Across Asia on a Bicycle by William Lewis Sachtleben (best ebook reader for laptop .TXT) 📖
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A constant diet of bread and tea, together with the [pg 188]hard physical exercise and mental anxiety, caused our strength at length to fail.
The constant drinking of brackish water made one of us so ill that he could retain no food. A high fever set in on the evening of August 15, and as we pulled into the station of Bay-doon-sah, he was forced to go to bed at once. The other, with the aid of our small medicine supply, endeavored to ward off the ominous symptoms. In his anxiety, however, to do all that was possible he made a serious blunder. Instead of antipyrin he administered the poison, sulphate of zinc, which we carried to relieve our eyes when inflamed by the alkali dust. This was swallowed before the truth was discovered. It was an anxious moment for us both when we picked up the paper from the floor and read the inscription. We could do nothing but look at each other in silence. Happily it was an overdose, and the vomiting which immediately [pg 189]followed relieved both the patient and the anxious doctor. What to do we did not know. The patient now suggested that his companion should go on without him, and, if possible, send back medical aid or proper food; but not to remain and get worse himself. He, on the other hand, refused to leave without the other. Then too, the outlying town of Ngan-si-chou, the first where proper food and water could be obtained, was only one day’s journey away. Another effort was decided upon. But when morning came, a violent hurricane from the southeast swept the sand in our faces, and fairly blew the sick man over on his wheel. Famishing with thirst, tired beyond expression, and burning with fever as well as the withering heat, we reached at last the bank of the Su-la-ho. Eagerly we plunged into its sluggish waters, and waded through under the walls of Ngan-si-chou.
Ngan-si-chou was almost completely destroyed during the late Dungan rebellion. Little is now to be seen except heaps of rubbish, ruined temples, and the scattered fragments of idols. The neglected gardens no longer [pg 190]check the advancing sands, which in some places were drifting over the ramparts. Through its abandoned gateway we almost staggered with weakness, and directed our course to the miserable bazaar. The only meat we could find was pork, that shibboleth between Mohammedanism and Confucianism. The Dungan restaurant-keeper would not cook it, and only after much persuasion consented to have it prepared outside and brought back to be eaten beneath his roof. With better water and more substantial food we began, from this time on, to recuperate. But before us still a strong head wind was sweeping over the many desert stretches that lay between the oases along the Su-la-ho, and with the constant walking our sandals and socks were almost worn away. For this reason we were delayed one evening in reaching the town of Dyou-min-shan. In the lonely stillness of its twilight a horseman was approaching across the barren plain, bearing a huge Chinese lantern in his hand, and singing aloud, as is a Chinaman’s custom, to drive off the evil spirits of the night. He started back, as we suddenly appeared, and then dismounted, hurriedly, to throw his lantern’s glare upon us. “Are you the two Americans?” he asked in an agitated manner. His question was surprising. Out in this desert country we were not aware that our identity was known, or our visit expected. He then explained that he had been instructed by the magistrate of Dyou-min-shan to go out and look for us, and escort us into the town. He also mentioned in this connection the name of Ling Darin—a name that we had heard spoken of almost with veneration ever since leaving Urumtsi. Who this personage was we were unable to find out beyond that he was an influential mandarin in the city of Su-chou, now only a day’s journey away.
Near that same fortieth parallel of latitude on which [pg 191]our Asiatic journey was begun and ended, we now struck, at its extreme western limit, the Great Wall of China. The Kiayu-kuan, or “Jade Gate,” by which it is here intersected, was originally so called from the fact that it led into the Khotan country, whence the Chinese traders brought back the precious mineral. This, with the Shanghai-kuan near the sea, and the Yuamin-kuan, on the Nankow pass, are the principal gateways in this “wall of ten thousand li,” which, until forced by Yengiz Khan, protected the empire from the Mongolian nomads for a period of fourteen hundred years. In its present condition the Great Wall belongs to various epochs. With the sudden and violent transitions of temperature in the severe Mongolian climate, it may be doubted whether any portion of Shi Hoangti’s original work still survives. Nearly all the [pg 192]eastern section, from Ordos to the Yellow Sea, was rebuilt in the fifth century, and the double rampart along the northwest frontier of the plains of Peking was twice restored in the fifteenth and sixteenth. North of Peking, where this prodigious structure has a mean height of about twenty-six feet, and width of twenty feet, it is still in a state of perfect repair, whereas in many western districts along the Gobi frontier, as here before us, it is little more than an earthen rampart about fifteen feet in height, while for considerable distances, as along the road from Su-chou to Kan-chou, it has entirely disappeared for miles at a stretch. Both the gate and the wall at this point had been recently repaired. We could now see it rising and falling in picturesque undulations as far as the Tibetan ranges. There it stops altogether, after a westward course of over fifteen hundred miles. In view of what was before us, we could not but smile as we thought of that French abbé who undertook, in an elaborate volume, to prove that the “Great Wall of China” was nothing more than a myth.
We were now past another long anticipated land-mark, and before us, far down in the plain, lay the city of Su-chou, which, as the terminal point of the Chinese telegraph-line, would bring us again into electric touch with the civilized world. But between us and our goal lay the Edzina river, now swollen by a recent freshet. We began to wade cautiously through with luggage and wheels balanced on our shoulders. But just at that moment we perceived, approaching from the distance, what we took to be a mounted Chinese mandarin, and his servant leading behind him two richly caparisoned and riderless horses. At sight of us they spurred ahead, and reached the opposite bank just as we passed the middle of the stream. The leader now rose in his stirrups, waved his hat in the air [pg 193]and shouted, in clear though broken English, “Well, gentlemen, you have arrived at last!” To hear our mother tongue so unexpectedly spoken in this out-of-the-way part of the world, was startling. This strange individual, although clad in the regular mandarin garb, was light-complexioned, and had an auburn instead of a black queue dangling from his shaven head. He grasped us warmly by the hand as we came dripping out of the water, while all the time his benevolent countenance fairly beamed with joy. “I am glad to see you, gentlemen,” he said. “I was afraid you would be taken sick on the road ever since I heard you had started across China. I just got the news five minutes ago that you were at Kiayu-kuan, and immediately came out with these two horses to bring you across the river, which I feared would be too deep [pg 194]and swift for you. Mount your ponies, and we will ride into the city together.”
It was some time before the idea flashed across our minds that this might indeed be the mysterious Ling Darin about whom we had heard so much. “Yes,” said he, “that is what I am called here, but my real name is Splingard.” He then went on to tell us that he was a Belgian by birth; that he had traveled extensively through China, as the companion of Baron Richthofen, and had thus become so thoroughly acquainted with the country and its people that on his return to the coast he had been offered by the Chinese government the position of custom mandarin at Su-chou, a position just then established for the levying of duty on the Russian goods passing in through the northwest provinces; that he had adopted the Chinese dress and mode of living, and had even married, many years ago, a Chinese girl educated at the Catholic schools in Tientsin. We were so absorbed in this romantic history that we scarcely noticed the crowds that lined the streets leading to the Ling Darin’s palace, until the boom of a cannon recalled us to our situation. From the smile on the jolly face beside us, we knew at once whom we could hold responsible for this reception. The palace gates were now thrown open by a host of servants, and in our rags and tatters we rolled at once from the hardships of the inhospitable desert into the lap of luxury.
A surplus is not always so easily disposed of as a deficit—at least we were inclined to think so in the case of our Su-chou diet. The Ling Darin’s table, which, for the exceptional occasion, was set in the foreign fashion with knives and forks, fairly teemed with abundance and variety. There was even butter, made from the milk of the Tibetan yak, and condensed milk for our coffee, the first we had tasted since leaving Turkey, more than a year be[pg 195]fore. The Ling Darin informed us that a can of this milk, which he once presented to Chinese friends, had been mistaken for a face cosmetic, and was so used by the ladies of the family. The lack of butter has led many of the missionaries in China to substitute lard, while the Chinese fry their fat cakes in various oils. The Ling Darin’s wife we found an excellent and even artistic cook, while his buxom twin daughters could read and write their own language—a rare accomplishment for a Chinese woman. Being unaccustomed to foreign manners, they would never eat at the same table with us, but would come in during the evening with their mother, to join the family circle and read aloud to us some of their father’s official despatches. This they would do with remarkable fluency and intelligence.
As guests of our
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