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The animosity occasioned by these inventions that are being so gradually and so surely introduced into every nook and cranny of East and North China is very marked; but on close inspection, and after one has made a study of the subject, one is inclined to feel that it is more or less theoretical. So it is to be hoped it will be in Szech'wan and Far Western China.
Every food crop flourishes in Szech'wan, an inexhaustible supply of products of the Chinese pharmacopoeia enrich the stores and destroy the stomachs of the well-to-do; and with the exception of cotton, all that grows in Eastern China grows better in this great Garden of the Empire. Its area is about that of France, its climate is even superior a land delightfully accidentée.
A memorial arch, erected by the Li family of Chao-t'ong-fu, graces the main road farther on, and is probably one of the best of its kind in Yün-nan, comparing favorably with the best to be found in Szech'wan, where monumental architecture abounds. Perhaps the only building of interest in Chao-t'ong is the ancestral hall of the wealthy family mentioned above, the carving of which is magnificent.
The nature of the country as far as T'an-t'eo, ten li this side of which the Szech'wan border is reached, is not exhausting, although the traveler is offered some rough and wild climbing. The next day's stage, to Lao-wa-t'an, is miserably bad.
Among the minerals found are gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, iron, coal and petroleum; the chief products being opium, white wax, hemp, yellow silk. Szech'wan is a province rich in salt, obtained from artesian borings, some of which extend 2,500 feet below the surface, and from which for centuries the brine has been laboriously raised by antiquated windlass and water buffalo.
Nothing will tend, in this particular part of the country, to turn it upside down and inside out more than the cult of industrialism. Whilst in the end the Empire will profit greatly by the inventions of the Occident, the period of transition in Szech'wan, especially if machines are introduced too rapidly and unwisely, is one that will disturb the peace.
Reckonings do not tally. An eventful day. At the China Inland Mission. Impressions of Sui-fu. Fictitious partnerships. The people of Szech'wan, compared with other Yangtze provinces, must be called a mercenary, if a go-ahead, one. Balancing myself on a three-inch form in a tea-shop at a small town midway between Li-shïh-ch'ang and Luchow, I am endeavoring to take in the scene around me.
As we hear of the New China, so is there a "new people," a people emboldened by the examples of officials in certain areas to show a friendliness towards progress and innovation. They were not friendly a decade ago. It may, perhaps, be said that this "new people" were born after the Boxer troubles, and in Szech'wan they have a large influence.
Opium not grown. Prices of prepared drug in Tong-ch'uan-fu compared. Smuggling from Kwei-chow. Opium and tin of Yün-nan. Remarkable bonfire at Yün-nan-fu. Infanticide at Chao-t'ong. Selling of female children into slavery. Author's horse steps on human skull. Were one uninformed, small observance would be necessary to detect the borderline of Szech'wan and Yün-nan.
This custom is still adhered to among the Nou-su of the independent Lolo territory or more correctly Papu country of Western Szech'wan. The tribesmen who dwell in the neighborhood of Weining and Chao-t'ong have adopted burial as the means of disposing of their dead, adding some customs peculiar to themselves.
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