Tai-han-ling Pass--Two tablets--A clean village--Catholics--Lacking repose--A great commotion--Destroyed by the Boxers--A picturesque Buddhist priest--A strange notion--The sitter’s soul--Obnoxious women--Restitution of the missing soul--Infallible remedies and how to administer them.

As we were thus entertained by native wayfarers and their curious theories, we trotted along, went through the Tai-han-ling pass (3020 feet above sea level), and late in the afternoon crossed the summit of the range, where a valuable library of sacred books--ancient and buried in dust--lay forgotten in a small temple. Two tablets, one to Kanshi, the other to Tan Kuang, and a curious small gateway, had also been erected on the highest point of the pass. The descent on the other side was less interesting, except that here and there we had pretty bits of scenery to gaze upon.

Following the valley, we reached the village of San-lieu, a clean little place, 1000 feet above sea level. The reason the village was clean was probably because the inhabitants were all Roman Catholics. With the aid and advice of the French missionaries in Pekin they had built themselves a handsome church, in which they had mass and evening prayers every day. Chinese Catholic priests officiated, and even the harmonium was played by a Chinaman, who naturally played it somewhat _à la Chinoise_, but still very well considering that the instrument and the character of the music were absolutely foreign to him.

[Sidenote: CONVERTS]

In coming in contact with these Christians, although one must admire them for what they had done, I could not help again remarking that the converts, wherever one found them, lacked the repose and the stolid, but at the same time gentle, manner of their pigtailed heathen brethren. They always struck one as unsteady, morose, and at times even ill-natured.

They had at first given us the best room in the principal house in the village, but--for what reason I was never able to discover--during the night there seemed to be a great commotion, and we were roughly roused up and bundled into a dingy back room, where we had to spend the remainder of the night. I suspected that possibly the fact that I was not a Roman Catholic might have caused them to act so uncivilly; but it seemed hard in that case that the two Frenchmen, who belonged to their creed, should be so treated.

On my last visit to Pekin, I was sorry to learn that the whole village had been destroyed by the Boxers, and a number of the Christians horribly murdered. The church, I was told, was in ruins.

Following the stream, we halted, after another long day’s journey, at Tu-thia-chuang.

The inn at this place was somewhat better than the usual accommodation one gets in the smaller towns in the interior of the Celestial Empire--which, indeed, only deserves that title to Celestials. Crowds of people assembled when we arrived, just before sunset, and among the swarm of curious onlookers I perceived the striking head of a picturesque old Buddhist priest. After a long confabulation and a few strings of cash which I deposited in his hands, I induced him to sit for his portrait, and dashed off a sketch in oils before he had time to change his mind. Unfortunately, as is always the case on such occasions, failing a proper studio, the painting had to be done out in the open, which caused a large crowd of loafers to collect round model and artist, making a nuisance of themselves to both. The women were particularly obnoxious, for they began to scold the old priest for his rashness in sitting. There is a strange notion prevailing in China, and, in fact, nearly all over the continent of Asia, that if an image is reproduced in painting or sculpture, a soul (or, to use their words, “life”) has to be given to it. The person portrayed has to supply the soul by transferring his own into the image--a necessity which, to any one who believes in it, must be distinctly uncomfortable. But apparently the Buddhist priest, who approved these superstitious ideas in others, knew better when he himself was concerned. Therefore he sat tight, with a sly twinkle in his eye, and the strings of “cash” jealously nursed on his lap.

On my side, I immortalised him with due speed on a wooden panel, and he sat right through as motionless as a statue, deaf to the warnings of the excited females around.

When the painting was pronounced finished the trouble began.

“You will die!” cried an old harpy to him. “I saw your soul come out of you and go into the picture. Indeed, I saw it with my own eyes!”

“So did I!” yelled a hundred other voices in chorus.

By the time the poor priest had got up they had almost convinced him that at least half his soul had really gone out of him. He was feeling himself all over, and actually began to be conscious--or so he said--that something had gone wrong with him. Being a sensible man, however, whether his soul had gone or not, he first went home to deposit the cash for safe keeping. A complaint for the restitution of his missing soul might come after.

[Sidenote: A MAGIC CURE]

Well suspecting what was coming, I went into my room the moment the bonze, followed by the crowd, had departed, and packed the sketch safely, then took a second clean panel and smeared it with the scrapings of my palette so that I might be able to play a trick should the bonze return to have the picture destroyed.

Twenty minutes had hardly elapsed when he was back again, of course without the “cash.” He held his stomach with both hands and complained of internal agony.

“I am going to die,” he cried on getting near; “you have taken away half my soul!”

“Certainly I have,” said I, sternly; “you did not expect me to give you all that ‘cash’ for less than half your soul, did you?”

“Oh, no,” he retorted, meekly; “but I wish it back, as I now feel so bad without it.”

“All right,” said I, “I shall go into the room to destroy the painting; will you then be satisfied?”

“Yes.”

Here the second panel, smeared with palette scrapings, was produced, after I had made pretence of destroying the presumed picture on it with a knife.

The expression of relief on the priest’s face was well worth seeing. It would be impossible to depict it. He may not have felt so clearly that half his soul had passed out of him, but there was no doubt that he had plainly felt it coming back. He was now perfectly well again.

This magic cure gave us all a very busy evening. It is fatal to the prestige of a foreigner travelling in the interior of China not to suggest some infallible remedy or other when asked. To pronounce a malady incurable is to bring contempt on our inferiority to the priesthood of the country, who are supposed to cure anything. All the villagers who had complaints of any sort came to us to be restored to sound health. A leper who had lost all his fingers wished us to make them grow again. He was advised to dip them in water and salt for fifteen days, when on the morning of the sixteenth day he would notice a change. This he took to mean that they would begin to grow a second time, while we expected that in sixteen days no less a distance than 400 miles would separate us from that village. A pitiful case of a child, only a few months old, was also brought up, whose mother, while busy stirring boiling water in a big cauldron, had dropped the child in by mistake. He was so badly scalded that, although I attempted to relieve his pain by smearing him all over with the vaseline that had not been used in the cooking, I fear that he cannot have lived more than a few hours.