The hospitals, and the dispensaries attached to them, are too important as a feature of Hangchow, and as an element in producing the remarkable goodwill towards foreigners which characterises it, to be dismissed at the tail of a chapter.

These beneficent institutions treat between them over 14,000 new patients annually, afflicted with all manner of torments. The services of Dr. Main and his coadjutor, Dr. Kimber, are in request among officials, from the highest to the lowest. Mandarins of high rank, attended by their servants, are treated in the paying wards, and occasionally leave donations of 100 dollars in addition to their payments. Officials of every rank in the Chekiang province send to the British doctors for advice and medicines. Among the many marks of the approval with which the Viceroy and other highly-placed officials regard the medical work is their recent donation of an acre and a half of land in an excellent position for the site of a branch hospital. It is no disparagement to the work of Bishop Moule, who was absent during my visit, and the other British and American clerical missionaries, to express the opinion that the tact, bonhomie, and devotion of Dr. Main during the last eighteen years, are one cause of the friendliness to foreigners, the Chinese being as accessible to the influence of personality as other people are.

The subjects of our political and trade relations with China have been so ably and exhaustively treated by Lord Charles Beresford, M.P., and Mr. Colquhoun, and have been threshed out by so many other writers, that in these brief remarks I shall chiefly confine myself to the Chinese people and to my impressions of them, received in fifteen months of journeyings in three of the most important years in modern Chinese history.

I doubt very much whether China is “breaking up.” If she breaks up it will be owing to the policy of the great European nations in making her “lose face,” and thereby weakening the authority of the Central Government over the provinces, local risings and possible disintegrations being the result. The “sphere of influence” policy, if pursued in earnest, would undoubtedly break up the empire.

In the three years in which I was travelling, off and on, in China, the Dragon Throne reeled, but righted itself, and the Government survived the Japanese war, the heavy indemnity, the loss of the suzerainty of Korea, and the aggressions of Russia. It extinguished, in blood, the serious Mohammedan rebellion in Kansuh, and has lately brought about the collapse of the rebellion in Sze Chuan. The bond of union which connects the provinces with each other and with Peking has survived all these mishaps, and if it is broken, I believe it will be by foreign interference, and by the shifting and opportunist policy, enormous ambitions, and ill-concealed rivalries of certain foreign powers.

Before I left Kuan for Chengtu I had decided on extending my journey up the Siao Ho, a western branch of the Min, on which the mountain town of Li-fan Ting is situated, into the mountainous borderland which lies between China proper and Tibet, the country of some of the reputed aboriginal tribes which concurrent rumour said were under the rule of a woman. At Kuan and Chengtu no information could be got regarding the country west of Li-fan, except that Tibetans trading to Kuan said that “everything could be got at Somo,” which appeared to be the residence of the ruler. As there was little use in undertaking such a journey without a more efficient interpreter than Be-dien, Mr. Horsburgh kindly suggested that Mr. Kay, a lay member of the Church Missionary Society, who has a considerable knowledge of colloquial Chinese, should accompany me. I had a hazy intention if things went well of attempting to get down to Ta-lien-lu by the Chin-chuan and Tatu river, returning to the Yangtze by Ya-chow and Chia-ling Fu, but the season was late for this.

When I went to Chengtu I left my travelling arrangements to be made in my absence, simply indicating what they were to be, and that they were to be in writing.

The following day was misty, grey, and grim, and several of its successors were much like it. One of the local names of Sze Chuan is “The Cloudy Province.” Kind, capable Mr. Thompson returned to Wan after giving the coolies various instructions intended for my benefit; and from thenceforth I depended on myself. The great event of the day was the complete change in Be-dien as soon as I was bereft of Europeans. His pride and temper always remained, and were liable to flare up, or die down into a mephitic state of sullenness, but from that morning till I left China he was active and attentive, was never without leave out of hearing of my whistle, was always at hand to help me over slippery and difficult places, showed great pluck, never grumbled, arranged and packed up my things, interpreted carefully, improved daily in English, always contrived to get hot water and food for me, and on the whole made a tolerable travelling servant.

The travelling was without fatigue. I walked when it suited me, and for the rest might have been in an easy-chair in a drawing-room. The chair-bearers were energetic, and their “boss,” a great wag, kept them constantly laughing. Their good-nature never failed. One day when, to relieve them, I walked up a long flight of stairs over a pass, they asked, “Does the foreign woman think we are not strong enough to carry her?”

Two thousand four hundred and fifty-eight Protestant workers (including wives) represent the missionary energies and the many divisions of Christendom. The native Protestant communicants number 80,632.

The shock which China received through her defeat by Japan has produced, among other results, a disposition to make inquiries regarding the God, faith, and learning of those “Western Barbarians” from whom Japan received the art of war. Although hostility to Christianity as a destructive and socially disintegrating power has been recently evidenced by the anti-Christian riots at Kien-ing and elsewhere, the spirit of inquiry gathers volume, and expresses itself in large gatherings in street-chapels and churches, the thronging to mission schools, and the avidity with which Christian literature is purchased. Those who profess themselves ready to abandon heathenism and connect themselves with Christianity are more than the missionaries can instruct. In Manchuria there are six thousand inquirers in connection with the Scotch and Irish missions. In the Fu-kien province the movement towards Christianity is on so extensive a scale as to attract the serious attention of the provincial authorities, as well as emphatic recognition by our own consuls. In one mission alone of the American Board, in another province, the number of inquirers into the Christian religion is estimated at 12,000.

The growing influence of Christianity, however, cannot be measured either by the numbers of communicants or inquirers.

After leaving that quiet place, where the temperature was only 52° at 7.30 a.m., we plunged at once into a wild part of the gorge, very thinly peopled and desolate, on which grim snow-peaks looked down from the head of every lateral cleft. The traffic on the road was altogether Tibetan, partly accounted for by the junction of the road to Mou-Kung Ting, a thousand li away, with the Sung-pan Ting road, which we were following. There were large caravans of very big, powerful mules, loaded either with wool or with medicinal roots, and with a merry inclination to lunge at us with hoofs or teeth as we passed them; the rough, uncouth muleteers always cheerful and friendly as they exchanged with us their national salutation zho.

One man at least in each caravan—every man having charge of four mules—can shoe his own beasts, and I had the luck, in consequence of a mule kicking off his shoe as we passed him, to see that the method is the same as in Western Tibet. They tie the fore and hind legs of the animal together, cast him, put a pole through the lashings, the ends of which are held by two men, and cold shoe him, paring the hoof only very slightly, using very long nails with tacket heads.

The scanty hoar frost lay on the ground at five the next morning, and the sun rose, as he had set, in glory, flooding the canyons with a deluge of amber light. There was a considerable delay before starting, and to the last I feared the wiles of Chinese officialism; but it turned out to be only the usual difficulty of the first start with animals—weighing and adjusting loads and the like. There were three strong, whole-backed, pleasant-faced red mules, and the muleteer was equally pleasant, a Man-tze lama, quite a young man, who proffered hospitality for the next few days among his friends, inns having ceased. The thought of “poisoned feasts” never crossed my mind!

The greater part of the bizarre population of the quaint mountain town escorted us to the gateway. Superb weather favoured our departure. The heat of the sun melted the snows towards midday, adding volume to the thunderous roll of the Siao Ho, above which, after descending to the water's edge, the bridle-track is carried over spurs and abutments of limestone. There is a decided change in the scenery. The river, no longer closely hemmed in by the walls of a tremendous cleft, is broader and stiller; there are shingle banks and stretches of cultivated land, and it cuts its way through the ranges instead of following their clefts.

It was a relief to get out into the open country, though for some time I felt shaken by the two hours' tension of the day before. The drizzle in which I started soon developed into heavy rain, which lasted for nine hours, turning every rivulet into a tawny torrent. It was a very interesting journey even in the downpour. Liang-shan is on the western slope of one among a cluster of ranges, the steep eastern side of which I climbed the day before, and after passing through the town the road dips down into a rolling plain, extending widely in every direction, at that time a great inundated swamp of rice-fields of every size and shape, threaded by a narrow stone road, and abounding in small islands, frequently walled round, on which the large farmhouses stand, screened by bamboo and cypress groves, or temples, ofttimes red, with magnificent trees and priests' dwellings surrounding them.

A background of tall pines, cypresses, and bamboo threw into striking relief a temple of unusual appearance, with a fine canopy roof of glazed green tiles, the front rising from the water, the rest of the “island” enclosed by a wall of imperial red. I reached it by wading a hundred yards in very chilly water, and found a plain, square, open building of red sandstone, surrounded by a broad, stone platform.

Finding that it was impossible for any European to accompany me, I decided to venture on the journey of 300 miles to Paoning Fu alone, and to buy my own experience. The land journey developed into one of about 1200 miles, and was accomplished with one serious mishap and one great disappointment. It was interesting throughout, and taught me much of the ways of the people, and the scenery alone would have repaid me for the hardships, which were many. My greatest difficulty consisted in having to disinter all information about the route and the industries and customs of the people, through the medium of two languages, out of the capacities of persons who neither observed nor thought accurately, nor were accustomed to impart what they knew: who were used to telling lies, and to whom I could furnish no reasons for telling the truth, while they might have several for deceiving me on some points. This digging into obtuseness and cunning is the hardest part of a traveller's day. So far as I could make out before or since my journey, no British traveller or missionary has published an account of the country between Wan Hsien, on the Yangtze, and Kuan Hsien, north of the Chengtu Plain, nor can I find among the very valuable consular reports, to which I cannot too often express my debt, one which has done for this region of Central Sze Chuan what Mr. Litton, of the consular service at Chungking, has lately done so admirably for Northern Sze Chuan.

An hour after leaving the great temples of Ta-miao, with their throngs of pilgrims and the remarkable friendliness of the people, we came upon the walls, gates, and towers of Tze-tung Hsien, the approach to which is denoted by a graceful eleven-storeyed pagoda on a neighbouring hill. I had not been through a large walled city since the riot at Liang-shan, and I had to brace myself up for entering this one, which has a reputed population of 27,000 people. The inhabitants were very orderly however, and though the streets were greatly crowded, the people looked pleasant. The Liang-shan riot is known to all the mandarins, and obviously they have no wish for a repetition of it, and I adhere to my belief that they are in most, if not in all cases, able to prevent attacks on foreigners.

Tze-tung Hsien is a clean and prosperous looking city, with wide streets lined by good shops, in which the goods are more displayed than is usual. It is surrounded with well-cultivated country, and good country houses, and trades in vegetable oils, cottons, and raw and spun silk, some of the strong, coarse “oak silk” being brought in for manufacture. Oil is made from the seeds of the aleurites cordata, rape seed, pea nuts, and opium seed.

The whole country is an undulating sea of green, patterned with red—in truth, rather monotonous for five days of journeying. The mud was abominable all the time, but with straw shoes and grippers I managed to do a good deal of walking. On several days my well-paid chair-men travelled “like gentlemen,” for labour is so abundant and cheap that they found plenty of coolies to carry my chair for forty cash for four miles (about a penny), and even for less! Every house has its opium field, its bamboo and palm groves, fruit trees and cedars, while the Rhus vernicifera, or varnish tree, the Aleurites cordata, or oil tree, and the Cupressus funebris, which it is impossible to avoid calling “the Noah's ark tree,” abound. The cultivation, except the ploughing for rice, is entirely by hand, and is so careful that it is easy to see that most of the indigenous plants have become extinct. Violas, fumitories, and the anemone Japonica, all of which grow profusely, but solely along the margins of the roads, were all that then or later I saw in the Red Basin; in fact, husbandry has made a clean sweep of “weeds.”

The farmhouses in that region are of mud, with thatched roofs, and look poor. Straw plaiting and the making of the very large straw hats which the coolies wear in summer are the great industries.

Unlike Sha-shih, the first view of Ichang, opened to foreign trade in 1887, is very attractive. At low water it stands high on the river bank, on a conglomerate cliff above a great level sandbank, but in summer it loses whatever dignity it gains by height, and is nearly on the river level. A walled city of 35,000 people, gate towers, and temple roofs rise above the battlements and the mass of houses. Between the city and the river is a straggling suburb fairly clean, composed of small retail shops. On the river bank are the buildings and godowns of the Imperial Customs, including the Commissioner's house and large garden, dainty dwellings for the staff of twelve Europeans, and a tennis ground, with a fine bund and broad flight of stone stairs in front. Near these are the large houses of the Scotch Church Mission, and beyond a new plain building put up by the China Inland Mission. The Roman Catholic buildings are the first to attract attention from the water. There are a few foreign hongs and godowns, and a customs pontoon moored in the stream. Behind the British Consulate, a substantial new building with a tennis lawn used for weekly hospitalities, breezy hills, much covered with grave mounds, roll up towards a mountainous region, and below, the Yangtze, with its perpetual rush and current, swirls in a superb flood half a mile wide.

As Moslems regard almsgiving as one of the “gates of heaven,” and practise it to a very remarkable extent, so the Chinese have placed benevolence foremost on the list of the “Five Constant Virtues.” The character which denotes it is said by the learned to be composed of the symbols for man and two, by which is somewhat obscurely indicated, on the principle of the spark being the result of the contact of flint with steel, that benevolence should result from the contact of two human beings.

That this is so in China is not the impression which the facts of daily life produce, and the popular view taken of Chinese character in this country is that it is cruel, brutal, heartless, and absolutely selfish and unconcerned about human misery. Among supporters of foreign missions this opinion would be found nearly universal; and, indeed, I have heard the non-existence of benevolence in the vast non-Christian empire of China brought forward as an argument in favour of such missions. So saturated is our atmosphere with the belief that the only charitable institutions in China are those founded by Protestant and Catholic missionaries, that nothing surprised me more than to find that the reverse is the case. Among the many intelligent and frivolous questions which have been put to me since I returned, the one, “Have the Chinese any charities?” has not been among them.

I was very impatient to be off on my western journey, but after the boat was engaged, the tracking ropes examined by experts at the customs, and my few stores—tea, curry powder, and rice—had been bought, I had four days of “hanging on.” The boatmen made various excuses for delay. One day it was that the lao-pan, or master, had not advanced them money wherewith to buy stores; another was a feast day; a third must be spent in paying debts or they would be detained; and on the fourth they said they must visit certain temples and make offerings for the success of the voyage! The weather was raw, grim, and sunless. I had had a fire day and night in my room at the customs, and a fireless, draughty boat was a shivery prospect, but things usually turn out far better than either prophecies or expectations, and this voyage was no exception.

I was fortunate in being able to take as far as Wan Hsien Mr. Owen Stevenson, of the China Inland Mission, who had had ten years' experience in Yunnan, accompanied by Mr. Hicks, a new arrival; and they engaged the boat for the next stage to Chungking, which gave Mr. S. some little hold on the lao-pan, who was a mean and shifty person, coerced into evil ways by a terrible wife, a virago, whose loud tongue was rarely silent, who had beaten her eldest boy to death a few months before, and of whom the remaining boy—a child of eight—lived in piteous terror, lest he should share the same fate.

The first two days passed uneventfully. I was set down to be stared at seven times a day, but the village people were inoffensive. We passed through rich and cultivated country, with many noble farmhouses with six or eight irregular roofs, handsome, roofed, entrance gates, deep eaves, and many gables of black beams and white plaster, as in Cheshire. Next pine-clothed hills appeared, and then the grand pass of Shen-kia-chao (2900 feet) lifted us above habitation and cultivation into a solitary mountain region of rock, scrub, torrents, and waterfalls. The road ascends the pass by 1140 steps on the edge of a precipice, which is fenced the whole way by granite uprights two feet high, carrying long granite rails eight inches square. Two chairs can pass along the whole length. The pass is grand and savage. There were brigands on the road, and it was patrolled by soldiers, small bodies of whom I met in their stagey uniforms, armed with lances with long pennons and short bows and arrows. These bows need a strong man's strength to string them, and bow-and-arrow drill is a great military exercise. The price of rice had risen considerably, cash was scarce, and as in some parts even of this prosperous province men do little more than keep body and soul together by their labour, even a slight rise means starvation and death, and it is fierce, cruel want which turns men into robbers in China, many of the stouter spirits preferring to prey on their neighbours in this fashion to depending on their charity.