Precious old photo: In 1898, a British female traveler walked through Shu Road

Since the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, groups of foreign missionaries, explorers, and scholars have come to Sichuan in western China for various purposes to preach, investigate, or travel. After the photos were published and published in the West, they attracted the attention and interest of people from all walks of life, and adventure tourism in western China became a hot spot for a while.

According to the old photographs of Sichuan that can be collected at home and abroad, in addition to a few photos taken in Sichuan by George Ernest Morrison of Australia during his trip from Shanghai to Burma in 1884, a group of photos of Sichuan taken by the British female traveler Isabella Bird in 1898 can be regarded as one of the earliest group photos of Sichuan's human geography.

Isabella Bird (1831~1904, Mrs. Bishop), an Englishman, was an experienced traveler and successful writer, and one of the world's top 100 explorers. From 1879 onwards, Isabella traveled to Guangzhou, Northeast China, and the Midwest, and wrote The Road to the Golden Peninsula. In 1896, in order to find the mysterious land of western China, Isabella Bird, who was 64 years old and sickly, set out from Shanghai, took a foreign steamer to Hankou via Zhenjiang, Wuhu, Jiujiang, and then from Hankou to Yichang via Shashi, and sailed from Yichang, crossed the magnificent Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, and arrived in Wanxian County through Fengjie (Kuizhou Mansion) and Yunyang. She traveled overland from Wanxian County through Liangping (Liangshan County), Qu County, Yingshan, and the south to Langzhong (Baoning Mansion), and then to Chengdu via Cangxi, Jiange, Zitong, Mianyang, Pengxian, and Guan County. After that, it will go from Guan County to Markang's Somo through Wenchuan (Weizhou, Lifan Hall), Lixian (Zagunao), and Miyaluo, and then return to Chengdu from Soma. From Chengdu to take the "Wubang boat" (Sichuan people called "Wubang") down the Minjiang River, through Meishan, Leshan (Jiading), Yibin (Xuzhou), Luzhou to Chongqing, in Chongqing to buy a boat east and return to Shanghai. She recorded a lot of customs and folk customs along the way, and took a lot of photos.

In 1899, the year after her return to China, Isabella Bird published the book The YangtzeValley and Beyond (Chinese translation 1898: China Through the Eyes of an Englishwoman) in London, based on what she saw and heard along the way, with more than 560 pages and 113 precious photographs taken by the author, preserving a complete documentary for the inland hinterland of Sichuan in the late Qing Dynasty.

The following old photographs taken by Isabella Bird are based on the original 1899 book "The Yangtze Valley and Beyond" scanned by Harvard University, and the copyright belongs to the original author.

The wooden boat on which Bird was riding

Hubei Xintan, from here Bird takes a boat into the river

Wanxian Bridge

A Chinese-style cemetery

On the way to the township stone archway

Carved dragon stone pillars

The mansion

At the foot of the mountain, Stone Bridge Inn

An ancestral hall

buffalo

An ordinary covered bridge

The sedan chair in which the lady rides

Sichuan rural house

Sichuan urban market

A seowon in Boryeong

Protestant (Christian) Episcopal Church in Boryeong

sanatorium

Enter a market town

Arrive at an unknown Chinese-style inn

Cow-drawn stone mills

Main roads, stone bridges, ancient trees

Woman spinning silk

Mill in the Chengdu Plain

A covered bridge in Mianzhu

Guan County's Covered Bridge (South Bridge)

The roof inside the temple of the two kings

Carrying an oil basket and a wooden frame

Transportation trolleys (chicken buses) in the Chengdu Plain

Poppy fields in full bloom

Poppy fields in full bloom

The statue of the god in the Wenshu Monastery in Chengdu

The City God Temple in Guan County

Double-decker wooden bridge

A wooden pannier used to carry timber

Bamboo suspension bridge in Wenchuan

Quaint watchtowers

The streets of Zagu Brain

The house of the head people of Chu

Tibetans burn incense altars on roofs

Tibetans who are dying of illness

Huge sick leg

Officers and soldiers with spears

The landscape of Jiarong

The village of Jiarong

Shuttle mill square watchtower

View the scenery of shuttle mill from afar

A Tibetan village

Soma's Castle (Zhuokeji Tusi Guanzhai Diaolou in Malkang County)

The gate of the castle official office of Somo (Zhuo Keji Tusi official village)

Tibetan lama wearing a mask and dancing a religious dance

Orion with jagged wooden ladders

family

Dragon Bridge

Villages and towns next to the Min River

The West Gate of Jiading Mansion (May 1898)

Sailboat on the Min River

A market town on the banks of the Yangtze River

Syria next to the Min River (Yibin)

Houses on the rocks in Jiang'an County

Flat-bottomed uponted boats

Pagoda near Luzhou

Methods of carrying children

A fishing village on the Yangtze River

The city walls and gates of Chongqing Mansion

Guards and soldiers of Chongqing Customs

Women's festive headdress

Shibaozhai