Isabella Lucy Bird

“ People who are not rich enough to have one of their own can hire them for the occasion. In China large families are the rule. If a mother dies, the women of the village suckle and bring up the child between them, and children are not weaned until they are from three to five years of age. Chinese women are very modest and kind-hearted, are faithful wives, and, according to their own notions, good mothers. In Sze Chuan there is no trace of infanticide, but it is practised in many parts of the Empire. ”

“ Mukden is the capital of Manchuria, the Northern Province. In every province of the Empire the God of Literature stands highest in the Chinese Pantheon, and it is interesting to note that the God of War stands low, though in China, as in other countries, we know women are devoted to his worship. In no country of the world does literature stand in such high estimation; by means of it the poorest man may climb to the highest post in the Empire. ”

“ THE GUEST HALL IN A CHINESE HOUSE, WAN HSIEN, SZE CHUAN.
Every good house has its guest hall, and every invited guest knows his place in it. A Chinaman is wretched in a foreign house because he does not know his place in it. Etiquette prescribes everything in China, and no matter who or what the visitor may be, he knows which chair to take. No matter who may be present, he is never disturbed or distressed ”

“ SOUTHERN CHINA.
A MARKET PLACE OR MARKET STREET IN SZE CHUAN. All through the Empire province of Sze Chuan, the western province of the Yangtze Basin, markets are held in the market street, specially reserved for the purpose. On market days the street is crowded by thousands of people, the tea and other shops are overflowing, and the noise and shouts of the bargainers are deafening. The shops are generally owned by farmers in the neighbourhood, who let them for the use of merchants on market day. On other than market days they are like deserted villages. ”

“ This great man has by his teaching dominated the laws, the teaching, the literature, and the whole social life of nearly half the human race for the last two thousand Years. These shrines are absolutely taboo to the foreigner, a fact which was learned by the traveller only after she had entered it and, finding it absolutely empty, had made her photograph. ”

“ In the great fertile plain of Sze Chuan, where four crops a year are taken off the ground, this is an enormous industry. The Chinese cannot afford any waste; everything must go back to the ground. We seek to get over the deterioration of the land by changing the crops. In China the same crops have been grown on the land for a thousand years, and it shows no signs of deterioration. ”

“ It is easy to understand that, under such conditions, the almost universal mode of passenger transit is by chairs and bearers. The narrowness of the paths is a source of trouble. When two parties of bearers approach each other, there is much shouting to induce one or other to return and make way; but when both come on, one has to get off, or be pushed off, into the swamp by the sides. When one is a foreigner his portion is invariably the swamp. ”

“ One enters almost every town or village, when travelling by water, under a bridge of one arch, which may be anything from fifteen to thirty feet high and of a most graceful form. These bridges are constructed of blocks of granite cut to the curve of the bridge, and a flight of steps leads to the crown of the arch. ”

“ The idea of the Chinaman and the Chinawoman is that the foreigner is a child-eater, that no children are safe within his reach, that he kills children that he may take their eyes and hearts to make into his medicines. ”

“ IN SZE CHUAN.
THE COBBLER.
A VERY important personage in China. He deals, however, with men's shoes only. The women wear tiny satin or brocaded things which they mostly make and mend themselves. They are from two to three inches long, and with hard-working women in the fields the feet never extend four inches. The Chinese practice of binding the feet of girls is very old. It is, of course, only a fashion, but it has the sanction of great antiquity. A girl with her feet the normal shape would stand no chance of getting married. ”

“ They will carry a traveller from twenty to twenty-five miles a day. When a lady occupies the chair the curtains are rigidly closed. It would be at the risk of her life to travel in an open chair. There is much etiquette connected with the getting in and out of chairs, which wise travellers never neglect. The photograph is of a lady's chair.
CARRIAGE BY BEARERS. A TRAVELLER ARRIVING AT AN INN IN MANCHURIA. There are various ways of carrying a traveller's baggage. Sometimes it is slung in the centre of bars and carried as the traveller's own chair is carried. ”

“ It is the resort of mandarins and people of the upper classes. Women are never seen at the tea houses. They are patronised by men only. Women, indeed, are very little seen in public at all. The absence of the female element is a marked feature in Chinese life.
THE ZIG-ZAG BRIDGE
OF SHANGHAI.
THE GARDEN OF THE GUILD OF BENEVOLENCE, CHUNG KING.
China is the country of guilds. All workmen and traders have their guilds. To this rule there are but two exceptions—the water-carriers and the trackers (men who drag the boats up the rapids) ; these alone have no trade organisation. ”

“ Nothing so helps a man to a career as a knowledge of the literature of his country.Reverence for it has become a superstition, and societies exist for collecting waste paper and saving any writing from indignity by burning it in furnaces erected for the purpose in every town. ”

“ They are erections put up to honour widows who, faithful to the memory of their husbands, have remained widows, devoting themselves to good works and to the service of their parents-in-law, which is the great duty of every good wife. Permission of the Emperor has to be obtained for their erection. The various towns and villages take pride in their "widows' arches." It is not uncommon to find a shrine for the burning of incense beside the arch. ”

“ The Chinese eat an enormous number of things which the Western turns from, or which he doesn't know of. As a rule the Chinese are good cooks, and the food is wholesome, steaming being the favourite method. Rice is the staff oIlife to the masses, who eat it mixed with fried cabbage or some other flavouring ingredient. It is seldom eaten alone. So common and universal is rice eating that, while in French the equivalent of "How do you do?" ”

“ No one can tell how it has arisen, for though one can understand that the attempts of Western nations to force open the ports of the country, and the seizure of territory by certain of them, and perhaps the advent of the missionaries, are causes enough to provoke opposition and hatred, they do not account for its ferocity. ”

“ At the first, both local and government officials did their best to stop it and to stamp out the culture of the poppy; but although laws were passed making death the penalty for its cultivation they became a dead letter, until to-day it is estimated that eighty per cent, of the men and fifty per cent, of the women, in one or two populous provinces, are opium smokers. They do not all smoke to excess. There are moderate smokers as we have our moderate drinkers; but all through the province of Sze Chuan the opium shops are as thick as the gin shops in the lower parts of London. ”

“ If China cannot boast of its roads, it may claim to be a country of waterways, rivers and canals forming the chief means of communication. The country being so large, travellers have to spend much time in going from place to place, and living accommodation has to be provided on the boats. ”

“ At the top and foot of every rapid on the Yangtze are to be found one or more Red Lifeboats, which are most efficiently and admirably manned and maintained at the cost of Benevolent Guilds—one of the many charitable guilds in the country—for the purpose of assisting the crews of boats which get into difficulties. Boats are frequently wrecked in their passage, and the Red Lifeboat has saved the lives of many foreigners in the accidents attendant upon their passage of the Rapids. ”

“ MODE OF CARRYING CASH AND BABIES.
In travelling, the carriage of money is a great annoyance, owing to the smallness of its value and the large number of coins or "cash" necessary to make up an amount of any size. Exchanging eighteen shillings English for brass cash, the weight of them amounted to seventy-two pounds, which had to be carried by the coolies. These cash have a square hole in the middle, and are strung together upon a piece of straw twist. Should the straw break, the loss of time in getting up the pieces is much more than the loss of the money. ”

“ Perhaps because benevolence and charity are the objects of guilds there is very little of the personal element in either. Personal kindliness and care for the sick and dying do not characterise the people of China. If a man is sick to death he is of no more use, and why should time and care be wasted on him? This coolie in the picture was one of Mrs. Bishop's carriers, who fell sick by the way, and though he had been a companion of the other men for many days, they had no care for him when he fell sick, and Mrs. ”

“ They were Li Ping, the father, and his son, and are familiarly known to-day as the first and second gentlemen of China. The land bears four crops in the year. With all this produce and population the traffic is enormous, and it is mainly carried on by means of wheelbarrows, which are so contrived, by placing the wheel in the centre and platforms at the side and behind it, as to enable one man to wheel five hundredweight with ease. ”

“ This particular house was at Mukden, in Manchuria. The main building is surrounded by a courtyard. The outer building contains the servants' rooms. They live around the courtyard, the family occupying the central building. The windows of the servants' rooms may be seen in the outer wall. The pillars of woodwork are highly decorated, and in the courtyard itself there is always a flower-garden. ”

“ In such cases, where the friends are able, every care is taken of them, incense being daily burned before them. It was no uncommon thing for Mrs. Bishop, on her journey in Sze Chuan, to have to sleep in a room where a coffin was stored, waiting the day of its interment, incense burning and other religious rites being daily performed in front of it. To prevent mischief owing to the retention of bodies above ground for so long a time, the coffins are built of very thick wood, the bodies are placed in lime, the joints of the coffin are cemented, and the whole covered with varnish. ”

“ The four toes are doubled under the foot, and the large toe folded on the top. When bound together a sort of club-foot or hoof results, but the women manage to walk in spite of their deformity. To a western eye, the movement resembles a waddle rather than a walk. ”

“ The country is covered by the mulberry tree, which grows in every available spot. There are thousands of hand-looms. In the picture given, the silk is being wound into a thread from the cocoons, which are thrown into a pan of hot water, kept hot by a small furnace ”

“ More often a package is slung at each end of a bar, which is placed across the shoulders of a coolie. Constant change of shoulder is necessary, and the stopping to make this change becomes a serious matter in a journey of any length. ”