The Great Wall of China.The Great Wall of China.To face page 158.ToList
The Great Wall of China.
To face page 158.ToList
Chinawards there is a low parapet, while stone stairs built into the middle of the wall lead from the top through doorless gateways to the ground, giving means of ingress and exit to defenders, but on the side facing towards Mongolia the wall is crowned with battlements some four and a half feet in height, affording ample protection and pierced about every five feet with loopholes and embrasures.
One of the wonders of the world, its construction lasted ten years, and at the date of completion was probably as futile to bar the advance of a resolute foe as it would be to-dayvis-à-vismodern artillery.
Wishing to secure a suitable souvenir of my visit I selected a well-preserved brick, which, by means of knotted handkerchiefs, I slung over my shoulder and so commenced the return journey. For three or four miles all went well, but after that the brick commenced to get rapidly heavier, until it became almost insupportable, while its constant tapping in the small of my back, caused by the jerky trot of the mule, was well-nigh intolerable. I tried to fasten it to the saddle, but, simple as it may seem, it would not hold, besides making the mule altogether unmanageable, so that after a desperate struggle for a few miles further I cast it from me with mingled feelings of disgust and thankfulness, and in all probability it remains in the same spot to this very day.
We reached Yang Fang before dark and muchenjoyed a rest and some dinner, but as it was full moon and we were anxious to be back in Peking early next day, my friend proposed that we should press on for a couple of hours that evening.
With fresh ponies in place of the jaded mules, and feeling much happier on our doeskin saddles, we went along gaily for some distance, but the extreme cold and our own weariness soon began to tell, and we became so drowsy that we determined to off-saddle at the next inn. We had reckoned, however, without our host, for the inn was crammed full and we were obliged to take to the road once more, and that in no very amiable frame of mind. The next inn was if anything more crowded still, and the next, and the next. For five mortal hours we plodded on, more asleep than awake, and I retain but a misty recollection of the snow-covered ground, of my pony slipping while crossing a frozen ford, and of my continual efforts to keep in the saddle. At one in the morning we hammered at the doors of yet another inn, only to be again repelled with the frightful words, "All full."
My friend, who spoke the vernacular fluently, was now doing his best, and with such effect that the door was cautiously opened a few inches, when with one bound I was inside, and seeing a kang with only one man on it I tumbled him off and flung myself down, just conscious of acrid opium smoke, agreat uproar and streams of the most insulting abuse.
Avenue of Stone Figures, Ming Tombs.Avenue of Stone Figures, Ming Tombs.To face page 161.ToList
Avenue of Stone Figures, Ming Tombs.
To face page 161.ToList
On awaking I found my friend by my side still asleep and the morning well aired. The squalid inn was almost deserted, for the overnight lodgers had departed with their carts and pack-animals before dawn, so that I had not to face the individual whom I had so unceremoniously dispossessed of his bed, although I left a dollar for him with the innkeeper, knowing full well it would never reach him, but choosing thus to ease a somewhat guilty conscience.
We had not much further to go and were easily back in Peking before tiffin.
Another expedition I made that winter was to a burial-place of emperors of the late Ming dynasty, commonly known as the "Ming Tombs," consisting of several immense temples or pagodas possessing but little architectural beauty and now considerably dilapidated.
One of these temples is approached by an avenue of gigantic figures representing warriors, statesmen, horses, camels, elephants, etc., each figure apparently cut from a single block of stone.
As two hundred and sixty years ago the Chinese Mings were dispossessed by the present ruling Manchu dynasty, no attempt is now made to preserve these interesting monuments.
In summer the heat is often very great duringthe day, the thermometer frequently registering between ninety and a hundred degrees in the shade, and is rendered more trying by the unsanitary and neglected condition of the thoroughfares.
At night, however, it is so pleasantly cool that one can sleep under a blanket, while punkahs over the bed are never necessary as in the central provinces. Riding outside the city walls in the cool of early morning or late afternoon is then most enjoyable, many interesting sights affording constant diversion.
Acrobats practising theirtours de force, tragedians with tense faces declaiming in a high falsetto to imaginary audiences, rag-pickers sorting their fulsome wares with iron-pointed sticks, herds of coarse, black swine being bought and sold, while in the shelter of the enormous buttresses archers erect paper targets some eight inches square and exercise their art with solemn dignity, elaborate posturing and considerable dexterity.
A good deal of tennis is played at the club and on the various private courts, though most of the diplomatic body as well as missionaries migrate during the great heat to temples in the Western Hills, which are about twelve miles from Peking, or, now that there is railway communication, to the seaside resort of Pei-Tai-Ho.
One afternoon another European and I rode some ten miles out of Peking to inspect the ruins of thecelebrated Summer Palace, which, since its destruction in 1860 by the English and French forces, had remained a desolate and overgrown wilderness. Having put up the ponies at an inn, where an inquisitive old native wished to know whether our bright stirrups and bits were made of silver—the Chinese never dreaming of polishing their own—we proceeded on foot to the chief entrance, but as the work of restoration was then being commenced the gatekeeper refused us admission. Nothing daunted we strolled round to another side, and passing unobserved through a gap in the wall made careful inspection of a partially-destroyed pavilion overlooking a lake, interrupted only by a venerable guardian, who hobbled after us mildly requesting that we should depart. This we were preparing to do for another part of the extensive grounds, when suddenly we came into view of some scores of workmen who were engaged on the repairs. They stopped work and gazed at us but made no hostile move, and we could still have withdrawn in peace had not my companion, overcome by a desire to practise his Chinese, and in opposition to my urgent warning, advanced towards them with a beaming smile. No sooner was he within range than a shower of bricks and stones filled the air and we were both constrained to turn tail and make for the gap at full speed, closely followed by the howling mob. Wedid not pause before reaching the inn, and then only to secure our ponies and continue our undignified flight. I was uninjured, but my companion had received a nasty blow on the head, at which I secretly rejoiced, as owing to his action we had not only been exposed to considerable danger but had been prevented from further investigating a historical spot since strictly closed to all Europeans.
I left Peking at the close of 1889, and there being then no railway the ninety miles' journey to Tientsin had to be performed either on horseback, by cart along cross-country tracks orviathe River Peiho, taking boat at Tungchow, which is fourteen miles from the capital. I decided on going by boat as being far more comfortable than the other alternatives.
Winter had begun early and there was already a certain amount of ice, but from inquiries made the river was still open. My baggage was piled on to a long, narrow cart drawn by two mules, while I and my boy each bestrode a very small donkey, and so I passed out from the mighty city by the stone road which leads to Tungchow, as owing to heavy rains and subsequent frost the more comfortable country tracks were impassable.
This road, or rather causeway, is another witness to the Chinese characteristic of constructing costly works and then leaving them thenceforth to fall into disrepair and ruin.
From twelve to fourteen feet in width, it is built of massive granite blocks a foot square by perhaps three to seven feet in length, and originally must have been a magnificent highway of perfect evenness. Time and the grinding wheels of heavy-laden carts, however, have worn innumerable ruts seven or eight inches deep into the solid stone, so that in passing over it a springless cart crashes from side to side with great violence, almost throwing shaft animals to the ground and rendering it quite impossible for any European to ride in the vehicle, while crockery or any other fragile article, however carefully packed, is doomed to certain destruction.
On arrival at Tungchow I saw a great deal of ice floating down with the current, but the boatmen declared, and I believe truly, that the river was still open to the sea, so having transferred the baggage to one boat, and embarking with my boy and pointer on another, we cast off at about three o'clock in the afternoon, expecting to reach Tientsin the following evening.
Before dark the ice greatly increased in quantity, and from the cabin where, enveloped in rugs, I was having tea, the boatmen's excited voices could be heard making frequent inquiries of upward-bound junks as to our prospects of getting through, for they were Tientsin men and anxious to get their boats home before the river was frozen up. At sixo'clock, however, when we had covered about twelve miles and it was quite dark, the boats suddenly crashed into a barrier of ice, which had but just formed, effectually stopping our further progress. By frantic efforts and with great shoutings both craft were warped to within a few feet of the bank, and there we lay, each moment becoming more firmly wedged in by fresh ice hurrying down with the stream, and which, driven by pressure of the frozen impact, piled up against us with a horrid grinding noise until large sheets an eighth of an inch thick and as clear as crystal came gliding, as though alive, on to our decks.
There being no likelihood of our release I presently sent one of the crew back to Tungchow for carts with which to continue the journey, but to my dismay he returned at two in the morning with the intelligence that no carts could be hired.
The position was a disagreeable one, as it was imperative that I should reach Tientsin in time to catch a steamer for Shanghai before the close of navigation, so I started off the boy, accompanied by another boatman, with instructions to get a conveyance of some sort and at any cost. This attempt was more successful, for at ten o'clock they returned with a farmer and his truly wonderful cart, drawn by a pony, a cow and a donkey, but which theyhad only been able to hire for the exorbitant sum of forty dollars.
My goods and chattels were again transferred, and after making a present of five dollars to the disconsolate boatmen, we started off at something less than two miles an hour.
If I rode on the piled-up baggage I was quickly numbed by the cold. If I walked I soon left the cart far behind, yet dared not lose sight of it for fear of its taking another route, so that my time was spent in walking ahead and then retracing my steps to meet the cart.
Long after dark we halted at one of the usual wayside inns, a collection of hovels built round a dirty, open yard, filled with carts and animals, and the home of pigs and fowls, while I found accommodation on a brick bed in a comfortless room, or rather shed, with torn paper windows and uneven mud floor.
Swallowing some cold food by the light of a tallow candle guttering in the draught, I was too tired and too disgusted not to sleep, and by three o'clock next morning we were again crawling on our way beneath the blazing stars and chilled by a piercing wind.
All things have an end, and so after four days of absolute misery I arrived at noon, hungry, footsore and unwashed, at a friend's house in Tientsin andin time to catch the last steamer, which was sailing that night.
After a hot bath and a good tiffin I retired gratefully to bed, but, such is the callousness of human nature, only to be routed out at three o'clock to play in a football match, which, the Fates be praised, our side lost.
[1]Pe = North. Nan = South. King = Capital City.
[1]Pe = North. Nan = South. King = Capital City.
Of the three routes to China:
1. The overland, by rail through Europe and Siberia;2. The westerly, across the Atlantic, North America and the Pacific;3. The easterly,viathe Mediterranean, Suez Canal, Red Sea and Indian Ocean,
1. The overland, by rail through Europe and Siberia;
2. The westerly, across the Atlantic, North America and the Pacific;
3. The easterly,viathe Mediterranean, Suez Canal, Red Sea and Indian Ocean,
the last is perhaps the most interesting and in many ways the most comfortable, for it is possible to take a magnificent mail steamer at an English port and remain on board, surrounded by as much comfort and luxury as is to be found in a first-class hotel, until you land in either Hongkong or Shanghai.
The finest of these vessels are veritable floating palaces, the saloons of which are gilded and decorated regardless of expense, richly carpeted, illuminated with electric light, cooled by electric fans, and where meals are served which would not demean any restaurant in London or Paris. Music-room, library, smoking-room and bar, laundry, barber's shop and delightful marble baths all find place.
On the crack German boats a band plays at frequent intervals, while I have actually seen cold stoves in some of the cabins, so that when passing through great heat in the Red Sea or elsewhere you could close your cabin door, draw up your chair and have a good cool.
I am not sure how these stoves are worked, but believe they are connected in some way with the refrigerator, which makes ice for use on board and provides cold storage for meat and fruits, and that a current of ether or cold air is pumped through them.
In appearance they resemble a French porcelain furnace, abutting on one side of the cabin, and by means of a regulator you are able to reduce the temperature almost to freezing point. Although undoubtedly very pleasant during intense heat, and invaluable for hospital purposes, I question if they will come into anything like general use, for it seems to me that instantaneous changes from a temperature of perhaps one hundred degrees on deck to say sixty degrees in the cabin cannot fail to produce bad effects on the health.
Travelling by the easterly route you meet the sun, which causes each day to be shortened. By the westerly route you go with the sun, which causes each day to be lengthened.
During the journey round the world theaggregate of these shortenings or lengthenings will amount to twenty-four hours, so that on arriving again in England by the easterly route you will have gained a day, and instead of its being Wednesday, as you might think, it would be Tuesday, wherefore you would be obliged to have two Wednesdays in one week. By the westerly route, on the contrary, you would lose a day, so that returning on a Wednesday by your reckoning you would find everyone else calling it Thursday, and the following morning you would be obliged to recognise as Friday.
To avoid such confusion the date is always regulated when crossing the Pacific.
Going east, the captain notifies that there will be two consecutive Mondays, or two Thursdays, as the case be, in order to use up the extra day.
Going west, on the other hand, one of the days in a week must be omitted, there being no time for it if you are to arrive in port on the proper date.
A common story told in this connection is that on a certain voyage from Vancouver to Hongkong some missionary passengers settled to hold service in the saloon at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, and posted up a notice to that effect in the usual place at the head of the saloon stairs, but omitted to previously consult the captain or ask his permission.
The captain, having no desire to be ignored, even unintentionally, aboard his own ship, quietlyregulated dates, the passengers next morning finding an official notice posted up immediately over that of the missionaries, saying that it would be Sunday until 10 a.m., after which it would be Monday, so that missionaries, Sunday and divine service were all simultaneously suppressed.
The most comfortable and the most restful travelling in the world that I know of is on board the large river steamers running up the Yangtse for six hundred miles from Shanghai to Hankow, and then transhipping to somewhat smaller vessels, for the additional four hundred miles to Ichang.
Scrupulously clean, good table, jovial captains, excellent Chinese stewards, electric light, luxurious saloons, state-rooms double the size of cabins on even the finest ocean liners, few passengers, no noise and no sea-sickness, you glide on day and night over calm waters in a dream-like peace, broken only for a short time every few hours by the necessary stopping at ports of call to work cargo, and at riverside stations for Chinese passengers, who, however, do not mingle with the Europeans, but have saloons set apart for their own exclusive use. Some of these boats were built in the golden days of the early sixties, upon American models, and were fitted up on a scale considerably reduced in newer vessels.
The large bathrooms on these older boats are a great feature of comfort, and so numerous as to bealmost bewildering to strangers; in fact, I have heard that a nervous young man fresh from home was the victim of an untoward mishap by mistaking the captain's bathroom for the one belonging to his own cabin, when on dashing in, the door having evidently been insecurely fastened on the inside, he found himself face to face with the captain's wife in her bath. Retreat was naturally instantaneous, but the position was so serious that his only course was to at once seek the captain and explain. This awkward task he started to perform, though in considerable trepidation, and found the husband reading in his cabin, and who, after listening calmly to a recital of the details, laconically remarked, "Ah, she has a beautiful figure, has she not?"
And the incident was closed.
The compass has been known for many centuries to the Chinese, but in accordance with their strange habit of doing so many things in an exactly contrary manner to Europeans, they "box" it the reverse way to ourselves, speaking of an east-north or a west-south breeze, and so on.
The expressions "to the right" and "to the left" I have never heard, for it is the custom to say "go to the east-south" or to the "west-north," as the case may be. Even in cities, when asking your way, the natives will direct you by the points ofthe compass rather than by the names of the streets.
Chinese screws turn from right to left, which is the opposite way to our own, and of this I had a practical demonstration when, on returning one morning from the mountains, a chair-coolie surreptitiously abstracted my flask from the tiffin-basket and tried to unscrew the stopper to get at the whisky, but being ignorant of the different method, he in reality screwed it on tighter, till at last it broke off, and when some hours later, on board the steamer, I discovered my ruined flask, an array of teeth-marks deeply imbedded in the metal plainly told the guilty tale.
At Peking, when studying Chinese, my teacher would often come after dinner during the long winter evenings, when seated by a roaring fire we discussed for practice in talking any subjects of interest. Amongst many curious things which I thus heard the following has always puzzled me with the conjecture, "Can there possibly be any truth in it?"
I had that day purchased some fur rugs of no particular value, and not being sure whether they were of dog-skin or goat-skin, asked the teacher his opinion. What his reply was I do not remember, but the conversation having turned on the subject of furs in general, he told me that some rare wolf-skins were exceedingly costly from the fact that the wolves, after being caught by Mongol hunters, had beenskinned alive and the skins dressed in a particular manner. Rugs made of these, he declared, on the approach to the house of wild animals, robbers or of any threatening danger, would bristle up as if still on the back of the live animal when angered, and so give timely warning to the inmates; for which reason they were so highly valued.
I have never seen what purposed to be such a skin, but repeat the story if only for its Oriental weirdness.
Water buffaloes are a striking feature in Chinese rural life, more especially in the central and southern provinces. With a carcase almost as large and devoid of hair as that of an elephant, they have very short legs, and are consequently but little taller than the ordinary ox. Carrying on their heavy skulls enormous, semi-circular horns, they have a ferocious aspect, but strangely enough are exceedingly timid and docile. In summer, for the sake of coolness and to avoid mosquitoes, they plunge into streams or mud-holes, and lie there for hours with only their muzzles and eyes above water. It is rather a pleasing sight to see one of these unwieldy, dangerous-looking brutes being led quietly along, by means of a thin string attached to its nose, by a wee native girl, who, when tired of walking, stops the animal, draws its head down by the string, places her tiny foot on the massive horn and is slowly raised fromthe ground by the buffalo and placed gently on his back, which is so broad that she can kneel and play about on it while her charge is grazing. These buffaloes are chiefly employed in the cultivation of rice, and as the flesh of oxen is but rarely eaten by the Chinese, they usually die of old age.
On one occasion I saw a large family of natives returning mournfully to their village from a neighbouring meadow, and on making inquiries was told that they had been to bury their water buffalo, which had just died after a faithful service of more than twenty years.
When on a shooting trip far up the River Han I saw a large buffalo with four boys on his back, grazing by the side of a water-ditch, which lay between him and a steep bank some ten feet high. The grass being very soft, my close approach was unobserved, until a hare getting up I fired off my gun. Instantly the buffalo dashed through the ditch and up the bank, when the boys, having nothing to hold on to except one another, were shot off backwards into the water, where they formed a perfect heap of struggling arms and legs, to my great amusement.
Chinese farm-houses are very different from the substantial, comfortable dwellings obtaining in this country, being primitive clay hovels with no upper storeys, having tile roofs, windows of oiled paper, and mud floors, while the furniture is home-madeand of the roughest description. No walks or gardens surround the house, which stands in the centre of the farm-yard, outbuildings and cesspools, with the threshing-floor, as a rule, immediately outside the front door. Pigs, dogs, fowls and goats roam at will through the dwelling and about the premises, while the two or three buffaloes and oxen used for ploughing and threshing are tethered to neighbouring trees.
A Typical Farm-House.A Typical Farm-House.To face page 177.ToList
A Typical Farm-House.
To face page 177.ToList
Although wheat, maize, barley and millet are largely cultivated in the north, rice is the principal crop wherever it can be grown, much water being necessary. It is first sown in quite a small, dry patch, to be subsequently transplanted, and comes up as thick as grass and of a most brilliant green. The fields, which rarely exceed half an acre, and are generally very much less, are now tilled. First, they are flooded by a careful system of irrigation to a depth of three or four inches, and when sufficiently soft turned over with a primitive, wooden plough, shod with a small iron blade or tip, and drawn by one water buffalo. After this they are harrowed, the farmer standing on the harrow and driving the buffalo as it wades along, until they are masses of rich, liquid mud. The young plants are now pricked out by hand, about six inches apart, and the fields kept just flooded by a constant stream of running water. When ripe the crop stands about two and a halffeet in height, and the water having been cut off some time previously, reaping commences with the sickle.
Into the harvest-field is often brought a large wooden tub about four feet in diameter by three feet high, and the reaper, having cut an armful of rice, takes it by the straw end and threshes the ears five or six times with great force over the side, so that the grain falls into the tub, which, when thus filled, is replaced by an empty one and taken to the threshing-floor, where the contents are thrown up by shovels-full into the air, the breeze blowing the chaff to one side and the winnowed rice falling in a heap by itself. When the crop is not thus threshed in the harvest-field it is stacked at the farm, and sometimes in the low forks of large trees to remove it from the danger of possible floods, subsequently to be trodden out by oxen on the threshing-floor or beaten out by the farmer and his family with light basket-work flails on bamboo shafts.
In villages and small towns where many houses adjoin, it is a common practice to paint or dye young chickens as soon as they are hatched, so that each housewife may know her own. One woman will colour hers a bright red, another will use blue, another green, and so on, the appearance of these strikingly-coloured little creatures intermingled inthe streets being exceedingly droll and novel to Europeans.
Amongst all classes of Chinese, from beggars to Academicians, belief in ghosts, dreams and the supernatural generally is absolute and unshakable.
If you express doubt or scepticism they will readily agree with you from a certain nervousness of being thought ridiculous, as well as from a feeling of the futility of any attempt to persuade Europeans of the soundness of such convictions.
In the autumn of 1899, when at Shasi, which is an unthriving town nine hundred miles up the Yangtse, and where another Englishman and I were the then only Europeans residing amongst a dense, hostile population, which only a few weeks previously had burnt down all foreign houses and forced the inmates to flee for their lives in small boats, two of the most remarkable cases of this universal superstition came directly under my notice.
At that time one of those rebellions which are a chronic feature of Chinese Society was in full bloom in the neighbouring province of Szechwan, where an individual named Yü Man-tze was heading a crusade against Christians and foreign influence, when at least one French father was slain and another held in prolonged captivity, despite all efforts of the local officials to effect his release.
The doings of this redoubtable brigand werenaturally our chief topic of daily conversation, and a very intelligent and highly-educated Chinese gentleman, who kept me informed of local events, said that the natives generally credited him with mystic powers. "Of course," he added, eyeing me suspiciously, "it cannot be true, still, it is current gossip in all the tea-shops."
After a short pause I informed him confidentially that whatever other foreigners might or might not believe, I personally had considerable doubts as to the non-existence of supernatural agencies.
Without looking up I could feel that his eyes were critically scanning my face in search of ridicule or sarcasm, but I managed to preserve a stolid demeanour, and purposely dropping further discussion of the matter, went in search of cigars and stimulants to help us while away the afternoon. At length he again broached the subject, which I could see was of great interest to him, and warming to his theme under the influence of a sympathetic listener and good cheer, he finally told me in a burst of confidence and with low, excited voice, the followingfactrelative to Yü Man-tze.
At the outset of his lawless career this supernaturally gifted desperado, having collected a band of followers, fastened round their ankles such heavy weights that they were at first totally unable tomove; but, as the fruit of continual exertions, they by-and-by managed to creep a few paces, later on they were able to walk easily, and finally even to run with their loaded feet.
The time for action having come, Yü Man-tze removed the weights, when his disciples were so buoyant that they could allfly, and so were able to pass rapidly between places far apart, and to successfully avoid all attempts at capture.
For those unacquainted with the East it is doubtless well-nigh impossible to credit that such rubbish as this could be implicitly believed by any considerable number of people, yet such was the case, and the fact that the Chinese government eventually bribed Yü Man-tze with official rank and a large sum of money to desist from his evil ways by no means tended to diminish the illusion.
For several weeks we were continually threatened with a visitation from some predatory band of Yü Man-tze's followers, so that when one stormy night two large fires simultaneously broke out in different parts of the town we thought trouble was at hand. Our anticipations, however, were happily unfulfilled, the storm having prevented the rebels from descending the river as intended, though the fires, which evidently had been previously planned and timed, were ignited.
Next morning my compatriot brought in wordthat he had visited the scenes of the conflagrations, and that three victims, who had been fearfully burnt, were lying in the street covered with straw mats, but still alive. Being without medical comforts of any description I was powerless to render assistance, so refrained from even quitting the house.
An hour later my countryman again rushed in, followed by two or three Chinese, to say that relatives of the sufferers had brought them to a piece of waste ground hard by, had heaped wood round them, had poured petroleum over them, and were now burning them as a sacrifice to the god of fire, he having already established his claim over them.
What could be done in the face of such horrifying circumstances? Nothing, for the poor wretches were already beyond any human aid, and to have interfered would have brought on us instant vengeance from the excited mob, but never, to the end of my days, shall I forget that sickening feeling of enforced inaction.
I especially record this incident as it is the only one of so extreme a nature that I have ever heard of as taking place amongst the Chinese, although it is a matter of common knowledge that they frequently refuse to rescue drowning persons for fear of displeasing the river god.
We subsequently learnt with much satisfaction that the rebels, to the number of two or three hundred, on being turned aside by the storm, crossed the border into the province of Hunan, and there, after murdering an official, his women-folk and some servants, were surrounded in a swamp on the shores of the Tongting lake by Government troops and butchered to a man.
Native breeds of swine are very coarse and always coal black, so that when a French friend of mine imported for the first time into Peking two white, foreign-bred pigs, they were objects of immense curiosity to the local Chinese, who thought them exceedingly uncanny, and considered it far from improbable that the departed spirits of former friends might well have migrated into forms so passing fair.
After they had been carefully fattened, a kiddier was sent for to give them the happy dispatch, but no sooner had he set eyes on his quarry than he scuttled off in alarm, and nothing would induce him to return, nor could any other butcher be prevailed upon to officiate, so that, my friend declared, he was obliged to roll up his sleeves and perform the gruesome, though necessary operation himself.
"Old custom" is almost a religion with the celestials, to subvert which requires great caution,persistency and strength. If anything can be justified by old custom, or even precedent, it is considered to be unassailable, no matter how harmful or irrational it may be.
Take the matter of foot-binding.
Laws have been passed, and are still extant, expressly forbidding this cruel and senseless habit, and the ruling race, the Manchus, have never practised it, still the Chinese, and the women more than the men, cling to it with fanatical stubbornness for the sole reason that it is old custom, and that if girls' feet were not bandaged it would outrage the universal sense of propriety.
I have frequently talked the subject over with Chinamen, who readily acknowledge that it is useless, besides being extremely painful to young children, but they say if their daughters had natural feet they would most probably fail to get husbands, as no man wishes his wife to be in any way extraordinary or different from other women. "In any case," they frequently retort, "we do not know that foot-binding gives much more pain than do the tight-laced stays of foreign women, and certainly it is not so ugly or prejudicial to the health."
The Chinese, contrary to ourselves, look back to the past for inspiration and guidance, and to concern oneself about novelty or change appears to them as savouring strongly of shiftiness and want of tone.
A curious instance of how quickly precedent can be established, and of its binding force, came to my notice some years ago at Peking.
At a certain point the now shallow waters of the moat encircling the city wall had for long years been spanned by a foot-bridge, but which, having become rotten and weak, duly crumbled away.
With Oriental dilatoriness no attempt was made to rebuild it for some months, and it was then found that two men, who during the interval had been earning a livelihood by wading to and fro carrying pedestrians between the opposite banks, strongly objected to a new bridge on the ground that it would take away their occupation now fairly established. Backed by numerous relatives and by public opinion, these two miserable coolies had successfully resisted the proposed reconstruction when I left the capital, and it is highly probable that they or their sons still monopolise passenger traffic at the ford.
To many even in this country, and to far more on the Continent, where Christmas is observed solely as a religious festival, the New Year with its train of bills, gifts, junketings and holidays is a period of abomination, when all business is dislocated and servants run mad.
At such places in the East as Hankow, where a considerable Russian colony exists, there are three New Years of progressive virulence. The first ofJanuary is observed by all Europeans as a general holiday, when the ladies stay at home to preside over elaborate teas, at which all gentlemen of their acquaintance are expected to appear if only for a few minutes, while the men, both married and single, taking a large supply of cards, sally forth to call at the house of each lady in turn to wish her a Happy New Year, a proceeding which takes up several hours and necessitates a surprising amount of endurance. Dinners, dances, complimentary visits from Chinese friends, and other social functions help to swell the list of New Year obligations.
Things have scarcely settled down again when the Russian New Year is at hand, for in the dominions of the White Czar time is still reckoned by the old style, and as Russians are particularly keen and very pronounced in their observance of anniversaries andfêtes, the place is again turned topsy-turvy for several days beneath floods of excellent sweet champagne.
The Chinese calendar marches coeval with the moons, which fact generally places their New Year some time in February, the exact date fluctuating from year to year to the extent of three or four weeks.
The last few days of the old year is a great time of reckoning, when all outstanding debts must be paid so as to commence the New Year with a clean slate, and woe to the man who fails to meet his obligations.
From faces clouded with anxiety during this trying period there is a sudden revulsion on the stroke of midnight to countenances wreathed in smiles, as for weal or woe the New Year is ushered in with deafening fusillades of fire-crackers and a great beating of gongs. In the morning all China is astir betimes, dressed in gala attire and interchanging congratulatory visits. Business is entirely suspended for several days, it being the one great annual holiday, and it is extremely difficult to get even your own servants to pay so much as a minimum of attention to their household duties; in fact, I yearly register a mental vow not to lose my temper with them on any account during New Year week, for besides being useless it would probably entail the additional discomfort of having to engage and train new hands.
At this season native officials as well as merchants are in the habit of making presents indicative of good-will to those foreigners with whom they have business relations.
Your boy brings in a bright red visiting-card eight inches by three, coming from an official who begs you will deign to accept his best wishes for the New Year, together with a few trifling presents. Immediately three or four coolies arrive, groaning as loudly as possible beneath the weight of hams, boxes of cigars, jars of dried fruits, boxes of tea, oranges and champagne. You inspect the presentswith exclamations of appreciation and then privately consult the boy as to what you should retain, it being the general practice to return the greater part. A box of tea, a jar or two of dried fruits, some oranges and perhaps a box of cigars are selected, while a few dollars are presented to the coolies, by whom you forward in return your own Chinese card to the official with seasonable wishes and thanks for his thoughtful kindness.
As I was reading by my fire one afternoon in Shanghai the door was quietly opened, two hands gently pushed an enormous live turkey into the room and the door was again closed. The turkey commenced to stalk about with an occasional gobble. After watching the intruder for a few seconds I started to catch him, but found it was no easy matter. He flew on to the sideboard, from there to the mantelpiece and then to the window-sill, scattering knick-knacks and photographs far and wide. He ran under the sofa and table, finally escaping into my bedroom, where, with a desperate effort, I caught him by his legs under the bed. While dragging him out he beat his wings with great force, and as the bed had evidently not been swept under for months, drove forth such a cloud of dust and fluff as to almost choke me, while filling the whole room.
Round his neck was tied a red label bearing New Year greetings from a Chinese merchant.
Fishing-Junks in Macao Harbour at Chinese New Year.Fishing-Junks in Macao Harbour at Chinese New Year.To face page 189.ToList
Fishing-Junks in Macao Harbour at Chinese New Year.
To face page 189.ToList
The entire boating population cease work at New Year, and tying up their craft in convenient places give themselves up to such few pleasures as their primitive mode of life allows.
At Macao, hundreds of fishing-boats, which supply the market both there and at Hongkong, assemble and anchor close together in orderly rows, both in the inner harbour as well as in the bay facing the Praia Grande, under strict supervision of the Portuguese authorities. Mat awnings are erected over the decks, thus forming commodious rooms, which are decorated with scrolls and lanterns, and in which feastings and family gatherings take place for several days, after which the whole fleet, gaily decked with flags, puts again to sea.
Fish of any kind is a favourite article of food, and the methods of catching them are extremely numerous. Otters, cormorants, nets, baskets and hooks without bait, all meet with due measure of success, but by far the most remarkable manner of fishing was that which I saw from the bows of a steamer made fast to the hulk at Hankow.
It was mid-winter and bitterly cold, the ground being covered with almost a foot of snow. I had been to tiffin with the captain and was just coming away when, pointing to some natives in a sampan close alongside, he said, "Have you ever seen those men dive for fish?"
I never had, and being glad of the opportunity, stopped to watch. There were three men in the boat, of whom one worked the paddles, while the other two, stark naked, crouched on the forepart, sheltering themselves from the biting wind with an old straw mat. Having come to a suitable spot, where the depth may have been from ten to fifteen feet, the boat was stopped, and the two divers instantly plunged into the turbid water, to reappear some seconds later with a live fish in each hand, while one of them had also a third fish in his mouth. The diving was repeated several times with varying results before I took my leave, and the captain assured me that this was a common sight on the Yangtse in winter, when the fish were probably lying in the mud torpid from the cold.
When returning to Kiukiang from a fortnight's shooting trip in the neighbourhood of Ngankin, my boat was much delayed by light and contrary winds, which frequently obliged us to anchor in order to avoid being swept back by the strong current. On one of these occasions three of the crew took the jolly-boat and rowed ashore, a distance of some hundred yards, and while smoking on deck I could see them wading along by the bank, groping in the mud and occasionally putting something into a bucket which they had taken with them. Questioned as to what they were doing, the lowdahreplied, "Fishing," and my astonishment was not diminished when they returned on board with the bucket half-filled with fine perch, varying from perhaps eight ounces to a pound in weight. Until then I was unaware that perch existed in Chinese waters, nor have I since seen any.
The nearest approach to this kind of fishing that I know of is down in my old home amongst the Norfolk broads, where on warm days, when lying in the weeds, tench can be tickled with the fingers and caught by a sudden nip behind the gills; but the art requires intimate knowledge of local waters, much patience and great skill.
One of the most frequent questions that I am asked at home is, "Do not Chinamen wear the finger-nails very long?" They do. Scholars perform no manual labour, in visible token of which they allow the nails of the left hand to grow an inch or an inch and a half in length, but the nails on the right hand, while also long, are short in comparison with those on the left.
To be classed with literary or educated men is the greatest of all considerations, for which reason there is always a tendency for anyone and everyone to wear a long coat and to don huge tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, such as are affected by theliterati, as well as to cultivate the nails of the left hand. As the use of the wordesquirehasdegenerated in this country until not to apply it to all and sundry is considered to be almost a snub, so the habit of wearing long finger-nails in China has descended through every rank of Society until it is now more often the badge of envious imitation than of any scholarly attainments. So precious to the owners are these claw-like nails that I have often seen them protected by silver sheaths, and have heard that for cases of extraordinary growth the whole of the left hand is even carried in a bag.
There is much outcry in these latter days against the newly-formed habit of cigarette smoking cultivated by ladies of the West. Condemnation of the practice seems if anything to act as an incentive, so, yielding to the pleasant temptation of palliating faults in pretty women, I would suggest as an excuse that they are but following in the foot-steps of their sisters of the Far East, where, it may be roughly stated, the women-folk of a third of the human race smoke pipes.
I cannot say that very young girls appear to indulge much, though women of all ages do to a great extent, inhaling the smoke and puffing it through the nose in thick clouds. The pipes in general use are either small brass ones, having straight wooden stems a foot in length, with clumsy porcelain mouthpieces, or brass water-pipes, which when being smoked make an unpleasant gurglingsound. The bowl of either kind is so tiny that it will only hold a pinch or two of very fine tobacco, which three or four whiffs consume, when it has to be refilled and lighted from a slow-match held ready in the hand until the smokeress has smoked enough. The picture is neither winsome nor sweet.
The Chinese have very few amusements corresponding to our outdoor games, although at treaty-ports, and in those places where there are any roads, men are taking readily to cycling, albeit, from the flowing nature of their garments they generally use ladies' bicycles. Of these few pastimes archery is considered the mostdistingué, while boys attain to great skill in playing shuttlecock with their feet, being able to keep up the feathered cork for a dozen or twenty times, and passing it considerable distances from one to another. Judge then of my surprise when, on asking a young Chinaman at Peking how he had spent his holiday of the previous day, he replied quite naturally that he had passed the afternoon at his cricket club.
I could hardly believe my ears, for as far as I knew a game of cricket had never been played at Peking, even by Englishmen, there being no suitable ground, and it was only by plying him with questions that I elicited it was the cricket of the hearth to which he alluded, and that his club was agambling-house to which young men brought their crickets, there to fight grim duels in a basin for the championship, while noble owners staked considerable sums on the prowess of their diminutive gladiators and stimulated their energies by tickling them with straws.
On all the waterways of China enormous flocks of tame ducks are to be seen. These flocks generally number several thousands of birds each and are carefully herded by the duck farmer and his sons, who swim them about from place to place in search of suitable feeding-grounds. On the Yangtse I have seen them in mid-stream floating down in compact masses with the racing current and surrounded by their guardians in tubs, who, armed with long bamboos, smartly whack any bird which may happen to stray away from the flock until it rejoins its companions.
These ducks are apparently always of one age, be it a month, three months or full-grown, which fact had ever been a source of mild surprise to me, in view of the number of simultaneous broods which would be necessary to hatch off such swarms, until the matter was explained.
A friend of mine gave a tiffin party of four good men and true on his stern-wheel house-boat, the motive power for which was supplied by half-a-dozen coolies driving the wheel with their feet, on the sameprinciple as the tread-mill, and we were gliding up the Taipa Channel near Macao at about four knots, when suddenly our craft came into a sea of egg-shells sailing gaily before the breeze and having at a short distance much the appearance of water-lilies.
For a quarter of an hour or so we ploughed through these shells, which must have numbered tens of thousands, making various conjectures as to their origin, until our host, who had been below superintending the icing of the champagne, came on deck and explained that they undoubtedly were from an incubator in which ducks had just been hatched. This was new to me, so I asked him for details, but he replied that beyond knowing of the incubators and that they were made of manure and lime in which eggs were buried until hatched, he had not been able to procure further information.
Since then I have made many inquiries, but the Chinese will reveal little beyond the fact that incubators "have always existed" for the hatching of ducks and geese.
A gentleman whose knowledge of the Chinese and their ways is unsurpassed has also kindly tried to find out, but with limited success, for, he says, it is regarded as a trade secret and the duck farmers will not divulge the process. However, he ascertained that the hatching takes place in early spring,when "a kind of primitive incubator is used. The eggs are placed in a big basket covered with straw or cotton wool, about a thousand eggs in one basket. Under this basket a charcoal fire is lit to keep the required temperature. The work is carried on in closed rooms and one man is always in attendance turning the eggs. Only eggs of ducks and geese are thus treated."
Whether these incubators are made of manure and lime in the open air, whether they are in rooms heated by charcoal fires, or whether there are both kinds, the interesting fact is established that incubators "have always existed" in China, while results, as seen in the huge flocks of ducks, proclaim them as thoroughly successful. And this, too, when it has been unreservedly believed that the incubator was a modern triumph of Western science!
Another little matter has attracted my attention. There have lately been paragraphs in several papers announcing the excellent results obtained from a new system of registering criminals by means of thumb-marks.
Thumb-marking may be new to Scotland Yard, but in China it is a very ancient practice. I have seen illiterate men smear their thumbs with ink and make impressions at the foot of documents, such thumb-marks being accepted as in every way equivalent to full signatures.