From Lijiang to Dali: A Traveler’s Crossroads in Yunnan
The journey from Lijiang to Dali in the late imperial period presented European travelers with both breathtaking landscapes and complex logistical challenges. As our anonymous British narrator departed Lijiang, the change in pace became immediately apparent – the well-trodden path to Dali allowed for quicker movement compared to the more remote northern routes. This section of Yunnan had already seen numerous Western visitors, leaving behind enough documentation to make navigation somewhat easier for subsequent travelers.
Timing proved crucial, as the approaching rainy season threatened to transform mountain paths into treacherous mudslides. The traveler faced a critical decision point: whether to take the overland route through Tengyue to Bhamo toward Burma, or venture southeast via Yunzhou and the Gonglong ferry to Lashio, the terminus of British-built railways in Upper Laos. French explorer Monsieur Perronneau’s grim warning about attempting to cross the plague-infested Nu River during spring and summer ultimately delayed this decision until reaching Dali.
Land of Roses and Landslides: The Changing Landscape
The westward route from Lijiang unfolded through a landscape that strangely reminded the British traveler of home. Wild roses, meadow sweets, and primroses – familiar English wildflowers – bloomed abundantly along the path. This floral display created a peculiar cognitive dissonance against the dramatic Yunnanese backdrop of towering mountains and deep valleys.
Beyond the initial ridge lay the Lashi Plain, where nature demonstrated both its beauty and brutality. The traveler recounts the tragic case of Atunzi, a village obliterated by massive landslides – a common occurrence in this seismically active region. The Qing officials’ response to this disaster reveals much about the cultural context: interpreting the landslide as the work of malevolent spirits, they attempted to drive them away with gunfire and arrows. When the landslides coincidentally ceased, this reinforced their supernatural interpretation rather than prompting practical relief efforts for survivors.
Meeting the Bai: Encounters with the Minjia People
As the journey progressed southward, the cultural landscape shifted as markedly as the physical one. The traveler left the Mosuo territory behind and entered the land of the Minjia – now known as the Bai people. The narrator’s description of the Bai reflects common Western attitudes of the era, noting their friendliness while remarking on their avoidance of direct eye contact with strangers – a cultural practice often misinterpreted by outsiders.
The most poignant encounter comes two days north of Dali, where the traveler beholds a Bai girl singing in an opium poppy field. The lyrical description, borrowing from Wordsworth, transforms this moment into a romanticized vision of “Oriental” beauty that would have resonated with Victorian readers. This idealized portrait of a singing girl amidst poppies becomes, for the narrator, the most beautiful sight witnessed in years of Chinese travels.
Through the Valley of Temples and Hot Springs
The route to Dali unfolded through a series of geographically and culturally significant waypoints. Jianchuan, with its walled city surrounded by farming villages, demonstrated the typical development pattern of Chinese frontier settlements. Beyond lay the Han Deng village and Dianwei, where the climate began noticeably warming – a shift from Tibetan highlands to subtropical valleys that required physical adjustment from the travelers.
Notable landmarks included the peculiar “Flaming Mountain” (Huoyan Shan) near Niujie village, its flat-topped conical shape crowned with a pagoda. The hot springs at its base suggested volcanic origins, while the name itself evoked both geological and mythological associations. Nearby Sanying, now a bustling trade town, revealed its military origins in its name – a legacy dating back to the Mongol Yuan dynasty. Here, the traveler’s purchase of a counterfeit British umbrella (complete with misspelled Indian factory name) offers a humorous glimpse into early globalized trade networks.
Bridges and Benefactors: The Traveler as Participant
The journey’s most revealing episode occurs along the Baisha River, where the traveler transitions from observer to participant in local affairs. The description of the riverine landscape – compared to Oxford’s Magdalen Walks and Addison’s Walk – reflects the narrator’s attempts to render the unfamiliar through familiar English references.
At Zhongsuo village, plagued by flies in a subpar inn, the traveler contributes funds to a bridge-building project and signs the donation ledger. This act, which might earn his name a place on the eventual bridge’s commemorative stele, demonstrates how Western travelers became unwitting participants in local civic projects, their foreignness notwithstanding. The bridge project itself speaks to the vital infrastructure needs of this river-crossed region.
Gateway to Dali: Fortresses and Poppy Fields
Approaching Dali, the landscape reveals its strategic and agricultural importance. The ruins of Shangguan village mark what was once Dali’s northern defensive outpost. The narrator’s detailed description of Dali’s geographical setting – nestled between mountains and Erhai Lake – explains its historical significance as a virtually impregnable fortress city before the age of artillery.
The fertile lands around Dali, once likely part of Erhai’s lakebed, supported not just food crops but extensive opium poppy cultivation. The traveler’s observation of hundreds of Bai women and girls working the poppy fields, some wearing distinctive blue-black headscarves with silver combs, provides valuable ethnographic detail about agricultural labor practices. Their amused reactions to the “foreign devil” passing by reveal the mutual curiosity between observer and observed.
Erhai’s Enchantment: A Traveler’s Final Impressions
The account culminates with two days of exploration in Dali proper and along the shores of Erhai Lake. The city itself appears typical of Chinese urban centers to the Western eye, but the lake captures the traveler’s imagination. The mirror-like waters reflecting the western mountains, the play of light on pale blue waves, and the harmonious scene of wild ducks undisturbed by swimming children – all combine to create an idyllic portrait that belies the region’s complex realities.
This final peaceful image, set against the backdrop of Dali’s thirteen-story pagodas and fortified gates, encapsulates the dual nature of the traveler’s experience: a land of both breathtaking beauty and challenging realities, where ancient traditions coexisted with the encroaching modern world. The opium fields and counterfeit umbrellas hint at global connections already transforming this seemingly remote corner of the Qing empire, even as traditional lifeways persisted in the villages and fields along the road from Lijiang to Dali.