Lu-fêng-hsien and its bridge. Magnificence of mountains towards the
capital. Opportunity for Dublin Fusiliers. Characteristic
climbing. Crockery crash and its sequel. Mountain forest.
Changeableness of climate. Wayside scene and some reflections.
Is your master drunk? Babies of the poor. Loess roads.
Travelers, and how they should travel. Wrangling about payment at the
tea-shop. The lying art among the Chinese. Difference of the West
and East. Strange Chinese characteristic. Eastern and Western
civilization, and how it is working. Remarks on the written character and
Romanisation. Will China lose her national characteristics? "Ih dien
mien, ih dien mien." A nasty experience of the impotently dumb.
Rescued in the nick of time.

When the day shall come for its history to be told, the historian will have
little to say of Lu-fêng-hsien, that is—if he is a decent sort of fellow.

He may refer to its wonderful bridge, to its beggars and its ruins. The stone
bridge, one of the best of its kind in the whole empire, and I should think
better than any other in Yün-nan, stands to-day conspicuously emblematic of
ill-departed prosperity. So far as I remember, it was the only public ornament
in a condition of passable repair in any way creditable to the ratepayers of the
hsien. The wall is decayed, the people are decayed, and in every nook and cranny
are painful evidences of preventable decay, marked by a conservatism among the
inhabitants and unpardonable indolence.

The bridge, however, has stood the test of time, and bids fair to last
through eternity. Other travelers have passed over it since the days of Marco
Polo, but I should like to say a word about it. Twelve yards or so wide, and no
less than 150 yards long, it is built entirely of grey stone; with its massive
piers, its excellent masonry, its good (although crude) carving, its old-time
sculpturing of dreadful-looking animals at either end, its decorative triumphal
arches, its masses of memorial tablets (which I could not read), its seven
arches of beautiful simplicity and symmetry and perfect proportion, it would
have been a credit to any civilized country in the world. I noticed that, in
addition to cementing, the stones and pillars forming the sides of the roadway
were also dovetailed. Among the works of public interest with which successive
emperors have covered China, the bridges are not the least remarkable; and in
them one is able to realize the perseverance of the Chinese in the enormous
difficulties of construction they have had to overcome.

Passing over the stream—the Hsiang-shui Ho, I believe—I stepped out across
the plain with one foot soaked, a pony having pulled me into the water as he
drank. Peas and beans covered with snow adjoined a heart-breaking road which led
up to a long, winding ascent through a glade overhung by frost-covered
hedgerows, where the sun came gently through and breathed the sweet coming of
the spring. From midway up the mountain the view of the plain below and the fine
range of hills separating me from the capital was one of exceeding loveliness,
the undisturbed white of the snow and frost sparkling in the sunshine
contrasting most strikingly with the darkened waves of billowy green opposite,
with a background of sharp-edged mountains, whose summits were only now and
again discernible in the waning morning mist. Snow lay deep in the crevices. My
frozen path was treacherous for walking, but the dry, crisp air gave me a gusto
and energy known only in high latitudes. In a pass cleared out from the rock we
halted and gained breath for the second ascent, surmounted by a dismantled
watch-tower. It has long since fallen into disuse, the sound tiles from the roof
having been appropriated for covering other habitable dwellings near by, where
one may rest for tea. The road, paved in some places, worn from the side of the
mountain in others, was suspended above narrow gorges, an entrance to a part of
the country which had the aspect of northern regions. The sun, tearing open the
curtain of blue mist, inundated with brightness one of the most beautiful
landscapes it is possible to conceive. A handful of Dublin Fusiliers with
quick-firing rifles concealed in the hollows of the heights might have stopped a
whole army struggling up the hill-sides. But no one appeared to stop me, so I
went on.

Climbing was characteristic of the day. Lu-fêng-hsien is about 5,500 feet;
Sei-tze (where we were to sleep) 6,100 feet. Not much of a difference in height;
but during the whole distance one is either dropping much lower than Lu-feng or
much higher than Sei-tze. For thirty li up to Ta-tsü-sï (6,900 feet) there is
little to revel in, but after that, right on to the terrific drop to our
destination for the night, we were going through mountain forests than which
there are none better in the whole of the province, unless it be on the extreme
edge of the Tibetan border, where accompanying scenery is altogether
different.

From a height of 7,850 feet we dropped abruptly, through clouds of thick red
dust which blinded my eyes and filled my throat, down to the city of Sei-tze. I
went down behind some ponies. Upwards came a fellow struggling with two loads of
crockery, and in the narrow pathway he stood in an elevated position to let the
animals pass. Irony of fate! One of the horses—it seemed most intentional—gave
his load a tilt: man and crockery all went together in one heap to a crevice
thirty yards down the incline, and as I proceeded I heard the choice rhetoric of
the victim and the muleteer arguing as to who should pay.