LIFE ON A FARMSTEAD: FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES

INSIDE CHINA

Prevented from building — Dragon gate harbour — Cleaning ancestral shrine — Wearing Chinese clothes — Foot bandages — Catching a chill — Fall of thunderbolt — Washing without soap — Eldest daughter's sad tale — Golden Buddha mountain — Boar hunt — Illness — Cook's marriage — Never insure shrimps! — Farm visitors — Preparing China grass — Buying popcorn — Pony and young man with pony — Weavers — Dinner to elders — Remains of the feast — Crackers — Tips — Dragon-claw flower — Banyan tree — Inn — Morning walk — Impudent coolie — Sleeping under a walnut tree — Two Swedes killed — Young Chinese gentlemen to tea — Watching thunderstorms — Dog's sufferings — Dangerous crossing — Ko-towing to the thunder — To a temple festival — Village schoolmaster — Family owning the Chai — Defective mails — Ginger — Calling on Mandarin family — Old lady's coffin — Farmer's coal business — Mission Hospital refused — Robbery — Beating children — Pony — Millet stalks — Stripping Indian corn — Hibiscus soap — Anniversary of grandfather's birthday — Ladies of the family — Cook's method of bargaining — Burning paper money — Packets of paper cash — Rice harvest — Blue and white cloth — Watching silk wadding — Pony's memory — Farmer's idea of English Buddhas — Runners harrying the district — Invitation to dine at temple — Lady missionary — Questions about religion — Objectionable smells — Pigs dying — Cows sent to gaol — Ten taels' new saddle — Chinese manners — Special wine — Ophthalmia — Dreadful scene — Delightful ride — Magic lantern show — Moving into new house — Dissipated outside broker — Tailor's ideas — Under torture — Poor woman's funeral rites — Preparing for opium crop — Festival cakes — Begging for mercy — Bad Pusas — Musical pigeons — Deep depression — Elder's dinner — Flock of ducks — Too much festival — Shall we bow before you? — Moving the business — Theatrical performance and dinner — Child visitors — Offered pupils for nothing — Door by which evil spirits could enter — Magnificent bedsteads — The return of the captive — Thieves in cages — Coolie runs away — Cook married — New building site assigned .113

建築受阻 — 龍門港 — 清理祖先祠堂 — 穿中國服裝 — 纏足布 — 著涼 — 雷擊 — 無肥皂洗滌 — 長女悲慘故事 — 金佛山 — 野豬狩獵 — 生病 — 廚師結婚 — 千萬別為蝦子投保！ — 農場訪客 — 準備苧麻 — 買爆米花 — 小馬與騎馬少年 — 織工 — 長者晚宴 — 宴席殘餘 — 鞭炮 — 小費 — 龍爪花 — 榕樹 — 客棧 — 晨行 — 無禮苦力 — 核桃樹下睡眠 — 兩名瑞典人遇害 — 招待中國年輕紳士喝茶 — 觀賞雷雨 — 狗的痛苦 — 危險渡口 — 向雷電叩頭 — 赴廟會 — 村學教師 — 擁有祠堂的家族 — 郵遞不善 — 薑 — 拜訪官宦人家 — 老太太的棺材 — 農夫的煤炭生意 — 拒絕教會醫院 — 搶劫 — 毆打兒童 — 小馬 — 粟稭 — 剝玉米 — 木槿皂 — 祖父誕辰紀念日 — 家中女眷 — 廚師的議價方法 — 燒紙錢 — 紙錢包 — 稻米收穫 — 藍白布 — 觀看絲綿加工 — 小馬的記憶力 — 農夫對英國佛像的看法 — 衙役騷擾地方 — 受邀至廟中用膳 — 女傳教士 — 關於宗教的問題 — 令人不快的氣味 — 豬隻死亡 — 牛被關進監獄 — 十兩銀子的新馬鞍 — 中國禮儀 — 特製酒 — 眼疾 — 可怕場景 — 愉快騎行 — 幻燈片表演 — 搬入新居 — 放蕩的外部經紀人 — 裁縫的想法 — 受刑 — 貧婦喪禮儀式 — 準備鴉片作物 — 節慶糕點 — 乞求憐憫 — 壞菩薩 — 音樂鴿 — 深度憂鬱 — 長者晚宴 — 鴨群 — 節慶過度 — 我們該向您鞠躬嗎？ — 搬遷生意 — 戲劇表演與晚宴 — 兒童訪客 — 免費提供學生 — 邪靈可入之門 — 華麗床架 — 俘虜歸來 — 籠中盜賊 — 苦力逃跑 — 廚師結婚 — 新建築地點指定 .113

CHAPTER XI

第十一章

LIFE ON A FARMSTEAD, FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES INSIDE CHINA

在中國內陸一千五百英里的農莊生活

One summer, we were living in Chungking, in the far west of China, fifteen hundred miles from the sea, and five hundred miles beyond the reach of steamers then. It was some years later that the first steamboat was taken to Chungking by my husband, as master and owner—he and I the only Europeans on board.

有一年夏天，我們住在中國西部的重慶，距離海洋一千五百英里，當時還超出了蒸汽船的航程五百英里。幾年後，我的丈夫作為船長和船主，首次將一艘蒸汽船帶到了重慶，那時船上只有我和他兩個歐洲人。

To avoid the excessive heat in that large city, the commercial capital of Szechuan, which was all shut in by walls and so full of houses that there wasn’t an available breathing space left, we had rented a hillside on which to build ourselves a summer cottage. However, the magistrate had stopped our building on the pretext that the country people were so opposed to foreigners, he dared not sanction our living amongst them. He then made a great favor of persuading a certain farmer to accept us as tenants and suggested that if we went out to live with him for three months, perhaps gradually, the people might become accustomed to us.

為了避開那座大城市的酷熱，重慶作為四川的商業中心，四面被城牆圍住，城裡到處都是房屋，連一個可以透氣的空地都沒有。我們租了一處山坡，準備建造一座夏日小屋。然而，當地的縣官以鄉下人對外國人極度反感為由，阻止了我們的建築，並稱他不敢批准我們住在當地。他後來又擺出一副施恩的姿態，說服了一位農民讓我們成為他的租戶，並建議我們與他同住三個月，或許當地人逐漸就能習慣我們了。

It was very hot in the daytime, and all day long I was shut up in the one farmhouse sittingroom, so I started a diary for much the same reason probably that I have often observed people do on a sea voyage. They generally do not keep it up till the end, neither did I ; but I noted down everything I could observe of interest, as long as I wrote in it, and here it is, recalling many simple pleasures and some painful days.

白天非常炎熱，我整天都待在農舍裡唯一的客廳裡。為了消磨時間，我開始寫日記，這大概和我常常觀察到的人們在海上航行時寫日記的原因一樣。他們通常並不會堅持到旅程結束，我也一樣。但在我寫日記的時候，我盡可能記錄下所有有趣的事情。如今重讀這些日記，回想起許多簡單的樂趣和一些痛苦的日子。

LIFE ON A FARMSTEAD 115

July 6, 1898. After all, I went off to the farm by myself, starting at ten, and only getting there after twelve, though the crossing of the Yangtze River was rather exciting than slow, there being no freshet on. All the dreadful rocks, that formed the remarkable little harbour of the Dragon's Gate in the winter, were now quite covered with water, so that our boat went careering over them. Afterwards it was so hot that the coolies spent a long time eating and resting before they got me up the thousand feet from the river to the T'u Shan Temple, on the top of the first range of hills. I was annoyed to find the furniture in our farm not yet cleaned and a good deal of smell from the dirt, in spite of the many men, who had been out cleaning it for several days ; the shrine at one end of the room, that I had told the people they might take away, was still there. When I remarked on this, the cook exclaimed it could not be moved. ''Well then, it must be cleaned," I said, attacking it with a feather brush, and immediately producing a shower of dust. The coolies all cried out at once, ''You must not touch it! We cannot touch it!" "Call the woman of the house," I said. But she again waved de[H'ecatory hands and cried, " I cannot touch it," which the coolies all echoed in chorus : " She cannot touch it ! A »MM#/" Presendy the farmer appeared, very obliging but very grave. It seemed that he only could clean it. But he proceeded to do so with so much reverence it was evident the accumulations of dust would never get removed. So I rubbed, and brushed, and genendly knocked things about, for other people to put together, till gradually the whole erection came somewhat to pieces amidst showers of dirt "The Pusa (image) cannot like dirt," I continued to repeat. But at last they managed to convey to me that it was not a shrine with a Ptisa^ but the Holy Place, where the ancestral tablets were kept. " Oh, the ancestors ! " I then said. " Well, they would like to be clean," on which both the farmer and his wife seemed greatly amused, especially the latter, who quite agreed, but would not touch anything. "We put fresh flowers before the pictures of our ancestors," I said. On which the children brandished crackers in my face, to show what a much better way they had of honouring their dead. Meanwhile the farmer and the eldest son cleaned the tablet, the vase before it containing incense sticks, etc., etc., and I was delighted to find one coolie could now really clean the outside of the shrine, and all the particularly dirty boards on the top, whilst no one objected to my taking all the musty books out of the cupboard underneath, drying them in the sun, dusting them and then putting them away tidily in the end. The eldest son then tore off the old red paper strips, and proceeded to write on new red papers, "As still with us, though above," which was stuck up above the ancestral tajblet, a little looking-glass being very carefully hung in the middle. I pleaded to have it washed first. After all this great display of reverence what was my surprise to find that we were now quite at liberty to place our stores in the cupboard underneath! And our Boy with perfect calm stood two commanding - looking bottles on the top, right in front of the ancestral tablet. Nor did anyone seem to see anything amiss in the arrangement.

1898年7月6日

終究，我獨自一人出發前往農場，早上十點出門，直到中午才抵達。雖然橫渡長江時沒有洪水，但這次旅程還算刺激而不緩慢。所有在冬天形成龍門奇觀的小港的可怕岩石，如今全被水覆蓋，我們的船輕快地駛過那些地方。隨後，天氣炎熱，苦力們花了很長時間吃飯和休息，才把我從江邊抬上千尺高的土山寺，這是第一座山脈的頂端。