An Australian in China by George Ernest Morrison (online e book reading TXT) 📕

Many interesting episodes have marked his stay in China. Once, when repairing the line from Pase, in Kwangsi, to Mungtze, during the rainy season of 1889, fifty-six out of sixty men employed by him died of what there can be little doubt was the same plague that has lately devastated Hong Kong. On this occasion, of twelve men who at different times were employed as his chair-bearers, all died.

In October, 1886, he came to Yunnan City, and made this his headquarters. He has always enjoyed good health.

One of the chief difficulties that formerly impeded the extension of the telegraph in China was the belief that the telegraph poles spoil the "fungshui"—in other words, that they divert good luck from the districts they pass through. This objection has been everywhere overcome. It last revealed itself in the extreme west of the line from Yunnan. Villagers who saw in the telegraph a menace to the good fortune of their district would cut down the poles—and sell the wire in compensation for their trouble. The annoyance had to be put a stop to. An energetic magistrate took the matter in hand. He issued a warning to the villagers, but his warning was unheeded. Then he took more vigorous measures. The very next case that occurred he had two men arrested, and charged with the offence. They were probably innocent, but under the persuasion of the bamboo they were induced to acquiesce in the magistrate's opinion as to their guilt. They were sentenced to be deprived of their ears, and then they were sent on foot, that all might see them, under escort along the line from Yunnan City to Tengyueh and back again. No poles have been cut down since.

Gold, Banks, and Telegraphs in Yunnan.

Yunnan City is the great gold emporium of China, for most of the gold found in China comes from the province of which it is the capital. When a rich Chinaman returns from Yunnan to another province, or is summoned on a visit to the Emperor at Peking, he carries his money in gold not silver. Gold leaf sent from Yunnan gilds the gods of Thibet and the temples and pagodas of Indo-China. No caravan returns to Burma from Western China whose spare silver has not been changed into gold leaf. In the Arracan Temple in Mandalay, as in the Shway-dagon Pagoda in Rangoon, you see the gold leaf that Yunnan produces, and in the future will produce in infinitely greater quantities.

Gold comes chiefly from the mines of Talang, eighteen days journey by land S.W. from Yunnan City, on the confines of the district which produces the famous Puerh tea. The yield must be a rich one despite the ineffective appliances that are employed in its extraction. Gold has always been abundant in this province; at the time of Marco Polo's visit it was so abundant that its value in relation to silver was only as one to six.

When gold is worth in Shanghai 35 times its weight in silver, it may be bought in Yunnan City or Talifu for from 25 to 27.5 times its weight in silver, and in quantities up to hundreds of ounces. To remit silver by telegraphic transfer from Shanghai or Hong Kong to Yunnan city costs six per cent., and either of the two leading banks in the city will negotiate the transfer from their agents at the seaports of any amount up to 10,000 ounces of silver in a single transaction. The gold can always be readily sold in Shanghai or Hong Kong, and the only risk is in the carriage of the gold from the inland city to the seaport. So far as I could learn, no gold thus sent has gone astray. It is carried overland by the fastest trade route—that through Mungtze to Laokai—and thence by a boat down stream to Hanoi in Tonquin, from which port it is sent by registered post to Saigon and Hong Kong. Here then is a venture open to all, with excitement sufficient for the most blasé speculator. Ample profits are made by the dealer. For instance, a large quantity of gold was purchased in Yunnan city on the 21st January, 1894, at 23.2, its value in Shanghai on the same date being 30.9; but on the date that the gold arrived in Shanghai its value had risen to 35, at which price it was sold. At the time of my visit gold was 25.5 to 27 in Yunnan, and 35 in Shanghai, and I have since learnt that, while gold has become cheaper in the province, it has become dearer at the seaport.

The gold is brought to the buyer in the form of jewellery of really exquisite workmanship, of rings and bracelets, earrings and head ornaments, of those tiny images worn by rich children in a half circlet over the forehead, and bridal charms that would make covetous the heart of a nun. Ornaments of gold such as these are 98 per cent. fine and are sold, weighed on the same scales, for so many times their weight in silver. They are sold not because of the poverty of their owners, but because their owners make a very large profit on their original cost by so disposing of them. If, however, the purchaser prefer it, gold will be brought him in the leaf 99 per cent. fine, and this is undoubtedly the best form into which to convert your silver. The gold beaters of Yunnan are a recognised class, and are so numerous that they have a powerful guild or trade's union of their own.

Gold-testing is also a recognised profession, but the methods are primitive and require the skill of an expert, consisting, as they do, of a comparison of the rubbing on a stone of the unknown gold, with a similar rubbing of gold whose standard has been accurately determined. One of the best gold-testers in the city has been taught electric gilding by Mr. Jensen and does some skilful work.

The principle of self-protection restrains the Chinaman from the