Ti-Ping Tien-Kwoh by Augustus F. Lindley

Author:Augustus F. Lindley [Lindley, Augustus F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781375462655
Google: 7dgHtAEACAAJ
Publisher: Creative Media Partners, LLC
Published: 2017-08-19T16:01:48+00:00

Passing on to the Western Tung-shan district, we reached the wildest and most imposing region I have seen, either in China or any other part of the world. Far removed from the noisy haunts of men, and peopled with but a few solitary hamlets, it reposed in its romantic beauty, undisturbed save by the voice of Nature, and undefiled by the hand of man. Drawing our boat on to a long sandy beach, I wandered through the wild and lonely region for some hours with my dark companion, who I found could appreciate Nature's beauties more truly than many with a whiter skin. I rambled through the silent valleys and almost impenetrable forests of the Tung-shan, impressed with the solemn feeling that I trod where mortal foot had not fallen before. The landscape was most varied in its nature: massive mountains, peaceful valleys; wild and desolate cliffs; foaming cataracts, and then the calm and shaded waters of the lake; while the waving of the thick forest, the verdant and feathery bamboos; the water-lilies stretching wide on the surface of the lake; the wild orange-trees, and sweetly-perfumed shrubs and flowers blooming around, completed an almost unrivalled picture. After leaving this exquisite scenery, and just before entering the creek by which we were to reach Soo-chow, we passed underneath a great natural arch of rock, projecting some 90 feet into the lake, with a height of nearly 150, and joined to a second small arch on the outside.

This singular formation of rock lies on the border of the Ta-hoo, about forty miles to the north-west of Soo-chow, and is an object particularly noticed in the legendary lore of the superstitious natives.

After leaving the lake, our journey lay through a complete network of those interminable creeks, lagoons, and canals intersecting the whole of south and central China. Some were broad and river-like, spanned by handsome, many-arched bridges, the banks covered with fine houses and regular pathways; others were narrow, tortuous, almost hidden by rank vegetation and long drooping osiers, and crossed by bridges composed of a rough slab of granite laid horizontally upon the ends of two upright blocks, and elevated scarcely six feet from the water. Wherever we passed, the country people complained bitterly of the foreign soldiers (meaning Gordon's, D'Aguibelle's, and other mercenary legions) coming to fight the Ti-pings; they were all long-haired and happy under the new régime; they were naturally averse to lose their heads because the British Government chose to support the oppressive and merciless Manchoo; and many of the finest grain-producing districts having been captured by the allied Anglo-Franco-Manchoo forces, together with a number of the principal Ti-ping granaries, a vast influx of destitute refugees added considerably to the daily increasing distress caused by the scarcity and exorbitant price of food.

When at last, after threading miles of creek and canal, I reached Soo-chow, I found that I had arrived at the moment of an important crisis—no less an event, indeed, than the dissolution of the short-lived Americo-Ti-ping contingent.

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