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The Chung-king Consulate. Need of keeping fit in travelling in China. Walking tabooed. The question of "face" and what it means. Author runs the gauntlet. Carrying coolie's rate of pay. The so-called great paved highways of China, and a few remarks thereon. The garden of China. Magnificence of the scenery of Western China. The tea-shops. The Chinese coolie's thirst and how the author drank.
Chung-king Consulate is probably the finest certainly one of the finest in China, built on a commanding site overlooking the river and the city, with the bungalow part over in the hills. It possesses remarkably fine grounds, has every modern convenience, not the least attractive features being the cement tennis-court and a small polo ground adjoining.
But New China must have this new life. Commerce, science, diplomacy, culture, civilization she will have in ever-increasing measure just in so much as she draws nearer to western peoples. But the new life can come from whence? From within or from without? Luchow, into which I was led just before noon on the fourth day out of Chung-king, is the most populous and richest city on the Upper Yangtze.
Fortunately she was built in water-tight sections; her engineers removed the forward section, straightened out the crumpled plates, riveted them together, and bolted the section back into its place again so well, that on arrival at Chung-king not a trace of the accident was visible. Upon arrival at Kweifu one bids farewell to the Gorges.
A fast overland service to Wan Hsien now exists, by which the coast mails are transmitted between that port and Chung-king in the hitherto unheard-of time of two days a traveler considers himself fortunate if he covers the same distance in eight days. It is creditable to the Chinese Imperial Post Office that a letter posted at Sui-fu will be delivered in Great Britain in a month's time.
I merely lifted the quadruped bodily from my path and walked on. Chung-king people treated us well, and had it not been for their kindness the terrible three days spent still in our wu-pan on the crowded beach would have been more terrible still. At the Consulate we found Mr. Phillips, the Acting-Consul, ready packed up to go down to Shanghai, and Mr.
Some two years later, as I was coming down the river from Chung-king in December, I counted no less than nine wrecks, one boat having on board a cargo for the China Inland Mission authorities of no less than 480 boxes. The contents were spread out on the banks to dry, while the boat was turned upside down and repaired on the spot.
It was here that the Woodlark, one of the magnificent gunboats which patrol the river to safeguard the interests of the Union Jack in this region, came to grief on her maiden trip to Chung-king. One of these strong swirls caught the ship's stern, rendering her rudders useless for the moment, and causing her to sheer broadside into the foaming rapid.
T'ong, laughing derisively, waved fond and fantastic salutations to the disappointed vendor of pigeons, and moved backwards on tiptoe till he could see him no more; then we went noiselessly down a steep incline out into an open space of distracted and dishevelled beauty on our way to Chao-t'ong-fu. From Chung-king I had stuck to the regular stages.
There is, in fact, a real Western flavour about the rivalry of the two Szechuan cities, recalling the relations of Chicago and St Louis. As a purely trading centre Chung-king lacks some of the interest of the capital, but the merchant class, the backbone of China, is well represented here, and is famed for its intelligence and initiative. Through the kindness of Mr.
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