April 21, 1917 



H K T I C U L T U E E 



515 



In the year 1899, under instructions 

 from Messrs. A'eitch, E. H, Wilson set 

 out from Liverpool tor the interior ot 

 China in search for Davidia involu- 

 crata. In the new book, Aristocrats ot 

 the Garden by Mr. Wilson, pulilished 

 by Doubleday, Page & Co., is .eiven a 

 description of the voyage and the sub- 

 sequent adventurous land journey — a 

 most entertaining narrative of travel 

 by primitive means, through many 

 perils, at a period of insurrection and 

 riot. A country about the size of New 

 York State was laid out for the search 

 which happily resulted in the intro- 

 duction of every known seedling plant, 

 but one of this remarkable tree. Our 

 readers' will be interested in the fol- 

 lowing brief portion of Mr. Wilson's 

 narrative. 



Ichang, where I arrived on Feb. 24, 

 1900, was to be my headquarters for 

 two years so I made plans accordingly. 

 I purchased a boat of good size in 

 which to live ana to serve as a base of 

 supplies, and engaged some country- 

 men to assist me in collecting. The 

 all-important arrangements completed, 

 a series of short prospecting trips up 

 country from Icliang were undertaken 

 for the purpose of getting some ac- 

 quaintance with the flora and for test- 

 ing and training my men. By the 

 middle of April (one year after the 

 start from Liverpool) everything was 

 ready to start in quest of the Davidia. 

 On a half page of a notebook Dr. Henry 

 had sketched a tract of country about 

 the size of New York State and had 

 marked the spot where he had found 

 growing a single tree of the Davidia, 

 the only example he had discovered in 

 a trip which extended over six months 

 and the only one he had ever seen. 

 The place was among high mountains 

 in the sparsely populated region 

 bordering the provinces of Hupeh and 

 Szechuan and south of the mighty 

 Yangtsze River. This locality was my 

 destination and this solitary tree my 

 sole objective. 



On the morning of April 15 I left 

 Ichang in my boat, to ascend the Yang- 

 tsze as far as the district city of Pa- 

 tung where I arrived on the 21st idem. 

 The journey was exciting, for the rap- 

 ids which are very numerous were at 

 that season difficult to negotiate. Twice 

 we ran on rocks and had to renair 

 damage. At the worst rapid the boat 

 all but capsized and there were other 

 and numerous incidents which space 

 will not allow me to mention in de- 

 tail. At Patung the head official did 

 his best to frighten my men and beg- 

 ged me to abandon the enterprise. 

 Finally, his efforts proving of no ef- 

 fect, he promised an escort of six 

 soldiers and washed his hands, as it 

 were, of the business. The man was 

 in earnest and genuinely afraid for my 

 safety. Some two years before there 

 had Ijeen much trouble in this region. 

 Rioting between anti-Christian and 

 Christian villagers had taken place; 

 hundreds of lives had been lost and 

 Whole villages burnt to the ground. 



DaVIDI.\ IXVOLITCRATA. 



and a Roman Catholic priest — Pere 

 Victorin — brutally murdered and his 

 corpse barbarously mutilated. A feel- 

 ing of bitterness and hate still rankled 

 and there was grave danger of some 

 untow'ard incident causing the smoul- 

 dering anger to blaze out afresh. Of 

 all this I was fully aware, but my mis- 

 sion was to obtain Davidia involii- 

 rrata and in furtherance of this I did 

 not think of causing trouble of any 

 kind. 



Having" arranged for my boat to 

 journey some fifty miles upstream to 

 Paishih 1 left Patung on the morning 

 of April 22nd, and followed a paved 

 steep road. On the evening of tlie 

 23rd idem I reached the Roman Catho- 



lic Mission station at Hsi-sha-ho and 

 found I was the first foreigner, save 

 Roman Catholic priests, to visit the 

 place since Dr. Henry. I found here 

 a Belgian priest, on a visit to his con- 

 verts. He— courteous and scholarly, 

 like all his class — made me welcome. 

 He had been the companion of the 

 priest murdered two years before and 

 he gave me a full account of the whole 

 tragedy. In his Bible he carried a set 

 of photographs of the late Pere's re- 

 mains — gruesome, nauseating and hor- 

 rible to look upon. The affair had 

 taken place some fifteen miles from 

 Hsi-sha-ho and my host said he ex- 

 pected trouble again this year, as, two 

 weeks before, a party of outlaws had 



