Amid this wilderness of vagabonds may be seen grouped together at the further corner of the stand the representatives of the gentlemanly interest, numbering, as Benson had predicted, about half-a-dozen. Losing, with his yellow blouse and moustache to match; Tom Edwards, in a white hat and trousers, and black velvet coat; Harrison, slovenly in his attire, and looking almost as coarse as any of the rowdies about, till he raises his head, and shows his intelligent eyes; Bleecker, who had just arrived; and a few specimens of Young New-York like him. Benson carries his friend that way, and introduces him in due form to the Long Islander, who receives him with an elaborate bow. Ashburner offers a cigar to Losing, who accepts the weed with a nod of acknowledgment (for he rarely opens his mouth except to put something into it, or to make a bet), and offers one of his in return, which Ashburner trying, excoriates his lips at the first whiff, and is obliged to throw it away after the third, for Charley Losing has strong tastes, will rather drink brandy than wine, any day, and smokes tobacco that would knock an ordinary man down.
The stranger glances his eye over the scene of action. A barouche and four does not differ more from a trotting wagon, or a blood courser from a Canadian pacer, than an English race-course from an American "track." It is an ellipse of hard ground, like a good and smooth piece of road, with some variations of ascent and descent. The distance round is calculated at a mile, according to the scope of turning requisite for a horse before a sulky—that being the most usual form of trotting; for a saddle-horse that has the pole,[6]it comes practically to a little less; for a harness-horse (especially if to a wagon) with an outside place, to a little, or sometimes a good deal more. Around the inclosure, within the track (which looks as if it were trying hard to grow grass and couldn't), a few wagons, which obtained entrance by special favor, are walking about; they belong to the few men who have brought their grooms with them. Harrison's pet trotter is there, a magnificent long-tailed bay, as big as a carriage-horse, equal to 2´ 50´´ on the road before that wagon, and worth fifteen hundred dollars, it is said. Just inside the track, and opposite the main stand outside, is a little shanty of a judge's stand, and marshalled in front of it are half a dozen notorious pugilists, and similar characters, who, doubtless on the good old principle of "set a thief," &c., are enrolled for the occasion as special constables, with very special and formidable white bludgeons to keep order, and precise suits of black cloth to augment their dignity.
"To come off at three o'clock," said the handbills. It is now thirty-five minutes past three, and no signs of beginning. An American horse and an American woman always keep you waiting an hour at least. One of the judges comes forward, and raps on the front of the stand with a primitive bit of wood resembling a broken boot-jack. "Bring out your horses!" People look towards the yard on the left. Here is one of them just led out; they pull off his sheets, his driver climbs up into the little seat behind him. He comes down part of the stand at a moderate gait. Hurrah for old Twenty-miles-an-hour! Trustee! Trustee!
The old chestnut is half-blood; but you would never guess it from his personal appearance, so chunky, and thick-limbed, and sober-looking is he. His action is uneven, and seemingly laborious; you would not think him capable of coveringonemile in three minutes, much less of performing twenty at the same rate. No wonder he hobbles a little behind, for his back sinews are swelled, and his legs scarred and disfigured—the traces of injuries received in his youth, when a cart ran into him, and cut him almost to pieces. Veterinary surgeons, who delight in such relics, will show you pieces of sinew taken from him after the accident. That was six or seven years ago: since then he has solved a problem for the trotting world.
"There," says Benson, with a little touch of triumph, "is the only horse in the world that ever trotted twenty miles in an hour. Isaw it done myself. He was driven nearly two miles before he started, to warm him up, and make him limber. When the word was given, he made a skip, and though his driver, not the same that he has now, caught him before he was fairly off his feet, he was more than three minutes doing the first mile, which looked well for the backers of time; but as the old fellow went on, he did every mile better than the preceding, and the last in the best time of all, winning with nearly half a minute to spare."
"Has the experiment been often tried?"
"Not more than two or three times, I believe; and the horses who attempted it broke down in the eighteenth or nineteenth mile. Nevertheless, I think that within the last twelve years we have had two or three horses beside Trustee who could have accomplished the feat; but as such a horse is worth two thousand dollars and upwards, a heavy bet would be required to tempt a man to risk killing or ruining his animal; and our sporting men, though they bet frequently, are not in the habit of betting largely. That is one reason why it has not been tried oftener; and I am inclined to think that there is another and a better motive. The owner of a splendid horse does not like to risk his life; and it is a risk of life to attempt to trot him twenty miles an hour."
Pit, pat! pit, pat! The old mare is coming down to the score. A very ordinary looking animal in repose, the magnificence of her action converts her into a beauty when moving. How evenly her feet rise and fall, regularly as a machine, though she is nearly at the top of her speed! She carries her head down, and her neck stretched out, and from the tip of her nose to the end of her long white tail, that streams out in the breeze made by her own progress, you might draw a straight line, so true and right forward does she travel. Perched over her tail, between those two tall, slender wheels, sits her owner, David Bryan, the only man that ever handles her, in something like a jockey costume, blue velvet jacket and cap to match, and his white hair, whiter than his horse's tail, streaming in the wind—a respectable and almost venerable looking man; but a hard boy for all that, say the knowing ones. Great applause from the Long Island men, who swear by "the Lady," and are always ready to "stake their pile" on her, for her owner is a Long-Islander, and she is a Suffolk county, Long-Island mare. Some eight years ago Lady Suffolk was bought out of a baker's cart for 112 dollars, and since then she has won for "Dave" upwards of 30,000 dollars. That is what the possessor of a fast trotter most prides himself on—to have bought the animal for a song on the strength of his own eye for his points, and then developed him into a "flier." When a colt is bred from a trotting stallion, put into training at three or four years old, and sold the first time for a high price, if he turns out well there is no particular wonder or merit in it; if he does not, the disappointment is extreme.
Ah, here comes Pelham at last—a clean little bay, stepping roundly, and lifting his legs well; you might call it a perfect action, if we had not just seen Lady Suffolk go by—butsowicked about the head and eyes! Behind the little horse sits a big Irishman, in his shirt sleeves; and they are hauling away at each other, pull Pat, pull Pelham, as if the man wanted to jerk the horse's head off, and the horse to draw the man's arms out. You see the driver is holding by little loops fastened to the reins, to prevent his grasp from slipping. Pelham is a young horse for a trotter, say seven years old, and has already done the fastest mile ever made in harness; but his temper is terribly uncertain, and to-day he seems to be in a particularly bad humor.
Trustee, who requires much warming up, goes all round the track, increasing his speed as he goes, till he has reached pretty nearly his limit. Pelham also completes the circuit, but more leisurely. The Lady trots about a quarter of a mile, then walks a little, and then brushes back. Her returning is even faster and prettier than her going. "2´ 33´´," says Losing, speaking for the first time, as she crosses the score (the line in front of the judge's stand). His eye is such that, given the horse and the track, he can tell the pace at a glance within half a second.
The gentry about are beginning to bet on their respective favorites, and some upon time—trifling amounts generally—five, ten, or twenty dollars; and there is much pulling out, and counting, and depositing of greasy notes. Bang! goes the broken boot-jack again. This time it is not "Bringoutyour horses!" but "Bringupyour horses!"—a requisition which the drivers comply with by turningawayfrom the stand. This is to get a start, aflying startbeing the rule, which obviously favors the backers of time, and is, in some respects, fairer to the horses, but is very apt to create confusion and delay, especially when three or four horses are entered. So it happens in the present instance: half way up the quarter, the horses turn, not all together, but just as they happen to be; and off they go, some slower and some faster, trying to fall into line as they approach the score. "Come back!" It's no go, this time; Pelham has broken up, and is spreading himself all over the track. Trustee, too, is a length or more behind the gray mare, and evidently in no hurry. They all go back, the mare last, as she was half-way down the other quarter before the recall was understood.
"What a beauty she is!" says Harry. "And she has the pole too."
"Will you bet two to three on her against the field?" asks Edwards, who knew very well that Trustee is the favorite. Bensondeclines. "Then will you go on time? Will you bet on 7´ 42´´, or that they don't beat 7´ 47´´" (three mile heats, you will recollect, reader). No, Harry won't bet at all; so Edwards turns to Losing. "Will you bet three to five in hundreds on the Lady?" Losing will. They neither plank the money, nor book the bet, but the thing is understood.
Pelham's driver has begged the judges to give the word, even if he is two lengths behind; he would rather do that than have his horse worried by false starts. So this time, perhaps, they will get off. Not yet! Bryan's mare breaks up just before they come to the score. Harrison hints that he broke her on purpose, because Trustee was likely to have about a neck advantage of him in the start. "Of course they never go the first time," says Benson, "and very seldom the second."
"I saw nine false starts once, at Harlaem," says Bleecker, "where there were but three horses. Better luck next time."
It is better luck. Pelham lays in the rear full two lengths, but Trustee and the mare come up nose and nose to the score, going at a great pace. "Go!" At the word Trustee breaks. "Bah! take him away! Where's Brydges?" The superior skill of his former driver, is painfully remembered by the horse's friends. But he soon recovers, and catches his trot about two lengths behind the mare, and as much in advance of Pelham; for the little bay is going very badly, seems to have no trot in him, and his driver dares not hurry him. In these respective positions they complete the first quarter.
As they approach the half mile, the distance renders their movements indistinct, and their speed, positive or relative, difficult to determine. You can only make out their position. Pelham continues to lose, and Trustee has gained a little; but the gray mare keeps the lead gallantly.
"I like a trot," says Benson, "because you can watch the horses so long. In a race they go by like a flash, once and again, and it's all over."
In the next quarter they are almost lost to view, and then they appear again coming home, and you begin once more to appreciate the rate at which they are coming. Still it is not the very best pace; the Lady is taking it rather easy, as if conscious of having it all her own way; and her driver looks as careless and comfortable as if he were only taking her out to exercise, when she glides past the stand.
"2´ 35´´," says Losing. He doesn't need to look at his watch; but there is great comparing of stop-watches among the other men for the time of the first mile. Hardly half a length behind is Trustee; he has been gradually creeping up without any signs of being hurried, and, clumsily as he goes, gets over the ground without heating himself.
"John Case knows what he's about, after all," Edwards observes, "He takes his time, and so does the old horse; wait another round, and, at the third mile, they'll bethere."
"But where's Pelham? Is he lost? No, there he comes; and, Castor and Pollux, what a burst! Something has waked him up after the other horses have passed the stand, and while he is yet four or five lengths from it. There's a brush for you! Did you ever see a horse foot it so?—as if all the ideas of running that he may ever have had in his life were arrested, and fastened down into his trot. How he is closing up the gap! If he can hold to that stroke he will be ahead of the field before the first quarter of this second mile is out. A mighty clamor arises, shouts from his enemies, who want to break him, cheers from his injudicious friends. There, he has lapped Trustee—he has passed him; tearing at the bit harder than ever, he closes with Lady Suffolk. Bryan does not begin to thrash his mare yet, he only shows the whip over her; but yells like a madman at her, and at Pelham, whose driver holds on to him as a drowning man holds on to a rope. They are going side by side at a terrific pace. It can't last; one of them must go up. The bay horse does go up just at the quarter pole, having made that quarter, Benson says, in the remarkably short time of thirty-six seconds and a half."
Pelham's driver can't jerk him across the track; by doing so, he would foul Trustee, who is just behind; so he has to let the chestnut go by, and then sets himself to work to bring down his unruly animal; no easy matter—for Pelham, frightened by the shouting, and excited by the noise of the wheels, plunges about in a manner that threatens to spill or break down the sulky; and twice, after being brought almost to a full stop, goes off again on a canter. Good bye, little horse! there's no more chance for you. By this time, the Lady is nearly a quarter of a mile ahead, and going faster than ever. Somehow or other, Trustee has increased his speed too, and is just where he was, a short half-length behind her. The way in which he hangs on to the mare begins to frighten the Long-Islanders a little, but they comfort themselves with the hope that she has something left, and can let out some spare foot in the third mile, or whenever it may be necessary.
Some forty seconds more elapse; a period of time that goes like a flash when you are training your own flier, or "brushing" on the road, but seems long enough when you are waiting for horses to come round, and then they appear once more coming home. The mare is still leading, with her beautiful, steady, unfaltering stroke; but she is by no means so fresh-looking as when she started; many a dark line of sweat marks her white hide. Close behind her comes Trustee; the half-length gap has disappeared, and his nose is ready to touch Bryan's jacket. There ishardly a wet hair discernible on him; he goes perfectly at his ease, and seems to be in hand. "He has her now," is the general exclamation, "and can pass her when he pleases." As the mare crosses the score, (in 2´ 34´´, according to Edwards's stop-watch,) Bryan "looks over his left shoulder," like the knights in old ballads, and becomes aware for the first time that the horse at his wheel is not Pelham, as he had supposed, but Trustee.
The old fellow is another man. His air of careless security has changed to one of intense excitement. Slash! slash! slash! falls the long whip, with half a dozen frantic cuts and an appropriate garnish of yells. Almost any other trotter would go off in a run at one such salute, to say nothing of five or six; but the old mare, who "has no break in her," merely understands them as gentle intimations to go faster—and she does go faster. How her legs double up, and what a rush she has made! There is a gap of three lengths between her and Trustee. He never hurries himself, but goes on steadily as ever. See, as he passes, how he straddles behind like an old cow, and yet how dexterously he paddles himself along, as it were, with one hind foot. What a mixture of ugliness and efficiency his action is! At the first quarter the Lady has come back to him. Three times during this, the last and decisive mile, is the performance repeated. You may hear Bryan's voice and whip completely across the course, as he hurries his mare away from the pursuer; but each succeeding time the temporary gap is shorter and sooner closed.
Now they are coming down the straight stretch home. The mare leads yet. Case appears to be talking to his horse, and encouraging him; if it is so, you cannot hear him, for the tremendous row Lady Suffolk's driver is making. She had the pole at starting, has kept it throughout, and Trustee must pass her on the outside. This circumstance is her only hope of winning. All her owner's exertions, and all the encouraging shouts of her friends, which she now hears greeting her from the stand, cannot enable her to shake off Trustee, but if she can only maintain her lead for six or seven lengths more, it is enough. The chestnut is directly in her rear; every blow gets a little more out of her. Half the short interval to the goal is passed, when Trustee diverges from his straight course, and shows his head along side Bryan's wheel. Catching his horse short, Case puts his whip upon him for the first time, shakes him up with a great shout, and crowds him past the mare, winning the heat by a length.
The little bay was so far behind at the end of the second mile, that no one took any notice of him, and he was supposed to have dropped out somewhere on the road. His position, however, was much improved on the third mile; still, as there was a strong probability of his being shut out, the judges dispatched one of their number to the distance-post with a flag; a very proper proceeding, only they thought of it rather late, for the judge arrived there only just before Pelham, and also just before Trustee crossed the score; in fact, the three events were all but simultaneous; the judge dropped the flag in Pelham's face, and Pelham in return nearly ran over the judge. This episode attracted no attention at the time of its occurrence, all eyes being directed to the leading horses; but now it affords materials for a nice little row, Pelham's driver protesting violently against the distance. There is much thronging, and vociferating, and swearing about the judge's stand, into which our burly Irishman endeavors to force his way. One of the specials favors him with a rap on the head, that would astonish a hippopotamus. Pat doesn't seem to mind it, but he understands it well enough (the argument is just suited to his capacity), and remains tolerably quiet. Finally, it is proclaimed that "Trustee wins the heat in 7´ 45´´, and Pelham is distanced."
"Best three miles ever made in harness," says Harrison, "except when Dutchman did it in 7´ 41´´."
Edwards doubts the fact, and they bet about it, and will write to theSpirit of the Times(the AmericanBell's Life).
Ashburner and Benson descended from the stand. The horses, panting and pouring with sweat, are rubbed and scraped by their attendants, three or four to each. Then they are clothed, and walked up and down quietly. They have a rest of nominally half-an-hour, and practically at least forty minutes. Some of the crowd are eating oysters, more drinking brandy and water, and a still greater number "loafing" about without any particular employment. There are two or three thimble-riggers on the ground, but they seem to be in a barren county; nobody there is green enough for them; the very small boys take sights at them. There is a tradition that Edwards once in his younger days tried his fortune with them. He looked so dandified, green, and innocent, that they let him win five dollars the first time, and then, on the rigger's proposing to bet a hundred, his supposed victim applied the finger of scorn to the nose of derision, and strutted off with his V.,[7]to the great amusement of the bystanders. Tom is very proud of this story, and likes to tell it himself. That, and his paying a French actress with a check when he had nothing at his banker's, are two of the great exploits of his life.
"Thisisrather a low assemblage, certainly," says Ashburner, after he has contemplated it from several points of view, and observed a great many different points of character. "Do they ever have races here?"
"Yes, every spring and fall, here, or on the Union Course adjoining. They are rather more decently attended, but not over respectable, much less fashionable. At the South, it is different; there ladies go, and the club races are some of the most marked features of their city life. I recollect when I was a boy, that these trotting matches were nice things, and gentlemen used to enter their own horses; but gradually they have gone down hill to what they are now, and the names of the best trotters are associated with the hardest characters and the most disreputable species of balls."
"And when they race, do the horses run on ground likethis?" asked Ashburner, stamping on the track, which was as hard as Macadam.
"Precisely on this, and run four-mile heats, too, and five of them sometimes."
"Fivefour-mile heats on ground like this?" The Englishman looked incredulous.
"Exactly. It has happened that each of three has won a heat, and then there was one dead heat. You will remember, though, that we run old horses, not colts. There is no extra weight for age; they begin at four or five years old, and go on till twelve or fourteen."
"But they must be very liable to accidents, going on such hard soil."
"Yes, they do break their legs sometimes, but not often. Our horses are tougher than yours."
As they stroll about, Benson points out several celebrated fliers that have gained admission inside of the stand, but prefer remaining outside the track; some pretty well worn-out andemeritilike Ripton, an old rival of Lady Suffolk (the mare has outlasted most of her early contemporaries), some in their prime, like the trotting stallion, Black Hawk, beautifully formed as any blood-horse, but singularly marked, being white-stockinged all round to the knee. "There," says Harry, "is a fellow that belies the old horse-dealer's rhyme:
'Four white legs and a white nose,Take him away, and throw him to the crows.'"
'Four white legs and a white nose,Take him away, and throw him to the crows.'"
Time is up, and they return to the stand. Edwards is bantering Losing, and asks him if he will repeat his bet on this heat. He will fast enough, and double it on the final result. Edwards wants nothing better.
This time, for a wonder, the horses got off at the first start, and a tremendous pace they make, altogether too much for Trustee, who is carried off his feet in the first half-quarter, and the Lady goes ahead three, four, five lengths, and has taken the pole before he can recover. Bryan continues to crowd the pace. The mare comes round to the score in 2´ 33´´, leading by four lengths, and her driver threshing her already. "She can't stand it," say the knowing ones; "she must drop out soon." But she doesn't drop out in the second mile at least, for at the end of that, she is still three lengths in advance, and Trustee does not appear so fresh as he did last heat. The Long-Islanders are exultant, and the sporting men look shy. When they come home in the last quarter, the chestnut has only taken one length out of the gap; nevertheless, he goes for the outside, and makes the best rush he can. It's no use. He can't get near her; breaks up again, and crosses the score a long way behind. Much manifestation of boisterous joy among the farmers. Edwards looks sold, and something like a smile passes over Losing's unimpassioned countenance. It is plain sailing for the judges this time. "Lady Suffolk has the heat in 7' 49´´," and there is no mistake or dispute about it.
Another long pause. Eight minutes' sport and three quarters of an hour intermission among such a company begins to be rather dull work. All the topics of interest afforded by the place have been exhausted. Harrison and Benson begin to talk stocks and investments; the juveniles are comparing their watering place experiences during the summer. Ashburner says nothing, and smokes an indefinite number of cigars; Losing says rather less, and smokes more. Edwards has disappeared; gone, possibly, to talk to the doubtful carriages. It is growing dark before they are ready for the third and decisive heat.
One false start, and at the second trial they are off. The mare has the inside, in right of having won the preceding heat. She crowds the pace from the start, as usual; but Trustee is better handled this time, and does not break. Case allows the Lady to lead him by three lengths, and keeps his horse at a steady gait, in quiet pursuit of her. For two miles their positions are unaltered; Bryan's friends cheer him vociferously every time as he comes round; he replies by a flourish of his long whip and additional shouts to his mare. In the third mile, Trustee begins to creep up, and in the third quarter of it, just before he gets out of sight from the stand, is only a length and a half behind. When they appear again, there are plenty of anxious lookers-out; and men like our friend Edwards, who have a thousand or more at stake on the result, cannot altogether restrain their emotions. Here they come close enough together! Trustee has lapped the mare on the outside; his head is opposite the front rim of her wheel. Bryan shouts and whips like one possessed; Case's small voice is also lifted up to encourage Trustee. The chestnut is gaining, but only inch by inch, and they are nearly home. Now Case has lifted him with the whip, and he makes a rush and is at her shoulder. Now he will have her. Oh, dear, he has gone up! Hurrah for the old gray! Stay! Case has caught him beautifully; he is on his trot again opposite her wheel. One desperate effort on the part of man and horse, and Trustee shoots by the mare; but not till after she has crossed the score. Lady Suffolk is quite done up; she could not go another quarter; but she has held out long enough to win the heat and the money.
And now, as it was somewhere in the neighborhood of seven, and neither Ashburner nor Benson had eaten any thing since eight in the morning, they began to feel very much inclined for dinner, or supper, or something of the sort; and the team travelled back quite as fast as it was safe to go by twilight; a little faster, the Englishman might have thought, if he had not been so hungry. Then, after crossing the Brooklyn ferry, Benson announced his intention of putting up his horses for the night at a livery stable, and himself at Ashburner's hotel, as it was still a long drive for that time of night to Devilshoof; which being agreed upon, they next dived into an oyster cellar, of which there are about two to a block all along Broadway, and ordered an unlimited supply of the agreeable shellfish, broiled;—oyster chops, Ashburner used to call them; and the term gives a stranger a pretty good idea of what these large oysters look like, cooked as they are with crumbs, exactly in the style of acotelette panée. And they make very nice eating, too; only they promote thirst and induce the consumption of numerous glasses of champagne or brandy and water, as the case may be. Whether this be an objection to them or not, is matter of opinion. Then having adjourned to Ashburner's apartment in the fifth story of the Manhattan hotel (it was a room with an alcove, French fashion), and smoked numerous Firmezas there, the Englishman turned in for the night; and Benson, who had no notion of paying for a bed when he could get a sofa for nothing, disposed himself at full length upon Ashburner's, without taking off any thing except his hat, and was fast asleep in less time than it would takeThe Sewerto tell a lie.
FOOTNOTES:[4]The United States government, (U. S.)[5]A very critical friend wants to know if the termdilapidatedcan, with strict propriety, be applied to awoodenbuilding.[6]A horse will "go the pole" in such a time, means that he will go in double harness. A horse "has the pole," means that he has drawn the place nearest the inside boundary fence of the track.[7]A five-dollar bill is so called from the designation in Roman numerals upon it.
[4]The United States government, (U. S.)
[4]The United States government, (U. S.)
[5]A very critical friend wants to know if the termdilapidatedcan, with strict propriety, be applied to awoodenbuilding.
[5]A very critical friend wants to know if the termdilapidatedcan, with strict propriety, be applied to awoodenbuilding.
[6]A horse will "go the pole" in such a time, means that he will go in double harness. A horse "has the pole," means that he has drawn the place nearest the inside boundary fence of the track.
[6]A horse will "go the pole" in such a time, means that he will go in double harness. A horse "has the pole," means that he has drawn the place nearest the inside boundary fence of the track.
[7]A five-dollar bill is so called from the designation in Roman numerals upon it.
[7]A five-dollar bill is so called from the designation in Roman numerals upon it.
The name of Wilhelm Bilderdyk is scarcely known beyond the boundaries of his own country; and yet those who are conversant with the Dutch language place him in a very high rank as a poet. The publication of his first poem,Elicus, formed quite an era in the history of Dutch literature. It was speedily followed by a faithful and spirited translation of theŒdipusof Sophocles, and versions of other Greek writers. Besides his imaginative pursuits, he engaged with ardor in the study of geology, and almost rivalled Cuvier in his acquaintance with natural history. War and invasion, however, interrupted the labors of Bilderdyk. He quitted Holland, travelled through Germany, crossed over to England, and finally spent some time amongst the Scottish Highlands, where he employed himself in translating Ossian's poems into Dutch verse. He then went to the principality of Brunswick, and there composed a very extraordinary work,The Maladies of Wise Men, a poem whose mild, lofty sublimity, unearthly interest, and grasp of gloomy thought, entitle it to rank with the Inferno of Dante.
Bilderdyk at length was able to return to his country. Louis Napoleon, who then reigned at the Hague, chose him as his instructor in the Dutch language, and named him president of the second class in the Institute of Amsterdam. About this time he married a beautiful and clever girl, named Wilhelmina; and for several years they enjoyed together as perfect happiness as this world can give—she occupied in domestic and maternal duties, and he adding to his fame and fortune by the publication of several works. But at length death visited their dwelling, and removed within a brief space three lovely children. Their loss was commemorated in two poems—Winter Flowers, andThe Farewell. Not long afterwards, public misfortune came to aggravate his private sorrows. Louis Napoleon left Holland, and Bilderdyk took refuge at Groningen, where he stayed for some time, and then, rejecting a liberal offer of employment made him by William of Orange, he set out for France, accompanied by his wife.
When they entered the diligence, they found it occupied but by one person, a young female of mild and engaging appearance. No sooner did the heavy machine begin to move than she began to scream, and testified the most absurd degree of terror. Public carriages then were certainly far inferior, both in safety and accommodation, to those of modern times; yet the probable amount of danger to be apprehended did not by any means justify the excessive apprehension manifested by the fair traveller. On arriving at Brussels, the lady was so much overcome that she announced her intention of stopping some days in that city to recruit her strength before venturing again to encounter the perils of a diligence; and taking leave of Bilderdyk and his wife, she gratefully thanked the latter for the kind attention she had shown her during the journey. The two Hollanders proceeded on their way to Paris, laughing heartily from time to time at the foolish cowardice of a woman who saw a precipice in every rut, and a certain overturn in every jolt of the wheels.
Arrived at their journey's end, the travellers took up their abode in a humble dwelling in the Rue Richelieu, and commenced with the utmost delight visiting all the wonderful things in Paris. Bilderdyk soon found himself completely in his element. He breakfasted with Cuvier at the Jardin des Plantes, passed his afternoon at the Bibliothèque Richelieu, dined in the Faubourg St. Germain with Dr. Alibert, and finished the evening at the play or the opera. One day he and his wife were given excellent places for witnessing the ascent in a balloon of a young woman, Mme. Blanchard, whose reckless courage enabled her to undertake aërial voyages,despite the sad fate which befell Pilastre de Rosiers, her own husband, and several other aëronauts. Our Hollanders amused themselves for some time with watching the process of inflating the balloon, and following with their eyes the course of the tiny messenger-balloons sent up to ascertain the direction of the upper currents of wind. At length all is ready, the band strikes up a lively air, and Mme. Blanchard, dressed in white and crowned with roses, appears, holding a small gay flag in her hand. With the most graceful composure she placed herself in the boat, the cords were loosed, and the courageous adventuress, borne rapidly upwards in her perilous vehicle, soon appeared like a dark spot in the sky.
When he returned to his lodging, Bilderdyk composed a poem in honor of the brave woman who adventured her life so boldly, rivalling the free birds of heaven in her flight, and beholding the stars face to face. Next morning he hastened to get his production printed, and without considering that Mme. Blanchard most likely did not understand Dutch, he repaired to her lodgings with a copy of the poem in his hand, intending to ask permission to present it to her. He was courteously invited to enter the drawing-room, and there, to his great amazement, he found himselftête-à-têtewith the silly, frightened lady, whose nervous tremors in the Brussels diligence had afforded so much amusement to him and his wife. Surprised and disconcerted, he was beginning to apologize, when the lady interrupted him.
"Monsieur," she said, "you are not mistaken. I am Mme. Blanchard. You see how possible it is for the same person to be cowardly in a coach, and courageous in a balloon."
A good deal of conversation ensued, the poem was timidly offered, and graciously accepted; and the fair aëronaut accepted an invitation to dine that day with Bilderdyk and his wife. In the course of the evening Mme. Blanchard related to them some curious circumstances in her life. Her mother kept a humble wayside inn near La Rochelle, while her father worked in the fields. One day a balloon descended near their door, and out of it was taken a man, severely but not dangerously bruised. Her parents received him with the utmost hospitality, and supplied him with all the comforts they could give. He had no money wherewith to repay them, but as he was about to depart, he remarked that the mistress of the house was very near her confinement, and he said: "Listen, and mark my words. Fortune cannot always desert me. In sixteen years, if alive, I will return hither. If the child who will soon be born to you should be a boy, I will then adopt him; if a girl, I will marry her!"
The worthy peasants laughed heartily at this strange method of paying a bill; and although they allowed their guest to depart, they certainly built very little on his promise. The aëronaut, however, kept his word, and at the end of sixteen years re-appeared at the inn, then inhabited by only a fair young girl, very lately left an orphan. She willingly accepted Jean Pierre Blanchard as a husband, and for a short time they lived happily together; but during an ascent which he made in Holland, he was seized with apoplexy, and fell to the ground from a height of sixty feet. The unhappy aëronaut was not killed on the spot, but lingered for some time in frightful torture, carefully and fondly attended by his wife, whom at length he left a young and penniless widow.
Marie Madeleine Blanchard, despite her natural timidity, resolved to adopt her husband's perilous profession. Pride and necessity combined do wonders; and not only did she succeed in maintaining perfect composure while in the air, but she also displayed wonderful presence of mind during the time of danger. On one occasion she ascended in her balloon from Nantes, intending to come down at about four leagues from that town, in what she believed to be a large meadow. While rapidly descending, the cordage of the balloon became entangled in the branches of a tree, and she found herself suspended over a vast green marsh, whose treacherous mud would infallibly ingulf her. Drawn to the spot by her cries, several peasants came to her assistance, and with considerable difficulty and danger succeeded in placing her on terra firma.
On the day following the one on which she dined with M. and Mme. Bilderdyk, Mme. Blanchard left Paris, promising her two friends, as she bade them farewell, that she would soon return. Time passed on, however, and they heard nothing of her. They were preparing to return to Holland, when some of Bilderdyk's countrymen residing in Paris resolved to give him a banquet on the eve of his departure.
The entertainment took place at a celebrated restaurant, situated at the angle formed by the Rue Cauchat and the Rue de Provence. While enjoying themselves at table, the guests suddenly perceived the windows darkened by the passing of some large black object. With one accord they rose and ran out: a woman lay on the pavement, pale, crushed, and dead. Bilderdyk gave a cry—it was Mme. Blanchard! In what a guise to meet her again! Encouraged by the constant impunity of her perilous ascensions, the unhappy aëronaut (the word I believe has no feminine), finding a formidable rival in Mlle. Garnerin, resolved to surpass her in daring by augmenting the risk of her aërial voyages. For this purpose she lighted up her balloon car with colored lamps, and carried with her a supply of fireworks. On the sixth of July, 1819, she rose from amid a vast concourse of spectators. The balloon caught in one of thetrees in the Champs-Elysées, but without regarding the augury, Mme. Blanchard threw out ballast, and as she rose rapidly in the air she spilled a quantity of lighting spirits of wine, and then sent off rockets and Roman candles. Suddenly, with horror, the mass of upturned eyes beheld the balloon take fire. One piercing shriek from above mingled with the affrighted cries of the crowd below, and then some object was seen to detach itself from the fiery globe. As it came near the earth, it was recognized as the body of the ill-fated Mme. Blanchard.
Weeping and trembling, Bilderdyk aided in raising the disfigured corpse, and wrapped it up in the net-work of the balloon, which the hands still grasped firmly. The shock, acting on his excitable temperament, threw him into a dangerous illness, from which, however, he recovered, and returned to his native country. There he published an admirable treatise, "The Theory of Vegetable Organization," and a poem entitled, "The Destruction of the Primeval World." A French critic has placed this latter work in the same rank with "Paradise Lost," and says: "Old Milton has nothing finer, more energetic, or more vast, in his immortal work." An English critic, however, would probably scarcely concur in this judgment.
Bilderdyk died in the town of Haarlem on the 18th of December, 1831.
Since a typhoon occurs not much oftener than once in about three years, it would be odd if we should sail immediately into one; but we are fairly in the China seas, which are the typhoon's own peculiar sporting ground, and it is desperately sultry, and those clouds are full of night and lightning, to say nothing of a fitful gale and angry sea. Look out! There is the coast of China. Now for a telescope to see the barren, dingy hills, with clay and granite peeping out, with a few miserable trees and stunted firs. That is our first sight of the flowery land, and we shall not get another yet, for the spray begins to blind us; it is quite as much as we can do to see each other. Now the wind howls and tears the water up, as if it would extract the great waves by their roots, like so many of old Ocean's teeth; but he kicks sadly at the operation. We are driven by the wild blast that snaps our voices short off at the lips and carries them away; no words are audible. We are among a mass of spars and men wild as the storm on drifting broken junks; a vessel founders in our sight, and we are cast, with dead and living, upon half a dozen wrecks entangled in a mass, upon the shore of Hong Kong;—ourselves safe, of course, for we have left at home whatever could be bruised upon the journey. How many houses have been blown away like hats, how many rivers have been driven back to swell canals and flood the fields, (whose harvest has been prematurely cropped on the first warning of the typhoon's intended visit,) we decline investigating. The evening sky is very wild, and we were all last night under the typhoon at sea; to-night we are in the new town of Victoria, and will be phantom bed-fellows to any Chinaman who has been eating pork for supper. The Chinese are very fond of pork, or any thing that causes oiliness in man. A lean man forfeits something in their estimation; for they say, "He must have foolishness; why has he wanted wisdom to eat more?"
Hong Kong was one of the upshots of our cannonading in the pure and holy Chinese war; and as for the new town of Victoria, we shall walk out of it at once, for we have not travelled all this way to look at Englishmen. The island itself is eight or ten miles long, and sometimes two or sometimes six miles broad. It is the model of a grand mountain region on a scale of two inches to the foot. There are crags, ravines, wild torrents, fern-covered hills; but the highest mountain does not rise two thousand feet.—We stand upon it now. Quite contrary to usual experience, we found, in coming up, the richest flowers at the greatest elevation. The heat and dryness of the air below, where the sun's rays are reflected from bare surfaces, is said to be oppressive, and perhaps the flowers down there want a pleasant shade. From our elevation we can see few patches of cultivation, but leaping down the rocks are many picturesque cascades. Hong Kong is christened from its own waters, its name signifying in Chinese "the Island of Fragrant Streams." There is a goat upon the nearest rock; but look beyond. On one side is the bay, with shipping, and behind us the broad expanse of the ocean; and before us is the sea, studded as far as our eyes can reach with mountainous islands, among which we must sail to reach Canton. Now we float onward in the Phantom, and among these islands our sharp eyes discover craft that have more hands on board than usually man an honest vessel. In the holes and corners of the islands pirates lurk to prey upon the traffic of Canton. We pass Macao on our way into the Canton river. Portugal was a nation of quality once, with a strong constitution, and in those days, once upon a time, wrecked Portuguese gained leave to dry a cargo on the Island of Macao. They erected sheds a little stronger than were necessary for that temporary purpose; in fact, they turned the accident to good account, and established here an infant settlement, which soon grew to maintain itself, and sent money home occasionally to assist its mother. Twice the Emperor of China offered to make Macao an emporium for European trade; the Portuguese preferred to be exclusive. So the settlement fell sick, and since the English made Hong Kong a place of active trade, very fewpeople trouble themselves to inquire whether Macao be dead yet, or only dying. The Portuguese town has a mournful aspect, marked as it is by strong lines of character that indicate departed power.
Still sailing among islands, mountainous and barren, we soon reach the Bocca Tigris, or mouth of the Canton river, guarded now with very formidable forts. The Chinese, since their war with England, have been profiting by sore experience. If their gunnery be as completely mended as their fortifications, another war with them would not be quite so much like an attack of grown men upon children. The poor Chinese, in that war, were indefatigable in the endeavor to keep up appearances. Steam ships were scarcely worth attention—they had "plenty all the same inside:" and when the first encounter, near the spot on which we are now sailing, between junks and men-of-war, had exhibited the tragedy, in flesh and bone, of John Bull in a China-shop, the Chinese Symonds, at Ningpo, was ordered to build ships exactly like the British. He could not execute the order, and played, therefore, executioner upon himself. Cannon were next ordered, that should be large enough to destroy a ship at one burst. They were made, and the first monster tried, immediately burst and killed its three attendants; nobody could be induced to fire the others. One morning, a British fleet was very much surprised to see the shore look formidable with a line of cannon mouths. The telescope, which had formed no part of the Chinese calculations, discovered them to be a row of earthern pots. Forts, in the same way, often turned out to be dummies made of matting, with the portholes painted; and sometimes real cannon, mere three pounders, had their fronts turned to the sea, plugged with blocks of wood, cut and so painted as to resemble the mouths of thirty-two pounders shotted. However, we have passed real strong forts and veritable heavy cannon, to get through the Bocca Tigris. Nothing is barren now; the river widens, and looks like an inland sea; the flat land near the shores is richly cultivated; rice is there and upon the islands, all protected with embankments to admit or exclude the flood in its due season, or provided with wheels for raising water where the land is too high to be flooded in a simpler manner. The embankments, too, yield plantain crops. The water on each side is gay with water lilies, which are cultivated for their roots. Banyan and fig-trees, cypress, orange, water-pines, and weeping willows, grow beside the stream, with other trees; but China is not to be called a richly timbered country; most of its districts are deficient in large trees. There is the Whampoa Pagoda; there are more pagodas, towers, joss-houses; here are the European factories, and here are boats, boats, boats, literally, hundreds of thousands of boats—the sea-going junk, gorgeous with griffins, and with proverbs, and with painted eyes; the flower boat; boats of all shapes, and sizes, down to the barber's boat, which barely holds the barber and his razor. There is a city on the water, and the dwellers in these boats, who whether men or women, dive and swim so naturally that they may all be fishes, curiously claim their kindred with the earth. On every boat, a little soil and a few flowers, are as essential as the little joss-house and the little joss. Canals flow from the river through Canton; every where, over the mud, upon the water side are wooden houses built on piles. But here we will not go ashore; the suburbs of Canton are full of thieves, and little boys who shoutfan-qui(foreign devil) after all barbarians, and we should not be welcome in the city; so we will not go where we shall not be welcome. After floating up and down the streets and lanes of water made between the boats upon the Canton river, pleased with the strange music, the gongs, and the incessant chattering of women, (Chinese women are pre-eminent as chatterers,) we sail away. We do not wait even till night to wonder at the scene by lantern light; but returning by the way we came, repass the rice fields, the water lilies, and the forts, the islands, and Macao, and Hong Kong, and have again before us the expanse of ocean. Canton lies within the tropic; sugar-cane grown in its vicinity yields brown sugar and candy; but our lump sugar is a luxury to which the Chinese have not yet attained. Canton lying within the tropic, we shall change our climate on the journey northward. An empire that engrosses nearly a tenth part of the globe, and includes the largest population gathered under any single government, will have many climates in its eighteen provinces. Now we are sailing swiftly northward by a barren rocky coast, with sometimes hills of sand, and sometimes cultivated patches, and, except for the pagodas on the highest elevations, we might fancy we were off the coast of Scotland.
Five ports are open to our trade upon the coast of China; one of these, Canton, we have merely looked at, and the next, Amoy, we pass unvisited in sailing up between the mainland and Formosa. Amoy produces the best Chinese sailors, and it is in this port that the native junks have most experience of foreign trade; it is a dirty, densely-peopled town, too distant from the tea and silk regions to be of prominent importance to the Europeans. As soon as we have passed through the Formosa channel, we direct our course towards the river Min, and steering safely among rocks and sand-banks, among which is a rock cleft into five pyramids, regarded with a sort of worship by the sailors, we float up the river to the third of the five cities, Foo-chow-foo. The river varies in width, sometimes a mile across, where it is flowing between plains, sometimes confined between the hills; a hillycountry is about us, with some mountains nearly twice as high as those up which we clambered at Hong-Kong. We pass, after a few miles' sail, the little town and fort of Mingan; we sail among pagodas and temples, near which the priests plant dark spreading fig-trees, terraced hills, yielding earth-nuts and sweet potatoes; we see cultivation carried up some mountain sides beyond two thousand feet, and barren mountains, granite rocks, islands, and villages; here and there more wooded tracts than usually belong to a Chinese landscape, rills of water and cascades that tumble down into the Min. We have sailed up the river twenty miles, and here is Foo-chow-foo. We have met on our way a good many junks, having wood lashed to their sides; and here we see acres of wood (chiefly pine) afloat before the suburbs, for here wood is a main article of trade. We pass under the bridge Wanshow ("myriads of ages"), which connects the suburbs on each bank; it is a bridge of granite slabs, supported upon fifty pillars of strong masonry, the whole about two thousand feet in length. The suburbs happen just now to be flooded, and the large Tartar population here delights in mobbing a barbarian. This inhospitable character repels men, while the floods and rapids of the river and its tributaries, causes an uncertainty of transit, tend also to keep European traders out of Foo-chow-foo. True, the bohea tea hills are in the vicinity, but their bohea tea has not a first-rate character, and the great seat of the tea trade is yet farther north. The city walls are eight or nine miles in circumference; but we will not enter their gates for all Chinese cities have a close resemblance to each other; it is enough to visit one, and we can do better than visit this. We sail back to the sea again, and there resume our northward voyage. We have seen part of the mountainous or hilly half of China; farther north, between the two great rivers, and beyond them to the famous Wall, is a great plain studded in parts with lakes or swamps, and very fertile.
Far westward, we might journey to the high central table-land of Asia, where there are extensive levels; but the seaward provinces are the most fertile; and as for the Chinese themselves, they are in all places very much alike—in body as in character. But sailing in our ship, and talking of those plains, we may naturally recall to our minds those ancient days when the Chinese, civilised then as now, guided their chariots across a pathless level on the land by the same instrument that guides our ship across a pathless level on the water.
The coast by which we sail is studded with islands, and to reach Ningpo, the fourth of the five ports, we pass between the mainland and the island of Chusan. The water here is quite hemmed in with islands forming the Chusan Archipelago. Chusan is like a piece of the Scotch Highlands, twenty miles long, and ten or twelve broad, with rich vegetation added. Forty miles' sail from Chusan brings us to Ningpo. Amongst the numerous islands past which we have floated, we should have found, on many, characters not quite Chinese. One island, visited for water by one of our ships, was said to be an Eden for its innocence. Crime was unknown among the islanders: and at a grave look or a slight tap with a fan, the wrong-doer invariably desisted from his evil course. The simplicity of the natives here consisted in the fact, that they expected credit for the character they gave themselves. On another island, the natives entertained snug notions of a warm bed in the winter. Their bed was a stone trough; in winter they spread at the bottom of this trough hot embers, and over these a large stone, over that their bedding, and then tucked themselves comfortably in.
Ningpo, with its bridge of boats and Chinese shipping and pagodas, has a picturesque appearance from the river. It is large, populous, and wealthy; a place to which the merchant may retire to spend his gains, more than a port for active and hard working commerce. That is the reason why we will not land at Ningpo. Where, then, shall we land? If you have no objection, at Shangae, the fifth and most important, although not the largest, of these ports. But sea life is monotonous, and therefore we will take five minutes' diversion ashore, after we have sailed some twenty miles up this canal. Here we will land under an avenue of pines, and walk up to a Buddhist temple. We are in the centre of the green-tea district.
The priests, belonging, for a wonder, to a simple-minded class, receive us, of course hospitably. The stranger is at all times welcome to a lodging, and to his portion of the Buddhist vegetable dinner. These priests are like some of our monks in mendicancy charity, and superstition. In the pagodas they always have a meal prepared for the arrival of a hungry traveller. But hungry we are not; and we came hither to see the tea-plantations; these we now seek out. They are small farms upon the lower slopes of hills; the soil is rich; it must be rich, or the tea-plant would not long endure the frequent stripping of its leaves, which usage does of course sooner or later kill it. Each plant is at a distance of about four feet from its neighbors, and the plantations look like little shrubberies. The small proprietors inhabit wretched-looking cabins, in which each of them has fixed a flue and coppers for the drying of his tea. In the appearance of the people there is nothing wretched; old men sit at their doors like patriarchs, expecting and receiving reverence; young men, balancing bales across their shoulders, travel out, and some return with strings of copper money; the chief tea-harvest is over, and the merchants have come down now to the little inns about the district, that each husbandmanmay offer them his produce. There are three tea-making seasons. The first is in the middle of April, just before the rains, when the first leaves of spring are plucked; these make the choicest tea, but their removal tries the vigor of the plant. Then come the rains; the tea-plant pushes out new leaves, and already in May the plantation is again dark with foliage; that is the season of the second, the great gathering. A later gathering of coarse leaves yields an inferior tea, scarcely worth exporting. It should be understood that although black and green tea are both made from the same kind of leaf, there really are two tea-plants. The plant cultivated at Canton for black tea, and known in our gardens asThea Bohea, differs from theThea viridis, which yields the harvest here. The Canton plant, however, is not cultivated in the North; on the Bohea hills themselves, speaking botanically, there grows no Bohea tea; the plant there, also, is theThea viridis. The difference between our green and black tea is produced entirely in the making. Green tea is more quickly and lightly dried, so that it contains more of the virtues of the leaf. Black tea is dried more slowly; exposed, while moist, on mats, when it ferments a little, and then subjected in drying to a greater heat, which makes it blacker in its color. The bright bloom on our green tea is added with a dye, to suit the gross taste of barbarians. The black tea will keep better, being better dried. There is a kind of tea called Hyson Pekoe made from the first young buds which keeps ill, being very little fired, but when good it is extremely costly. As for our names of teas,—of the first delicate harvest, the black tea is called Pekoe, and the green, Young Hyson; Hyson being the corruption of Chinese words, that mean "flourishing spring." The produce of the main or second harvest yields, in green tea, Hyson; out of which are picked the leaves that prove to be best rolled for Gunpowder, or as the Chinese call it, pearl-tea. Souchong ("small or scarce sort") is the best black tea of the second crop, followed by Congou (koong-foo, "assiduity"). Twankay is imported largely, a green tea from older leaves, which European retailers employ for mixing with the finer kinds. Bohea, named from the hills we talked of, is the lowest quality of black tea, though good Bohea is better than a middling quality of Congou. The botanicalThea Boheacomes into our pots, with refuse Congou, as Canton Bohea. At Canton, however, Young Hyson and Gunpowder are manufactured out of these leaves, chopped and painted; and this branch of the fine arts is carried on extensively in Chinese manufactories established there. As the tea-merchants go out to collect their produce of the little farmers; so the mercers in the Nankeen districts leave their cities for the purchase, in the same way, of home-woven cloth. It is the same in the silk districts. If we look now into a larger Chinese farm on our way back to the Phantom, we shall find the tenants on a larger scale supplying their own wants, and making profit of the surplus. On such a farm we shall find also familiar friends, fowls, ducks, geese, pigs, goats, and dogs, bullocks, and buffaloes; indoors there will be a best parlor in the shape of a Hall of Ancestors, containing household gods and an ancestral picture, before which is a table or altar with its offerings. There is the head of the family, who built a room for each son as he married, and left each son to add other rooms as they were necessary, till a colony arose under the common roof about the common hall, in which rules, as a high priest and patriarch, the living ancestor. Respect for the past is the whole essence of Chinese religion and morality. The oldest emperors were fountain-heads of wisdom, and he who imitates the oldest doctrine is the wisest man. The tombs of ancestors are visited with pious care; respect and worship is their due. This had at all times been the Chinese principle, to which Confucius added the influence of a good man's support. No nation has been trained into this feeling so completely as the Chinese, and as long as they saw nothing beyond themselves, and were taught to look down upon barbarians out of the heights of their own ignorance concerning them, they were contented to stand still. But the Chinese are a people sharply stimulated by the love of gain; they despised what they had not seen, yet it is evident that they have not been slow to profit by experience of European arts. An emigrant Chinese became acquainted with a Prussian blue manufactory, secretly observed the process of the manufacture, took his secret home, and China now makes at home all the Prussian blue which was before imported. The Chinese emigrant is active, shrewd. In Batavia he ko-toos to the Dutch, and lets his tail down dutifully. In Singapore he readily assumes a freer spirit, keeps his tail curled, and walks upright among the Englishmen.
We are now sailing towards Shangae, no very long way northward from Ningpo, to the last of the five ports we came out to visit. It is not necessary to return to the Yellow Sea, for all this part of China is so freely intersected with canals that we may sail to Shangae among farms and rice-grounds. While among the farmers, we may call to mind that the great lord of the Chinese manor is the Emperor, to whom this ground immediately belongs, and who receives as rent for it a tenth of all the produce. A large part of this tenth is paid in kind. The Emperor is the great father also; his whole care of his enormous family distinctly assumes the paternal form, and embodies a good deal of the maxim, that to spare the rod will spoil the child. To govern is expressed in Chinese by the symbols of bamboo and strike; and the bamboo does, in the wayof striking a vast deal of business. The central legislation is as a rule beneficent, and based upon an earnest desire to do good; for the father is answerable for the welfare of his children. National calamities have, at all times, been ascribed by the Chinese directly to their Emperors; who must by personal humiliation appease the anger of the gods. So large a household as this father has to care for requires many stewards, mandarins, and others; all these officers of state are those sons who have proved themselves to be the wisest, on examination into their attainments. A grand system of education pervades China; and, above the first school, to which all are sent, there is a series of four examinations, through which every Chinese may graduate if he will study. Not to pass the first is to be vile, and the highest degrees qualify for all the offices of state; but Chinese education means, after reading and writing, and moral precepts of Confucius, little beside a knowledge of Chinese ancient history and literature. The Emperor, belonging to a Tartar dynasty, bestows an equal patronage on Tartars and Chinese. The officers throughout the provinces are, as a further precaution, obliged to serve in places distant from their own connections, in order that no private feelings may destroy their power to be just. They are scantily paid, however; and, as a Chinese likes profit with his honor, the minor officials drive a trade in bribery, which often nullifies the central edicts, and which very directly helped to bring about the Opium war. The Emperor himself is, of course, too sublime a person to be often seen; the Son of Heaven, he robes himself in the imperial yellow, because that is the hue of the sun's jacket; but, once a year, in enforcement of a main principle of the Chinese political economy—Honor to Agriculture—he drives the plough before a state procession; and the grain sown in those imperial furrows is afterwards bought up by courtiers, at a most flattering price.
Where are we now?—we have shot out upon a grand expanse of water, like an inland sea. An horizon of water is before us—we cannot see the other bank of the Yang-tse-Kiang, the "child of the ocean," the great river of China; the greatest river in the old world, and surpassed only by two on the whole globe. Here, eighty miles above the sea, it is eight miles in breadth, and sixty feet deep, flowing five miles an hour; and far up, off the walls of Nankin, its breadth is three thousand six hundred feet, and its depth twenty-two fathoms, at a distance of fifty paces from either shore. Well, this is something like a river; from its source to its mouth, in a straight line, the distance is one thousand seven hundred and ninety-six miles; and the windings nearly double its real length, making three thousand three hundred and thirty-six English miles; of which two thousand, from the mouth upwards, are said to be quite free from all obstruction. At its mouth it is, comparatively, shallow; much of this vast body of water is diverted from its course and carried through the country in canals. We are not far, now, from the great canal which cuts across this river and the Hoang-Ho, another grand stream farther northward, with a course of two thousand six hundred and thirty miles. Between the Yang-tse-Kiang and Hoang-Ho the country is so flat that, if we may judge by the scene from the mast-head of the Phantom, not a hillock breaks the level waste of fertile land. In ancient times this country was subjected to desolating floods, which, in fact, caused the removal of the capital. The canal system was commenced, then, as a means of drainage, by a wise man, who was made an emperor for his sagacity. Now the canals serve the purposes of commerce, and agriculture also, since water, in abundance, is essential for the irrigation of the rice-fields. We are sailing up the Shangae river, a tributary of the Yang-tse-Kiang; this river, at Shangae, we perceive is about as broad as the Thames at London Bridge; for we are at Shangae. We sail through a water-gate into the centre of the town, and land beside a fleet of junks, into which heaps of rice are being shot; these are grain junks sent from Pekin to receive part of the imperial tribute.
Narrow, dirty streets, low houses, brilliant open shops, painted with red and gold. Here is a fragrant fruit-shop, where a poor Chinese is buying an iced slice of pine-apple for less money than a farthing. Here is the chandler's, gay with candles of the tallow-tree coated with colored wax. The chandler deals in puffs; and what an un-English appeal is this from the candle-maker on behalf of his wares—"Late at night in the snow gallery they study the books." Study the books! Yes; through the crowd of Chinese, in their picturesque familiar dresses, look at that man, with books upon a tray, who dives into house after house. He lends books on hire to the poor people and servants. Who is the puffer here? "We issue and sell Hong Chow tobacco, the name and fame of which has galloped to the north of Kechow; and the flavor has pervaded Keangnan in the south." Here we have "Famous teas from every province;" and you see boiling water handy in the shop, wherewith the customer may test his purchases. Here, on the other side of this triumphal arch, we peep through a gateway hung with lanterns into a small paved paradise with gold fish, (China is the home of gold fish), and exotics, and trellis-work, and vines, and singing birds; that is a mercer's shop, affecting style in China as in England, only in another way. We will walk through the paradise into a grand apartment hung with lanterns, decorated also with gilded tickets, inscribed "Pekin satins and Canton crapes," "Hang-chow reeled silks," and so on. Here a courtly Chinese, skilled in thelubrication of a customer, produces the rich heavy silks for which his country is renowned, the velvets or the satins you desire, and shaves you skilfully. Talking of shaving, and we run against a barber as we come out of the silk shop. He carries a fire on his head, with water always boiling; on a pole over his shoulder he balances his water, basin, towels, razors. Will you be shaved like a Chinese? he picks you out a reasonably quiet doorway, shaves your head, cleans your ears, tickles your eyes, and cracks your joints in a twinkling. Where heads are shaved, the wipings of the razors are extensive; they are all bought up, and employed as manure. The Chinese have so many mouths to feed, that they can afford to lose nothing that will fertilize the ground. Instead of writing on their walls "Commit no nuisance," they place jars, and invite or even pay the pilgrim.
The long tail that the barber leaves is to the Chinese his sign of manhood. Beards do not form a feature of Mongolian faces; a few stray coarse hairs are all they get, with their square face, high cheek bones, slanting eyes, and long dark hair upon the head. A plump body, long ears, and a long tail, are the respectabilities of a Chinese. The tail is magnified by working in false hair, and it generally ends with silk. There is a man using his tail to thrash a pig along; and one traveler records that he has seen a Chinese servant use the same instrument for polishing a table. It is, of course, the thing to pull at in a street fight. Here is a phrenologist, with a large figure of a human head mapped into regions, inviting Chinese bumpkins to submit to him their bumps. Here is a dentist showing his teeth. Here—we must stop here—with a gong for drum, but raised on the true pedestal, with a man inside, who knows the veritable squeak, are Punch and Judy, all alive. This is their native land. "Pun-tse," the Chinese call our friend, because he is a little puppet, after all—Puntse meaning in Chinese, "the son of an inch." Here is the very Chinese bridge that we have learned by heart along with the pagoda, from a willow-patterned soup-plate; steps up, steps down, and a set of Chinese lanterns. Here is a temple, flaming with red paint. Let us go in. Images, votive candles burning on an altar, and a woman on her face wrestling in prayer. After praying in a sort of agony for a few minutes, she has stopped to take a bit of stick, round on one side, for she purposes therewith to toss up and see whether her prayer is granted. Tails! She loses! She is wrestling on her knees again—praying, doubtless, for a "bull child." Girls are undesirable, because they are of no use except for what they fetch in marriage gifts, and to fetch much they must be good-looking. Poor woman—tails again! Never mind, she must persevere, and she will get heads presently. Here comes a grave man, who prays for half a minute, and pulls out one from a jar of scrolls. Having examined it, he takes one of the little books that hang against the wall, looks happy, and departs. He has been drawing lots to see whether the issue of some undertaking will be fortunate. Poor woman—tails again! We cannot stop for the result; but I have no doubt that if she persevere she will get heads up presently. Here is a man in the street with a whole bamboo kitchen on his head, nine feet long, by six broad, uttering all manner of good things. The poor fellow who drove the pig stops in the street to dine. What a Soyer that fellow is, with his herbs, and his peppers, and his magic stove, and what a magnificent stew he gives the pig driver! Do you know, I doubt whether the Chinese are fools. What place have we here steaming like a boiler? This, sir, is one of the public bath establishments, where a warm bath, towels, and a dressing closet are at the service of the pig driver after his dinner, for fivele—less than a farthing. There, too, his wife may go and obtain boiling water for the day's tea, which is to that poor Chinaman his beer, and pay for it but a singlele. It would cost far more to boil it for herself; fuel is dear, and except for cooking or for manufactures, is not used in China. There are neither grates nor stoves in any Chinese parlor. The continent of Asia, and with it China, has a climate of extremes, great summer heat and an excessive winter cold; so that even at Canton, within the tropic, snow falls. But the Chinaman warms not his toes at a fire; he accommodates his comfortable costume to the climate; puts on more clothes as the cold makes itself felt, and takes some off again if he should feel too warm. That building on the walls is the temple of Spring, to which ladies repair to dress their hair with flowers when the first buds open. This handsome structure is the temple of Confucius. Yonder is the hall of United Benevolence, which supports a free hospital, a foundling hospital, and makes other provision for the poor. The Chinese charities are supported generously; the Chinese are a liberal and kindly race. Here is a shoemaker's shop, with a huge boot hung over the door, and an inscription which might not suit lovers of a good fit, "All here are measured by one rule." "When favored by merchants who bestow their regards on us, please to notice our sign of the Double Phœnix on a board as a mark; then it will be all right." These signs are in common use on shops in China as they were formerly in England. In this shop there is a wild fellow, who is beating a gong fearfully, and who has rubbed himself with stinking filth, that he may be the greater nuisance. This is his way of extorting charity. That shopkeeper, not having compounded with the king of the beggars for immunity from customers of this kind, seldom lives a day without being compelled to pay as he is now paying for a little peace. The beggar takes his nuisance theninto another shop. This is a vast improvement upon our street fiddle and organ practice. There is a pawnbroker's three-per-cent. per month shop. Here is a tea-house, surrounded with huge vases for rain-water which is kept to acquire virtue by age—of course imaginary virtue—for the making of celestial tea. In that house there is the oven for hatching eggs. Gateways are fitted at the end of the wide streets, locked at night to restrain thieves; and in the first house through the gateway here a girl is screaming dreadfully. Very likely it is a case of sore feet. The small feet of the Chinese women—about three inches long—are essential, for without them a girl cannot get a husband; as a wife, she is her husband's obedient, humble servant, but as a spinster she is her parents' plague. The operation on the feet takes place when the girl is seven or eight years old. A young naval surgeon, in his walks, heard screams (like those) proceeding from a cottage, and went in; he found a little girl in bed, with her feet bandaged; he removed the bandage, found the feet of course bent, and ulcerated. He dressed the wounds, and warned the mother. Passing, another day, he found the child still suffering torment, and in a hectic fever. He again removed the bandages, and warned the mother that her child's life would be sacrificed if she continued with the process. The next time he went by he saw a little coffin at the door.
The tea-gardens are in the centre of the town; we will go thither and rest. We might have dined with a hospitable townsman, where we could have been present at a theatrical entertainment, in which the Chinese delight like children. But a dinner in this country is a work of many hours; the list is very long of things that we should have to touch or eat. Chinese eat almost any thing; their carte includes birds' nests, delicate meal-fed puppies, sea-slugs, sharks' fins and tails, frogs, snails, worms, lizards, tortoises, and water-snakes, with many things that we should better understand, and a great many disguised vegetables. A Chinese dinner is so tediously long that we escape it altogether. Milk is not used; it is thought improper to take it from the calves; and meat plays no very large part of the Chinese diet. During our late war it was seriously stated, by several advisers of the Emperor, that to forbid the English tea and rhubarb would go a great way to destroy the nation; "for it is well known that the barbarians feed grossly on the flesh of animals, by which their bodies are so bound and obstructed," that rhubarb and warm tea were necessary to be taken, daily, as correctives. Now we are in the tea-gardens, and have passed through a happy crowd, sipping tea, smoking, eating melon pips, walking or looking at the jugglers. Into a fairy-like house of bamboo, perched over water, we ascend. Here is an elegant apartment, which we claim as private. We recline, and take our cups of tea; the cups that have been used are wiped, not washed; for washing, say the people here, would spoil their capacity for preserving the pure flavor of this delicate young Hyson; upon a spoonful of which, placed in the cup, hot water is now poured. Opium pipes, bring us! Ha! a hollow cane, closed at one end, with a mouthpiece at the other; near the centre is the bowl, of ample size, but with an outward opening no bigger than a pin's head. We recline luxuriously—looking down on the gay colors of the Chinese crowd, we take our long stilettos, prick off a little pill of opium from its ivory reservoir, and burn it, dexterously, in the spirit lamp; then twist it, judiciously, about the pin's head orifice. Three whiffs, and it is out, and we are more than half deprived of active consciousness. Let us repeat the operation. Practised smokers will go on for hours; a few whiffs are enough for us. Another languid gaze at the pagodas, and the flowers, and the water, and the Chinamen; now some more opium to smoke!