The Face of China by Emily Georgiana Kemp

We reached Ichang on Sunday afternoon, and were glad to be in time for a service in the Presbyterian church, the last really homelike church we attended till we reached Burma. In all other churches there were things to remind us that we were in China, but here we were in Scotland once more, and this is the only station of the Scotch Established Church in China proper: they have a flourishing work, however, in Manchuria.

Ichang has quite a colony of Europeans. They were anxious to have a good road outside the town for the sake of exercise, and when we visited the tennis club we saw the one they had made. The whole surface of the ground for miles and miles is covered with mounds ( = graves), so closely packed together that it is impossible to help treading on them if you leave the path. The Europeans knew there would be great difficulty in obtaining permission to make the road they wanted, so they subscribed the requisite funds among themselves and took French leave to make it. Before the Chinese had recovered from their surprise, or had decided what to do, the road was made. Then the Chinese acted in a truly magnanimous way. Instead of simply seizing it, as they had every right to do (according to my informant's story), they paid the Europeans all they had spent upon it, saying they must have the road in their own hands.

From my sketch some idea may be formed of the vast multitudes of graves outside Ichang: some have sticks planted in them with little paper streamers. Wherever we travelled we saw the same sight -- endless graves speaking of the innumerable dead.

It took some time to make an agreement for a house-boat to take us from Ichang to Wanhsien, as the boatmen prefer to go as far as Chungking, where they can usually secure a fresh cargo for the return journey; but eventually the matter was satisfactorily settled. A nice clean boat was engaged, with three compartments and a good space for cooking at the back, above which a little god sat in a shrine. We decided to inhabit the two front rooms, and Mr. Ku and Liu the back one, and we hung up curtains to supplement the flimsy partitions, as they consisted of a few loose planks, with gaps of one or two inches wide between them, and at quite a slight touch they fell down.

It was a great convenience that our interpreter and our servant (who had also formerly been _his_ servant) shared a room and always had their meals together. This is quite a usual arrangement in China, as there never seems to be any desire for privacy amongst the Chinese, and servants are on a much more intimate footing with their masters than is the case with us.

The agreement for the boat was drawn up in writing, and the crew was to consist of nineteen men: the sum to be paid for the whole trip was 95 taels (about £14). As Hosie mentions in his book that he had to pay £45 for his boat to Chungking (about twice the distance, though the latter half is much the least arduous and dangerous), we were not dissatisfied with our bargain, although we were told we were paying quite too much.

The captain received 75 taels at starting, ten taels when half-way, and the remaining ten on arrival. Though the bargain was struck on Tuesday, we did not succeed in starting till Saturday morning, and in the mean time both we and the captain were busy with our preparations. We got wadded Chinese clothes, for it was beginning to get cold, and we thought (though in this we proved to be mistaken, for no curiosity was exhibited about us at any place we visited in European clothes) that they would save us from much inquisitive inspection in the western provinces. Long fur-lined silk coats we had got in Peking (about £3. 10s.), tall black velvet felt-lined boots (7s. 6d.), wadded silk jackets (7s. 6d.), black cloth (European) skirt, described on the bill in Mr. Chang's best English as "brewen fine cloth beetticoat" (£1. 2s. 6d.). Our heating and cooking apparatus had to be made -- two impromptu charcoal stoves made out of packing-cases lined with bricks, a little oven to stand on the top, three pans with lids (made out of the ubiquitous kerosene tin), two tins, and a zinc kettle, all for the modest sum of 6s. 6d. As our servant's cooking capacity proved to be very limited -- he proudly announced he could cook both a chicken and a pudding -- we decided to trust rather to my experience, and we laid in a supply of stores, which are easily obtainable at Ichang.

The next point was to secure a red-boat ( = lifeboat), for which we applied to the British Consul, and he again had to apply to the Chinese General, who is always willing to provide one gratis to foreign travellers. The Consul -- like many of his class in China -- at once suggested every possible difficulty, and seemed to think that at his request we should meekly turn round and go home again. He told us that he had just refused to give the bishop a passport for some ladies travelling into Szechwan, and we were thankful that we had got ours -- though not without difficulty and vexation -- elsewhere. As we were backed up by advice received at the British Embassy at Peking with regard to our journey, the Consul could not refuse to apply for the red-boat escort, though later in the day he had the satisfaction of telling us that none was available. Happily, however, one came in before we started, so that we had No. 48 assigned to us on Friday evening. It was very wet all day, but I found an interesting subject to paint in a family ancestral tablet. On the right-hand side is a drum for worship, and on the altar in front of the tablet is a bronze vase in which burning sticks of incense are placed. On certain days the members of the family prostrate themselves before it, and offerings of cakes and fruit are presented by them.