When we speak of the progress of the Japanese as a nation, we must not forget that the national records of the country date from nearly seven hundred years before the time of Christ on earth, andthat a regular succession of Mikados, in lineal descent from the founders of their dynasty and race, has since that remote date been carefully preserved. Taking the Western Powers as a model, the Japanese have not failed to emulate them in nearly all the prominent features of civilization, promptly furnishing themselves with rifled cannon and torpedo boats, with newspapers and a national debt. As we have remarked, the army and civil officers have long since adopted the American costume. The railroad and the telegraph, too much of an innovation for the more pretentious Chinese, are quite domesticated in Japan. But still it is really to be hoped that the progressive spirit, so apparent in the policy of the Mikado and his advisers, may not quite obliterate all traces of the antique and picturesque customs of a country so peculiar and original.
Sail for Hong Kong.—Ocean Storms.—Sunset at Sea.—A Water-Spout.—Arrival in China.—Typhoon Bay.—Manners and Customs.—In and about Hong Kong.—Public Buildings.—Voyage up the Pearl River.—City of Canton.—Strangest of Strange Cities.—Opium Dens.—Temple of Honan.—The Worship of Swine.—Praying with a Fan.—Local Peculiarities.—Half Round the World.—Singapore.—A Tiger Hunt.—Burial at Sea.—Penang.—The Wonderful Palm.
Sail for Hong Kong.—Ocean Storms.—Sunset at Sea.—A Water-Spout.—Arrival in China.—Typhoon Bay.—Manners and Customs.—In and about Hong Kong.—Public Buildings.—Voyage up the Pearl River.—City of Canton.—Strangest of Strange Cities.—Opium Dens.—Temple of Honan.—The Worship of Swine.—Praying with a Fan.—Local Peculiarities.—Half Round the World.—Singapore.—A Tiger Hunt.—Burial at Sea.—Penang.—The Wonderful Palm.
We sailed from Nagasaki early on the morning of November 29th, in the same steamship, the Nügata Marü, which had brought us from Kobé, being now bound for Hong Kong, through the Yellow and China Seas, a distance of eleven hundred miles. These are proverbially rough waters, and they fully sustained their reputation for the first two days of the voyage. The marvel seemed rather to be that more ships were not lost here, than that so many were. It is really little better than a vast graveyard for commerce. Our staunch iron hull was tossed about like a feather in the wind, causing us to realize that there is something awfully grand in these ocean storms, uncomfortable as they are.
Our crew was composed of Japanese, and excellent sailors they are, quiet, obedient, and untiring. Sea life is very similar in nearly all latitudes, and affords but few incidents worthy of recording. An old sea-captain told the author, some years since, that the finest sunsets he had ever seen were in these waters, off the coast of Cochin China, and that it was apeculiarity of the region; or, to use his own words, "First, we would have a typhoon that shivered our sails into threads, and then a sunset that looked like a scene in a theatre." Allowance was made in this instance for a fancied charm brought about by the great contrast of a raging storm followed by a serene nightfall. It seemed as though we had witnessed as fine exhibitions of Nature in this line, both in Europe and America, as could be enjoyed, but an agreeable surprise was in store for us.
We had crossed the southern portion of the Yellow Sea, and having run down the Corean Straits, with the Loo-Choo Islands under our lee, were sailing southward upon the China Sea. It was the 2d of December, and we too were now off the coast of Cochin China. Never before had any of our little party witnessed such a gorgeous array of cloud and color effect; nor was the display fleeting. The peculiar aspect lasted for half an hour or more, full of change to be sure, like opal hues, hovering and evanescent, but not obliterated. The transparent clouds that hung above the western horizon, as dainty in form and texture as a butterfly's wings, were tinted with turquoise blue. Immediately over the section where the sun had so lately disappeared, the gradations of color were multiform and brilliant, fading into each other's embrace. Close to the water line, where sky and ocean mingled, there was a mound of quivering flame that seemed like burning lava pouring from some volcanic source. This lavish display of iris hues was softly reflected by the vapory tissue of clouds that hung over the opposite expanse; the shades changing to ruby and sapphire tints alternately, until the east almost rivaled the west in thegorgeousness of its robes. In the mean time the sea, now wonderfully calm, expanding into infinite space, reproduced upon its shimmering surface, as in a mirror, this magic array of color permeated by the amber twilight. Gradually the curtain of night dropped over the scene, but there still lingered a long crimson line on the distant horizon where the sun had sunk into the sea. The most careless eye on board the ship watched the constantly changing effects with bated breath. Nature revels in beauty, and does her work with a lavish hand in the far East. It has been our lot to see the sun set in many lands and on many seas, but never before in such gorgeous splendor.
Just at night, December 4th, we arrived below Hong Kong, dropping anchor in Typhoon Bay, where, among the dark shadows of the cliff-like shore, we watched the stars overhead and the long bright wake cast by the light-house, counted the small dancing lights in the native settlements on the shore, and wondered what Hong Kong was like.
With the early morning light we steamed up to the magnificent harbor, surrounded by a range of lofty hills, rendering it a shelter and affording depth of water sufficient for any known tonnage. Its extensive area was well covered with ships of war and merchantmen, bearing the flags of all nations, among which the Stars and Stripes gladdened our eyes. Hong Kong signifies "good harbor" in Chinese, and the name is well applied. This is the most easterly possession of Great Britain, which she has taken care to render very strong in a military point of view, and where a large number of troops are constantly kept. The scarlet uniforms of the garrison form a striking feature of the busy streets, at all hours of the day.The houses in the European section of the city are large and handsome structures, mostly of stone, rising tier upon tier from the main street to a height of some hundreds of feet on the face of the hill immediately back of the town. On and about the lofty Victoria Peak are many charming bungalows, with attractive surroundings, and a noble prospect of the harbor and country. The streets appropriated to the occupancy of the Europeans are spacious and clean, but the Chinese portion of Hong Kong is quite characteristic of the race,—very crowded and very dirty, seeming to invite all sorts of epidemic diseases; and consequently the mortality is very great and sweeping at times, promoted by ignorance and excess among strangers and seamen.
One soon learns to detect an opium-eating people, and here we found examples all about us in every relation of life. It is a vice nearly always pursued in secret, but its traces upon the heavy, bleared eye and sallow features are plain and disfiguring enough. The disgraceful trade in the fatal drug, forced upon China by the English at the point of the bayonet, flourishes and increases, forming the heaviest item of import. It seems almost incredible that a people can long exist and consume such large quantities of this active poison. Other forms of stimulants are seldom resorted to by the natives, and an intoxicated person is scarcely, if ever, met with among the Chinese population. As to Europeans, it is the same here as it is in India, the habit of drinking freely of spirituous liquors is universal, and one half the invalidism which is attributed to climate should be ascribed to indulgence in hard drinking.
The streets of Hong Kong afford strange localpictures. The shoemaker industriously plies his trade in the open thoroughfare; cooking goes on in the gutters beside the sidewalks filling the atmosphere with greasy odors; the itinerant peddler, with a wooden box hung from his neck, disposes of food made from mysterious sources; the street barber is seen actively employed out of doors; the milkman drives his goats to the customer's door and there milks the required quantity; the Chinese themselves ignore the article altogether. The universal fan is carried by men, not by women, and when the owner is not using it, he thrusts it in the back of his neck with the handle protruding. Sedan chairs are rushing hither and thither, borne upon men's shoulders, transporting both natives and Europeans on business errands. Here, as in southern Italy, one observes a propensity to eat, sleep, live, and die in the streets, exhibited by the mass of the population.
Imagine a short, slouchy figure, with sloping eyes, a yellow complexion, features characterized by a sort of low cunning, a shaved head with a pigtail, clad in a loose cloth blouse, half shirt and half jacket, continuations not exactly pants nor yet a petticoat, and shoes thick-soled and shearing upwards like a Madras surf-boat, and you have John Chinaman as he appears at home. The portrait is universal. One Chinaman is as like another as two peas,—a uniformity often leading to ludicrous mistakes. John eats principally rice. It is in fact the basis of all his dishes, which are varied by the addition of dried fish and vegetables, adding occasionally such portions of animals as are usually thrown away by civilized people. Rats, cats, and dogs are not declined by his omnivorous appetite, and he is charged with craving nearlyall sorts of vermin, such as snakes, slugs, scorpion's eggs, and caterpillars, which he complacently adds to his stews. Without the physical strength or size of Europeans, he makes up in industry what he lacks in muscle; and as his food costs about one fifth the sum which we generally calculate necessary for a common laborer, he can work much cheaper, and still lay up money from his wages.
Certain peculiarities challenge our observation. The Chinese mariner's compass does not point to the north pole, but to the south; that is, the index is placed on the opposite end of the needle. When Chinamen meet each other in the street, instead of mutually grasping hands, they shake their own hands. The men wear skirts and the women wear pants. The men wear their hair as long as it will grow, the women bind theirs up as snug as possible. The dressmakers are not women, but men. The spoken language is never written, and the written language is never spoken. In reading a book the Chinaman begins at the end and reads backwards; all notes in the books appear at the top of the page in place of the bottom, as with us. White is the mourning color, not black; surnames precede the given names; vessels are launched sideways, not endways; in mounting a horse the Chinese do so from the off-side. At dinner we commence the meal with soup and fish, they reverse the order and begin with the dessert. Grown up men fly kites, and boys look on admiringly; our bridesmaids are young and dressed in white, theirs are old women clad in black; and so on.
From its special position in the East, Hong Kong is the resort of all sorts of people, from all quarters of the globe. England is of course the most stronglyrepresented. There are comparatively very few Americans, but plenty of French and Germans, the latter mostly Jews and money lenders. There are numbers of East Indians, Italians, Portuguese, and Spaniards, with here and there a Parsee, making altogether a population which reminds one of Marseilles in its conglomerate character. These several races, mingling with the Chinese, make up an incongruous community. An early morning visit to the water front of the city affords much amusement, especially at the hour when the market boats arrive from the country, and from along shore, with fish and vegetables. Here the people swarm like ants or bees more than like human beings, all eager for business, all crowding and talking at the same time, and creating a confusion that would seem to defeat its own object, namely, to buy and to sell. The vegetables are various and good; the variety of fruit limited and poor in flavor; but the fish are abundant and various in shape, size, and colors. Nine tenths of the business on the river front is done by women, and nearly all have an infant strapped to their backs, while they carry heavy burdens in their hands, or are engaged in rowing or sculling their boats. They carry on trade, make change, clean fish, and the like, quite oblivious of the infants at their backs. Babies thus managed are often shaken about most unmercifully, and among Europeans would assert themselves by the loudest screeching; but who ever heard a Chinese or Japanese baby cry?
The environs of Hong Kong are extremely interesting, and the roads are kept in most admirable condition. The jinrikisha is the common mode of conveyance, though the palanquin is perhaps nearly asmuch used. The introduction of the former vehicle into both China and Japan is of quite recent date. We enjoyed several expeditious in the suburbs by both means of transportation, the charges being extremely moderate. The Japanese jinrikisha men seemed lighter, yet more muscular, than do their Chinese brethren when between the shafts; and the latter, after a few miles, exhibited symptoms of fatigue, whereas, on a long thirty-five mile trip, this was never observed in a Japanese: either he was superior in pluck or muscles, or both, to John Chinaman.
The English burial-ground, located about three miles from the town, is a very beautiful cemetery, and is to Hong Kong what Mount Auburn is to Boston,—not quite so extensive, but superior in its collection of flowers and trees, which must have been gathered and naturalized here at a great cost. The varieties of the cactus family are remarkable in numbers and mode of training. The same may be said of the camphor-tree, the aloes, tall and graceful cypresses, mingling with which are Cape jasmines, hydrangeas, magnolias, and the scarlet geranium, tall and hedge-like, barked by white, variegated, and scarlet camellias. Everything indicated a semi-tropical climate. These Chinese gardeners exhibit great skill and genius in the cultivation of all plants, and landscape gardening is carried far beyond our ideas of the art in America. Some flowering shrubs, on close examination, proved to be old friends, but so trained and developed as to be hardly recognizable. We observed a curious mode of grafting plants so as to cause several species to blossom on the same branch, thus forming, as it were, a glowing bouquet. The samples of dwarf trees were also very singular,—alittle orange-tree, for instance, bearing an orange weighing more than itself, and lemons so arranged as to grow by grafting in and with an orange. It was an agreeable sight to see choice bouquets for sale on the public streets, containing a great variety of flowers arranged with genuine taste, a little too formal and stiff to meet our fancy, but yet finding ready customers at reasonable prices. In Madrid, Florence, or Paris, it is sunny-faced girls who offer these fragrant emblems to the passer-by; but at Hong Kong it is done with less effect by almond-eyed men and ragged boys. The city is so far Europeanized as to be less typical of Chinese manners and customs than are cities further inland; but revelations come upon us with less of a shock when mingled, as they are here, with more civilized methods.
The policemen of Hong Kong are Sikhs, whom the English government have imported from India for this special service. These officers are under excellent discipline. They are tall, dark, and heavily bearded men, presenting quite a striking appearance in their semi-military uniforms. Of course they have no sympathy with the Chinese, who cower under the police batons, which are ruthlessly used when deemed necessary. Society in the city is entirely English, and, to use an expressive word, is "fast." Balls, races, regattas, and fêtes of all kinds follow each other with ceaseless energy. The gayety of domestic and social life, and the luxurious mode of living generally, exceed that of any European colony we have chanced to meet with. Club life, evening entertainments, and late hours, are the characteristics of Hong Kong; the serious affairs of life seem to have been left at home in far-off England,—an inevitable result where themilitary element enters so largely into the community.
It was represented to us, and so appeared upon observation, that the well known practice of compressing the feet of the females from their birth was a gradually declining custom. Some few middle-aged women were met with in the streets whose feet had been thus treated in infancy, and who hobbled about with much difficulty, but no young girls were to be seen thus hampered. When this hideous deformity has been adopted, the knee and ankle joints do not bend at all in walking; all movement is from the thigh joints, a mincing gait is imparted, and the arms swing from side to side, the whole body being at all times liable to topple over. A traveler is not competent, however, to speak of the higher classes of women, as no access is afforded to domestic life in wealthy families. Only women of the common class appear indiscriminately in public, Oriental exclusiveness wrapping itself about the sex in China nearly as rigidly as in Egypt. If women go abroad at all, it is in curtained palanquins, quite hidden from the public eye, or at most only partially visible through semi-transparent veils of gauze. Anywhere east of Italy woman is a toy or a slave.
The European portion of Hong Kong consists almost entirely of one broad avenue, called Victoria Road, which is the Broadway or Washington Street of the city, and which runs parallel with the shore front, from which it is separated by a single block. This thoroughfare is well paved, and is mostly lined with attractive stores, hotels, and club-houses, with a few dwellings intermixed. The intersecting streets are in many cases so steep as to be ascended by broadstone steps, like portions of Naples and Rome. After leaving the Victoria Road, one plunges immediately into Chinese life among narrow lanes and crowded, dirty abodes, like China Town at San Francisco, such dwellings as are only to be found in the midst of a miserable and degraded condition of humanity. The river or harbor front is lined with lofty European warehouses, and some good residences,—half devoted to business, however, the locality being mostly given up to the requirements of commerce. It will be remembered that Hong Kong is an island, nearly forty miles in circumference, consisting of a cluster of hills rising almost to the dignity of mountains. The gray granite, of which the island is mostly composed, affords an excellent material for building purposes, and is largely employed for that object. Nearly all the public buildings are constructed of this granite, which presents a fine appearance, and affords good opportunity for architectural display.
The side-wheel steamer Han Kow was taken for a passage up the Pearl River to Canton, the commercial capital of China, situated a little less than one hundred miles from Hong Kong. The steamer had some two or three hundred Chinese passengers, who were partitioned off in a part of the vessel by themselves, and securely locked, away from the European passengers. In the cabin, ranged about the foremast, were a dozen loaded repeating arms, rifles, and pistols for the use of the whites, in case the Chinese should rise and attempt an act of piracy by taking the ship. This has more than once been done upon the Pearl River, and the steamboat company now goes prepared to visit condign punishment upon such offenders.
In passing up the river, on board the Han Kow,a fine view was afforded of the farming and vegetation of the country. Banana, orange, sugar-cane, and tea culture, in their various stages, were in distinct view, the steamer at times nearly grazing the right or left bank, and being obliged to move slowly on account of shallow water in the winding channel. Strange birds, brilliant flowers, and remarkable trees trained to grow in the shape of men and animals, were seen bordering the plantations. Great fertility of soil, however it might be induced, was manifested on all hands, and the vegetation exhibited tropical luxuriance. The number of small fishing-boats upon the river was quite marked, showing from whence came a large percentage of the daily food of the humbler classes. These boats seemed to be almost entirely rowed and managed by women, always with the inevitable baby at their backs, sometimes sleeping, sometimes gazing vacantly about, but always quiet and contented.
The river is nearly two miles broad on an average, sometimes opening into bays of considerable size, six or eight miles across, and thus forming a water-way of immense importance in a country where railroads are unknown. The canals and rivers of China are her great dependence, her inland highways or roads being unworthy of the name,—exhibiting one of the most prominent features of the lack of national enterprise. China looks to the past, not to the future. Some advance has been forced upon her in the art of war. She no longer fights with fans, gongs, and fire-crackers, but "shoots bullets every time," as the French found to their most serious cost very lately. The remoteness of the country from the centres of civilization, the exclusiveness of the government, the almostincomprehensible character of the spoken language,—entirely different from the written tongue,—has always excited curiosity, and thrown a halo of romance over everything Chinese. This false glamour, however, disappears, like dew before the sun, by personal observation, and is superseded by something like a sense of contempt. The missionaries of science, commerce, and of religion have done much within the last twenty years to dispel the extravagant ideas entertained of the Celestial Empire, and have shown us that the race is by no means celestial, but a people very much like the rest of the Eastern nations, certainly no more civilized.
Canton is the strangest of all strange cities, and perhaps the most representative one in China. With a population of a million and a half, it has not a street within its walls over eight feet wide. Horses and vehicles are unknown. Even the useful and comfortable jinrikisha could not be used here, where everything to be moved must be transported on human shoulders. The city extends to about a distance of four miles on the banks of the Pearl River, and fully a hundred thousand people live in boats along the river front. The families occupying these sampans will average at least four individuals; a man and wife with two children,—frequently there are half a dozen of the latter. These boats are about twenty feet long and five wide. But a small portion of the after part has any covering, and the cooking is done in the bow. Here the family live,—cook, eat, and sleep, knowing no other home. The youngest children are often seen tied to the thwarts, and if they tumble overboard they are easily pulled back again.
There are hundreds of temples distributed over thecity, many of which were visited and found to be crowded with idols and idlers, though we never saw a Chinaman praying in them. The corner of nearly every street, as well as numerous stores and dwelling-houses, have each an idol and small shrine on which incense is kept burning all the time, and every day of the year. The whole city is permeated with the smell of this highly scented incense, and though used in such small individual quantities the consumption in the aggregate must be very large. Of the numerous temples and pagodas in Canton probably the most famous is that of the Temple of the Five Hundred Gods, containing that number of gilded statues of Buddhist sages, apostles, and deified warriors. The expressions on the features of this large number of statues were remarkable in the fact that they all differed essentially from each other; otherwise they were exceedingly commonplace.
Every sort of manufacture or business is performed in the most primitive manner by hand, machinery of any sort being scarcely known; but personal service or labor is so cheap that it even competes with machinery. One is surprised as to how such a crowded community can exist in such an inconsiderable space; whole families live and sleep in a single small room. The Chinese, in point of domestic comfort and cleanliness, are a century behind the Japanese; and this remark will apply as well to nearly all the relations of life. There is less of nudity here than in the latter country; but, so far as one can judge by brief observation and inquiry, morality is at a lower gauge in China than in Japan. It is doubtless as true here as elsewhere, that "one touch of nature makes the whole world kin," but you lack the touch of nature.With the Japanese the traveler feels himself sympathizing. He goes among them freely, he enters their houses and drinks tea with them, but not so with the Chinese; here we realize no sense of affiliation, but rather one of repulsion. The universal amusement is that of gambling, and the means whereby the people gratify this passion are endless. Dominos, and several similar games, are most popular in connection with cards, the latter game, however, differing very materially from our own. The Chinese cards number a hundred to the pack. Cock fighting is universal, and is as much of a national game as at Manilla.
Our guide, who was an intelligent and high-caste native, took us into one of the opium dens, to be found in nearly every street of Canton, and where we saw the victims of the terrible indulgence in the several stages of debasement. A number of the smokers appeared to be men of average health and strength, but all had the dull, vacant eye and attenuated forms of the victims of this insidious habit. It was curious to hear the guide stoutly defend the use of the opium pipe. He declared that it lengthened, not shortened, life; besides which he insisted that with opium one lived a double life, and therefore he lived twice as long as he would do without it. "Europeans get drunk," said he, "and have nasty headache; Chinaman smokes opium, enjoys paradise on earth, but has no headache." Of course one cannot argue with an opium consumer to any good effect. The habit once acquired is never successfully abandoned. There is always some hope of reform for a drunkard, but for an opium-eater, never. No statistics of a reliable character as to the quantity of the deadly drug which is consumed in China can be obtained, but theaggregate amount, large as it is known to be, is yet increasing. All the opium which can be obtained from India is consumed here, beside that which is raised in China; the former by the wealthier classes, the latter by the poor,—the home product being cheaper and much inferior in quality.
The temples generally seemed to abound with votive offerings; but the one aim, so far as we could understand, was to appease the wrath of malignant deities. These gods, it would appear, are largely composed of departed ancestors, and the power of such spirits for mischief is the most prominent article of Chinese faith. In one temple was observed the hermetically sealed coffin of some lately defunct citizen, beside whose casket an abundant meal of cooked rice and vegetables was conspicuously placed. This preparation of food for the dead and buried is not, however, an exclusive Chinese idea. We have also seen food placed by the side of newly-made Italian graves at Genoa and Pisa, and our Western Indians bury arms, clothing, and dried meats with the bodies of deceased warriors. It is known that reverence for parents is the leading moral precept of Chinese faith, and more than that, it is lived up to upon earth by all classes, and when these parents die they are addressed spiritually and reverentially as guardians. At the entrance of the temples there are always two large, gilded wooden figures or idols, considered as a sort of presiding guard over the place.
We visited the Temple of Honan, a place of great sanctity to the natives. The service is conducted by a college of Buddhist priests resident within its walls. The institution consists of a group of shrines or demi-temples dedicated to special gods, andstanding within enclosed courts, shaded by trees of great height, size, and age, the grounds covering many acres. At the main entrance are placed, as usual, two hideous idols of colossal size, figures half animal and half human in design, with strangely distorted countenances. Here the shaven-headed priests were busy performing rites and chanting before burning incense and lighted candles, after the Roman Catholic style. Within an enclosure were a number of sacred hogs, wallowing in filth like any other swine. Some lively Chinese boys mounted the largest of these, and extracting a few of the "sacred" bristles offered them to us for pennies. Upon our inquiring as to the final disposition of these animals, our guide, himself a remarkably dignified native, with "millions" of self-conceit, admitted that the fattest of the lot would probably be eaten in due season. We shall often have occasion, in these notes, to see how low poor humanity in its blindness can descend, groveling after strange gods. When trying to analyze the frame of mind which probably actuated these people in making sacred objects of swine, the thought suggested itself that after all it might be an instinctive groping of ignorance after light and truth. Crude, and even disgusting as it appears to an intelligent Christian, it has its palliating features. The Parsee worships fire, the Japanese bows before foxes and snakes, the Hindu deifies cows and monkeys. Why should not the Chinese have their swine as objects of veneration? There are certain forms of what is called Christian worship which are by no means above comparison with even Chinese extravagance.
Within the walls of this Temple of Honan was a spacious and curious garden, where the dwarf treesand flowering shrubs were ingeniously trimmed to make them grow in the forms of various animals; and here was a large pond of the sacred lotus in bloom, the thin, soft, white velvety leaves displaying every line and vein in their formation. The fragrance was very delicate. In the poetical language of the East the lotus is called the "goddess" as we call the rose the "queen" of flowers. We were here shown the cremating ovens in which the bodies of the departed priests are disposed of, and also the crude cells and the large refectory of the order. But somehow these priests, who pretend to lead such lives of self-denial, are wonderfully round and unctuous in personal appearance. Our visit to the Temple of Honan was a very curious and not uninteresting experience, made up of a strange conglomerate of swine, priests, fat idols, flower gardens, human roasting ovens, and pond lilies.
All over Canton may be seen lofty towers, square in form, which dominate the town. Our guide called these warehouses, or storehouses for the safe keeping of goods, they being both fire-proof and thief-proof. But further inquiry proved them to be a series of pawnbroker's establishments. In summer the average Chinaman pawns his winter clothing, and other articles not in actual use, thus enabling him to employ more capital in his business, whatever it may be. When the cold weather comes he redeems his needed clothing, and the same with other articles. So universal is this practice that hundreds of these tower-like pawning places are required to meet the demands of the citizens. As these establishments are supposed to be fire-proof, they do certainly afford a place of safety for valuable articles not in use, theowner paying storage in the form of interest for the money loaned, the goods being security.
The dwelling-house and pleasure-grounds of the late Poon-tin-qua, a distinguished and rich Chinaman, were visited, and proved to be typical of all Chinese pictures. Here were airy summer-houses, pavilions, bridges, rockeries, and ornamental sheets of water, as we see these things represented on lacquered ware, decorated China dishes, and fans. It was really very curious and amusing, and showed much of luxurious life,—even a private theatre being contained in the establishment. Though all seem to be deserted now and somewhat neglected, still the garden showed us roses, camellias, azaleas, lilies, and green shrubs trained in the usual grotesque manner, not forgetting the dwarf trees, which seem to give this people great satisfaction when successfully cultivated.
As regards the punishment of crime in Canton, one would look in vain for justice, but there is plenty of cruelty. We visited the execution yard, a circumscribed space in the very heart of the city. Here, our guide told us, twenty condemned prisoners were executed weekly, by decapitation, each Friday being devoted to clearing the docket. The executioner takes off a head with one stroke of the sword, and the guide said he had witnessed the decapitation of eleven heads in seven minutes. Through a grating in the wall of the yard, an open area was seen where a crowd of manacled prisoners were sitting upon the ground, no shelter being afforded them night or day. The place was more filthy than a cattle-pen,—so offensive that we remained but a few moments. It is doubtful if anywhere else in the world such barbarous carnage and cruelty exists, under the guise of legal punishment.
Much has been said about the wonderful Water-clock of Canton, but it is actually a very simple and crude mode of measuring time, which any smart Yankee school-boy would improve upon. It consists of four tubs of water, located one above the other on a wooden frame, each dripping slowly into the one below it, the last being furnished with a float, the rise of which is measured on a graduated scale, indicating units of time; and such is the famous Water-clock of Canton. We were not disposed to walk any more than was necessary in the public streets, where the foulest odors assailed us at every step, and disgusting sights met the eye in the form of diseased individuals of the most loathsome type. The stranger is jostled by staggering coolies, with buckets of the vilest contents, or importuned for alms by beggars who thrust their deformed limbs into his very face. It is but natural to fear contagion of some sort from contact with such creatures, and yet the crowd is so dense that it is impossible to entirely avoid them. Underfoot the streets are wet, muddy, tortuous, and slippery, so that one comes from them with a feeling that a hot bath is an immediate necessity. Why some deadly pestilence does not at once break out and sweep away the people is a mystery. We know that the Ghetto at Rome, which forms the most filthy part of the Eternal City, was entirely spared when the rest of the place was decimated by cholera; but Canton generally is far dirtier than the Roman Ghetto.
As we found it almost impossible to traverse the streets of Canton on foot, we were carried, each person, in a palanquin, upon the shoulders of four coolies. These vehicles can make their way through thenarrow streets, but cannot turn round in them without going to some open space where several streets meet. The bearers trudge along, keeping step with each other, and uttering a loud, peculiar cry to clear the way, reminding one of the gondoliers on the canals of Venice. People were obliged to step into shops and doorways, or flatten themselves against buildings, in order to make room for us to pass in the palanquins, but they did so with a good grace and took it quite as a matter of course. Whenever we stopped for a trifling purchase or to visit some point of interest, a small crowd was sure to collect. The narrow lanes are lined in many sections by stores containing very attractive goods, curiosities, silks, fine China ware, ivory, scented woods, mother-of-pearl and carved tortoise shell, all goods of native manufacture. The remarkable patience and imitative skill of the Chinese enables them to produce very choice goods in these lines of art. The shops being all open in front, the entire contents can be seen by the passers-by. Many of these passages are covered over at the top by matting, which effectually excludes the sun, and, indeed, much other light, so that they often have a sombre and dreary appearance.
It was interesting to watch the operation of the primitive hand-loom in which is woven the favorite Canton silk. The fabric is beautiful and expensive, being sold by the pound in place of by the yard, as with us. Men and boys only engage in silk weaving. Women assume the heavier and more exposed branches of labor, and of out-door-life, besides lugging their infants. Some of the lofty and utterly useless pagodas, which are over twelve hundred years old, are quite unique in architecture and ornamentation.One was visited which was nine stories high, measuring in a vertical line about two hundred feet. Observing a woman at one of the shrines fanning an idol, the guide was asked for an explanation. He said that the woman would presently take this fan home with which to fan some sick person, and from this process would hope for miraculous intervention in behalf of the suffering one. "And do you believe there is any efficacy in such a proceeding?" we asked. "You would call it the result of credulity and imagination," was his intelligent reply, "but I have seen some wonderful cures brought about after this manner. Do not people, who call themselves Christians, believe in prayer?" "Most certainly," we replied. "Well," continued the guide, "this is simply Chinese prayer." After this explanation, the queer proceeding of fanning an idol seamed less strange. That was certainly a good answer,—calling it Chinese prayer.
Undoubtedly our type of features is repulsive to the average Chinaman, certainly his is very much so to us. One looked in vain among the smooth chins, shaved heads, and almond eyes of the crowd for signs of intelligence and manliness. There are no tokens of humor or cheerfulness to be seen, but in its place there is plenty of cunning, slyness, and deceit, if there is any truth in physiognomy. The men look like women and the women like children, except that their features are so hard and forbidding. The better classes wear a supercilious expression of features that makes the toes of one's boots tingle; and yet in all the shops there is a cringing assiduity to get all the silver and pennies from the outside barbarians that is possible. In the streets there was a most unmistakable surliness exhibited that would have brokeninto forcible demonstration as we passed through them only for the instinctive cowardice of the Asiatics. It is quite impossible to express what a strange sea of life these narrow Canton streets exhibited, as we floated through them in palanquins upon the shoulders of the coolies. Their filth dominated all other characteristics, and forced upon the memory Charles Lamb's remark to his friend, when he said: "Martin, if dirt was trumps, what a hand you would hold."
Philanthropic societies are numerous in the cities of China, hardly exceeded in variety and excellence of design by those of Europe and America. These embrace well-organized orphan asylums, institutions for the relief of indigent widows with families, homes for the aged and infirm, public hospitals, and free schools in nearly every district. As with ourselves, some of these are purely governmental charities, others are supported by liberal endowments left by deceased citizens. Depots for the distribution of medicines to the poor are numerous, and others exist for distributing clothing to the needy. One organization was mentioned to us which supplied coffins to the poor, and bore the expenses of burial. Among the dense population of the country there must be ample occasion for the exercise of such charities. It must be remembered that these societies and organizations are not copied from European or American models; they have existed here from time immemorial.
Philologists have vainly endeavored to trace any affinity between the Chinese language and that of other nations, ancient or modern. It is unique,—an original tongue, and, what is equally remarkable, no other nation, except the neighboring Japanese, have ever borrowed from it, or amalgamated any of itselements with their own. It must have risen in its written form from the untutored efforts of a primitive people. Like the Egyptian tongue, it was at first probably composed of hieroglyphics, which, in the course of time, became symbolic as they stand to-day.
The foreign population of Canton, American, English, French, etc., live upon a spacious and beautiful island by themselves. The island is connected with the city proper by a stone bridge having iron gates, through which no native is permitted to pass unless in the domestic employment of the residents, and then they are obliged to show their written permits each time to the guard on duty at the gate of the bridge. All of the foreign consuls with their families reside here in elegant quarters, surrounding their European style of dwellings with fine gardens, trees, and pleasant walks, and here they extend to travelers hospitality only too open-handed and generous. They are completely isolated from the outer world socially, and intelligent visitors from abroad are cordially welcomed by them.
An inexhaustible agricultural capacity remains unimproved in China, and the same may be said of her rich store of mineral wealth, which, under American enterprise and facilities, would soon revolutionize the country in its products and exports. Save the districts which are traversed by the canals, the present means of communication between different parts of the country are scarcely superior to those of Central Africa. The so-called national roads are nearly impassable. No other country in the world would be so surely and rapidly benefited by a thorough system of railroads as would China. Gold and silver are found in nearly every province of the Empire, theformer being still procured by the most primitive processes, such as washing the river sands by hand, which are recharged by the freshets from the mountains,—a mode that would satisfy only Chinese labor. Coal is the most widespread, most valuable, and most accessible of all the buried treasures. If the twelve thousand miles of coal-fields have made Great Britain the workshop of the world, what may not be anticipated from the four hundred thousand square miles of Chinese coal-fields, which are capable of supplying the whole world, at the present rate of consumption, for thousands of years?
The depressing monotony in the customs, habits, and ideas of the Chinese, as contrasted with their neighbors, the Japanese, forces itself upon the notice of the traveler. There is no variety among the race, either in manners, dress, or architecture; one section of the country seems precisely like another, so far as the people are concerned, however widely divided, and all follow one model. There is no individuality. They look to the past not to the future. There is no such possibility as a nation's standing still; it either retrogrades or progresses. China, whose people do everything in a left-handed manner, advances like a crab, backwards. It would seem as if she must eventually dry up and die of old age; and yet, within the limits of the Chinese Empire is probably comprised one fourth of the human race. Strive as much as we may to be fair and liberal, it is yet impossible to disguise our strong dislike to the people whom we were now about to leave. A sense of relief on departing from pestilential Canton was inevitable, and there was little to attract us longer at Hong Kong, to which city we returned in the steamship Powan.
It is not wise to shut our eyes to facts which have passed into history, or be too strongly influenced by personal prejudice. The Chinese have long been a cultured, reading people. Their veritable records take them back to the days of Abraham. Five hundred years before the art of printing was known to Europe, books were multiplied by movable types in China, and her annals thereby preserved. Whatever of ignorance may attach to the people as it regards matters extraneous to their empire, the detailed and accurate knowledge of their own country and its statistics is evident enough from the elaborate printed works in the native tongue. Every province has its separate history in print, specifying its productions, a brief record of its eminent men, and of all matters of local importance. Reliable maps of every section of the country are extant. The civil code of laws is annually published and corrected. In the departments of science relating to geography and astronomy, they have long been well advanced. A certain amount of education is universal, eight tenths of the people being able to read and write. The estimate in which letters are held is clear, from the fact that learning forms the very threshold that leads to fame, honor, and official position. Competitive examination is the mode by which office is disposed of, those who hold the highest standard of scholarship bearing off the palm. The art of printing has been referred to as having its origin in China. In two other important discoveries this nation long precedes Europe; namely, in the use of gunpowder and the magnetic compass, the knowledge of which traveled slowly westward through the channels of Oriental commerce, by way of Asia Minor or the Red Sea. It isonly just and fair for us to look on both sides of the subject.
On the night of December 11th, being the day previous to that of our departure from Hong Kong, a slight shock of earthquake was experienced, recalling a similar event at Yokohama; but as these are not of uncommon occurrence in either place, little was thought or said about the matter. We embarked on the P. and O. steamship, Brindisi, for Singapore, by the way of the China Sea and the Gulf of Siam. The northeast monsoon favored us, as we rushed like a race-horse over the turbulent sea, with a following gale,—the threatening waves appearing as if they would certainly engulf us if they could catch up with the stern of the ship. The Philippine Islands were given a wide berth, as we steered southward towards the equator. The cholera was raging among the group; and in illustration of the fact that misfortunes never come as single spies, but in battalions, Manilla, the capital, had just been nearly destroyed by a typhoon. Leaving Borneo on our port bow as we neared the equatorial line, the ship was steered due west for the mouth of the Straits lying between the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Sumatra.
While running off the Gulf of Siam we got our first view of a veritable water-spout. It was from four to five miles off our starboard bow, but quite as near as we desired it to be. It seems that both atmospheric and aquatic currents meet here: from the China Sea northward, from the Malacca Straits southward, and from the Pacific Ocean eastward, mingling at the entrance of the Gulf of Siam, causing at times a confusion of the elements. At least this was the captain's theory, and it seems that he hadmore than once met with water-spouts at this point. They are nothing more or less than a miniature cyclone, an eddying of the wind rotating with such velocity as to suck up a column of water from the sea to a height of one or two hundred feet. This column of water appears to be largest at the top and bottom and visibly contracted at the middle. If it were to fall foul of a ship and break, it would wreck and submerge her as surely as though she were run down by an iceberg. Modern science shows that all storms are cyclonic, that is, are circular eddies of wind of greater or less diameter.
No two geographers seem to agree as to what constitutes the Malay Archipelago, but the five islands nearest to the Peninsula should undoubtedly be thus classified; namely, Singapore, Penang, Borneo, Sumatra, and Java,—the latter containing more volcanoes, active and extinct, than any other known district of equal extent. If the reader will glance at a map of the Eastern Hemisphere, it will be observed that many islands dot the equatorial region between Asia and Australia. Some maps include New Guinea in the Malay group, though it is situated far to the eastward, and forms so independent a region, being larger than Great Britain. Lying in the very lap of the tropics, the climate is more uniformly hot and moist than in any other part of the globe, and teems with productions in the animal and vegetable kingdoms elsewhere unknown. The most precious spices, the richest fruits, the gaudiest feathered birds, are here seen at home; while man is represented by a race quite distinctive and peculiar, whose type will be looked for in vain beyond the limits of this region. Climate, vegetation, and animated life are allspecially equatorial. The elephant, rhinoceros, tapir, and the man-like orang-outang are all indigenous. It was quite natural to reflect upon these well-known facts as we came down the China Sea and crossed the broad Gulf of Siam.
On the 15th of December, at noon, latitude 9° 1', longitude 108° 57', we found ourselves just half round the world from our starting-point, Boston. The capital of Massachusetts was exactly beneath us on the opposite side of the globe, a physical fact somewhat difficult to realize.
We landed, December 17th, at Singapore, the most southerly point of Asia, located at the mouth of the Malacca Straits, about eighty miles north of the equator, being the capital of the Straits Settlements. It is the stopping-place of nearly all ocean travel to and from the East, not only for the landing and taking in of other cargo, but as a necessary coaling station, whether coming round the Cape of Good Hope, or from Suez and India by the Red Sea route. Singapore is an island lying just off the peninsula separation from the main-land by a strait scarcely a quarter of a mile across. It is some thirty miles long and half as broad, containing over two hundred square miles, and supporting a population of a hundred thousand, more or less. The entrance to the harbor was very picturesque as we sailed between the low lying islands grouped about it, fanned by a soft welcome morning breeze, before the burning sun had asserted its power. An aspect of tropical luxuriance and languor reigned everywhere,—the palm and cocoanut-trees looming above all the rest of the vegetation. About the ship floated tropical seaweed of brilliant colors, while the long snow-white beachcontrasted strongly with the dark green, glossy foliage behind it. It was easy to divine the products of the island from the nature of the merchandise piled upon the wharf for shipment, consisting of tapioca, cocoanut oil, gambia, tin, indigo, tiger skins, coral, gutta-percha, hides, gums, and camphor, some of which our ship was destined to take westward. The tin, in heavy pigs, was especially noticeable as to weight and quantity.
The surface of the island is undulating and densely wooded; in fact consists of a multitude of small hills not exceeding three or four hundred feet in height, while the jungle comes down close to the shore. The great enemy which the natives have to contend against is wild beasts,—tigers proving very fatal all the year round. There is no winter, summer, or autumn here, but a perpetual spring, with a temperature almost unvarying; new leaves always swelling from the buds, flowers always in bloom, the sun rising and setting within five minutes of six o'clock during the entire year. Singapore is considered to be a very healthy place, and gets a soft breeze most of the day from across the Bay of Bengal, laden with fragrant sweetness from the spice-bearing fields of Ceylon, while upon its own soil every flower and blossom known to the Orient affords beauty to the eye and delight to the senses. The trees here would have seemed enormous had we not so lately come from California. One observes the great abundance of the rattan-palm, which forms picturesque groups of green foliage quite distinctive from the other surroundings. It seemed rather enervating with the thermometer at 90° in the shade, these December days, but the residents did not complain. There are somedrawbacks to be considered, as well as the floral beauty and spice-laden air. Were this not the case it would be celestial not terrestial. The number of dangerous snakes, scorpions, mammoth spiders, lizards, mosquitoes, and all sorts of vermin is legion. Naturalists come from all parts of Europe to gather and form collections of butterflies, beetles, birds, reptiles, various insects, and shells. The great green-winged Ornithoptera, the prince of the butterfly tribe, abounds here. One enthusiastic naturalist, a German, boasted that he had obtained within a month over three hundred distinct and remarkable species of beetles, within a couple of miles of the hotel veranda where we stood.
The steamboat landing is some three miles from the centre of Singapore, and we drove thither drawn by a little horse which could hardly have performed the task had the road not been an excellent one and as level as a parlor floor. The wayside was bordered by hedges of green and growing rattans uniformly clipped, and forming a continuous wall, which, here and there, threw out a graceful feathery bit of foliage. Over the hedge occasionally bent tall and handsome palm-trees of various species, often laden with cocoanuts, or other fruit of the palm family, and occasionally whole groves of bananas were in sight. We passed many Chinamen, and many Chinese shops, showing them to be the dominating race, always moving promptly as if bent on some fixed purpose; while the natives, seen now and then on the road, were listless and objectless in their appearance,—true children of the equatorial region. The former were bent on accumulating the means to return to their native land in independence; the latter were utterly heedless of the morrow.
The local pictures, as usual in each new place, are interesting and impressive: small hump-backed oxen driven singly to harness and at a lively trot; little diminutive horses, even smaller than those of Japan, yet drawing heavy-loaded vehicles; an almost naked population, and those wearing clothes at all affecting the brightest possible colors. Scarlet turbans and white skirts, red shawls bound round the head, yellow sashes confining one thickness of narrow cotton cloth about the body, give bits of color everywhere. Peddlers roam the streets selling water, soup, fruit, and a jelly, made from seaweed, called agar-agar. These articles are cried, each after its own peculiar name, and customers are not wanting; little groups of Chinese and natives often surround the peddler and partake of his wares. Houses are built high up in the air upon stilts, a common practice for various reasons, not the least of which is protection against the much dreaded tigers, snakes, and other dangerous creatures. Tigers are said to devour three hundred of the inhabitants annually; that is nearly one a day out of a population of a hundred thousand, which is the aggregate of the whole island. The number of victims is set even higher than this, and is mostly made up from those working on the plantations.
The jungle is very dense and difficult to penetrate. English sportsmen come hither, in large numbers, to seek this royal game. It would seem strange at first thought that an island like Singapore could not be cleared of this terrible pest, and so we remarked. "Ah," replied a resident, "you forget that we draw an unlimited supply from the main-land. Tigers swim across the narrow straits continually, and not until the land is cleared from jungle will our islandbe free from them." The natives dig pits as traps for the tigers, similar to the manner of catching them in India, except that at Singapore a series of sharp, upright stakes were introduced, upon which the animals fell and were fatally wounded. This, however, has been forbidden since an English hunter fell into a trap and was empaled upon them.
The vegetable and fruit market at Singapore affords an amusing scene in the early morning. In fact a traveler soon learns that it is a resort not to be neglected in any new city; affording, as it invariably does, strongly characteristic local pictures, and for the time drawing together representatives from nearly all classes of the community,—master, mistress, and servant. The variety of fruit is here much greater than in Japan or China; and there are one or two species, such as the delicious mangosteen,—the seductive apple of the East,—which are found indigenous in no other country. The vegetables are abundant, and the native women, who transact the market business, know how to arrange them with an eye to good effect, just as they show an artistic fancy in the mingled colors of the few clothes they wear.
The cocoanuts ripening in big clusters on the lofty trees, and many other fruits produced by the family of the palm, are inviting and handsome to look upon, especially when hanging in clusters forty or fifty feet skyward. We had often read of the fan-palm, but they are much more curious to see than to read about, being here presented in their most thriving aspect. The California specimens are quite meagre and unsatisfactory in comparison with those grown so near the equator. Here the tree springs up in the exact shape of an outspread feather-fan, as though it wereartificially trained, and reaches the height of thirty or forty feet, making a very distinctive feature of the scenery. Fruit is always cheap in these regions, and forms a very large portion of the native subsistence; but it was a surprise to us in paying for a dozen large, ripe, and luscious pine-apples to find that the price was but sixpence. It was amusing to watch the itinerant cooks, who wear a yoke over their necks, with a cooking apparatus on one end and a little table to balance it on the other, serving meals of rice and fish to coolies and boatmen for a couple of pennies each. Money has here, as in most Eastern countries, a larger purchasing power than it has with us of the West. Laborers at Singapore get twelve and fifteen cents a day for work on the wharves, and less inland; but the cost of living to these people is proportionally insignificant. They can go into the jungle and get a dinner of fruit at any time, and no one will interfere with them.
A visit to the Botanical Garden, located a couple of miles from the town, afforded us much pleasure, and, as a complete collection of tropical trees and plants, exceeded, in extent and variety, all previous experience. Though this entire region is a garden, it has been deemed well to gather close together all possible representatives of the trees, fruits, and flowers, and to surround them with all the beauties of landscape gardening. Here, nourished by abundant heat and moisture, thrive the bread-fruit-tree, palms, dates, figs, and mangoes, mangosteens, and creepers of infinite variety. For the first time we saw specimens of the acacia flamboyante, a large tree with broad leaves of delicate green, throwing out from its topmost boughs clusters of scarlet flowers with yellowcentres like military plumes. The floral display was very beautiful, and the plants must have enjoyed the care of the best trained skill to produce such perfection. One portion of the garden contained large bushes of stephanotis and alamanda in full bloom, and close by was a glorious display of the Egyptian lotus in flower. Upon a small artificial lake was a grand flourishing plant of the Victoria Regia, with leaves that would support a small child upon the surface of the water. There was an extensive aviary in the grounds, with beautiful specimens of the argus pheasant, lyre-bird, parrots of many species, and doves with strangely gaudy plumage, as though they had barely escaped being parrots. The little scarlet larie, a native here, chattered like a magpie. It was certainly an unexpected pleasure to find an excellent museum, a public library, a Protestant cathedral, a large hospital, schools, and several benevolent institutions, as well as the fine garden referred to, in this capital of the Malay coast. It will be remembered that Singapore belongs to the English, having been purchased by them so long ago as 1819 from the Sultan of Johore, Malay Peninsula; wise forethought, showing its importance as a port of call between England and India. The city is divided into the Chinese, Malay, and European quarters, with a population of sixty thousand, and is elaborately fortified. A moment's thought will recall to the reader's mind a fact which is of interest in this connection. England has established and maintains a line of outposts from the Mediterranean to the far East, commencing at Gibraltar, thence to Malta, Aden, Ceylon, Penang, Singapore, and Hong Kong, thus completely dominating the south of Asia, and giving her a clear road toIndia, besides making her power always realized and respected in the East.
There is no disguising the fact that the Chinese, attracted to Singapore by its freedom from commercial restrictions, and its advantages of position, have contributed very largely to make it what it is, the most prosperous settlement in the East. It literally swarms with pigtails, the Chinese composing nearly half of the population. We cannot afford to ignore the commercial value of this race, however much we may dislike them personally. Opium dens are conspicuous here, over the doors of which is printed in English, "Licensed Opium Shops." It seems that these Mongolians cannot or will not do without the subtle drug, while there are many people who do not use the article, but who contend that it is not injurious except when taken to excess. An intelligent resident, however, admitted that opium was in one way or another the cause of most of the crime among the class who habitually use it. It is the Chinaman's one luxury, his one extravagance; he will stint himself in food, clothing, amusements, everything else, to add to his hoard of dollars; but this fascinating, artificial stimulant and narcotic combined he will not deny himself.
An Englishman, who joined the ship at Singapore, related a tiger adventure, which had occurred here not long previous to our visit. There was ample evidence that one of these much-dreaded creatures had made his lair not far away from the town. Our informant had come hither with a friend on a hunting excursion, and resolved, if possible, to secure the creature's hide. Three or four days before a native woman had disappeared from the suburbs, and it was resolved to take advantage of the trail which was madeon this occasion to track the beast through the jungle. The sportsmen, with six native beaters, easily followed the track, the animal's fore paws evidently sinking heavily into the ground with the weight of the body he carried. A full mile was passed before the path became so dense as to cause delay, and the track was quite clear. Here and there branches showed a lock of the woman's hair, where her head had come in contact with some thorny bushes in passing. Once the tiger had evidently laid the body down, and here were finger-marks in the soil, showing that life still existed in the poor victim.
The slight clothing she wore had been found at the commencement of the trail, where a disturbance of the ground indicated some sort of struggle. At the end of the second mile the tracks grew every moment more distinct, and the party moved with increased caution. An experienced beater was now sent in advance with only his broad, unsheathed knife for self-protection. Stillness reigned for some time, as the party thus advanced. The animal had scented danger, and, contrary to the usual habits of these creatures on such occasions, instead of retreating farther into the jungle, he came boldly towards the attacking party. Had this been anticipated, greater caution would have been observed. Suddenly there came a crashing sound, and a scream rang through the jungle. The head beater was borne to the ground by the whole weight of the tiger, who had sprung upon him. The man had stood at the moment in a partial opening, so that man and beast were now in full sight. One of the hunters instantly leveled his rifle, and with deliberate aim sent a ball through the tiger's brain, causing him to straighten out at once, quite dead.
The man was stunned and severely wounded, but he was not bitten, and was able to struggle to his feet, pointing exultingly to the knife, showing that he had buried the blade to the hilt in the tiger's chest, notwithstanding the suddenness of the attack. The natives generally are poor hunters, lacking courage and coolness, both of which qualities this man clearly evinced. A hundred yards further into the jungle from the spot where this struggle took place was found the monster's lair. It was a small open space, surrounded by a thick undergrowth, whither he had brought his victims, fully three miles from the nearest village. Only the bones of the poor woman were found; what the tiger had not eaten other beasts and birds had consumed. Heaps of bones testified to the havoc the animal had made. A number of bangles, arm-rings, nose and ear ornaments, were picked up, such as only women wear, showing that a number of his victims had been of that sex. The beater was well enough to walk back to the village, after a short time, and became quite a hero in consequence of the adventure. The carcass was brought to town, and proved to be that of a very large and old tiger. The fact of his coming towards the hunters instead of retiring, as is their habit when pursued by numbers, showed that he was an unusually dangerous animal.
A two days' voyage through what seemed to us like a sea of phosphorescence, every splash and ripple producing liquid gems, brought us to Penang, the most northerly sea-port of the Malacca Straits, situated at the point where they open into the Indian Ocean, and just one hundred miles from the island of Sumatra across the mouth of the Straits. The approach to the island by water afforded a finepicture. Well-wooded hills of vivid greenness rise above the sea all about the town. These hills grow more or less lofty as they recede inland, until they culminate in three mountain peaks. Penang, like Singapore, is an island some thirteen miles long by ten in width, and is separated from the main-land of the Peninsula by a narrow belt of sea not more than three miles in width, giving it a position of great commercial importance. It resembles Singapore in many respects, and is almost identical with it so far as it relates to its general products and vegetation; the season, likewise, is one long, unvarying summer. The arcea palm, known as the Penang-tree, is the source of the betel-nut, and, as it abounds on the island, has given it the name it bears. The town and its immediate suburbs cover about a square mile, through which one broad main street runs, intersected by lesser thoroughfares at right angles. A drive about the place gave us an idea that it is a thrifty town, but not nearly so populous or business-like as Singapore. It was also observable here that the Chinese element predominated. The main street referred to is lined with open bazars and shops, mostly kept by Chinamen. The front of the dwellings being all open, gives the passer-by a full idea of all that is going on in each household. Shrines were nearly always to be seen in some nook or corner of each dwelling, before which incense was burning, and generally a couple of candles also, very much as at Canton. The shrine-room seemed also to be the eating, sleeping, and living room.
The natives are lithe in figure, with but slight muscular development, and are yet quite strong, appearing at all times as nearly naked as would bepermitted among white people. They give up nearly all branches of occupation, trade, and industries to the Chinamen, and content themselves with lying all day in the sun, eating bananas and other cheap fruits, and chewing betel-nuts. Some of them make good sailors, taken away from their home and put under discipline. The P. & O. Steamship Company, as well as many others, often recruit their crews here. Is it because surrounding nature is so bountiful, so lovely, so prolific in spontaneous food, that these, her children, are lazy, dirty, and heedless? Does it require a cold, unpropitious climate, a sterile soil and rude surroundings, to awaken human energy and put man at his best? There is compensation always. With luxury comes enervation, effort is superfluous; while with frugality and labor we have strength, accompanied with development of mind and body. The former produces slaves, the latter heroes.
Humanity and the lower grades of animal life seem here to change places. While the birds and butterflies are in perfect harmony with the loveliness of nature about them, while the flowers are glorious in beauty and in fragrance, man alone seems out of tune and out of place. Indolent, dirty, unclad, he adds nothing to the beauty or perfection of the surroundings, does nothing to adapt and improve such wealth of possibilities as nature spreads broadcast only in these regions. The home of the Malay is not so clean as that of the ants, or the birds, or the bees; the burrowing animals are much neater. He does little for himself, nothing for others, the sensuous life he leads poisoning his nature. Virtue and vice have no special meaning to him. There is no sear and yellow leaf at Penang, or anywhere on the coast of theStraits. Fruits and flowers are perennial: if a leaf falls, another springs into life on the vacant stem; if fruit is plucked, a blossom follows and another cluster ripens; nature is inexhaustible. Unlike most tropical regions, neither Penang nor Singapore are troubled with malarial fevers, and probably no spot on earth can be found better adapted to the wants of primitive man.
The native women are graceful and almost pretty, slight in figure, and very fond of ornament. Indeed both sexes pierce their ears, noses, and lips, through which to thrust silver, brass, and gold rings, also covering their ankles and arms with metallic rings, the number only limited by their means. In the immediate neighborhood of the town are some English plantations and neat cottages, with inclosures of flowers and orchards of fruit trees; while still farther back are large gardens of bread-fruit, nutmegs, cinnamon, pepper, and other spices. Plantations of sugar-cane, tobacco, and coffee are also numerous, the soil being pronounced to be extremely fertile. We were told that nothing had to be wrung from the earth here, but, as Douglas Jerrold said of Australia, "just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest." Here is the very paradise of brilliant birds, with feathers "too utterly gaudy," while Flora revels in wild luxuriance. The delicate little sensitive plant here grows in a wild state, equally tremulous and subsiding at human touch, as with us. Lilies are in wonderful variety, and such ferns, and such butterflies! These latter almost as big as humming-birds and as swift of wing.
Penang is the headquarters of the cocoanut-tree, the prolific character of which is here simplywonderful. How these trees manage to keep an upright position, with such heavy loads in their tufted tops, is a never-ending marvel. This tree is always in bearing at Penang, giving annually several voluntary crops, and receiving no artificial cultivation. Of the liberal gifts which Providence has bestowed upon the tropics, the cocoanut-tree is perhaps the most valuable. The Asiatic poets celebrate in verse the three hundred and sixty uses to which the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the fruit, and the juice are applied. In Penang a certain number of these trees are not permitted to bear fruit; the embryo bud, from which the blossoms and nuts would spring, is tied up to prevent its expansion, and a small incision then being made at the end, there oozes in gentle drops a cool, pleasant liquor called sarce or toddy, which is the palm-wine of the poet. This, when first drawn, is cooling and wholesome, but when fermented and distilled produces a strong, intoxicating spirit. In fruits, the banana is perhaps the next most valuable of the products of this region. We were told that between twenty and thirty distinct species of the fruit flourished within a radius of a dozen miles of the town, all wholesome and palatable. The attention of planters is being diverted from spice culture to that of fruit raising, the latter requiring so much less attention, and not being liable to blight of any sort.
In the brief stay which we made at Singapore and Penang, it is hardly to be supposed that any very reliable judgment could be formed as to the characteristics of the common people; but with observation, fortified by intelligent inquiry, certain deductions were natural. The Malay seems to be a careless,happy-go-lucky race, the merest children of nature, with no thought of the morrow. The English first, and then the Chinese, dominate the masses. When they have no money, and lack for food, they will work; but only empty pockets and gnawing stomachs will induce them to labor. All life seems more or less torpid and listless in the tropics. As has been intimated, the morals of these people of the Straits will not bear writing about; the marriage rite has little force among them, and domesticity is not understood. They are more nearly Mohammedan than aught else, and its forms are somewhat preserved, but the faith of Mecca has only a slight hold upon them. There are intelligent and cultivated Malays, those of Sumatra, Borneo, and Java are notably so; but we have been speaking of the masses. Penang originally belonged to the Malay kingdom, but, about the year 1786, was given to an English sea-captain as a marriage portion with the King of Keddah's daughter, and by him transferred to the East India Company. When Captain Francis Light received it with his dusky bride, it was the wild home of a few Malay fishermen and their families; to-day it has about a hundred thousand population.