Life and sport in China Part 5

Spear-gra.s.s one often hears of but seldom sees, and until making acquaintance with the real thing I had always imagined that the barbed gra.s.s seeds, which are such a harmful worry to dogs, were practically identical with it. Not at all.

Before leaving Ichang for a trip to the Yangtse gorges I expressed my intention of trying to get some of those beautiful Reeves pheasants, having tails several feet in length, which are indigenous to that locality, but was warned that it would be necessary to take long leggings as a protection against spear-gra.s.s. Not having any with me, and believing I knew what spear-gra.s.s was, I refrained from borrowing, so that on landing at Nantou with my dog and gun, it was in an ordinary shooting suit and worsted stockings.

Inquiries of natives as to the whereabouts of these birds soon led me up the mountain-side to a rocky plateau, which looked extremely likely, and where I even saw traces of them. My dog commenced to work, and I followed him into the light, dry, crackling gra.s.s, but suddenly became conscious of a smarting in the legs as though walking through nettles, and noticed that the gra.s.s was adhering to my stockings.

However, I pushed on, my dog being hot on the scent, but presently we both came to a standstill--I, because of cramp in both legs, each of which was now enveloped in gra.s.s to the size of a bee-hive; while the dog's s.h.a.ggy coat had collected it till he appeared as large as a sheep, and could no longer force his way along, besides being in much pain.

It was a short half mile down hill to the boat but the difficulty and discomfort of getting there were considerable. When at length the boy proceeded to take my stockings off it was found that they were practically sewn to my skin by the spear-gra.s.s, the tiny barbed points of which had pa.s.sed in hundreds through the wool and worked like fish-hooks into my calves. Without penetrating deep enough to more than slightly draw blood, they had one and all to be forcibly dragged out as the stockings were peeled off. For days I was lame and sore, while my dog lived in misery for weeks. I did not even see a Reeves pheasant.

At Nantou I gathered delicious oranges from the tree for one cash each, or, eight oranges for a farthing.

A twelve-bore is the best gun for use in China, from the fact that cartridges are everywhere procurable, whereas for other sizes they have frequently to be imported from home, although I must admit that a twenty-bore is preferable for snipe-shooting in warm weather, owing to the lightness of both gun and cartridges.

It seems to be the general opinion, with which I agree, that pointers and spaniels are the most suitable dogs to keep, for they appear to work the cover and to stand the climate better than other breeds.

As European dogs seldom live in China more than three or four years, and often less, it is necessary to always have puppies coming on if you do not want your shooting to be spoiled, for it is useless to try and get pheasants out of the thick cover without them. Dysentery is a very prevalent canine disease, but their most deadly enemy, and one existing in no other country that I know of, is worms in the heart.

How the germs get into the blood no doctor has yet been able to say, but thin, white worms resembling vermicelli cl.u.s.ter round the heart, living on the blood, until they become so numerous as to eventually choke an artery, when death is instantaneous. In the case of a favourite dog, on which a doctor kindly performed a _post-mortem_ examination, these worms were in such numbers that I positively could not see the heart at all.

Native dogs are useless for sport, as they seem to be devoid of that friendly intelligence so noticeable in our own breeds, while their powers of scent are much inferior. I have heard that in the island of Hainan a certain breed exists which is very good for hunting leopards and wild boar, but this I cannot guarantee.

In the winter of 1889 I was invited by a friend to join him in his house-boat a few miles below c.h.i.n.kiang, when we could shoot together next day and then have Christmas dinner on board.

I hired a small sampan to sail me down, together with my boy, taking only a bottle of whisky, a few things for tiffin and a plum cake, the last being a Christmas gift from a Norwegian lady.

Starting at noon, it was about three o'clock and near the rendezvous, when we sighted a flock of geese asleep in the sun on a mud-bank. I ordered the sampan-man to get as near as possible, and when the geese rose at a distance of about sixty yards, knocked down a couple with two charges of S.S.G. A minute later another came flying overhead calling to its wounded mate, and this also I dropped without pity. The first two, being only winged, gave a lot of trouble, as they swam and dived with great speed, but all three were eventually secured.

There was still an hour before dark, and seeing no signs of my friend I went on sh.o.r.e and bagged three pheasants before returning to the boat. Next morning, after pa.s.sing a cold and miserable night in the tiny cabin of the dirty little sampan, I started with gun and dog at about eight o'clock--fully expecting that the house-boat would turn up during my absence--and shot all day, killing eleven pheasants, two deer, three woodc.o.c.k, seven duck and one pigeon. As by dark there were still no signs of my expected host I had no choice but to return home.

It was a lovely night, bright, frosty and star-light, with a nice, crisp breeze, which, the river being there about two miles wide, raised quite a sea. Thousands of wildfowl, all on their way south, were flying, whistling and whirring about in every direction, and rising from the water quite close to the boat. My dog "Snipe" and I crept into the cabin out of the cutting wind, which was dead ahead, and proceeded to discuss our impromptu Christmas fare, which, after all, was not so bad, and reflected great credit on the boy's cooking powers. I noted down the _menu_, and here it is:--

1. Pigeon Soup.

2. Woodc.o.c.k.

3. Boiled Pheasant.

4. Cold Roast Beef.

5. Plum Cake ablaze with Whisky.

6. Cheese.

7. Pumelo.

Whisky and Water.

Tea.

There was no holly or mistletoe to remind one of Merrie England, but I drank to "the Old Folks at Home" with the sadness peculiar to wanderers on such occasions, and then gave myself up to nicotine and reflection for the rest of the evening, arriving home at midnight to find that my truant friend was ill in bed.

CHAPTER IV

RIDING

No country in the world is so badly supplied with horses as China, both as regards quant.i.ty and quality.

The reasons for this are largely owing to the peculiar and wretched condition of internal communications, and to the fact that horses are seldom employed in cultivation of the soil, which is mostly performed by manual labour, supplemented by water buffaloes in the central and southern provinces and by oxen in the north.

Wherever rivers and lakes exist there is found a dense boating population, whose occupation is the conduct of every kind of traffic.

On the large fluvial highways stately junks laden deep with cargo pa.s.s backwards and forwards in unending procession. In shallower waters the vessels are smaller but more numerous, and this adaptation to circ.u.mstances goes on until the smallest streams and ca.n.a.ls, which invariably cover the valleys of China's mighty rivers as with a net, are blocked with tiny craft, each bearing its load of merchandise or its quota of pa.s.sengers.

In such districts, where everything is carried by water and where roads are few, there is little or no work for the horse, which, beyond a few wretched specimens attached to the various yamens and military camps, is seldom seen.

Where waterways do not exist, and traffic must necessarily be carried overland, the highways are either narrow paths paved with large blocks of stone and suitable only for wheelbarrows and pack-animals, or tracks picked out at random over a width of perhaps a hundred yards, along which lumbering, ill-constructed and springless carts plough their ways, and strings of pack-animals wend slowly to and fro. The numberless creaking wheel-barrows, bearing heavy loads, are propelled by coolies, who, the yoke across the shoulders, stagger along between the shafts, helped occasionally by a small sail set to catch a favouring wind, or by another coolie harnessed to the vehicle by ropes. The pack-animals mostly consist of camels (especially in the north), mules and donkeys, ponies being used in more limited numbers.

As a rule, the carts are supplied with mixed teams of very poor cla.s.s animals, mules largely predominating, although ponies are also numerous.

Europeans, accustomed to see carriages, dog-carts and all kinds of horse-drawn conveyances circulating freely on macadamised roads, find it difficult to realise that, in the oldest civilised empire in existence, there are, outside the treaty-ports, not only no macadamised roads, but not even roads that could possibly be compared with our most out-of-the-way and most ill-kept country lanes, and that consequently there are neither carriages nor dogcarts, but only springless tumbrils, which, covered with a wain, discharge the functions of the celestial cab, and plough through deep mud with their ma.s.sive wheels, or jolt over stone causeways to the intense discomfort of luckless occupants.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CAB OF NORTHERN CHINA.

_To face page 75._]

There being then practically neither roads nor carriages, the demand for draught horses is very small, while for riding purposes Chinamen prefer either the taller and more dignified mule or the ambling pony.

This latter has a rolling, pacing gait which enables the horseman to sit quietly in his high wooden saddle without any necessity of rising in the stirrups. He possesses great speed and endurance, and wealthy Chinese will give as much as four or five hundred taels for a good one. With his rider leaning well back and pulling hard at the reins the animal tears along at fifteen or sixteen miles an hour, but when the reins are loosened he immediately slackens and pulls up. They are a common sight in the neighbourhood of Peking, where ambling contests frequently take place outside the city wall. In these contests each pony in turn is ridden at full speed past the judges, who proclaim the winner on his general merits and not with exclusive reference to pace.

For agricultural work the horse is not employed. In wheeling barrows coolies perform the work of beasts of burthen. As pack-animals camels, mules and donkeys have the preference, so that although the "n.o.ble animal" is to be met with almost everywhere, he is not considered indispensable as in Western lands. He is unhonoured, ill cared for and very cheap.

There may be several breeds in China, although personally I have seen but four, of which a small, well-shaped pony from Turkestan; a large, stringy horse from Ili; and a weedy, cowhocked pony from Szechuan deserve here no more than pa.s.sing notice, for they are seldom seen in the Eastern provinces, where alone the Mongolian, or, as it is commonly called, the "China pony," is found in considerable numbers.

This China pony, with which Europeans in the Far East are so well acquainted, is a native of the Mongolian plains. He stands on an average about thirteen hands, and is a coa.r.s.e, thick-set, cobby animal, with a large, ugly head carried low on a wedge-shaped neck, so that when mounted you have practically nothing in front of the saddle. He much resembles, and is evidently closely allied to, the Russian pony, which is now so commonly met with in this country.

I have heard it stated that, at the conclusion of the Second Chinese War, to avoid the expense of transport back to India, the Arab horses of our cavalry were sold at Tientsin, and being mostly purchased by native dealers, were sent to Mongolia and crossed with the native breed. If this be true it accounts for the traces of Arab blood which may occasionally be observed in a smaller head, finer points, wavy tail and gentler manners.

Mongol princes have long had, by imperial decree, the sole right of horse breeding in the north, every year paying tribute to the Emperor of so many head; and as this breed is much superior to the others I have mentioned, the monopoly practically extends to the whole Empire, and is most jealously guarded.

Geldings only are allowed to leave the breeders' hands, and that not before the advanced age of seven or eight, which partly accounts for the shortness of the time during which China ponies are in their prime, and for the fact that after two or three years' work they commence to age and deteriorate.

Mares it is impossible to purchase on any terms, the Mongols absolutely refusing to part with them, and I have only seen two during the whole of the twelve years I have spent in China--one at Peking, the property of a Russian prince, and one with its foal, belonging to a native official at Kiukiang.

In the late autumn of every year the tribute ponies are brought down to Peking. I have seen them in large droves coming across country at full gallop, enveloped in clouds of dust, with mounted Mongol and Chinese drovers, carrying long bamboo poles, riding on the outskirts of each mob and directing its course. Villagers, on seeing the clouds of dust and hearing the thunder of hoofs, hurry out to try and divert the equine torrent from their crops, but in vain. The whirlwind rushes by, leaving a broad, well-beaten track, whereon few signs of banks, gardens or vegetation can be discerned. It is the Emperor's tribute and there is no redress.

After tributary obligations have been fulfilled in kind or in value, large numbers of these ponies are thrown on the market, and on an average can be secured for twenty or thirty dollars each--that is, for two or three pounds.

The best market is provided by Europeans, and dealers forward the finest-looking animals to Tientsin, Shanghai, Hongkong, Hankow and other places where racing is carried on, to meet this demand.

When such mobs of raw ponies reach a treaty-port they are known as "griffins," which term applies to all that have not previously run at any race-meeting; and with their tails sweeping the ground, their hogged manes and their long coats clotted with mud, they present a very dismal appearance, and one not at all in keeping with the accepted idea of race-horses.

These griffins mostly pa.s.s through the hands of racing men, who, with a view to securing a good animal, either arrange with the dealers for private gallops, when the various performances are carefully timed by stop-watch, or buy their fancies at public auction without speed tests having previously been made.

Owing to expenses of transport, be it by steamer or by road, the further south the greater the average value of griffins, and as only picked animals are supplied to the foreign market, the price is everywhere far higher than at Peking, and may be said to range from fifty to five hundred dollars. Those ponies which do not prove to have sufficient speed to warrant their being trained as racers are resold as hacks, or filter away at lower prices to the Chinese.

I may here say that although at several of the treaty-ports there are a few good roads made by the European residents, and along which imported carriages are occasionally seen to pa.s.s, it is only at Shanghai that vehicular traffic has attained to any considerable degree of importance. Here the foreign settlements are traversed in all directions by excellent highways, which extend through the suburbs for several miles into the adjoining country, and which the Chinese avail themselves of to a large extent, driving out in thousands every afternoon to tea-houses and pleasure-gardens.