At noon we reached the object of our journey in the famous ruins of Borobodo. Sir Stamford Raffles says that all the labor expended on the Pyramids of Egypt sinks into insignificance when compared with that bestowed on the grand architectural remains of Java; but after seeing this, the greatest on the island, his estimate seems to me very extravagant. This is much smaller than the Great Pyramid, in the space of ground which it covers, and lower in height, and altogether less imposing. But without making comparisons, it is certainly a wonderful pile. It is a pyramid in shape, some four hundred feet square, and nine stories high, being ascended by a series of gigantic steps or terraces. That it was built for Buddhist worship is evident from the figures of Buddha which cover its sides. It is the monument not only of an ancient religion, but of an extinct civilization, of a mighty empire once throned on this island, which has left remains like those of ancient Egypt. What a population and what power must have been here ages ago, to rear such a structure! One can imagine the people gathered at great festivals in numbers such as now assemble at pilgrimages in India. Doubtless this hill of stone was often black with human beings (for as many could stand on its sides as could be gathered in the Coliseum at Rome), while on the open plain in front, stretching to a mountain in the background, a nation might have encamped, like the Israelites before Sinai, to receive the law. But the temple is in ruins, and there is no gathering of the people for worship any more. The religion of the island is changed. Buddhism has passed away, and Islam has taken its place, to pass away in its turn. It was Good Friday, in 1876, that I stood on the top of this pyramid, and thought of Him who on this day suffered for mankind, and whose religion is yet to possess the world. When it has conquered Asia, it will cross the sea, and take this beautiful island, from which it may pass on to the mainland of the continent of Australia.
In such musings we lingered for hours, wandering about the ruins and enjoying the landscape, which is one of the most beautiful we have seen in all our travels—the wide sweep in the foreground reminding us of the view from Stirling Castle in Scotland.
But the carriage is waiting, and once more the driver cracks his whip, his horses prance, and away we fly along the roads, through the valleys, and over the hills. At evening we reached Magellang, the centre of one of the districts into which Java is divided, and a town of some importance. It is a curious geographical fact that it stands exactly in the centre of the island. One spot is called the Navel of Java. The Javanese think a certain hill is the head of a great nail, which is driven into the earth and holds the island firm in its place. If this be so, it is strange that it does not keep it more quiet. For if we may use the language of the brokers, we might say with truth that in Java "real estate is active," since it is well shaken up once or twice a year with earthquakes, and is all the time smouldering with volcanoes.
But however agitated underground, the country is very beautiful above it. Here as in all the places where the Dutch "most do congregate," there is a mixture of European civilization with the easy and luxurious ways of the East. Some of the villages are as pretty as any in our own New England, and reminded us of those in the Connecticut valley, being laid out with a broad open square or common in the centre, which is shaded by magnificent trees, and surrounded by beautiful residences, whose broad verandas and open doors give a most inviting picture of domestic comfort and generous hospitality. There is a club-house for the officers, and music by the military band. The Residents always live very handsomely. They are the great men in every district. Each one has a spacious residence, with a military guard, and a salary of six or eight thousand dollars a year, with extras for the expense of entertaining or oftravelling, and a liberal pension at the close of twenty years of service.
Magellang is marked with a white stone in our memories of Java, as it was the scene of a novel experience. When we drove into the town, we found the hotel full, which obliged us to fall back upon our letter to the Resident. He was absent, but his secretary at once took us in hand, and requested the "Regent" (a native prince who holds office under the Dutch government, and has special oversight of the native population) to entertain us. He responded in the most courteous manner, so that, instead of being lodged at a hotel, we were received as guests in a princely residence. His "palace" was in the Eastern style, of but one story (as are most of the buildings in Java, on account of earthquakes), but spread out over a large surface, with rows of columns supporting its ample roof, presenting in front in its open colonnade what might be regarded as a spacious hall of audience; and furnishing in its deep recesses a cool retreat from the heat of the tropical sun. A native guard pacing before the door indicated the official character of the occupant. The Regent received us with dignity, but with great cordiality. He was attired in the rich costume of the East. His feet were without stockings, but encased in richly embroidered sandals. He could speak no English, and but a few words of French—only Malay, Dutch, and Javanese. But he sent for a gentleman to dine, who was of Spanish descent, and who, though a native of Java, and had never been out of it, yet spoke both French and English, and thus we were able to converse.
The Regent had a wife, and after a time she entered the hall, and welcomed my niece with a cordiality almost like that of two school-girls meeting. She was simply dressed, in the lightest costume, with bare feet, but in gold-embroidered slippers. Everything in her attire was very plain, except that her ears were hung with diamonds that fairlydazzled us with their brilliancy. She began talking with great volubility, and seemed not quite to comprehend why it was that we did not understand Malay or Javanese. However, with the help of our interpreter, we got along, and were soon in the most confidential relations. She had very vague ideas of the part of the world we came from. We tried to make her understand that the world was round, and that we lived on the other side of the globe. We asked why the Regent did not go abroad to see the world? But she signified with a peculiar gesture, as if counting with her fingers, that it took a great deal of money. She asked "if we were rich," to which we replied modestly that we had enough for our wants. As she talked of family matters, she informed us that her lord had another wife. Of this she spoke without the least reserve. It was quite natural that he should desire this. She (his first wife) had been married to him over twenty years, and was getting a littlepassée, and he needed a young face to make the house bright and gay. Presently the second wife entered, and we were presented to her. She was very young—I should think not twenty years of age. Evidently the elder occupied the first place in the household, and the younger took the second. They seemed to stand in a kind of sisterly relation to each other, without the slightest feeling of jealousy between them. Both were very pretty, after the Malayan type—that is, with mild, soft eyes, and skins, not black, like Africans, but of a rich brown color. They would have been even beautiful if they had had also, what the Africans so often have, dazzling white teeth; but this is prevented by the constant chewing of the betel-nut and tobacco.
At half-past eight o'clock we went to dinner. C—— had the honor of sitting between the two wives, and enjoyed the courtesy of both, who prepared fruit for her, and by many little attentions, such as are understood in all parts of the world, showed that they belonged to the true sisterhood of woman.The position of woman in Java is somewhat peculiar. The people are Mohammedans, and yet the women are not secluded, nor do they veil their faces; they receive strangers in their houses and at their tables; thus they have much greater freedom than their sisters in Turkey or Egypt. The Regent, being a Mussulman, did not take wine, though he provided it for his guests. After the dinner, coffee was served, of a rich, delicious flavor—for Java is the land of coffee—followed by the inevitable cigar. I do not smoke, but could not allow my refusal to interfere with the habits of those whose guest I was, and could but admire the ineffable satisfaction with which the Regent and his friend puffed the fragrant weed. While they were thus wreathed in clouds, and floating in a perfect Nirvana of material enjoyment, the gentler sex were not forgotten. The two wives took their pleasure in their own fashion. A small box, like a tea-caddy, was brought on the table, full of little silver cups and cases, containing leaves of the betel-nut, and spices, cassia and gambier, a little lime, and a cup of the finest tobacco. Out of these they prepared a delicate morsel for their lips. With her own dainty fingers, each rolled up a leaf of the betel-nut, enclosing in it several kinds of spices, and filling it with a good pinch of tobacco, which, our Spanish friend explained, was not so much for the taste, as to make the morsel plump and round, large enough to fill the mouth (or, as a wine-taster would say of his favorite madeira or port, to give it sufficientbody); and also, he added, it was to clean the teeth, and to give an aromatic fragrance to the breath! I repeat, as exactly as I can recall them, his very words.
Whether the precious compound had all these virtues, certainly these courtly dames took it with infinite relish, and rolled it as a sweet morsel under their tongues, and looked on their lord with no jealousy of his enjoyment of his cigar.
Here was a picture of conjugal felicity. The family was evidently an affectionate and happy one. The Regent lovedboth his wives, and they sat side by side without envy or uncharitableness, happy in the sunshine of his face, and chewed their betel-nut with a composure, an aspect of tranquil enjoyment, which many in more civilized countries may admire, but cannot equal.
In the morning, when the family came together, I remarked that the first wife, who then apparently saw her husband for the first time, came forward, and bending low, kissed his jewelled hand; and soon after the second wife entered, and kissed the first wife's hand, thus observing that natural order of precedence which is so beautiful in every well-regulated family.
I observed also with curious interest the relations of master and servant in this Oriental household. The divisions are very marked. The Regent, for example, is regarded by his retainers with an awe as if he were a sacred person. No one approaches him standing. The theory is, that no inferior must ever be in a position or attitude where his head is higher than his master's. If the Regent but looks at a man, he drops as if shot with a bullet. If a servant wishes to communicate with his master, he falls, not on his knees, but on his haunches, and in this posture shuffles forward till he comes behind his chair, and meekly whispers a word into his ear. He receives his orders, and then shuffles back again. In one way, the division of ranks in Java is more marked even than that of castes in India. The Javanese language, which is a branch of the Malay, has three separate forms of speech—one, that used by a superior addressing an inferior; second, that of an inferior addressing a superior; and a third, that used between equals. Such divisions would seem to cut off all relations between those of different rank. And yet, with all this stooping and bowing, abject as it seems to us, the relation of the master to his dependants is rather patriarchal; and to these same servants the Regent will speak, not only kindly, but familiarly, all the more so as thelines are so drawn that there is no danger that they should ever presume on undue familiarity.
In the morning the Regent took me out for a ramble. We strolled along under the trees, admiring the beauty of the country. After half an hour's walk, suddenly, like an apparition, an open phaeton stood beside us, with two beautiful ponies, into which the Regent invited me to step, and taking his seat by my side, drove me about the town. We returned for breakfast, and then he sent for his musicians to give us a performance, who, beating on drums and other native instruments, executed a plaintive kind of music. With such attentions did this Javanese prince and his wives (none of whom we had ever seen till a few hours before, and on whom we had no claim whatever) win our hearts by their kindness, so that, when the carriage came round to the door, we were sorry to depart. The Regent pressed us to stay a month, or as long as we would. We could not accept a longer hospitality; but we shall remember that which we had. We keep his photograph, with others which we like to look upon; and if these words can reach the other side of the world, they will tell him that his American friends have not forgotten, and will not forget, the kind manner in which they were entertained in the island of Java by the Regent of Magellang.
The drive of to-day was hardly less interesting than that of yesterday, although our pride had a fall. It was a great come-down, after riding with six horses to be reduced to four! But the mortification was relieved by adding now and then, at the steep places, a pair of buffaloes. As we were still in the hill country, we were all day among the coffee plantations, which thrive best at a considerable elevation above the sea. Other products of the island flourished around us in rich abundance: the spices—aloes and cassia, and nutmeg and pepper. And there was our old friend, the peanut. They were gathering perhaps the very nuts that were yet to ornament the stands of the apple-women of NewYork, and to be a temptation to bootblacks and newsboys. Amid such fields and forests, over mountain roads, and listening to the roar of mountain streams, we came down to Ambarrawa, a place of note in Java, as containing the strongest fortress in the island. It is planted here right in the heart of Middle Java, where, half a century ago, was a formidable insurrection, which was quelled only after an obstinate contest, lasting five years—from 1825 to 1830. Ambarrawa is connected by railroad with Samarang. It is easy to see that both the railroads which start from that point, and which have thus a base on the sea (the one leading to Solo and Jookja, the residences of the Emperor and the Sultan, who might make trouble, and the other to the great fortress of Ambarrawa), have been constructed with a military as well as a commercial purpose.
So the Dutch have had their wars in Java, as the English have had in India; but having conquered, it must be said that on the whole they have ruled wisely and well. The best proof of this is the perfect tranquillity that reigns everywhere, and that with no great display of armed force. What a contrast in this respect between the two most important islands in the East and West Indies—Java and Cuba! They are about equal in the number of square miles. Both have been settled by Europeans for nearly three centuries, and yet to-day Cuba has less than two millions of inhabitants, and is in a chronic state of insurrection; while Java has over fifteen millions (or eight times as many), and is as quiet as Holland itself. The whole story is told in one word—the one is Dutch rule, and the other is Spanish rule.
We spent our Easter in Samarang—a day which is not forgotten in this part of the world, although Sunday is not observed after the manner of Scotland or New England, but rather of Continental Europe, with bands playing on the public square, and all the European world abroad keeping holiday. From Samarang, another two days' sail along thesame northern coast, with the grand outline of mountains on the horizon, brought us back to Batavia.
Batavia was not the same to us on the second visit as on the first; or rather it was a great deal more, for now we knew the place, the streets were familiar, and we felt at home—the more so as a Scotch gentleman, to whom we brought a letter from Singapore, Mr. James Greig (of the old house of Syme, Pitcairn & Co., so well known in the East), took us in charge, and carried us off to one of those large mansions which we had so much admired on our former visit, set far back from the street, and surrounded with trees; and constructed especially for this climate, with spacious rooms, wide hall, high ceilings, and broad veranda, and all the devices for mitigating the heat of the tropics. More than all, this hospitable mansion was lighted up by the sweetest feminine presence in one who, though of an old Dutch family well known in Java, had been educated in Paris, and spoke English and French, as well as Dutch and Malay, and who gave us such a welcome as made us feel that we were not strangers. Not only did these friends open their house to us, but devoted themselves till our departure in going about with us, and making our visit pleasant. I do not know whether to call this Scotch or Dutch hospitality, but it was certainly of the most delightful kind.
As we had three or four days before the sailing of the French steamer for Singapore, our friends planned an excursion into the mountains of Western Java, for which we returned to Buitenzorg, and engaged a couple ofcahars, carriages as light as if made of wicker-work, with the small Javanese ponies, and thus mounted, began to climb the hills. Our route was over the great post-road, which runs through the island to Souraboya—a road which must have been constructed with immense labor, as it passes over high mountains, but which is as solidly built and as well kept as Napoleon's great road over the Simplon Pass of the Alps.Indeed it is very much the same, having a rocky bed for its foundation, with a macadamized surface, over which the carriage rolls smoothly. But it does not climb so steadily upward as the Simplon or the Mont Cenis. The ascent is not one long pull, like the ascent of the Alps, but by a succession of hills, one beyond another, with many a deep valley between, so that we go alternately up hill and down dale. The hills are very steep, so that the post-carriage, which is as heavy and lumbering as a French diligence, has to be drawn up by buffaloes. Thus it climbs slowly height after height, and when it has reached the summit, goes thundering down the mountain, and rolls majestically along the road. But our light carriages suited us much better than these ponderous vehicles; and as our little ponies trotted swiftly along, we were in a very gay mood, making the woods ring with our merry talk and glee. Sometimes we got out to stretch our limbs with a good walk up the hills, turning as we reached the top to take in the landscape behind us, which spread out broader and broader, as we rose higher and higher. At every stage the view increased in extent and in majesty, till the whole island,
"From the centre all round to the sea,"
"From the centre all round to the sea,"
was piled with mountains, which here, as in Middle Java, showed their volcanic origin by their forms, now rising in solitary cones, and now lying on the horizon in successive ridges, like mighty billows tossed up on a sea of fire, that in cooling had cracked in all fantastic shapes, which, after being worn down by the storms of thousands of years, were mantled thick with the verdure of forests. As in England the ivy creeps over old walls, covering ruined castles and towers with its perpetual green, so here the luxuriance of the tropics has overspread the ruin wrought by destroying elements. The effect is a mingled wildness and beauty in these mountain landscapes, which often reminded us of Switzerland and the Tyrol.
The enjoyment of this ride was increased by the character of the day, which was not all sunshine, but one of perpetual change. Clouds swept over the sky, casting shadows on the sides of the mountains and into the deep valleys. Sometimes the higher summits were wrapped so as to be hidden from sight, and the rain fell heavily; then as the storm drifted away, and the sun burst through the parted clouds, the glorious heights shone in the sudden light like the Delectable Mountains.
The object of our journey was a mountain retreat four thousand feet above the level of the sea—as high as the Righi Kulm, but in no other respect like that mountain-top, which from its height overlooks so many Swiss lakes and cantons. It is rather like an Alpine valley, surrounded by mountains. This is a favorite resort of the Dutch from Batavia. Here the Governor-General has a little box, to which he retires, from his grander residence at Buitenzorg, and here many sick and wounded officers find a cool retreat and recover strength for fresh campaigns. The place bears the musical name of Sindanglaya, which one would think might have been given with some reference to the music of murmuring winds and waters which fill the air. The valley is full of streams, of brooks and springs, that run among the hills. Water, water everywhere! The rain pattering on the roof all night long carried me back to the days of my childhood, when I slept in a little cot under the eaves, and that sound was music to my ear. The Scotch mist that envelopes the mountains might make the traveller fancy himself in the Highlands; and so he might, as he seeks out the little "tarns" that have settled in the craters of extinct volcanoes, where not only wild deer break through the tangled wood of the leafy solitudes, but the tiger and the rhinoceros come to drink. Streams run down the mountain-sides, and springs ooze from mossy banks by the roadside, and temper the air with their dripping coolness. What a place to rest! Howthis perfect quiet must bring repose to the brave fellows from Acheen, and how sweet must sound this music of mountain streams to ears accustomed to the rude alarms of war!
That we were in a new quarter of the world—far away, not only from America and Europe, but even from Asia—we were reminded by the line of telegraph which kept us company over the mountains, and which here crosses the island on its way to Australia! It goes down the coast to Bangaewangi, where it dives into the sea only to come up on the mainland of the great Southern Continent. Indeed we were strongly advised to extend our journey around the world to Australia, which we could have reached in much less time than it had taken to come from Calcutta to Singapore. But we were more interested to visit old countries and old nations than to set foot on a virgin continent, and to see colonies and cities, which, with all their growth, could only be a smaller edition of what we have so abundantly in the new States of America.
We were now within a few miles of the Southern Ocean, the greatest of all the oceans that wrap their watery mantle around the globe. From the top of the Gédé, a mountain which rose above us, one may look off upon an ocean broader than the Pacific—a sea without a shore—whose waters roll in an unbroken sweep to the Antarctic Pole.
From all these seas and shores, and woods and waters, we now turned away, and with renewed delight in the varied landscapes, rode back over the mountains to Buitenzorg, and came down by rail to Batavia.
Before I depart from this pleasant land of Java, I must say a word about the Dutch and their position in South-eastern Asia. The Dutch have had possession of Java over 250 years—since 1623—without interruption, except from 1811 to 1816, when Napoleon had taken Holland; and as England was using all her forces on land and sea to cripple the French empire in different parts of the world, she sent afleet against Java. It yielded almost without opposition; indeed many of the Dutch regarded the surrender as simply placing the island under British protection, which saved it from the French. For five years it had an English Governor, Sir Stamford Raffles, who has written a large work on Java. After the fall of Napoleon, England restored Java to the Dutch, but kept Ceylon, Malacca, and the Cape of Good Hope. Thus the Dutch have lost some of their possessions in the East, and yet Holland is to-day the second colonial power in the world, being inferior only to England. The Dutch flag in the East waves not only over Java, but over almost the whole of the Malayan Archipelago, which, with the intervening waters, covers a portion of the earth's surface larger than all Europe.
There are some peculiar physical features in this part of the world. The Malayan Archipelago lies midway between Asia and Australia, belonging to neither, and yet belonging to both. It is a very curious fact, brought out by Wallace, whose great work on "The Malayan Archipelago" is altogether the best on the subject, that this group of islands is in itself divided by a very narrow space between the two continents, which it at once separates and unites. Each has its own distinct fauna and flora. The narrow Strait of Bali, only fifteen miles wide, which separates the two small islands of Bali and Lombok, separates two distinct animal and vegetable kingdoms, which are as unlike as are those of the United States and Brazil. One group belongs to Asia, the other to Australia. Sumatra is full of tigers; in Borneo there is not one. Australia has no carnivora—no beasts that prey on flesh—but chiefly marsupials, such as kangaroos.
There are a good many residents in the East who think Holland, in the management of her dependencies, has shown a better political economy than England has shown in India. An English writer (a Mr. Money), in a volume entitled "How to Govern a Colony," has brought some features ofthe Dutch policy to the notice of his countrymen. I will mention but one as an illustration. Half a century ago Java was very much run down. A native rebellion which lasted five years had paralyzed the industry of the country. To reanimate it, a couple of years after the rebellion had been subdued, in 1832, the home government began a very liberal system of stimulating production by making advances to planters, and guaranteeing them labor to cultivate their estates. The effect was marvellous. By that wise system of helping those who had not means to help themselves, a new life was at once infused into all parts of the island. Out of that has grown the enormous production of coffee, sugar, and tobacco. Now Java not only pays all the expenses of her own government, (which India does not do, at least without contracting very heavy loans,) but builds her own railroads, and other roads and bridges, and supplies the drain of the Acheen war, and remits every year millions to the Hague to build railroads in Holland.
Is it too much to believe that there is a great future in store for South Eastern Asia? We talk about the future of America. But ours is not the only continent that offers vast unoccupied wastes to the habitation of man. Besides Australia, there are these great islands nearer to Asia, which, from the overflow of India and China, may yet have a population that shall cultivate their waste places. I found in Burmah a great number of Bengalees and Madrasees, who had crossed the Bay of Bengal to seek a home in Farther India; while the Chinese, who form the population of Singapore, had crept up the coast. They are here in Java, in every seaport and in every large town in the interior, and there is every reason to suppose that there will be a yet greater overflow of population in this direction. Sumatra and Borneo are not yet inhabited and cultivated like Java, but in their great extent they offer a magnificent seat for future kingdoms or empires, which, Asiatic in population,may be governed by European laws, and moulded by European civilization.
One thing more before we cross the Equator—a word about nature and life in the tropics. I came to Java partly to see the tropical vegetation, of which we saw but little in India, as we were there in winter, which is at once the cold and the dry season, when vegetation withers, and the vast plains are desolate and dreary. Nature then holds herself in reserve, waiting till the rains come, when the earth will bloom again. But as I could not wait for the change of seasons, I must needs pass on to a land where the change had already come. We marked the transition as we came down the Bay of Bengal. There were signs of changing seasons and a changing nature. We were getting into the rainy belt. In the Straits of Malacca the air was hot and thunderous, and we had frequent storms; the heavens were full of rain, and the earth was fresh with the joy of a newly-opened spring. But still we kept on till we crossed the Equator. Here in Java the rainy season was just over. It ends with the last of March, and we arrived at the beginning of April. For months the windows of heaven had been opened, the rains descended, and the floods came; and lo! the land was like the garden of the Lord. Here we had at last the tropical vegetation in its fullest glory. Nothing can exceed the prodigality and luxuriance of nature when a vertical sun beats down on fields and forests and jungles that have been drenched for months in rain. Vegetation of every kind springs up, as in the temperate zone it appears only when forced in heated conservatories (as in the Duke of Devonshire's gardens at Chatsworth), and the land waves with these luxuriant growths. In the forest creeping plants wind round the tall trunks, and vines hang in festoons from tree to tree.
But while the tropical forest presents such a wild luxuriance of growth, I find no single trees of such stature as Ihave seen in other parts of the world. Except an occasional broad-spreading banyan, I have seen nothing which, standing alone, equals in its solitary majesty the English oak or the American elm. Perhaps there is a difference in this respect between countries in the same latitude in the Eastern and Western hemispheres. An English gentleman whom we found here in charge of a great sugar plantation, who had spent some years in Rio Janeiro, told me that the trees of Java did not compare in majesty with those of Brazil. Nor is this superiority confined to South America. Probably no trees now standing on the earth equal the Big Trees of California. And besides these there are millions of lofty pines on the sides of the Sierra Nevada, which I have seen nowhere equalled unless it be in the mighty cedars which line the great Tokaido of Japan. On the whole, I am a little inclined to boast that trees attain their greatest height and majesty in our Western hemisphere.
But the glory of the tropics is in the universal life of nature, spreading through all her realms, stirring even under ground, and causing to spring forth new forms of vegetation, which coming up, as it were, out of the darkness of the grave, seek the sun and air, whereby all things live.
Of course one cannot but consider what effect this marvellous production must have upon man. Too often it overpowers him, and makes him its slave, since he cannot be its master. This is the terror of the Tropics, as of the Polar regions, that nature is too strong for man to subdue her. What can he do—poor, puny creature—against its terrible forces; against the heat of a vertical sun, that while it quickens the earth, often blasts the strength of man, subduing his energy, if not destroying his life? What can man do in the Arctic circle against the cold that locks up whole continents in ice? Much as he boasts of his strength and of his all-conquering will, he is but a child in the lap of nature, tossed about by material forces as a leaf is blown by thewind. The best region for human development and energy is the temperate zone, where nature stimulates, but does not overpower, the energies of man, where the winter's cold does not benumb him and make him sink into torpor, but only pricks him to exertion and makes him quicken his steps.
The effect of this fervid climate shows itself not only upon natives, but upon Europeans. It induces a languor and indisposition to effort. It has two of the hardest and toughest races in the world to work upon, in the English in India and the Dutch in Java, and yet it has its effect even upon them, and would have a still greater were it not that this foreign element is constantly changing, coming and going, whereby there is all the time a fresh infusion of European life. Here in Java the Dutch have been longer settled than the English in India; they more often remain in the island, and the effect of course is more marked from generation to generation. The Dutchman is a placid, easy-going creature, even in his native Holland, except when roused by some great crisis, like a Spanish invasion, and then he fights with a courage which has given him a proud name in history. But ordinarily he is of a calm and even temper, and likes to sit quietly and survey his broad acres, and smoke his pipe in blissful content with himself and all the world beside. When he removes from Holland to the other side of the world, he has not changed his nature; he is a Dutchman still, only with his natural love of ease increased by life in the tropics. It is amusing to see how readily his Dutch nature falls in with the easy ways of this Eastern world.
If I were to analyze existence, or material enjoyment in this part of the world, I should say that the two great elements in one's life, or at least in his comfort, are sleep and smoke. They smoke in Holland, and they have a better right to smoke in Java; for here they but follow the course of nature. Why should not man smoke, when even the earth itself respiresthrough smoke and flame? The mountains smoke, and why not the Dutch? Only there is this difference: the volcanoes sometimes have a period of rest, but the Dutch never. Morning, noon, and night, before breakfast and after dinner, smoke, smoke, smoke! It seems to be a Dutchman's ideal of happiness. I have been told of some who dropped to sleep with the cigar in their lips, and of one who required his servants to put his pipe between his teeth while he was yet sleeping, that he might wake up with the right taste in his mouth. It seemed to me that this must work injury to their health, but they think not. Perhaps there is something in the phlegmatic Dutch temperament that can stand this better than the more mercurial and excitable English or American.
And then how they do sleep! Sleep is an institution in Java, and indeed everywhere in the tropics. The deep stillness of the tropical noon seems to prescribe rest, for then nature itself sinks into repose. Scarcely a leaf moves in the forest—the birds cease their musical notes, and seek for rest under the shade of motionless palms. The sleep of the Dutch is like this stillness of nature. It is profound and absolute repose. For certain hours of the day no man is visible. I had a letter to the Resident of Solo, and went to call on him at two o'clock. He lived in a grand Government House, or palace; but an air of somnolence pervaded the place, as if it were the Castle of Indolence. The very servant was asleep on the marble pavement, where it was his duty to keep watch; and when I sent in my letter, he came back making a very significant gesture, leaning over his head to signify that his master was asleep. At five o'clock I was more fortunate, but even then he was dressed with a lightness of costume more suitable for one who was about to enter his bath than to give audience.
There is a still graver question for the moralist to consider—the effect of these same physical influences upon humancharacter. No observer of men in different parts of the world can fail to see that different races have been modified by climate, not only in color and features, but in temperament, in disposition, and in character. A hot climate makes hot blood. Burning passions do but reflect the torrid sun. What the Spaniard is in Europe, the Malay is in Asia. There is a deep philosophy in the question of Byron:
"Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtleAre emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?"
"Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle
Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime,
Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,
Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?"
But I must not wander into deep philosophy. I only say that great as is the charm of life in the tropics, it is not without alloy. In landing in Java it seemed as if we had touched the shores of some enchanted island, as if we had found the Garden of Paradise lying far off in these Southern seas. We had come to the land of perpetual spring and perpetual summer, where nature is always in bloom, and frost and snow and hail have fled away to the bleak and wintry North. But as we are obliged to go back to that North, we wish to be reconciled to it. We find that one may have too much even of Paradise. There is a monotony in perpetual summer. The only change of seasons here is from the dry season to the rainy season; and the only difference between these, so far as we can see, is that in the dry season it rains, and in the rainy season it pours. We have been here in the dry season, and yet we have had frequent showers, with occasional thunderstorms. If we should stay here a year, we should weary of this unrelieved monotony of sun and rain. We should long for some more marked change of seasons, for the autumn leaves and the winter winds, and the gradual coming on of spring, and all those insensible gradations of nature which make the glory of the full round year.
And what a loss should we find in the absence of twilight. Java, being almost under the Equator, the days and nights are almost equal throughout the year; there are no short days and no long days. Day and night come on suddenly—not instantly, but in a few minutes the night breaks into the full glare of day, and the day as quickly darkens into night. How we should miss the long summer twilight, which in our Northern latitudes lingers so softly and tenderly over the quiet earth.
Remembering these things, we are reconciled to our lot in living in the temperate zone, and turn away even from the soft and easy life of the tropics, to find a keener delight in our rugged clime, and to welcome even the snow-drifts and the short winter days, since they bring the long winter evenings, and the roaring winter fires!
We leave Java, therefore, not so much with regret that we can no longer sit under the palm groves, and indulge in the soft and easy life of the tropics, as that we part from friends. Our last night in Batavia they took us to a representation given by amateurs at the English Club, where it was very pleasant to see so many English faces in this distant part of the world, and to hear our own mother tongue. The next morning they rode down with us to the quay, and came off to the steamer, and did not leave us till it was ready to move; and it was with a real sadness that we saw them over the ship's side, and watched their fluttering signals as they sailed back to the shore. These partings are the sore pain of travel. But the friendships remain, and are delightful in memory. A pleasure past is a pleasure still. Even now it gives us a warm feeling at the heart to think of those kind friends on the other side of the globe.
UP THE CHINA SEAS—HONG KONG AND CANTON.
In Singapore, as in Batavia, the lines fell to us in pleasant places. An English merchant, Mr. James Graham, carried us off to his hospitable bungalow outside the town, where we passed four days. It stood on a hill, from which we looked off on one side to the harbor, where were riding the ships of all nations, and on the other to an undulating country, with here and there an English residence embowered in trees. In this delightful retreat our hosts made us feel perfectly at home. We talked of England and America; we romped with the children; we played croquet on the lawn; we received calls from the neighbors, and went out to "take tea" in the good old-fashioned way. We attended service, the Sunday before going to Java, in the Cathedral, and on our return, in the Scotch church; so that around us, even at this extremity of Asia, were the faces and voices, the happy domestic life, and the religious worship, of dear old England.
But just as we began to settle into this quiet life, the steamer was signalled from Ceylon which was to take us to China, and we had to part from our new friends.
It had been in my plan to go from here to Siam. It is but three days' sail from Singapore up the Gulf to Bangkok; but it is not so easy to get on from there. Could we have been sure of a speedy passage to Saigon, to connect with the French steamer, we should not have hesitated; but without this, we might be detained for a week or two, or be obliged to come back to Singapore. Thus uncertain, we felt that it was saferto take the steamer direct for Hong Kong, though it was a sore disappointment to pass across the head of the Gulf of Siam, knowing that we were so near the Land of the White Elephant, and leave it unvisited.
The China seas have a very bad name among sailors and travellers, as they are often swept by terrible cyclones; but we crossed at a favorable season, and escaped. The heat was great, and passengers sat about on deck in their easy cane chairs, as on the Red Sea; but beyond that, we experienced not so much discomfort as on the Mediterranean. On the sixth morning we saw in the distance an island, which, as we drew nearer, rose up so steeply and so high that it appeared almost like a mountain. This was the Peak of Hong Kong—a signal-station from which men, with their glasses, can look far out to sea, and as soon as one of the great steamers is descried on the horizon, a flag is run up and a gun fired to convey the news to the city below. Coming up behind the island, we swept around its point, and saw before us a large town, very picturesquely situated on the side of a hill, rising street above street, and overlooking a wide bay shut in by hills, so that it is sheltered from the storms that vex the China seas. The harbor was full of foreign ships, among which were many ships of war (as this is the rendezvous of the British fleet in these waters), which were firing salutes; among those flying the flags of all nations was one modest representative of our country, of which we did not need to be ashamed—the Kearsarge. We afterwards went on board of her, and saw and stroked with affection, mingled with pride, the big gun that sunk the Alabama.
Hong Kong, like Singapore, is an English colony, but with a Chinese population. You can hardly set foot on shore before you are snapped up by a couple of lusty fellows, with straw hats as large as umbrellas on their heads, and who, though in bare feet, stand up as straight as grenadiers, and as soon as you take your seat in a chair, lift the bamboopoles to their shoulders, and walk off with you on the double-quick.
No country which we see for the first time is exactly as we supposed it to be. Somehow I had thought of China as a vast plain like India; and behold! the first view reveals a wild, mountainous coast. As we climb Victoria Peak above Hong Kong, and look across to the mainland, we see only barren hills—a prospect almost as desolate as that of the Arabian shores on the Red Sea.
But what wonders lie beyond that Great Wall of mountains which guards this part of the coast of China! One cannot be in sight of such a country without an eager impulse to be in it, and after two or three days of rest we set out for Canton, which is only eight hours distant. Our boat was an American one, with an American captain, who took us into the wheel-house, and pointed out every spot of interest as we passed through the islands and entered the Canton river. Forty miles south is the old Portuguese port of Macao. At the mouth of the river are the Bogue Forts, which played such a part in the English war of 1841, but which were sadly battered, and now lie dismantled and ungarrisoned. Going by the stately Second Bar Pagoda, we next pass Whampoa, the limit to which foreign vessels could come before the Treaty Ports were opened. As we ascend the river, it is crowded with junks—strange craft, high at both ends, armed with old rusty cannon, with which to beat off the pirates that infest these seas, and ornamented at the bow with huge round eyes, that stand out as if from the head of some sea-monster, some terrible dragon, which keeps watch over the deep. Amid such fantastic barks, with their strange crews, we steamed up to Canton.
At the landing, a son of Dr. Happer, the American missionary, came on board with a letter from his father inviting us to be his guests, and we accordingly took a native boat, and were rowed up the river. Our oarsman was a woman,who, besides the trifle of rowing our boat up the stream, had a baby strapped on her back! Perhaps the weight helped her to keep her balance as she bent to the oar. But it was certainly bringing things to a pretty fine point when human muscles were thus economized. This boat, well called in Chinese atan-kaor egg-house, was the home of the family. It sheltered under its little bamboo cover eight souls (as many as Noah had in the Ark), who had no other habitation. Here they ate and drank and slept; here perhaps children were born and old men died. In Canton it is estimated that a hundred and fifty thousand people thus live in boats, leading a kind of amphibious existence.
Above the landing is the island of Shameen, a mile long, which is the foreign quarter, where are the Hongs, or Factories, of the great tea-merchants, and where live the wealthy foreign residents. Rounding this island, we drew up to the quay, in front of Dr. Happer's door, where we found that welcome which is never wanting under the roof of an American missionary. Dr. Happer has lived here thirty-two years, and was of course familiar with every part of Canton, and was an invaluable guide in the explorations of the next three or four days.
When we were in Paris, we met Dr. Wells Williams, the well-known missionary, who had spent over forty years in China, twelve of them in Peking, of which he said, that apart from its being the capital, it had little to interest a stranger—at least not enough to repay the long journey to reach it. He said it would take a month to go from Shanghai to Tientsin, and then cross the country cramped up in carts to Peking, and visit the Great Wall, and return to Shanghai. Canton was not only much nearer, but far more interesting, and the best representative of a Chinese city in the Empire.
The next morning we began our excursions, not with horses and chariots, but with coolies and chairs. An Englishgentleman and his wife, who had come with us from Singapore, joined us, making, with a son of Dr. Happer and the guide, a party of six, for whom eighteen bearers drew up before the door, forming quite a procession as we filed through the streets. The motion was not unpleasant, though they swung us along at a good round pace, shouting to the people to get out of the way, who forthwith parted right and left, as if some high mandarin were coming. The streets were narrow and densely crowded. Through such a mass it required no small effort to force our way, which was effected only by our bearers keeping up a constant cry, like that of the gondoliers in Venice, when turning a corner in the canals—a signal of warning to any approaching in the opposite direction. I could but admire the good-nature of the people, who yielded so readily. If we were thus to push through a crowd in New York, and the policemen were to shout to the "Bowery boys" to "get out of the way," we might receive a "blessing" in reply that would not be at all agreeable. But the Chinamen took it as a matter of course, and turned aside respectfully to give us a passage, only staring mildly with their almond eyes, to see what great personages were these that came along looking so grand.
Our way led through the longest street of the city, which bears the sounding name of the Street of Benevolence and Love. This is the Broadway of Canton, only it is not half as wide as Broadway. It is very narrow, like some of the old streets of Genoa, and paved, like them, with huge slabs of stone. On either side it is lined with shops, into which we had a good opportunity to look as we brushed past them, for they stood wide open. They were of the smallest dimensions, most of them consisting of a single room, even when hung with beautiful embroideries. There may be little recesses behind, hidden interiors where they live, though apparently we saw the whole family. In many shops they were taking their meals in full sight of the passers-by. There wasno variety of courses; a bowl of rice in the centre of the table was the universal dish (for rice is the staff of life in Asia, as bread is in America), garnished perchance with some "little pickle," in the shape of a bit of fish and soy, to serveas a sauce piquanteto stimulate the flagging appetite. But apparently they needed no appetizer, for they plied their chop-sticks with unfailing assiduity.
Our first day's ride was probably ten or twelve miles, and took us through such "heavenly streets" as we never knew before, and did not expect to walk in till we entered the gates of the New Jerusalem. Besides the Street of Benevolence and Love, which might be considered the great highway of the Celestial City, there were streets which bore the enrapturing names of "Peace," "Bright Cloud," and "Longevity;" of "Early-bestowed Blessings" and of "Everlasting Love;" of "One Hundred Grandsons" and (more ambitious still) of "One Thousand Grandsons;" of "Five Happinesses" and of "Refreshing Breezes;" of "Accumulated Blessings" and of "Ninefold Brightness." There was a "Dragon street," and others devoted to "The Ascending Dragon," "The Saluting Dragon," and "The Reposing Dragon;" while other titles came probably a little nearer the plain fact, such as "The Market of Golden Profits." All the shops have little shrines near the door dedicated toTsai Shin, or the God of Wealth, to whom the shopkeepers offer their prayers every day. I think I have heard of prayers offered to that divinity in other countries, and no one could doubt that these prayers at least were fervent and sincere.
But names do not always designate realities, and though we passed through the street of a "Thousand Beatitudes" and that of a "Thousandfold Peace," we saw sorrow and misery enough before the day was done.
One gets an idea of the extent of a city not only by traversing its streets, but by ascending some high point in thevicinity that overlooks it. The best point for such a bird's-eye view is the Five-storied Pagoda, from which the eye ranges over a distance of many miles, including the city and the country around to the mountains in the distance, with the broad river in front, and the suburb on the other side. The appearance of Canton is very different from that of a European city. It has no architectural magnificence. There are some fine houses of the rich merchants, built of brick, with spacious rooms and courts; but there are no great palaces towering over the city—no domes like St. Paul's in London, or St. Peter's in Rome, nor even like the domes and minarets of Constantinople. The most imposing structure in view is the new Roman Catholic Cathedral. Here and there a solitary pagoda rises above the vast sea of human dwellings, which are generally of but one, seldom two stories in height, and built very much alike; for there is the same monotony in the Chinese houses as in the figures and costumes of the Chinese themselves. Nor is this level surface relieved by any variety of color. The tiled roofs, with their dead color, but increase the sombre impression of the vast dull plain; yet beneath such a pall is a great city, intersected by hundreds of streets, and occupied by a million of human beings.
The first impression of a Chinese city is of its myriad, multitudinous life. There are populous cities in Europe, and crowded streets; but here human beingsswarm, like birds in the air or fishes in the sea. The wonder is how they all live; but that is a mystery which I could not solve in London any more than here. There is one street a mile long, which has in it nothing but shoemakers. The people amused us very much by their strange appearance and dress, in both which China differs wholly from the Orient. A Chinaman is not at all like a Turk. He does not wear a turban, nor even a long, flowing beard. His head is shaved above and below—face, chin, and skull—and instead of thepatriarchal beard before him, he carries only a pigtail behind. The women whom we met in the streets (at least those of any position, for only the common work-women let their feet grow) hobbled about on their little feet, which were like dolls' feet—a sight that was half ludicrous and half painful.
But if we were amused at the Chinese, I dare say they were as much amused at us. The people of Canton ought by this time to be familiar with white faces. But, strange to say, wherever we went we attracted a degree of attention which had never been accorded us before in any foreign city. Boys ran after us, shouting as they ran. If the chairs were set down in the street, as we stopped to see a sight, a crowd gathered in a moment. There was no rudeness, but mere curiosity. If we went into a temple, a throng collected about the doors, and looked in at the windows, and opened a passage for us as we came out, and followed us till we got into our chairs and disappeared down the street. The ladies of our party especially seemed to be objects of wonder. They did not hobble on the points of their toes, but stood erect, and walked with a firm step. Their free and independent air apparently inspired respect. The children seemed to hesitate between awe and terror. One little fellow I remember, who dared to approach too near, and whom my niece cast her eye upon, thought that he was done for, and fled howling. I have no doubt all reported, when they went home, that they had seen some strange specimens of "foreign devils."
But the Chinese are a highly civilized people. In some things, indeed, they are mere children, compared with Europeans; but in others they are in advance of us, especially those arts which require great delicacy, such as the manufacture of some kinds of jewelry, exquisite trinkets in gold and silver, in which Canton rivals Delhi and Lucknow, and in the finest work in ivory and in precious woods; also in those which require a degree of patience to be found nowhere exceptamong Asiatics. For example, I saw a man carving an elephant's tusk, which would take him a whole year! The Chinese are also exquisite workers in bronze, as well as in porcelain, in which they have such a conceded mastery that specimens of "old China" ornament every collection in Europe. Their silks are as rich and fine as any that are produced from the looms of Lyons or Antwerp. This need not surprise us, for we must remember the great antiquity of China; that the Chinese were a highly civilized people when our ancestors, the Britons, were barbarians. They had the art of printing and the art of gunpowder long before they were known in Europe. Chinese books are in some respects a model for ours now, not only in cheapness, but in their extreme lightness, being made of thin bamboo paper, so that a book weighs in the hand hardly more than a newspaper.
Of course every stranger must make the round of temples and pagodas, of which there are enough to satisfy any number of worshippers. There is a Temple of the Five Genii, and one of the Five Hundred Arhans, or scholars of Buddha. There is a Temple of Confucius, and a Temple of the Emperor, where the mandarins go and pay to his Majesty and to the Sage an homage of divine adoration. I climbed up into his royal seat, and thought I was quite as fit an object of worship as he! There is a Temple of Horrors, which outdoes the "Chamber of Horrors" in Madame Tussaud's famous exhibition of wax-works in London. It is a representation of all the torments which are supposed to be endured by the damned, and reminds one of those frightful pictures painted in the Middle Ages in some Roman Catholic countries, in which heretics are seen in the midst of flames, tossed about by devils on pitchforks. But the Chinese soften the impression. To restore the balance of mind, terrified by these frightful representations, there is a Temple of Longevity, in which there is a figure of Buddha, such as the ancient Romans might have made of Bacchus or Silenus—a mountainof flesh, with fat eyes, laughing mouth, and enormous paunch. Even the four Kings of Heaven, that rule over the four points of the compass—North, South, East, and West—have much more of an earthly than a heavenly look. All these figures are grotesque and hideous enough; but to their credit be it said, they are not obscene, like the figures in the temples of India. Here we made the same observation as in Burmah, that Buddhism is a much cleaner and more decent religion than Hindooism. This is to its honor. "Buddhism," says Williams, "is the least revolting and impure of all false religions." Its general character we have seen elsewhere. Its precepts enjoin self-denial and practical benevolence. It has no cruel or bloody rites, and nothing gross in its worship. Of its priests, some are learned men, but the mass are ignorant, yet sober and inoffensive. At least they are not a scandal to their faith, as are the priests of some forms of Christianity. That the Chinese are imbued with religious ideas is indicated in the very names of the streets already mentioned, whereby, though in a singular fashion, they commemorate and glorify certain attributes of character. The idea which seems most deep-rooted in their minds is that of retribution according to conduct. The maxim most frequent in their mouths is that good actions bring their own reward, and bad actions their own punishment. This idea was very pithily expressed by the famous hong-merchant, Howqua, in reply to an American sea-captain, who asked him his idea of future rewards and punishments, to which he replied in pigeon-English: "A man do good, he go to Joss; he no do good, very much bamboo catchee he!"
But we will leave the temples with their grinning idols; as we leave the restaurants, where lovers of dainty dishes are regaled with dogs and cats; and the opium-shops, where the Chinese loll and smoke till they are stupefied by the horrid drug; for Canton has something more attractive. We found a very curious study in the Examination Hall, illustrating, asit does, the Chinese manner of elevating men to office. We hear much in our country of "civil service reform," which some innocently suppose to be a new discovery in political economy—an American invention. But the Chinese have had it for a thousand years. Here appointments to office are made as the result of a competitive examination; and although there may be secret favoritism and bribery, yet the theory is one of perfect equality. In this respect China is the most absolute democracy in the world. There is no hereditary rank or order of nobility; the lowest menial, if he has native talent, may raise himself by study and perseverance to be Prime Minister of the Empire.
In the eastern quarter of Canton is an enclosure of many acres, laid off in a manner which betokens some unusual purpose. The ground is divided by a succession of long, low buildings, not much better than horse-sheds around a New England meeting-house of the olden time. They run in parallel lines, like barracks for a camp, and are divided into narrow compartments. Once in three years this vast camping-ground presents an extraordinary spectacle, for then are gathered in these courts, from all parts of the province, some ten thousand candidates, all of whom have previously passed a first examination, and received a degree, and now appear to compete for the second. Some are young, and some are old, for there is no limit put upon age. As the candidates present themselves, each man is searched, to see that he has no books, or helps of any kind, concealed upon his person, and then put into a stall about three feet wide, just large enough to turn around in, and as bare as a prisoner's cell. There is a niche in the wall, in which a board can be placed for him to sit upon, and another niche to support a board that has to serve as breakfast-table and writing-table. This is the furniture of his room. Here he is shut in from all communication with the world, his food being passed to him through the door, as to a prisoner. Certain themes arethen submitted to him in writing, on which he is to furnish written essays, intended generally, and perhaps always, to determine his knowledge of the Chinese classics. It is sometimes said that these are frivolous questions, the answers to which afford no proof whatever of one's capacity for office; but it should be remembered that these classics are the writings of Confucius, which are the political ethics of the country, the very foundation of the government, without knowing which one is not qualified to take part in its administration.
The candidate goes into his cell in the afternoon, and spends the night there, which gives him time for reflection, and all the next day and the next night, when he comes out, and after a few days is put in again for another trial of the same character; and this is repeated a third time; at the end of which he is released from solitary confinement, and his essays are submitted for examination. Of the ten thousand, only seventy-five can obtain a degree—not one in a hundred! The nine thousand and nine hundred must go back disappointed, their only consolation being that after three years they can try again. Even the successful ones do not thereby get an office, but only the right to enter for a third competition, which takes place at Peking, by which of course their ranks are thinned still more. The few who get through this threefold ordeal take a high place in the literary or learned class, from which all appointments to the public service are made. Here is the system of examination complete. No trial can be imagined more severe, and it ought to give the Chinese the best civil service in the world.
May we not get a hint from this for our instruction in America, where some of our best men are making earnest efforts for civil service reform? If the candidates, who flock to Washington at the beginning of each administration, were to be put into cells, and fed on bread and water, it might check the rage for office, and the number of applicants might be diminished; and if they were required to passan examination, and to furnish written essays, showing at least some degree of knowledge of political affairs, we might have a more intelligent class of officials to fill consular posts in different parts of the world.
But, unfortunately, it might be answered that examinations, be they ever so strict, do not change human nature, nor make men just or humane; and that even the rigid system of China does not restrain rulers from corruption, nor protect the people from acts of oppression and cruelty.
Three spots in Canton had for me the fascination of horror—the court, the prison, and the execution ground. I had heard terrible tales of the trial by torture—of men racked to extort the secrets of crime, and of the punishments which followed. These stories haunted me, and I hoped to find some features which would relieve the impression of so much horror. I wished to see for myself the administration of justice—to witness a trial in a Chinese court. A few years ago this would have been impossible; foreigners were excluded from the courts. But now they are open, and all can see who have the nerve to look on. Therefore, after we had made a long circuit through the streets of Canton, I directed the bearers to take us to the Yamun, the Hall of Justice. Leaving our chairs in the street, we passed through a large open court into a hall in the rear, where at that very moment several trials were going on.
The court-room was very plain. A couple of judges sat behind tables, before whom a number of prisoners were brought in. The mode of proceeding was very foreign to American or European ideas. There was neither jury nor witnesses. This simplified matters exceedingly. There is no trial by jury in China. While we haggle about impanelling juries and getting testimony, and thus trials drag on for weeks, in China no such obstacle is allowed to impede the rapid course of justice; and what is more, there are no lawyers to perplex the case with their arguments, but the judgehas it all his own way. He is simply confronted with the accused, and they have it all between them.
While we stood here, a number of prisoners were brought in; some were carried in baskets (as they are borne to execution), and dumped on the stone pavement like so many bushels of potatoes; others were led in with chains around their necks. As each one's name was called, he came forward and fell on his knees before the judge, and lifted up his hands to beg for mercy. He was then told of the crime of which he was accused, and given opportunity if he had anything to say in his own defence. There was no apparent harshness or cruelty towards him, except that he was presumed to be guilty, unless he could prove his innocence; contrary to the English maxim of law, that a man is to be presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. In this, however, the Chinese practice is not very different from that which exists at this day in so enlightened a country as France.
For example, two men were accused of being concerned together in a burglary. As they were from another prefecture, where there is another dialect, they had to be examined through an interpreter. The judge wished to find out who were leagued with them, and therefore questioned them separately. Each was brought in in a basket, chained and doubled up, so that he sat helplessly. No witness was examined, but the man himself was simply interrogated by the judge.
In another case, two men were accused of robbery with violence—a capital offence, but by the Chinese law no man can be punished with death unless he confesses his crime; hence every means is employed to lead a criminal to acknowledge his guilt. Of course in a case of life and death he will deny it as long as he can. But if he will not confess, the court proceeds to take stringent measures tomakehim confess, for which purpose these two men were now put to the torture. The mode of torture was this: There were tworound pillars in the hall. Each man was on his knees, with his feet chained behind him, so that he could not stir. He was then placed with his back to one of these columns, and small cords were fastened around his thumbs and great toes, and drawn back tightly to the pillar behind. This soon produced intense suffering. Their breasts heaved, the veins on their foreheads stood out like whipcords, and every feature betrayed the most excruciating agony. Every few minutes an officer of the court asked if they were ready to confess, and as often they answered, "No; never would they confess that they had committed such a crime." They were told if they did not confess, they would be subjected to still greater torture. But they still held out, though every moment seemed an hour of pain.
While these poor wretches were thus writhing in agony, I turned to the judge to see how he bore the spectacle of such suffering. He sat at his table quite unmoved; yet he did not seem like a brutal man, but like a man of education, such as one might see on the bench in England or America. He seemed to look upon it as in the ordinary course of proceedings, and a necessary step in the conviction of a criminal. He used no bravado, and offered no taunt or insult. But the cries of the sufferers did not move him, nor prevent his taking his accustomed ease. He sat fanning himself and smoking his pipe, as if he said he could stand it as long as they could. Of course he knew that, as their heads were at stake, they would deny their guilt till compelled to yield; but he seemed to look upon it as simply a question of endurance, in which, if he kept on long enough, there could be but one issue.
But still the men did not give in, and I looked at them with amazement mingled with horror, to see what human nature could endure. The sight was too painful to witness more than a few moments, and I rushed away, leaving the men still hanging to the pillars of torture. I confess I felt arelief when I went back the next day, to hear that they had not yielded, but held out unflinchingly to the last.
Horrible as this seems, I have heard good men—men of humanity—argue in favor of torture, at least "when applied in a mild way." They affirm that in China there can be no administration of justice without it. In a country where testimony is absolutely worthless—where as many men can be hired to swear falsely for ten cents apiece as you have money to buy—there is no possible way of arriving at the truth but byextortingit. No doubt it is a rough process, but it secures the result. As it happened, the English gentleman who accompanied us was a magistrate in India, and he confirmed the statement as to the difficulty, and in many cases the impossibility, of getting at the truth, because of the unfathomable deceit of the natives. Many cases came before him in which he was sure a witness was lying, but he was helpless to prove it, when a little gentle application of the thumbscrew, or even a good whipping, would have brought out the truth, which, for want of it, could not be discovered.
To the objection that such methods may coerce the innocent as well as the guilty—that the pain may be so great that innocent men will confess crimes that they never committed, rather than suffer tortures worse than death—the answer is, that as guilt makes men cowards, the guilty will give up, while the innocent hold out. But this is simply trusting to the trial by lot. It is the old ordeal by fire. A better answer is, that the court has beforehand strong presumptive evidence of the crime, and that a prisoner is not put to the torture until it has been well ascertained by testimony obtained elsewhere that he is a great offender. When it is thus determined that he is a robber or a murderer, who ought not to live, then this last step is taken to compel him to acknowledge his guilt, and the justice of his condemnation.
But there are cases in which a man may be wrongfully accused; an enemy may bribe a witness to make a complaint against him, upon which he is arrested and cast into prison. Then, unless he can bring some powerful influence to rescue him, his case is hopeless. He denies his guilt, and is put to the rack for an offence of which he is wholly innocent. Such cases, no doubt, occur; and yet men who have lived here many years, such as Dr. Happer and Archdeacon Gray, tell me that they do not believe there is a country in the world where, on the whole, justice is more impartially administered than in China.
I was so painfully interested in this matter, that I went back to the Yamun the next day in company with Dr. Happer, to watch the proceedings further. As before, a number of prisoners were brought in, with chains around their necks, each of whom, when called, fell down on his knees before the judge and begged for mercy. They were not answered harshly or roughly, but listened to with patience and attention. Several whose cases were not capital, at once confessed their offence, and took the punishment. One young fellow, a mere overgrown boy of perhaps eighteen, was brought up, charged with disobedience to parents. He confessed his fault, and blubbered piteously for mercy, and was let off for this time with rather a mild punishment, which was to wear a chain with a heavy stone attached, which he was to drag about after him in the street before the prison, where he was exposed to the scorn of the people. The judge, however, warned him that if he repeated the disobedience, and was arrested again, he would be liable to be punished with death! Such is the rigor with which the laws of China enforce obedience to parents.
A man accused of theft confessed it, and was sentenced to wear thecangue—a board about three feet square—around his neck for a certain time, perhaps several weeks, on which his name was painted in large characters, with the crime ofwhich he was guilty, that all who saw him might know that he was a thief!
These were petty cases, such as might be disposed of in any police court. But now appeared a greater offender. A man was led in with a chain around his neck, who had the reputation of being a noted malefactor. He was charged with both robbery and murder. The case had been pending a long time. The crime, or crimes, had been committed four years ago. The man had been brought up repeatedly, but as no amount of pressure could make him confess, he could not be executed. He was now to have another hearing. He knelt down on the hard stone floor, and heard the accusation, which he denied as he had done before, and loudly protested his innocence. The judge, who was a man of middle age, with a fine intellectual countenance, was in no haste to condemn, but listened patiently. He was in a mild, persuasive mood, perhaps the more so because he was refreshing himself as a Chinaman likes to do. As he sat listening, he took several small cups of tea. A boy in attendance brought him also his pipe, filled with tobacco, which he put in his mouth, and took two or three puffs, when he handed it back; and the boy cleaned it, filled it, and lighted it again. With such support to his physical weakness, who could not listen patiently to a man who was on his knees before him pleading for his life? But the case was a very bad one. It had been referred back to the village in which the man was born, and the "elders," who form the local government in every petty commune in China, had inquired into the facts, and reported that he was a notorious offender, accused of no less than seven crimes—five robberies, one murder, and one maiming. This was a pretty strong indictment. But the man protested that he had been made the victim of a conspiracy to destroy him. The judge replied that it might be that he should be wrongfully accused by one enemy, but it was hardly possible that a hundred people of his native villageshould combine to accuse him falsely. Their written report was read by the clerk, who then held it up before the man, that he might see it in white and black. Still he denied as before, and the judge, instead of putting him to the torture, simply remanded him to prison for further examination. In all these cases there was no eagerness to convict or to sentence the accused. They were listened to with patience, and apparently all proper force was allowed to what they had to say in their own defence.