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Updated: June 26, 2025
They could not speak a single word of English. They were to be paid for the journey one 4s. 10d. and the other 5s. 7d. They were to be entitled to no perquisites, were to find themselves on the way, and take their chance of employment on the return journey. They were to lead me into Suifu on the seventh day out from Chungking. All that they undertook to do they did to my complete satisfaction.
M. will give the master 32,500 cash instead; if in thirteen days 31,000, and if in fifteen days 28,000. If all goes well and the master does his duty satisfactorily, Dr. M. will give him 30,000 cash, even if he gets to Chungking in fifteen days. The sum of 14,000 cash is to be advanced to the master before starting; the remainder to be paid on arrival at Chungking.
Three of these attained special importance Ch'u, in the neighbourhood of the present Chungking and Hankow; Wu, near the present Nanking; and Yüeh, near the present Hangchow. In 704 B.C. the feudal prince of Wu proclaimed himself "Wang". "Wang", however was the title of the ruler of the Chou dynasty.
As there is a telegraph line between Yunnan and Tali, the money was forwarded by telegraph and awaited my arrival in Tali. There are no less than four native post-offices between Chungking and Suifu. All the post-offices transmit parcels, as well as letters and bullion, at very moderate charges. Tak-wan-hsien is a town of some importance, and was formerly the seat of the French missionary bishop.
The Mitchell takin can be reached from China, via Chungking, after a long, hard journey, over Consul Mason Mitchell's trail; but the takin is about the only large hoofed game available. The Altai Mountains, of western China, contain the magnificent Siberian argali, the grandfather of all sheep species, whose horns must be seen to be believed.
Gill met coolies carrying logs, 200lbs. in weight, ten miles a day; and 200lbs., the Consul in Chungking told me, is the average weight carried by the cloth-porters between Wanhsien and Chentu, the capital. Mountain coolies, such as the tea-carriers, bear the weight of their burden on their shoulders, carrying it as we do a knapsack, not in the ordinary Chinese way, with a pliant carrying pole.
Leaving the army, C. held for a time a commission in the mounted constabulary of Madras, and now he is a third class assistant tidewaiter in the Imperial Maritime Customs of China, with a salary as low as his spirits are high. Chungking is an open port, which is not an open port.
My two coolies sublet their contracts, and had their loads borne for a fraction of a farthing per mile by coolies returning empty-handed to Suifu. Fu-to-kuan four miles from Chungking is a powerful hill-fort that guards the isthmus where the Yangtse and the Little River come nearly together before encircling Chungking. Set in the face of the cliff is a gigantic image of Buddha.
Where the danger is unusually great a pilot is taken on board, but still it is reckoned that one junk in ten runs aground, and one in twenty is totally wrecked. To go from Hankow to Chungking takes thirty-five days, and to come down in the opposite direction with the stream only nine days. The voyage down the river is much more dangerous, and on this voyage most of the shipwrecks occur.
After passing through the gorge known as Tung-lo-hsia ten miles from Chungking, the laoban tried to attract my attention, calling me from my crib and pointing with his chin up the river repeating "Haikwan one piecee," which I interpreted to mean that there was an outpost of the customs here in charge of one white man; and this proved to be the case.
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