human nature, the side of human nature that has made of the british a great colonising people. the autumn was coming, the golden, glowing 357autumn of northern china, so, coming back to peking, i determined to find out some place where i could enjoy its beauties and write the book which my publisher expected. most people seem to think that the writing of a book is a mere question of plenty of time, a good pen, paper, and ink. “you press the button, we do the rest,” promises a certain firm that makes cameras; but i do not find either writing or taking photographs quite so simple a matter as all that. to do either, even as well as i can, i want to be by myself, for i am a sociable being, i do love the society of my kind, to talk to them, to exchange ideas with them, and when i am doing that, i cannot give the time and attention it requires to writing. everyone who writes in china, and anyone who writes at all is moved to take pen in hand to try and elucidate its mysteries, wants to write in a temple in the western hills. i was no exception to the rule. the western hills, whose rugged outlines you can see from peking, called me, and i set out to look for a temple. it was going to be easy enough to get one, for “legation” peking goes to the hills in the summer, and when autumn holds the land goes back to the joys of city life.
the first i inspected was the temple of the sleeping buddha, a temple which has many courtyards, and a figure of the buddha, peacefully sleeping. an emblem of peace looks the great bronze figure. he is, of course, represented clothed, only his feet are bare, and the faithful bring him offerings of shoes, rows and rows of shoes there were on a shelf at the side of the temple, some colossal, three or four feet long, and some tiny, some made after the fashion of the ordinary chinese shoe, of silk or 358quilted satin, but some make-believe, and very excellent make-believe, of paper. looking at them i could not have told the difference, and as the buddha's eyes are shut, he could not even go as far as that. he certainly could not put them on, for his feet are pressed closely together, the feet of a profoundly sleeping man. all is peace here. here there is no trouble, no anxiety, that sleeping figure seems to say.
but there was for all that. where in the world is there no trouble?
0504
it takes about three and a half hours to reach the sleeping buddha temple from peking. first i took a rickshaw across the city. then from the northwest gate, the hsi chih men, still by rickshaw, i went to the summer palace, and i did the remaining five miles into the heart of the hills on a donkey. i don't like riding a donkey, five miles on a donkey on an uncomfortable chinese saddle, riding astride, wearies me to death, and when i was just thinking life was no longer worth living i arrived, and wandered into a courtyard where, at the head of some steps, stood a little chinese girl. she was dressed in the usual dress of a girl of the better classes, a coat and trousers, like a man usually wears with us, only the coat had a high collar standing up against her cheeks, and because she was unmarried, she wore her hair simply drawn back from her face and plaited in a long tail down her back, much as an english schoolgirl wears it. she made me a pretty, shy salutation, and called to her friend the englishwoman, who had rented the courtyard, and who was living here while she painted pictures. this lady was returning to peking she said, next day, but she 359very kindly invited me to luncheon, and she told me the chinese girl's story. she was practically in hiding. she had been betrothed, of course, years before to some boy she had never seen, and this year the time had arrived for the carrying out of the contract. but young china is beginning to think it has rights and objects to being disposed of in marriage without even a chance to protest. it would not be much good the boy running away, however much he objected to the matrimonial plans his family had made for him, for he could be married quite easily in his absence, a cock taking his place; but it beats even the chinese to have a marriage without a bride, therefore the girl had run away. the time was past and the contract had not been carried out. poor little girl! it surprised me that so shy and quiet a little girl had found courage to defy authority and run away, even though she had found out that her betrothed was as averse from the marriage as she was. she had unbound her feet, as if to signalise her freedom; but alas, the arch of her foot was broken, and she could never hope to be anything but flat-footed, still that was better than walking with stiff knees, on her heels, as if her legs were a couple of wooden pegs like the majority of her fellow-countrywomen. the woman who was befriending her suggested, as i was taking a temple in the hills, i should give her sanctuary. that was all very well, but the care of a helpless being, like a chinese girl, is rather an undertaking. i consulted a friend who had been in china many years, and he was emphatic on the subject.
“no, no, no. never have anything to do with a woman in china until she is well over forty. you 360don't know the trouble you will let yourself in for. chinese women!” and he held up his hands. so it appears that the secluded life does not make them all that they ought to be.
however, while i was considering the matter, some woman in peking, kinder and less cautious than i, stepped in and the little girl has found an asylum, and is, i am assured by a friend, all right, and better off than hundreds of her people. true she easily might be that, and yet not have attained to much.
i always seem to be talking of the condition of the chinese women, like king charles's head, it comes into everything. after all, the condition and status of half the nation must be always cropping up when one considers the people at all. “chinese women,” said a man, “are past-mistresses in false modesty.” and again i thought what a commentary on a nation. to western eyes how it marks the subjection and the ignorance of the women.
when the first baby is coming, the bride is supposed, though it would be a tragedy beyond all words if she had no children, to be too shy to tell her husband, or even her mother-in-law, so she puts on bracelets, and then the family know that this woman, at least, is about to fulfil her destiny. i hope the little chinese girl i found up in the temple of the sleeping buddha will yet marry, marry someone she chooses herself, will not need to pluck out the front hairs on her forehead, and will be on such terms with her husband, that though she may with pride put on the bracelets, she may rejoice openly that their love is crowned. i do not think there will be any false modesty about her. 361but i did not take a courtyard in the sleeping buddha temple. it was rented by the y.m.c.a. and i think that, combined with the donkey ride, put me off. i felt i would rather go farther afield, farther away from the traces of the foreigner, and i could have my pick of temples in september. i took the san shan an, in another valley, one of the lovely valleys of the world.
the san shan an is only a small temple with a central courtyard and two or three smaller ones, and i agreed to take it for the sum of twenty-eight dollars a month. i engaged a cook and a boy, the boy's english was scanty and the cook had none, but i only paid the two twenty-four dollars a month, six dollars less than the valued tuan had all to himself, and one day in september i saw my household gods on to two carts, went myself by train, and got out at the first station at the western hills.
i had taken the precaution, as i had no chinese, and i did not expect to meet anybody who understood english, to have the name of the temple written out in chinese characters, and descending from the train, after a little trouble i found one among the wondering crowd who could read, and all that crowd, a dirty little crowd, took an interest in my further movements. they immediately supplied me with donkeys and boys to choose from, and i had the greatest difficulty in explaining that i did not want a donkey, all i wanted was a guide. the only one who seemed to grasp it was a very ragged individual who, with basket under his arm, and scoop in hand, was gathering manure. he promptly seized my dispatch-box, all the luggage i carried, and we started, pursued by disappointed boys with donkeys, 362who could not believe that the foreign woman was actually going to walk in the wake of a man who gathered manure. i must confess it was a most humble procession, even in my eyes, who am not accustomed to standing on my dignity. my only sister had given me that dispatch-case as a parting present, and it looked wonderfully rich and cultured in the very grimy hand that grasped it so triumphantly. i should never have had the heart to turn that old man away, he looked so pleased at having got a job. off he went, and we walked for over an hour across a flat and rough country, where the kaoliang had been gathered on to the threshing floors, and all the people this gorgeous hot autumn day were at work there.
a threshing floor in the east makes one think of ruth and boaz, and possibly these people were not unlike those who worked on that threshing floor in judah so long ago, only they were dirty and poor, and not comely as we picture the moabitish beauty. it was hot as we walked, and i grew a little doubtful as we approached the hills—were we going in the right direction.
“san shan erh,” said my guide, and he repeated it, and i grew more doubtful, for i did not know then that these hill people say, “san shan erh” where a more cultivated man would say “san shan an,” it is very pekingese to have many “r's” to roll. he combined business with pleasure, or rather he combined his business, and whenever he came across a patch of manure, he gathered it in, and i waited patiently. at last we came to the entrance of a well-wooded valley, and a well-wooded valley is a precious thing in china, and we went up a roughly 363flagged pathway, flagged, i dare say, a couple of hundred years ago or more, a steep pathway by a graveyard, and between the trees that were just taking on a tinge of autumn gold, we arrived at a plateau built up with stones, and along beneath some trees we entered a gate and came into a square brick paved courtyard surrounded by low, one-storied buildings, and with four pine-trees raising their dark green branches against the deep blue sky. i had seen so many temple courtyards, and now here was one, that for a space, was to be my very own. in china, it seems, the gods always make preparation for taking in guests—at a price.
0510
but was this my temple?
my heart sank, as for a moment i realised what a foolish thing i had done. i had supposed, after my usual fashion, that everything would go smoothly for me, and now at the very outset, things were going wrong, and i knew i was helpless. two men in blue, of the coolie class, old, and very, very dirty, looked at me, and talked unintelligibly to my guide, and he, very intelligibly, demanded his cumshaw, but there was no sign of my possessions.
for the moment i feared, feared greatly, i was entirely alone, what might not happen to me? i might not even have been brought to the right temple, for all i knew. in bridge, when doubtful they say play to win, so i decided i must act as if everything was all right, and i paid my guide his cumshaw, saw him go, and not quite as happy as i should have liked to have been, inspected the temple. there was one big room that i decided would do me for a living-room, if this were really my temple, as it had a sort of little veranda or 364look-out place, which stood out on the cliff side overlooking the place of tombs, and the plain where in the distance, about twelve miles as the crow flies, i could see in the clear atmosphere the walls of peking. they might as well have been a hundred, i thought ruefully, for all the help i was likely to get from that city to-night, if this were not really my temple.
a chinese temple is sparsely furnished. all the rooms had stone floors, all of them opened into the courtyard and not into one another, and for all furniture there were the usual k'angs, two cupboards, three tables, and three uncomfortable chinese chairs. i had hired an easy chair, a lamp, and with my camp outfit i expected to manage. but where was my camp outfit?
i could not understand a word of what the people said, but they seemed friendly, they well might be, i thought, i was entirely at their mercy, and a very dirty old gentleman with claw-like hands, an unshaven head, and the minutest of queues came and contemplated me in a way which was decidedly disconcerting. i went and looked at the gods, dusty and dirty too in their sanctuaries. there was a most musical bell alongside one of them and when i struck it, the clang seemed to emphasise my loneliness and helplessness. could this be the right temple? if it was not where was i to go? there was no means of getting back to peking, short of walking, even then the gates must be shut long before i arrived. as far as i knew, there was no foreigner left in the hills. i went on to the look-out place, and looked out over the plain, and the old man came and looked at me, and i grew more and more uncomfortable. 365tiffin time was long past, afternoon tea time came and went. it had been warm enough in the middle of the day, but the evenings grow chill towards the end of september, and i had only a white muslin gown on. at the very best the prospect of sleeping on one of those cold and stony k'angs did not look inviting. i could have cried as the shadows grew long and the sun set.
and then, oh joy, down beneath me, out on the hill-side, i heard a voice, an unmistakable american voice. i had been terrified, and like a flash my terrors rolled away. i looked over and there were a man and a woman taking an evening stroll, very much at home, for neither of them had on a hat. i forgot in a moment i had been afraid and i hailed them at once.
“is this the san shan an?”
“sure,” said the man as they looked up in surprise.
well, that was a relief anyhow, and i thought how foolish i had been to be afraid. but where were the carts?
the stranger said they ought to have arrived hours ago, and then they bid me good-bye, and i waited once more. i was uncomfortable now—i was no longer afraid. at least not till it grew dark, and then, i must confess, the place seemed to me strangely eerie. the sun was set, the moon was old, and not due till the morning, the faint wind moaned through the pine-branches, and the darkness was full of all sorts of strange, mysterious, unexplainable sounds. it was cold, cold, and the morning and the light were a good eleven hours off.
then, just as i was in the depths of despair, there 366was a commotion in the courtyard, a lantern flashed on the trunks of the pine-trees, and a kindly american voice out of the darkness said:
“i thought i had better come down and see if your outfit had turned up.”
“there is not a sign of it.” i wonder if there was relief in my voice.
“no, so the people here tell me, and they are in rather a way about you.”
so that was why the dirty old gentleman had apparently been stalking me. it had never occurred to me that these people could be troubled about me, this was a new and kindly light on chinese character.
“perhaps you'll come along with me,” went on my new friend. “i've got two ladies staying with me from tientsin, and they'll do the best they can for you for the night.”
bless him, bless him, i could have hugged him. go, of course i went thankfully, and with his lantern, he guided me over the steepest and roughest of mountain paths till we came to his temple, a much bigger one than mine.
“i thought there was no one left in the hills,” i said as we went along.
“i'm going next week,” he said, “but i love this valley. there is only one lovelier in the world—the one i was born in.”
“and where is that?”
“the delaware valley. these people,” he went on, “are mightily relieved to hear i am going to keep you for the night.”
again i thanked him, and indeed he and his friends were friends in need. “and i cannot make them understand like you do,” i said a little futilely. 367"well, i ought to,” he laughed. “i'm the language officer.”
he decided my carts had had time to come from peking and go back again, and they must have gone up the wrong valley, and he and his friends took me in and fed me, and comforted me, so that i was ready to laugh at my woes, and then, just as we were finishing an excellent dinner, there appeared on the terrace, where we were dining, an agitated individual with a guttering candle, my boy, whom i hardly knew by sight yet.
he told a tale of woe and suffering. according to him, the road to jehol must have been nothing to that road from peking to the western hills, and i and my new friends went down to inspect what was left of my outfit. there wasn't much in it that was smashable, and beyond salad oil in the bread and kerosene in the salt, there was not much damage done. i could not understand though how they had come to grief at all, for the loads were certainly light for two carts, and once in the hills, of course, the goods were carried by men. and then the truth dawned on me. it was the way of a chinese servant all over. i had been foolish enough to give my boy the five dollars to pay for the two carts. he had made one do, and pocketed two dollars fifty cents. i asked him if such were not the case.
“yes, sah,” said he, and i wondered, till i found that he always said “yes, sah,” whether he understood me or not. more often than not he did not understand, but that “sah” made me understand he had learned his little english from a countryman of my friend, the language officer.
and after all i think i was glad of the little adventure. i had not realised how eerie a temple would be all by myself at night, and it was good to think that for a night or two at least there would be people of my own colour within a quarter of an hour of me on the hill-side.
