See other formats

Full text of "The Straits of Malacca, Indo-China, and China or, Ten years' travels, adventures, and residence abroad"

THE LIBRARY 

OF 

THE UNIVERSITY 
OF CALIFORNIA 



PRESENTED BY 

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 



TEN YEARS TRAVELS, ADVENTURES 
AND RESIDENCE ABROAD 



LONDON: PRINTED r>v 

SPOTTISSVOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQl AKE 
AND PARLIAMENT STREET 



Iff " ; i 1 M / : l;. 

!<Ni,i!|rill ILli IP ili *- Jv- "I i.- 1 !i i T J ^ > !! : ! ~ -- - ! 




THE STRAITS OF MALACCA 
INDOCHINA AND CHINA 

OR 

TEN YEARS TRAVELS, ADVENTURES 
AND RESIDENCE ABROAD 

BY J. THOMSON, F.R.G.S. 

AUTHOR OF ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHINA AND ITS PKOI LK 




ILLUSTRATED WITH UPWARDS OF SIXTY WOOD ENGRAVINGS BY J. D. COOPER 
FROM THE AUTHOR S OWN SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPHS 



LONDON 
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE 

CROWN r.LMLDINf.S, 188 FLKKT STRKKT 

1875 



PREFACE. 



THE accompanying recollections of my travels are 
addressed to those readers I believe there must be 
many who feel an interest in the remote regions over 
which my journeys extended, and in that great section 
of the human family which peoples the vast area of 
China a section which, through the agency of steam 
and telegraphy, is being brought clay by day into closer 
relationship \vith ourselves. 

I have endeavoured to impart to the reader some 
share in the pleasure which I myself experienced in 
my wanderings ; but, at the same time, it has been my 
care so to hold the mirror up to his gaze, that it may 
present to him, if not always an agreeable, yet at least 
a faithful, impression of China and its inhabitants ; and 
of the latter, not only as I found them at home on their 
native soil, but also as we see them in our own colonial 
possessions, and in other lands to which emigration 
has carried them. 

Since the days of the great Venetian traveller, 
perhaps no epoch in the history of that quarter of the 



M304198 



vi PREFACE. 

globe has been more full of interest than the present. 
At last the licdit of civilisation seems indeed to have 

o 

dawned in the distant East ; with its early rays gilding 
the little island-kingdom of Japan, and already pene 
trating to the edges of the great Chinese continent, 
where the gloom of ages still broods over the cities, a 
dark cloud that lifts but slowly, and yields unwillingly 
to the daylight that now floods the shore, but which 
soon, perhaps, may be rent and dissipated in the thun 
ders of now impending war. 

Certain it seems that China cannot much longer lie 
undisturbed in statii quo. Her deeply reverenced 
policy of inactivity and stagnation has brought floods, 
famine, pestilence, and civil wars in its train ; it cannot 
sink the toiling masses to yet lower depths of misery, 
or stay the clamours of multitudes wailing for susten 
ance while the rivers run riot over their fertile plains, 
and the roads have been converted into watercourses. 
The rulers meantime, with a blind pride, are arming 
a beggarly soldiery to fight for nothing that is worth 
defending, and Japan in the vindication of her own 
rights, and in the interests of humanity has planted a 
small but disciplined army on what is really an integral 
portion of the Chinese soil. 

To these few words let me acid that, with a view to 
supply not merely a pleasant readable book, but infor 
mation as complete as it is trustworthy, I have in 



PREFACE. vii 

the latter part of the present work reproduced and 
amplified some passages which I had already given 
to the world in my * Illustrations of China and its 
People, passages which I have thought to be of some 
importance, but yet which could not reach the great 
body of general readers in my larger and more costly 
work. 

J. T. 

BRIXTON : Xov. 1874. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Straits of Malacca The Dutch Operations at Acheen, in Sumatra 
Penang; its Hills, Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit The Klings, 
Malays, and Chinese of Penang Occupations of the Chinese 
The Chinaman abroad -A Descendant of the early Portuguese 
Hospitality A Snake at a Ball. ... I 



CHAPTER II. 

A Visit to Quedah Miden missing The Rajah s Garden Province 
Wellesley Sugar and Tapioca Planting Field Labour A baffled 
Tiger Wild Men An Adventure in Province Wellesley. . . 23 



CHAPTER III. 

Chinese Guilds ; their Constitution and Influence Emigration from 
China A Plea for unrestricted Female Emigration The Perak 
Disturbances Chinese Tin-mining Malacca Singapore Its 
Commerce and People Stuffing an Alligator The Horse-breaker 
Chinese Burglars Inland Scenery A Foreign Residence 
Amusements A Night in the Jungle Casting Brazen Vessels 
Jacoons. ........... 44 



CHAPTER IV. 

Siam The Menam River Bangkok Buddhist Temples The 
King, Defender of his Faith Missions Buddhist Priests The 
Priest in his Cell The first King s Visit to the Wats The Court 
of the Dead Chinese Speculator investing in a Corpse The 
Krum-mun-alongkot An Inventor wanted Taking the King s 
Portrait The King describes the Tonsure Ceremony The King s 
Request Mode of administering Justice Gambling Floating 
Houses A Trip to Ayuthia Creek Life Visit to Petchiburec . 78 



x CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

PAGE 

An Expedition to Cambodia Bang Phra-kong Creek Prairie on 
lire A Foreign Sailor Wild River Scenery Aquatic Birds 
Kabin Kut s Story to the Chief A Storm in the Forest The 
Cambodian Ruins Their Magnitude Siamrap Nakhon Wat- 
Its Symbolism The Bas-reliefs and Inscriptions The Hydra- 
headed Snake The Ancient Capital, Penompinh The King of 
Cambodia Dinner at the Palace The whole Hog Overland to 
Kamput Pirates Mahomet s Story The Fossil Ship -The 
Voyage up the Gulf of Siam. . 118 

CHAPTER VI. 

Saigon ; its Harbour The Town The Resident Foreign Com 
munity Cholon, the Chinese Town -River Dwellings Customs 
of the Cochin Chinese Chinese Traders The Cochin Chinese 
Village of Choquan The Sorcerer Plaine des Tombcaux 
Petruski. . 164 



CHAPTER VII. 

Hongkong Description of the Island The City of Victoria Its 
present Condition Its Foreign and Native Population The 
Market-place Hongkong Artists Grog-shops Tai-ping-shan 
Expense of Living A strange Adventurer A Mormon Mis 
sionary. . . * i?9 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Snakes in Hongkong A Typhoon An Excursion up the North 
Branch of the Pearl River Fatshan The Fi lai-sz Monastery 
The Mang-tsz-hap, or Blind Man s Pass Rapids Akunrs Ambi 
tion The Kwanyin Cave Harvest From San-Shui to Fatshan 
in a Canoe Canton Governor Yen s Temple A Tea Factory- 
Spurious Tea Making Tea Shameen Tea-tasting. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Canton Its general Appearance Its Population Streets Shops 
Mode of transacting Business Signboards Work and Wages 
The Willow-pattern Bridge Juilin, Governor-General of the two 
Kwang Clan Fights Hak-kas The Mystic Pills Dwellings of 
the Poor The Lo-hang-tang Buddhist Monastic Life On board 
a [unk. . ~4 : 



CONTEXTS. xi 

CHAPTER X. 

PAGE 

The Charitable Institutions of China Macao -Description of the 
Town Its Inhabitants S \vatow Foreign Settlement Chao- 
cho\v-fu S \vnto\v Fan-painters Modellers Chinese Art Village 
Warfare Ainoy The Native Quarter Abodes of the Poor In 
fanticide Manure-pits Human Remains in Jars Lekin 
Romantic Scenery Ku-lang-su The Foreign Settlement. . .271 

CHAPTER XI. 

Takow Harbour, Formosa La-mah-kai Difficulties of Naviga 
tion Tai-wan-fu The Taotai His Yamen How to cancel a 
State Debt The Dutch in 1661 Sylvan Lanes Medical 
Missions A Journey to the Interior Old Watercourses Broken 
Land Hak-ka Settlers Poah-be Pepohoan Village Baksa 
Valley The name Isla Formosa A Long March The Central 
Mountains Bamboo Bridges Pau-ah-liau Village The Phy 
sician at Work Ka-san-po Village A Wine-feast Interior of a 
Hut Pepohoan Dwellings A Savage Dance Savage Hunting- 
grounds La-lung Village Lakoli Village Return Journey. . 300 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Japanese in Formosa Cause of the Invasion The River 
Min Foochow Arsenal Chinese Gun-boats Foochow City and 
great Bridge A City of the Dead Its Inhabitants Beggars 
Thieves Lepers Ku-shan Monastery The Praying Bull The 
Hermit Tea Plantation on Paeling Hills Voyage up the Min 
Shui-kow An Up-country Farm Captain Cheng and his 
Spouse Yen-ping City Sacrificing to the Dead Shooting the 
Yen-ping Rapids A Native Passenger-boat. .... 345 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Steam Traffic in the China Sea In the Wake of a Typhoon 
Shanghai Notes of its Early History Japanese Raids Shanghai 
Foreign Settlement Paul Sii, or * Sii-kwang-ke Shanghai City 
Ningpoo Native Soldiers Snowy Valley The Mountains 
Azaleas The Monastery of the Snowy Crevice The Thousand 
Fathom Precipice Buddhist Monks The Yangtsze Kiang 
Hankow The Upper Yangtsze Ichang The Gorges The Great 
Tsing-tan Rapid Mystic Mountain Lights A Dangerous Disaster 
Kwei-fu Our Return Kiukiang Nanking; its Arsenal The 
Death of Tsing-kwo-faii Chinese Superstition .... 397 



xii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

PAGE 

Chefoo The Foreign Settlement the Yellow River Silk Its Pro 
duction Taku Forts The Peiho River Chinese Progress 
Floods in Pei-chih-li Their Effects Tientsin The Sisters Chapel 
Condition of the People A Midnight Storm Tung-chow Peking 
The Tartar and Chinese Divisions of the Metropolis Its Roads, 
Shops, and People The Foreign Hotel Temple and Domestic 
Architecture The Tsungli Yamen Prince Kung, and the High 
Officers of the Empire Literary Championship -The Confucian 
Temple The Observatory Ancient Chinese Instruments Yang s 
House Habits of the Ladies Peking Enamelling Yuen- Ming- 
Yuen Remarkable Cenotaph A Chinese Army Li-hung-chang 
The Inn of Patriotic Perfection The Great Wall The Ming 
Tombs. 469 

APPENDIX. 
THE ABORIGINAL DIALECTS OF FORMOSA 539 

DIURNAL LEPIDOPTERA OF SIAM, COLLECTED BY THE AUTHOR 
AND NAMED BY H. W. BATES, ESQ. F.L.S. &c. . . 545 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS. 

1. CHINESE MERCHANTS To face p. 56 

2. THE KING OF SIAM S STATE BARGE 86 

3. A SIAMESE PRINCE AND ATTENDANT ... 90 

4. ANCIENT CAMBODIAN BAS-RELIEF, NAKHON WAT . 144 

5. VIEW OF CHOLON, COCHIN CHINA ... 170 

6. A VILLAGE ROAD, COCHIN CHINA 172 

7. A TYPHOON IN HONGKONG HARBOUR ... 214 

8. YEH S TEMPLE, CANTON 232 

9. A STREET IN CANTON 248 

10. A PAVILION IN PUN-TING-QUA S GARDEN 254 

ir. THE WILLOW- PATTERN BRIDGE .... ,,256 

12. TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GODS 264 

13. DECK OF A CHINESE JUNK 270 

14. CHILDREN AT PLAY. (From a Chinese Drawing) . 282 

15. Snui-Kow 386 

1 6. THE DREAM. (Chinese Drawing) 422 

17. SUNG-ING-DAY FALL, SNOWY VALLEY ... 424 

1 8. THE MI-TAN GORGE, UPPER YANGTSZE 454 

19. A MINING VILLAGE, HUNAN PROVINCE . . 456 

20. ONE OF THE INNER GATES OF PEKING 496 

21. GREAT GATEWAY, TEMPLE OF CONFUCIUS . ,,516 

22. CHINESE GENTLEMAN S GARDEN 520 

23. CANTONESE BOATWOMAN, NINGPO WOMAN, PEPOHOAN, 

TARTAR 522 

24. MAKING ENAMEL, PEKING 524 

25. WAN-S HOW-SHAN 526 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



ENGRAVINGS IX TEXT. 

PAGE 

1. MALAYS SELLING DURIANS 9 

2. MALAY BOY u 

3. CHINESE COOLIE 14 

4. A CHINESE CONTRACTOR 18 

5. A NEW TYPE or MAN 19 

6. MALAY HUT 32 

7. PURSUED BY A TIGER 36 

8. CHINESE LABOURERS FROM THE KWANGTUNG PROVINCE . 49 

9. CHINESE TAILORS 63 

10. JACOONS 76 

ir. SIAMESE BUDDHIST PRIEST 82 

12. SIAMESE LADY . 92 

13. DANCING GIRLS . no 

14. INTERIOR OF WESTERN GALLERY, NAKHON WAT . . 142 

15. CAMBODIAN FEMALE" HEAD-DRESS, ANCIENT SCULPTURE . 143 

1 6. ANCIENT ARCH AT KEW-YUNG-KWAN, NANKOW PASS . 147 

17. UNFINISHED PILLARS, NAKHON WAT 149 

1 8. SCULPTURED " TO\VER IN NAKHON THOM, THE ANCIENT 

CAPITAL -OF CAMBODIA 15: 

19. HONKONG, FROM "KELLET S ISLAND iSl 

20. A FAMILY PARTY, KOWLOON . . 184 

21. LOOKING NORTH FROM THE PO-LO-HANG TEMPLE, 

K WANG-TUNG 225 

22. CHESS-PLAYING IN A BUDDHIST MONASTERY . . . 266 

23. LA LUNG VILLAGE, INTERIOR OF FORMOSA . . . .335 

24. UPPER BRIDGE, FOOCHOW . 3,6 

25. THE KING OF THE BEGGARS ... . 359 

26. AN UNFORTUNATE THIEF. PUNISHMENT OF THE CANGUE 364 

27. FOOCHOW LEPERS 365 

28. Two OF THE GUARDIANS OF BUDDHA, KUSHAN MONASTERY 375 

29. THE KUSHAN HERMIT 377 

30. THE ISLAND TEMPLE, RIVER MIN 379 

31. A TRAVELLING BLACKSMITH AT A FARMHOUSE . . . 385 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, xv 

PAGE 

32. CHINESE PLOUGH, FUKIEN PROVINCE 3,87 

33. THE SHANGHAI WHEELBARROW 408 

34.. OUR NATIVE BOAT 434 

35. SZECHUAN BOAT, UPPER YANGTSZE 448 

36. THE GREAT RAPID, METAN GORGE 452 

37. NATIVES OF SZECHUAN 457 

38. TAKU FORTS 476 

39. COREAN . 504 

40. CHINESE HORSE-SHOEING, PEKING 505 

41. PEKING OBSERVATORY. JESUIT INSTRUMENTS . . .516 

42. ANCIENT CHINESE ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENT . . 518 

43. TARTAR LADIES 523 



MAPS. 

1. SKETCH-MAP, SHOWING AUTHOR S ROUTE . To face p. \ 

2. SECTION OF A MAP TAKEN FROM LIN S GEO 

GRAPHY, OR HAE-KWO TOO-CHE . . , ; 131 

3. FIG. i. PLAN OF INNER TEMPLE OF NAKHOW, 

FROM A SURVEY I .Y THE AUTHOR. FlG. 2. 

PLAN OF AREA ENCLOSED BY OUTER WALL, 

NAKHOW WAT ? , \^j 

4. SOUTH-WES i KRN FORMOSA .... 344 



To face page 




SKETCH-MAP SHOWING THE AUTHOR S ROUTE. 



THE STRAITS OF MALACCA, 
INDOCHINA AND CHINA. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Straits of Malacca The Dutch Operations at Acheen, in Sumatra 
Penang; its Hills, Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit The Klings, Malays, and 
Chinese of Penang Occupations of the Chinese The Chinaman 
abroad A Descendant of the early Portuguese Hospitality A Snake 
at a Ball. 

IN 1862 the Suez Canal was yet unfinished, and esti 
mated by many a more than doubtful undertaking. The 
joining 1 of the two seas by a navigable channel, cut 
through a vast desert of shifting sand, people set down 
as the fond scheme of a visionary enthusiast ; and so 
when I first quitted England I had to leave M. de 
Lesseps still carving out his fame in the sands of Egypt, 
and to follow the old route overland. But I need not 
pause to detail my experiences over one of the beaten 
tracks of modern tourists ; nor can I even venture to 
describe Galle, with its hills and palms, and its cinnamon 
groves, as this part of Ceylon is on the highway to India, 
and therefore already well known. Had health per 
mitted me, on first returning to England in 1865, it was 
my intention to have penetrated to the centre of the 
island, in order to explore its ancient Hindoo or Buddhist 
stone buildings, and to compare them with the magnifi- 



2 INDO-CHTNA AND CTTTNA. 

cent remains of the cities, temples, and palaces I had just 
visited in the heart of Cambodia. This project I was 
unable to carry out, so that my experiences in Ceylon 
are confined to the narrow limits of Galle harbour and 
to the adjacent hills such indeed as fall to the lot of all 
who travel by the steamers of the Peninsular and Orien 
tal line. I must therefore invite my reader to accom 
pany me still further eastward, to the Malayan Islands 
and the mainland of Indo-China, where I spent some 
years of my life, before I can hope to introduce him to 
people or places with which he may be still unfamiliar. 

A voyage to a distant land, even under the most 
favourable circumstances, has always seemed to me long 
and tedious. Weary of watching the expanse of placid 
sea, and the fun and flirtation carried on beneath the 
white awning of one of the finest steamers afloat, the 
words Land on the starboard bow ! fell gratefully 
on the ears of the outward-bound passengers. Novels 
were thrown down, and games of cards, chess, and 
quoits abandoned ; while a dozen telescopes and field- 
glasses scanned a faint and disappointing line on the 
southern horizon ; that is Acheen Head, and (it may 
be only in fancy) the breeze off the land comes laden 
with a tropic perfume from the rich Sumatran coast. 
Acheen is the point where the Dutch, with their pon 
derous and sluggish movements, have struck a new 
blow at the power of the Malays. They have left the 
wound open and lacerated, but will no doubt return to 
lop off a fresh slice of territory at a more convenient 
season. 

That Dutch rule in Java has been productive of 
mutual benefit to the island and to Holland more es 
pecially to the latter no one will be inclined to dispute ; 



TTTR STRAITS OF MALACCA. 3 

nor need we doubt that the same desirable result will 
follow the occupation of the recently subdued provinces 
which are being added, slowly but surely, to the Dutch 
dominions in the Malayan islands. At the same time, 
unless our treaty rights in these regions are carefully 
guarded, our peaceful and profitable trading relations 
with those islands may suffer, as they have done, more 
than once, during the earlier period of our intercourse 
with the native states in this quarter of the globe. One 
would imagine too, that Acheen was a most important 
point to fall into the hands of a foreign power, standing 
as it does at the north-western extremity of Sumatra, 
and forming, so to speak, one of the pillars of the west 
ern gate of the Straits of Malacca. I therefore doubt 
whether any power, more formidable and less friendly 
than the Dutch, would have been permitted or en 
couraged to annex this territory. 

Steaming eastward, through the Straits, we are soon 
within view of Penang : a very small, but at the same 
time, important and productive island, and the first 
British possession we reach in the Straits. 

A strikingly picturesque place is Penang, with its 
belt of bright yellow sand and its crown of luxuriant 
tropical vegetation ; forming, too, a sort of sanitarium 
for our settlements in this quarter, and having a rich 
alluvial plain which, not many years ago, was an im 
penetrable jungle, but now is a perfect garden of 
cultivation. The shaded paths on the wooded hills, 
which rise over 2,000 feet above the sea, lead to the 
most charming retreats in the world ; to bungalows 
nestling among rocks and foliage, and to cascades 
where clear cool water falls into natural basins of 
granite beneath. There residents may bathe beneath 

u 2 



4 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

canopies of palms and trcc-fcrns ; while, so balmy is 
the climate amid these hill-dwellings, that the lightest 
costumes may be at all times worn. 

Many of the lower spurs of the Penang hills, and 
the valleys which divide them, have been cleared, and 
planted with cocoa, areca palms, nutmegs, and a great 
variety of fruit-trees ; small patches of the siri vine and 
sucrar-cane are also to be found. In such places there 

o *- 

is a deeper and richer soil than on the plains below, 
while on the summit of the highest hill the temperature 
is low enough to allow the cultivation of European 
vegetables and flowers. On ascending the hill to the 
government bungalow, nothing amid the profusion 
and variety of palms, flowering shrubs, or tangled 
jungle, so much impressed me as the stately beauty 
of the tree-ferns, growing to perfection about 1,600 
feet above the plain. This tree-fern rears its bare, 
finely-marked stem from 15 to 20 feet high above 
the underwood, and then curling its delicate fronds 
upward, outward, and in graceful arches, spreads a 
leafy canopy of the most tender green foliage, which it 
drops in a multitude of quivering points at a distance 
of eight or ten feet round the parent stalk. 

It will hardly be credited, by those who have never 
visited a hill country in the tropics, that soon after 
sunrise the noise of awakening beetles and tree-loving 
insects is so great as to drown the bellowing of a bull, 
or the roar of a tiger a few paces off. The sound re 
sembles most nearly the metallic whirr of a hundred 
Bradford looms. One beetle in particular, known to 
the natives as the * trumpeter, busies himself all day 
long in producing a booming noise with his wings. I 
have cautiously approached a tree on which I knew a 



PENANG. 5 

number of these trumpeter-beetles to have settled, when 
suddenly the sound stopped, the alarm was spread 
from tree to tree, and there was a lull in the forest 
music, which only recommenced when I had returned 
to the beaten track. One of the most curious insects 
to be found on the hills so closely resembles the small 
branch of a shrub, that once, when following" a 
narrow path, I picked up what I thought was a 
dried twig, but which wriggled and twisted in my 
hands, and when dropped at last, disappeared in 
the underwood with wonderful celerity, and a curious 
jerking motion. Its legs shot out from the stem just 
like smaller branches, but I searched in vain for this 
animated plant, which possibly was within eyeshot all 
the while. I have also seen the leaf insect on the 
Penang hills, which in its mimicry so imitates the leaf 
of a plant as to most effectually protect it from harm. 
The twig and the leaf insect belong to the order 
Orthoptera. The former resembled, most of its kind, 
the Bacteria Sarmentosa, although it seemed to me to 
be longer, more slender, and of a darker colour. Dried 
twig insects are species of Phasma^ and the leaf insect 
is, I believe, the Phyllium siccifolium. Butterflies and 
moths in every variety and hue are also to be found 
in abundance, fluttering among the trees and flowering 
shrubs in the sunshine, where the forest opens. They 
vary in dimensions from a fraction of an inch to 10 
inches or 1 2 inches across the wings, which is the size 
attained by the Atlas moth, * Saturnia Atlas. Flowers 
and flowering shrubs or trees are by no means abun 
dant, nor are their hues so attractive, in any part of 
the island, as to come up to one s preconceived ideas 
respecting the wild luxuriance of tropical colouring in 



INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



w 



liich scene-painters revel when depicting an Eastern 
forest or jungle. It is in the gardens of the foreign 
residents, on the hot plain, that we meet with the 
greatest variety of indigenous flowers, glowing, most 
of them, with the brilliant primary colours which seem 
to me to characterise the flora of tropic regions. I 
should single out red and yellow as predominating, 
while all those secondary or mixed colours (excepting 
green) which exhibit so many tender touches of nature 
in our home gardens, are conspicuous by their absence 
from these sunny climes. 

Perhaps our men of science might be able to as 
sign a cause for this, and to tell us whether the heat of 
the oriental sun develops in flowering plants a craving 
for the absorption of certain colours of the solar spec 
trum, and for the reflection of others ; whether, indeed, 
the elective affinities of plants in this way are affected 
by temperature. Can we, in the same way, account 
for the brilliant plumage of tropical birds, in which 
homogeneous red, yellow, and blue, are very con 
spicuous, and also for the liking which uncultured 
eastern races show for the reds, blues, and yellows. 
Even in China we find red a token of rejoicing (the 
bridal costume), while over India and China, and all 
Buddhist countries, the sacred priestly robes are yellow ; 
and with a number of the races of India and Indo- 
China the yellow golden skin is esteemed the highest 
attribute of female beauty. In China, again, blue 
betokens slight mourning, and white or the absence 
of colour the deepest sorrow. Be that as it may, I 
believe that the flowers of our European gardens and 
woods, can boast a greater variety and delicacy of 
colouring than those to be found in any tropical lands 



THE FOLIAGE OF PENANG. 7 

I ever visited. The hues are not only much more 
varied, but in temperate latitudes Dame Nature seems 
to exhaust her resources in producing an infinite 
diversity of tints, blended together with such mar 
vellous delicacy and beauty, as to appeal to the ten- 
derest feelings of the most cultured races of mankind. 

The foliage of the island of Penang, like that of the 
majority of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, is 
dense and luxuriant, and remarkable more for its variety 
of form than for its different shades of green. The 
growth of grasses and jungle in this region is so rapid 
as to entail the constant labour of the husbandman to 
prevent their overrunning his oldest clearings. I have 
seen a sugar-field on Province Wellesley, which had 
been abandoned for little over twelve months, com 
pletely overspread with jungle ; and were Penang for 
saken by the British to-morrow, or rather by its Chinese 
cultivators, it would relapse in an incredibly short space 
of time, into the impenetrable jungle island which 
Captain Light found when he landed there in 1786. 
An amusing story is still told of the plan hit upon by 
Captain Light, to get this jungle growth in part cleared 
away. He loaded his guns, so the tale goes, with 
silver coins, and fired them into the thick bush, that the 
Malays might be tempted to make clearings in their 
search after the dollars. 1 

The rapidity with which plants will grow in Penang 
is truly surprising. I have myself watched young 
stems of the bamboo shoot up over a quarter of an 
inch in a single night, so that their growth is all but 
visible to the naked eye. The trailing vines and jungle 

1 Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India. Cameron. 



8 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA, 

foliage hang over the rocks in long festoons, and creep 
along the yellow beach to crown old Neptune with a 
thousand evergreen wreaths. 

Many of these plants will thrive without a grain of 
soil. Orchids, of course, feed on air, but I have seen 
forest trees rooted on a bare rock, and flourishing there 
as vigorously as if planted in some rich alluvial 
earth. 

Many of the woods found on the Penang hills are 
exceedingly hard and durable ; their specific gravity is 
great, as they will readily sink in water. Woods of 
this sort are used by the Malays and Chinese in making 
anchors for their praus and junks, while the bamboo 
and ratan furnish material for ropes, or not unfre- 
quently ready-made cordage. 

There are about a hundred different sorts of fruit 
grown in Penang, but the Durian and Mangosteen are 
by far the most famous among, them and may indeed 
be considered the two most delicious fruits of Malayan 
India. The pine-apple, custard-apple, mango and pome 
granate, and some of the other varieties, are also 
too well known to require description here. Of the 
Pisang or plantain probably the most useful and 
widely distributed of all tropical fruits there are over 
thirty kinds, of which, the Pisang-mas, or golden plan 
tain, so named from its colour, though one of the 
smallest, is nevertheless most deservedly prized. 

During the ten months I spent in Penang and 
Province Wellesley, I was chiefly engaged in photo 
graphy a congenial, profitable, and instructive occupa 
tion, enabling me to gratify my taste for travel and to 
fill my portfolio, as I wandered over Penang settlement 
and the mainland hard by, with an attractive series 



PHOTOGRAPHY. 



of characteristic scenes and types, which were in con 
stant demand among- the resident European population. 
I trained two Madras men, or boys as they were called 
here, to act as my printers and assistants, the Chinese 
having, at that time, refused to lend themselves to such 




MALAYS SELLING DUKIANS. 



devilry as taking- likenesses of objects without the 
touch of human hands. Moreover they, as Orang 
puti or White men/ shrunk from having their fingers 
and much-prized long nails stained black, like those of 
the blackest of Orang etam or black men. My 



ro INDO-CUINA AND CHINA. 

Klings, on the other hand, were of the colour of a well- 
sunned nitrate of silver stain all over ; and had they, 
who even pride themselves on their fairness of skin, 
objected to the discoloration of their fingers, I should 
have had no difficulty in obtaining negroes of an ivory 
black in this small island, as a wonderful mixture of 
races is to be found, and phases of faith as multiform 
as the nationalities are diverse. 

Besides the English residents, who comprise the 
government officials, professional men, and merchants, 
there are descendants of the early Portuguese voyagers, 
Chinese, Malays, Parsees, Arabs, Armenians, Klings, 
Bengalees, and negroes from Africa. Besides these, the 

o ; o 

European merchants comprise men of different nation 
alities. On landing from the steamer it is difficult to 
discover that one is actually on a Malayan island. We 
meet one or two Malays squatted beneath the trees 
selling sugar-cane or Penang lawyers (a polished 
cane with a large heavy, egg-shaped root), but there 
are also a host of Klings in charge of boats and 
gharries (cabs). Dark, sharp and active are these 
Klings, without a trace of calf on their straight limbs, 
and yet able to run for a whole day alongside their 
diminutive ponies without showing a token of fatigue. 
These men oil themselves all over till they look like 
varnished bronze, and this oiling may account for their 
suppleness. All of them speak Malay, and some know 
a little English. I remember one, who, in his eagerness 
for a hire offered to drive me to the devil for a dollar. 
From his appearance I declined the offer, almost fancy 
ing myself in the presence of his sable majesty, or his 
washerman, already. 

At Georgetown, on the north-west, opposite the 



THE NATIVES. n 

mainland, there is a Kling bazaar where all sorts of 
foreign commodities are sold, and at prices which rarely 
exceed the sums they can be bought for, in the countries 
where they are manufactured. There are also a number 
of grog-shops and lodging-houses. The town contains, 
besides, a large Chinese population, made up of mer 
chants, shopkeepers, and handicraftsmen, immigrants 




from the island of Hainan, Kwangtung, and from the 
several districts of the Fukien province. These men are 
the most successful traders and patient toilers in the East. 
We could not do without them in our Malayan posses 
sions, and yet they are difficult members of society to 
manage. To convey some idea of their usefulness, I 
need only say, that they can make anything required by 



12 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

a European; and in trade they are indispensable to us, 
as they have established connections in almost all the 
islands to which our foreign commodities are carried. 
Their agents reside in Sumatra, Borneo, and on the 
Indo-Chinese mainland, collecting produce by barter 
with the natives, to whom they are not u infrequently 
related by social, as well as by commercial ties. In 
this way much of the produce shipped from Penang to 
England and other foreign countries, passes through 
the hands of Chinese middle-men. 

Then again, the European merchant at almost all 
the Eastern ports finds it indispensable to have in his 
employment a Chinese comprador, or treasurer, who 
not only pays for produce, and receives and collects 
moneys on behalf of the firm, but is also responsible 
for the weight and purity of the silver in which pay 
ments have been made. Under him he has assistants 
called schroffs, trained to detect spurious coin, and who 
display in this matter a keenness of perception which 
is puzzling to a European ; for the schroff sees readily 
at a single glance, and picks out from among the 
heap of dollars, some doubtful coin which he himself, 
however expert, would have failed to discover. But as 
we shall see hereafter, some of these schroffs have 
received their education at the hands of the counterfeit 
coiners and doctors of dollars in China. The com 
prador hires the labourers who load and discharge 
ships, and also with the aid of his staff frequently acts 
as broker in buying and selling for the firm. He is 
also useful in discovering the standing of Chinese firms, 
and in procuring for his employer office and domestic 
servants, for whose good conduct he will hold himself 
personally responsible. He has seldom any trouble on 



CHINESE 1 MM 7G RANTS. 13 

this score, as the men he has about him and employs 
are of his own clan, and are most loyal to their chief. 
I have no doubt, however, that this loyalty is as often 
due to the dread influence of the congsees, or secret 
societies to which comprador and men belong, as to 
the strong ties of kindred which are also esteemed by 
the Chinese. 

It will be conceded, then, that the comprador must 
be a man endowed with an undoubted capacity for 
business. He is indeed, in his way, the model trader 
of the East, and to such men as he, we owe much of 
our commercial success in these islands. He is, as a 
rule, thoroughly to be relied upon. He lives temper 
ately, and at all times has his trading wits about 
him. Yet he never appears other than a leisure- 
loving, fat, prosperous personage, who, as Mr. Wal 
lace truly remarks, grows richer and fatter every 
year. 

A walk through the streets of George Town will dis 
close still further the important position which Chinese 
labour occupies in Penang. There we find carpenters, 
blacksmiths, tailors, and indeed artisans of every kind, 
busily plying their handicrafts in open shops, or be 
neath the shade of wayside trees. All over the island, 
too, Chinese are scattered as planters, squatters, and 
tillers of the soil ; some of them, who have long been 
settled in the place, and who have wedded native 
wives, dwell in large and elegant houses environed 
with fruit and flower-gardens, while their humble 
toiling brethren live in rude huts, built of bamboo and 
palm leaves, in the centre of their small vegetable 
gardens or pepper plantations ; and to outward ap 
pearance the latter are the most patient, industrious, 



i 4 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

and contented cultivators to be met with on the surface 
of the earth. But they are not without ambition, as we 
shall see by-and-by. The Chinaman out of his own 
country, enjoying the security and prosperity which a 
more liberal administration confers, seems to develop 
into something like a new being. No longer chained 
to the soil by the iron fetters of a despotic government, 




CHINESE COOLIE. 



he finds wide scope for his energies, and high rewards 
for his industry. But the love of combinations, of the 
guilds and unions in which all Chinamen delight, 
tempts them too far. They first combine among them 
selves to get as much out of each other as they possibly 
can, and when practicable to monopolise trade and 
rule the markets ; and then, feeling the strength of their 



CHINESE CLAVS AND GUILDS. 15 

own organisation, the societies set up laws for the rule 
and protection of their members, and in defiance of the 
local government. The congsee, or guild, thus drifts 
from a purely commercial into a semi-mercantile semi- 
political league, and more than once has menaced the 
power of petty states, by making efforts to throw off 
the yoke which rested so lightly on its shoulders. The 
disturbances at Perak are the latest development of 
this tendency, and we have had many previous in 
stances of the same insubordination in Penang, and 
elsewhere. Nor are these the only clangers : the feuds 
of the immigrants are imported with them, and break 
out again as soon as they have set foot on foreign soil. 
Thus, in Penang not long ago there were two Chinese 
societies, known as, if I remember aright, the Hilum 
and Hokien congsees, that is the Hainan and Fukien 
societies. The members of the one were all men from 
the island of Hainan in Kwangtung, and the others 
men from the Fukien province. The two provinces 
arc said, at an early period in Chinese history, to have 
formed independent states, and the dialects spoken 
are still so widely different, that natives of Kwang 
tung are looked upon by the lower orders in the 
Fukien country as foreigners. I was present on 
one occasion in Penang at a village which, on the 
previous night, had been sacked and burned by the 
members of an opposing clan, and it required strong 
measures on the part of the government to put down 
these faction fights. 

This is the sort of village warfare which, as we 

o 

shall see when we reach the Flowery Land/ the im 
perial government in the south of China has at times 
been either unable or unwilling to suppress. In the 



T6 INDO-CHTNA AND CHINA. 

neighbourhood of Swatow, for example, the village 
clans were brought into subjection to the authorities 
only about three years ago, by a process of wholesale 
slaughter, recalling the summary dealings in 1663 (Java 
nese era), when the Chinese attempted to overthrow the 
power of the Dutch government in Java. A Javanese 
native historian says of the Chinese : * * Their hearts 
swell as they grow richer, and quarrels ensue. It has 
therefore always been a difficult matter in these islands 
to deal with the Chinese immigrants. Sir Stamford 
Raffles found it so during the period of his enlightened 
administration ; and the recent disturbances, which I 
propose to notice in another chapter, only confirm his 
remark that The ascendancy of the Chinese requires 
to be cautiously guarded against and restrained/ 2 

This is a question which, of late years, has been 
forcing itself upon the attention of the United States 
government. They must either restrain the tide of 
Chinese emigration which has set in upon their shores, 
or amend their constitutional laws, and adopt some less 
liberal, though perhaps more enlightened form of special 
administration, enabling them to deal satisfactorily with 
a people who bring to their doors habits of toiling 
industry, the cheapest and most efficient labour, but 
import at the same time turbulent tempers, an ob 
jectionable religion, and some of the grossest vices 
that can stain the human race. In Penang, where 
there are few, or almost no competitors in the various 
occupations in which the Chinese engage, and where 
their vices break out in a milder form, the difficulty 
presses more lightly. There the Chinese, when pro- 

1 Raffles History of Java, ii. 233. Ibid. i. 253. 



CHINESE LABOUR. 17 

perly restrained, are the most useful and most indispen 
sable members of society. True, they smoke opium, 
they lie without restraint, and whenever opportunity 
offers are dishonest, cunning", and treacherous ; but for 
all that, those of them who have risen to positions 
of trust forsake their vices altogether, or what is 
more probable conceal them with Chinese artfulness. 

Should you, my reader, ever settle in Penang, you 
will there be introduced to a Chinese contractor, who 
will sign a document to do anything. His costume 
will tell you that he is a man of inexpensive, yet 
cleanly habits. He will build you a house after any 
design you choose, and within so many days, subject 
to a fine should he exceed the stipulated time. He 
will furnish you with a minute specification, in which 
everything, to the last nail, will be included. He has 
a brother who will contract to make every article 
of furniture you require, either from drawings or from 
models. He has another brother who will fit you and 
your good lady with all sorts of clothing, and yet a 
third relative who will find servants, and contract to 
supply you with all the native and European delicacies 
in the market, upon condition that his monthly bills 
are regularly honoured. 

It is indeed to Chinamen that the foreign resident 
is indebted for almost all his comforts, and for the 
profusion of luxuries which surround his wonderfully 
European-looking home on this distant island. At 
the fiat of his master, Ahong, the Chinese butler, daily 
spreads the table with substantial fare, with choice 
fruits and pleasant flowers the attributes of that lavish 
hospitality which is the pride of our merchants in that 
quarter of the globe. 



i8 



INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



There is a large Malay population on the island, 
greater than the Chinese. It is, however, a much 
more difficult task to point out how they are all occu 
pied, as they do not practise any trades or professions, 
and there are no merchants among them. Some are 
employed on plantations catching beetles, pruning the 
trees, and tilling the soil ; but, on the whole, the 
Malays do as little work as possible ; some own small 




A CHINESE CONTRACTOR. 



gardens, and rear fruit ; others are sailors, and have 
sea-going prahus, in which Chinese trade. But I do 
not recollect ever seeing a single genuine Malay mer 
chant. . There are Malay campongs (villages) scattered 
over the island, made up of a few rude bamboo huts, 
and two or three clusters of fruit-trees. But many of 
these settlements are by the sea shore, and there they 
dwell, fishing a little, sleeping a great deal, but always, 



A NEW TYPE OF MAN. 19 

awake or asleep, as I believe, chewing a mixture of 
betel-nut, lime, and siri, which distends the mouth, 
reddens the lips, and encases the teeth with a crust of 
solid black. 

There are still another class of inhabitants who are 
the direct or mixed descendants of Europeans. Some 




A NKW TYPE OF MAN. 



of these, though claiming European descent, arc darker, 
and I should say in every way inferior to the natives 
themselves. Not many days after setting- foot in the 
island I was accosted by a pigmy specimen of the 
human race, who declared himself to be of Portuguese 



C 2 



2o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

extraction. His features were remarkable for the 
absence of any bad expression, and there were at the 
same time no good traits lurking anywhere in his dark 
physiognomy. His dress presented a strange but cha 
racteristic compromise between that of the European, 
the Chinese, and the Malay ; his head was surmounted 
by a chimney-pot beaver hat, only prevented from 
acting as an extinguisher by a wedge formed of red 
cotton cloth. As I was a stranger, he politely offered 
to introduce me to his circle of acquaintances, who, he 
said, were all Europeans like himself. I felt puzzled to 
determine what constituted him a European, and was 
forced to the conclusion that it was the beaver hat. 

Naturalists tell us that long residence in a certain 
region is apt to transform the physical appearance of 
an animal or insect, but when found it is at once recog 
nised by certain attributes of its family ; and so it 
seemed to me in this case ; the transforming influence 
of long residence had left not a semblance of the 
original Portuguese parent save the uncompromisingly 
respectable hat. The only other relic of the civilising 
influence of the early Portuguese voyagers I discovered 
in the name Da Costa, which turned out to be that 
borne by my little friend. Da Costa has been de 
scribed as a type of men constantly to be met with in 
the islands, and at points on the Indo-Chinese and 
Chinese mainland the result of a complicated mixture 
of Asiatic and European blood. 

On the other hand, at all these places there exists a 
large and highly respectable community, the educated 
descendants of Europeans. Among them are govern 
ment servants, merchants, and professional men, justly 
proud of the position they occupy ; and whose wives 



A SNAKE AT A BALL. 21 

and daughters are, many of them, ornaments to society, 
and boast a beauty which would be prized in any part 
of the world. This beauty, however, is swift to decay ; 
like garden flowers which shoot up into early maturity, 
and throw all their vitality into one brilliant effort of 
glorious colouring, suddenly it bursts forth and suddenly 
it languishes and passes away. 

The men are frequently of very sallow complexion. 
I have a lively recollection of one who made an unfair 
impression on me. He had been educated in Calcutta. 
I was green at the time. This self-introduced gentle 
man extended his hospitality so far as to invite me to 
a dinner at the baths, which lie at the foot of the 
Penang hills. One or two of his friends, of equally 
sallow and pasty skins, and appalling gastronomic 
powers, were included in the convivial party. 

The entertainment on the whole was enjoyable, and 
to me new ; but the reader may judge of my surprise 
when, two or three days subsequently, I received a bill 
for the entire feast. 

The introduction of a snake fifteen feet long into a 
room full of dancers was perhaps the most extraor 
dinary experience I ever had on any festive gathering. 
The event happened at a ball given by Mr. C., a 
gentleman who had been educated in Scotland, and fell 
out in this wise. My friend lived on a small plantation, 
and had for some time past been troubled by the noc 
turnal raids of this snake, which had swallowed a pig, 
and was gradually clearing his fowl-house. A number 
of natives had been on the watch, and had just captured 
the reptile, coiled up in a comatose state among the 
shrubs. The Malays, rarely excited, unless when fight 
ing, or l running Amok, and knowing there was no 



22 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

clanger, as the snake was overcome by the process of 
digesting a savoury meal, determined, in a fit of frantic 
joy, to lay the trophy at their master s feet. They had 
it by the tail, and dragging it to the sound of quadrille 
music thump, thump, up the wide staircase, rushed 
into the drawing-room and laid the monster down. 

Motionless it gazed around upon the strange scene, 
and probably speculated on the prospect of still more 
sumptuous fare, could it only command its wonted 
energy and crush its entertainers in its slimy coil. 
Some of the gentlemen retired with strange celerity ; 
others displayed their gallantry and daring behind a 
barricade of chairs ; while a few stood their ground, 
supporting their terror-stricken partners, as the unwel 
come intruder was hauled off to expiate his crime in 
the court below. 



CHAPTER II. 

A Visit to Quedah Miden missing The Rajah s Garden Province 
Wellesley Sugar and Tapioca Planting Field Labour A baffled 
Tiger Wild Men An Adventure in Province Wellesley. 

AN officer in Penang being about to visit the Rajah of 
Quedah, and to hand over to that sovereign s tender 
care a number of objectionable fugitives, who, quitting 
his dominions, had taken shelter beneath the British 
flag, and sought a precarious livelihood by murder 
and pillage, invited me to accompany his mission in a 
small government steamer. It was but a short run 
across the Straits, and about sixty miles to the north of 
Penang along the coast ; and on the way we touched at 
Pulo Tulure/ or Egg Island, one of a group of islets, 
and the one which the turtles have chosen, in preference 
to all the others, as a repository for their eggs. On 
Pulo Tulure is a single hut, and close to the sea beach 
dwell two Malays, set there to look after the turtles and 
to collect in sackloads the eggs which they deposit at 
certain seasons of the year. A single deal table and 
a few sacks appeared to make up the entire furniture 
of the hut ; and the Malays solemnly declared, as faith 
ful children of Islam, that there was no stopping the 
turtles when they did commence to lay. That they 
first covered the beach, which shone like a pearl with 
their eggs, and that then the two inmates of the hut 



24 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

had to squat on the table, in order that the turtles 
might lay the residue of their offerings beneath its 
square wooden legs ; the whole process being carried 
through, so they represented, in a quiet business-like 
manner by these strange creatures of the deep. They 
even went so far as to say that a sort of mutual ac 
quaintance had sprung up, and that the turtles would 
strike to a turtle, and refuse to deposit a single egg, if 
any stranger were to settle upon the island, in hope of 
robbing their faithful Rajah of this deep-sea tribute. 
4 Banyak pandie, orang Malaiu (cunning Malays !) said 
my Kling servant. 

They sold us a sackloacl of the eggs, which are 
esteemed a great delicacy by the natives. They are 
globose in form, equal in bulk to a large duck s-egg, and 
are covered by a tough opalescent whitish-blue skin. 

It seems strange that the turtle should always show 
so marked a preference for this island. Although the 
eggs are removed in great quantities, they never desert 
it for another. 

The occupation of collecting turtle-eggs is one pre 
eminently suited to the Malay, for in them they have 
genuine marketable articles deposited at their feet, 
without any trouble at all, free of charge. Rice requires 
labour for its cultivation, it is a long time in growing, 
and after that it still has to be reaped ; even the cocoa- 
nut palm, which supplies food and fuel, takes years to 
rear its stately head and drop its treasures into its 
owner s lap. But the turtle (and no one need wonder) 
is held in veneration by the leisure-loving Asiatic, as it 
brings food to his table ready-made. 

At the time of our visit to Pulo Tulure we saw a 
number of turtles swimming about. The sea was of a 



A TILLAGE GAMBLING-HOUSE. 25 

pure pale green hue, so clear and so placid that we 
could discern the marine plants and variously-tinted 
corals, on the rocks some fathoms below a scene 
only rivalled in brilliancy by the vivid colours of a 
tropical flower-garden. A Malay boy caught a huge 
turtle for us. The capture was simply and deftly 
effected. He quietly slipped into the water, and swam 
round until fairly behind his unsuspecting prize. Then 
seizing it by the shell he turned it over on its back, 
and in this position floated it quite powerless on to the 
beach. 

One morning at Ouedah my boy Miden disappeared. 
He had gone ashore early, and for some hours I 
anxiously awaited his return, but all in vain ; until at 
last, my patience being fairly exhausted, I landed with 
my friend, and after long search discovered the absentee 
in a village gambling-house, engaged in a violent alter 
cation. 

I dragged him at once out of the den, but not with 
out encountering considerable opposition, for the place 
was filled with Malays, and they, excited by their gains 
or losses, clutched their krises (daggers) and made 
ready to resist this sudden interference. However a 
quiet explanation, backed by the appearance of my 
friend, and a party of men from the boat, restored order. 
I then found that Miden, with a few touches of fancy, 
not altogether foreign to the Indian mind, had been 
passing himself off as a man of considerable importance, 
in fact as a Hindoo of very high caste. The Malays, 
who are usually gentlemen in points of honour, at once 
conceded that, under the circumstances, I had a perfect 
right to intervene ; and harmony being thus secured, 
they displayed sundry tokens of their good-will by 



26 INDO* CHINA AND CHINA, 

entering freely into conversation, and exhibiting their 
krises for my inspection. These krises many of them 
have beautifully carved handles, while the blades, formed 
of iron and steel welded together, spring from the hafts 
in waved edges, and terminate in poisoned points. 

My readers doubtless know that Amok running 
is not uncommon among the Malay tribes, but I am 
thankful to say that I never actually witnessed this 
bloodthirsty revenge, which a single frantic Malay 
will sometimes wreak on society. I can conceive of 
nothing in human shape more formidable, nothing 
more fiend-like, than a Malay, trained to the fatal use 
of the kris, in his last outbreak of passion, dealing out 
indiscriminate slaughter. Yet the Malay, in his normal 
condition, is the most social, placid, and tender-hearted 
of Asiatics. 

The Rajah of Quedah is a young man, a fine speci 
men of his race ; his looks are full of intelligence ; and 
indeed, since the date of my visit, he has proved him 
self to be a wise and careful ruler, and has earned the 
good opinion both of his own subjects and his foreign 
allies. Thus it was only the other day, when the 
Laroot troubles threatened to spread, that he adopted 
the most prompt and successful measures for the sup 
pression of piracy, at any rate, in the dominions under 
his own control. The palace where he resides is a 
brick edifice of modest proportions ; and there is an 
excellent road, some miles in extent, which leads from 
the Rajah s quarters to his pleasure-gardens. These 
gardens, though covering a small area, boasted a 
variety of products and elegance of horticultural de 
sign, unsurpassed by any which I have seen in the 
East. 



THE RAJAH OF QUEDAII. 27 

In one orange-grove the trees were so laden with 
fruit that the boughs would have broken unless sup 
ported by strong bamboo stakes, and the balmy air 
was steeped in the aroma of the oranges and sweet 
perfume of the lotus in full bloom. The Rajah had 
tried in vain to cultivate the grape-vine. His vines 
grew, but the grapes never reached maturity. We 
were driven to this beautiful retreat in a handsome 
carriage of European make. 

When steaming down the Quedah river we noticed 
a score of young alligators swimming in line upstream, 
and we also had the good fortune of a passing shot at 
as many more full-grown monsters, as they lay out in 
the sun on a long spit of sand. Muddy in colour, 
they, with their long jagged spines, were only to be 
distinguished from the withered leaves of the cocoa- 
palm, imbedded in the bank, by a very close inspec 
tion. 

Province Wellesley lies opposite to Penang, on the 
mainland of the Malayan peninsula. It is about thirty 
miles long, and from five to eleven miles in breadth, 
This district is, at present, the most productive in the 
Straits, exporting annually a very large quantity of 
sugar, tapioca, and rice. It adjoins Quedah, and was 
formerly included in the Rajah s dominions, and was 
purchased by the British government in 1800. It con 
tains a large Malayan population, but most of the hard 
work is done by Chinese labourers, or by Klings from 
the coast of Coromandel. 

The Chinese planters were the first who reared the 
cane, and refined the sugar in quantities sufficient to 
make it a leading article of export ; but European 
science has long superseded the rude refining pro- 



28 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

cesses of the less expert Chinese, and European capital 
has been invested to such an. enormous extent in estab 
lishing plantations, as practically to shut out all but 
the most skilful and wealthy competitors, 

The sugar plantations of the Europeans are spread 
over a wide area ; indeed, they cover the major portion 
of the cultivated lands of the province. Each planta 
tion occupies some square miles of tilled land, and in 
some part of the estate there is usually a steam crush 
ing-mill, and a refinery, where an efficient staff of 
European engineers are kept constantly employed. 

Canes of many different varieties have been im 
ported into the Province, but (those from the Mauritius 
excepted) none are found to thrive so well, or yield so 
high a percentage of juice, as the reputed indigenous 
species. Of these there are reported to be six different 
kinds, and one or two of them I have found growing 
wild in the jungle. The sugar-cane takes many 
months to mature after it has been planted ; but 
the crops, whenever possible, are so timed as to come 
in in rotation, so that the mills may be kept constantly 
at work. 

A quantity of cane is also raised by the Malays 
and Chinese, and this the growers sell at the mills for 
a stipulated price per acre. 

When I was in Province Wellesley, many of the 
planters and engineers were big brawny men from the 
lowlands of Scotland. I spent altogether six weeks in 
their company, and I still look back with pleasure, to a 
visit which introduced me to a constant variety of 
adventure and sport, and to so much of the warm 
hospitality for which my countrymen have always been 
famed. 



SUGAR AND TAPIOCA. 29 

In addition to sugar-growing, the planters have 
brought many of the less fertile tracts of land under 
cultivation for tapioca a hardy plant capable of grow 
ing in almost any soil, and requiring less trenching and 
manuring than sugar. 

In some places they alternate the crops, or rather 
plant tapioca after sugar, and then allow the land to 
lie fallow for a time. 

The plant throws up a few long woody stems and 
large bright-green leaves, but it is from the root that 
the tapioca is obtained. 

This root resembles most the Indian yam, or a 
huge potato, and in outward appearance is as unlike the 
snow-white delicate food it produces as coal to the 
flame it feeds, or tar to the brilliant clyes it yields. The 
roots are dug up when ripe, and conveyed to the wash 
ing-house to be brushed and rinsed in water by 
machinery. This process completed, they are passed 
by an ingenious contrivance into a grating machine, 
which reduces them to a brown watery pulp, and this 
pulp is then removed by ducts into troughs, where the 
fibrous matter and skin are separated from the flour, 
and the tapioca is next passed into tanks of water. 

Workmen go bodily into these tanks, stirring up 
the solution with their limbs. At the end of this 
operation the flour is allowed to precipitate to the 
bottom of the tank ; the water is then drained off, and 
the cakes of tapioca, after sundry washings, precipita 
tions, and cleansings, are dried in iron pans, much in 
the same way as tea, and finally prepared for market. 

The planters in Province Wellesley lead rough and 
arduous lives. They have many troubles to contend 
against, not merely in managing their estates, but in 



30 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

dealing with the labour which they are forced to 
import. 

They pass through periods of great anxiety, too, 
when the crops are approaching maturity, and when a 
sudden downfall of rain mi^ht cause the canes to burst 

o 

into flower a sight most lovely to the beholder, but 
deeply deplored by the proprietor of the estate, for it 
blights his prospect of an abundant harvest. But 
after all, care sits lightly on the bronzed faces and 
broad shoulders of these sugar planters ; and they, one 
and all, find a real enjoyment in the vicissitudes of 
their adventurous lot. The most agreeable months in 
the year to them, and indeed to their guests as well, 
are probably those when the young canes are showing 
their vivid green blades above the high-banked furrows 
of the fields, when early morning reveals the heavy 
night-dews sparkling on every leaf, or glistening like 
hoar-frost on the webs of the field-spiders, over the 
low-lying wayside shrub. Then the dawn with rosy 
fingers lifts the misty veil from off the inland mountain 
sides, and the air comes laden with a chill and bracing 
breeze. Armed with a fowling-piece, the planter now 
sallies forth to his accustomed sport ; and so plentiful 
are the snipe at this season that a fair marksman is 
certain to secure a dozen brace, at least, before he 
returns to his breakfast. I have been out of a morning 
with my friend T., a well-known shot, and I never 
saw him miss his bird ; indeed he never fired unless he 
could bring" down a brace, one bird to each barrel. At 

o 

times, more formidable game will cross the sportsman s 
path. Thus, Mr. B., a big powerful fellow, had an un 
expected and disagreeable encounter with a wild boar. 
B. was insufficiently armed. He wounded the brute 



A WILD BOAR. 31 

and it then charged with overpowering fury, and 
caught its antagonist by the hand. After a terrific 
struggle B. at last dragged the beast to a deep pool, 
forced its head under water, and so compelled its 
drowning jaws to release his own mutilated hand, but 
not until the boar s tusk had made a huge hole through 
his palm. 

Elephants in former days afforded good sport, but 
they were fast disappearing as their haunts in the 
jungle and forest made way for gardens and cultivated 
fields. In the wildest and more northerly portions of 
this section of the peninsula, elephants, tigers, rhino 
ceroses, deer, hogs, and other wild animals, may still be 
found, more especially in places where only small 
Chinese clearings have been effected, or where Malay 
hamlets are scattered at wide intervals amid virgin 
forests or jungle. In these sparse settlements of 
Malays and Chinese, Roman Catholic missionaries are 
at work. I once fell in with one of these priests, shod 
with straw sandals, and walking alone towards Bukit 
Mer-tagrim (the pointed hill), to visit a sick convert 
who had a clearing upon the mountain side. His path 
lay through a region infested with wild animals ; and 
when I enquired if he had no dread of tigers, he 
pointed to his Chinese umbrella, his only weapon, and 
assured me that with a similar instrument a friend of 
his had driven off the attack of a tiger, not very far 
from where we stood. But the nervous shock which 
followed that triumph had cost the courageous mis 
sionary his life. I gathered from my friend that he 
had lived for years among the natives, stooping him 
self, as it were, to lift them up, and he had grown old 
in this obscure but useful toil. I have encountered 



32 IN DO CHINA AND CHINA. 

many such men in my travels, and though I do not 
sympathise with the religion which they preach, I have 
always admired their self-sacrificing devotion. Protes 
tant missionaries one meets with nearly everywhere, 
many of them of equal zeal with their Roman Catholic 
fellow-labourers, but their chief spheres of action are situ 
ated at the ports and places of European resort, more 




MALAY HUT. 



frequently than in the hearts of the countries they have 
set themselves to convert. 

As I have already stated, the supplies of labour 
employed in tilling the fields, and in the various pro 
cesses connected with the cultivation and manufacture 
of sugar, are chiefly obtained from the Coromandel 
coast in the Madras presidency, where agreements 
are usually drawn up whereby the men engage to 



KLING COOLIES. 33 

serve on the estates for a certain term, at a fixed 
monthly wage. On the expiration of the original term 
of agreement, the coolies are at liberty either to renew 
the contract or return to their native province. Many 
of them choose to remain upon the plantations a fact 
which speaks well for the treatment they receive at the 
hands of their employers. Chinese are also used by 
the planters, although more sparingly, as the gangs of 
coolies are imported by Chinese capitalists, and only 
to be hired through a headman, who contracts to do a 
certain amount of tillage at a price fixed according to 
area. The Chinese are stronger, healthier, and better 
workmen, although they require better food, and do 
not perhaps stand prolonged exposure to the hot sun 
so well as the natives of India, and the price of their 
labour is consequently too high to enable them to 
compete successfully with the K lings ; and moreover, 
planters are not always in a position to have their 
work clone by the piece, nor are the guild-ridden 
Chinese so easily dealt with as their darker brothers in 
the field. 

There are many Malays in Province Wellesley, 
but they do not work on the plantations, and indeed it 
is almost impossible to say how one-twentieth part of 
the Malay population occupies itself. As Mahometans 
they practise circumcision, and recite frequent prayers. 
The rest of their lives they seem to spend in rearing 
large families to follow their fathers example, and to 
wait lazily for such subsistence as the bounty of nature 
may provide. The male Malay, in his own country, is 
a sort of gentleman, who keeps aloof from trade, 
whose pride is in his ever-ready kris, with its finely 
polished handle, and its pointed poisoned blade. His 



34 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

ancestors, some of them, knew well how to use that 
kris both on land and sea. There are a few timid 
woolly-haired races on the mountains inland, who can 
tell something of Malayan raids, and who still look 
down with longing eyes on the plains from which their 
own forefathers were expelled. As to these hill 
tribes Orang Bukit, ( Orang Outan, Orang Anto, 
mountain men, men of the wilds, spirit men such 
people, the Malays solemnly assure us, carry tails, 
whose tufted ends they dip in damar oil and ignite, 
and thereupon rushing all ablaze into the Malayan 
campongs, spread fire and destruction around. In 
this fable it is evident that the Malays have got 
hold of the exploits of the ape god in the Hindoo 
Ramayana. 

I may take this opportunity of assuring my readers, 
that the aboriginal tribes referred to, have nothing to 
show in the shape of a tail ; not even the rudiments, so 
far as I know, to support the theory of progression of 
species, or of natural and spontaneous development of 
the human race. I would also ask (even supposing 
the progenitors of these tribes had tails) why the 
march of progress should deprive their descendants of 
such an ornament. If we are to credit the stories 
which some missionaries penned about two centuries 
ago, apes in these localities used to find the tail a 
highly useful appendage. 1 Thus, these ingenious apes 
are reported to have caught crabs by thrusting their 
tails into the crab-holes, and dragging out their luck 
less victims clinging all unwittingly to this monkey 
fishing-tackle. 

1 The Oriental Islands, by Herman Moll, i. 415. 



THE TALE OF THE BAFFLED TIGER. 35 

Wild animals, as I remarked, have in a great 
measure been driven from the province, and were 
therefore by no means so abundant, as I had been led to 
expect. One might reside on a plantation for years, 
and never once be pursued by a tiger, like the fortunate 
Mr. MacNab. Planters of necessity live far apart, but 
their custom was to meet about once a week at each 
other s houses in rotation. This festive gathering was 
known as Mutton night/ as a sheep, when they 
could get one, was slaughtered for the repast. In 
former days planters were all bachelors, but the meet 
ings were none the less convivial on that account. 
Many of them had to travel long distances for their 
dinner, and on one occasion, when feasting was over, 
when they had chatted and sung until the night was 
far spent, a dock and dorack of Scotch whiskey was 
dispensed at parting to keep out the cold, and brace 
the nerves against the attack of a stray rhinoceros, an 
orang-outan, or a tiger. It was rather dark, and 
verging on the small hours of morning, when MacNab, 
mounting on his trusty steed, set his face towards home. 
Feeling at peace with all men, and even with the beasts 
of prey, he cantered along a road bordered with man 
groves, admiring the fitful gleams of the fireflies that 
were lighting their midnight lamps among the trees. 
But soon the road became darker, and Donald, the 
pony, pricked his ears uneasily as he turned into a 
jungle-path which led towards a stream. Donald 
sniffed the air, and soon redoubled his pace ; with ears 
set close back, nostrils dilated, and bristling mane. 
Onward he sped, and at last the angry growl of a tiger, 
in full chase behind, roused MacNab to the full peril of 
his position, and chilled his blood with the thought 



36 TNDO-CHINA AND CITTNA. 

that his pursuer was fast gaining ground, and that at 
any moment he might feel the clutch of his hungry 
relentless claws. Here was a dilemma ; the cold creek 
before him, and the hot breath of the tiger in the rear. 
A moment or two were gained by tossing his hat be 
hind him, then Donald cleared the stream at a bound, 
the tiger lost his scent, and Mac Nab reached home in 
safety, by what he delighted to describe as a miraculous 




PURSUED BY A TIGER. 



escape. How frequently a man lives to discover his 
worst enemies in those who profess themselves his 
truest friends ! MacNab s associates, with wicked 
incredulity, refused to believe in his tale of the baffled 
tiger ; indeed, they attributed the pony s terror and the 
frantic headlong rush for home to the presence of a 
little bit of prickly bamboo which had accidentally got 
fixed beneath the saddle-girths. 

During my visit to one of the plantations a tiger 



TRAVELLING IN PROVINCE WELL1>SLEY. 37 

and her cub were lurking in the jungle, not far from 
the house. They had been committing depredations 
among the cattle at a neighbouring village, and could 

o o o d> 

be heard at intervals during the night. 

My only unfortunate adventure In Province \Y;jl- 
lesley occurred during- a storm, when on my way to 
the plantation of Mr. Cain, which chanced to be the 
most remote in the settlement. Mr. Cain s estate lay 
at the foot of a range of hills, where it was said that a 
certain wild tribe dwelt, and my boy Talep, as he was 
anxious to see the orang-outan, or men of the woods, 
was allowed to accompany me on my journey. Having 
selected a calm morning, we crossed from Penang in a 
Malay boat, and landed at a native village at the point 
most convenient for reaching our destination. In the 
village we hired two waggons, each drawn by a pair 
of black water-buffaloes, and set out to accomplish the 
twelve or fifteen miles which still separated us from 
my friend s plantation. Talep and the baggage were 
stowed in the leading waggon. I followed in the 
other, and occupied myself for the first mile or two in 
admiring the beauty of the forest and jungle along the 
road. 

Our route at the outset took us through a man 
grove swamp, which extended over an area of land 
that had, at no distant period, been covered by the sea. 

The tortuous roots of the mangrove plants rising 
in a complete net-work, seemed to have caught and 
retained the deposits of successive tides, till at last 
was formed the solid ground along which we were then 
making our way. We soon left the swamp, and took 
to the main road, here and there passing some Malay 
hamlet embowered in rich tropical foliage, and shaded 



38 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

with groves of banana and the broad leaves of the 
cocoa and areca palms. 

Suddenly the sky became overcast with heavy 
masses of threatening cloud. The bright glare was 
transformed into dark twilight. The palms rocked 
uneasily in the breeze, the forest moaned and whispered 
of approaching storm, while flocks of water-fowl shot 
across the sky, shrieking from out of the darkness. 

Hereupon Talep stopped his men and ordered 
them to put an extra covering of leaves over the 
waggons. Now, he said, * the storm will be on us in 
a few minutes, and we have done our best to keep the 
rain out. We soon discovered, however, that the 
palm-thatched roofs of our conveyances were by no 
means watertight. 

The road grew darker until night seemed to have 
closed in, and soon flash after flash of lightning 
kindled a hundred unearthly hues amid the foliage ; 
peals of thunder shook the ground, and rolled away in 
echoes through the forest ; a strong earthy odour an 
nounced the approach of rain, which swept with a dull 
sound along the road, so that for one moment we could 
mark its drawing near, and the next it was upon us, 
like a solid sheet of tepid water. The covering of my 
cart was useless ; the water came through like a steady 
shower-bath. As for the large buffaloes, they plodded 
along heedless of the storm ; but I kept shouting to the 
men to mind the ditches, as the road was now com 
pletely flooded over, and the carts were dragging 
through mud up to the axles. As long as we had a 
line of trees to guide us, the men kept the middle of 
the road ; but when once we left these stately sign 
posts in the rear, we were forced to flounder through 



THE STORM. 39 

the mud with ditches six feet wide and as many deep 
on either side. It was too dark to see far ahead, and 
the turbid red water was lashed into foam by the 
bickering rain. The interior of my cart became 
soaked and slippery, and I was helplessly shunted 
about from side to side, as the vehicle plunged into the 
pitfalls of the submerged road. Just as I was making 
a desperate effort to wedge myself into a corner, I heard 
a splash and a drowning cry. Talep, waggon, baggage 
and all, had disappeared into the ditch. I hastened 
through the slough of mud and water to the scene of 
the disaster. The driver had dived to extricate the 
drowning Talep, and brought him up looking little the 
worse. 

He next proceeded to unharness his buffaloes, after 
which he swam them off down the ditch, and was fol 
lowed by his companion and their other pair of beasts, 
before I had even time to remonstrate. Quite unpre 
pared for such a piece of cool audacity, I would have 
fired over the heads of the vagabonds to bring them to 
reason, but my firearms were under water. They were 
off to the nearest campong, to spend the night. The 
Malays believe in a bountiful Providence, and wait 
most patiently for its gifts. They believe in fate too. 
It was Tuan Alia poonia krajah, the work of the 
Almighty, the carts upsetting in the ditch ; and so these 
men would go comfortably to sleep, believing that it 
was no use kicking against fate. Feeling it impossible 
to sustain the gravity the situation demanded, I laughed 
outright, much to the dismay of the unhappy Talep, 
who was certain that the evil influences of the anto 
(ghosts) were on him. 

Something was to be done. We could not wait 



^o INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

until Providence should disperse the deluge, or draw 
the cart out of the ditch. It was equally clear we could 
not of ourselves accomplish either task, nor drag the 
remaining waggon to my friend s plantation. 

To make matters worse, my note-book and direc 
tions were under water, and neither of us felt inclined 
for a descent into the ditch. It was growing dark, 
night was evidently coming on, so we made ourselves 
hoarse with shouting, and at length were answered by 
a responsive voice ; and pushing on in the direction of 
the sound, followed by Talep, we reached a cane-field 
where I again paused to shout, and had not long to 
wait for a reply, as my friend the planter had come out 
to meet us, and enjoyed a hearty laugh at our disasters. 
As to our ruffianly drivers, they knew well enough, he 
said, where they were, but fearing his wrath, they 
decamped for the night. 

Settled at last beneath his hospitable roof I quickly 
forgot the day s adventure in the agreeable society of 
my host. 

Home and the old country were what we talked of 
most, and midnight had already gone by, when we be 
took ourselves to rest. Mr. Cain lit a lamp, showed 
me to my apartment, and opening a chest of drawers 
in one corner of the chamber, produced a revolver and 
sword, gravely handing the weapons to me, with a re 
quest that I would stow the one beneath my pillow, 
and keep the other close at hand. He added con 
fidentially, that he never felt quite at ease at night 
unless his arms were ready, for his predecessor and 
wife had been murdered in this very house by a neigh 
bouring hill tribe. Here was comforting reflection for 
a weary man ! and with a sensation as new as it was un- 



THE MALAY RAID. 41 

expected, I lay down like a warrior to my rest with mar 
tial cloak around me. Soon falling fast asleep, I dreamt 
of savage tribes. A prisoner in their hands I was to 
choose one of two alternative deaths. If I objected to 
being eaten while still alive, I had the liberal option of 
being cooked, a limb at a time. The cannibals were 
on the point of seizing their victim, when I suddenly 
awoke, and found Cain himself standing over me with 
a drawn sword, flashing in the feeble lamplight. The 
next moment he had dragged me out of bed. * Follow 
me ! follow me, he cried, with revolver and sword, just 
as you are. The hill men are on us. I slipped on 
my shoes, and plunged into the darkness, where I soon 
lost sight of my leader. I could still hear his voice 
calling Make for the fires ! make for the fires ! my 
God, they are burning the coolie houses ! I shaped 
my way as straight as I could towards the light of the 
nearest fire, plunging and floundering as I progressed 
now over fields, and now through swampy ground. At 
last I reached a house, and could distinguish the 
moans of some one in pain. I found that the building 
had fallen clown, and was aflame at one end. Hailing 
the sufferer, he replied in Malay that he was killed. 
In my effort to get at him I stumbled over a huge 
warm body, and the next moment received a poke in 
the ribs, which warned me that I had narrowly es 
caped being impaled on the horns of a huge water 
buffalo stretched out in the shed. As to the man 
who declared himself killed, he had been slightly 
bruised by a falling rafter ; and we found that we were 
the victims of a false alarm, for the storm, which burst 
forth with renewed violence during the night, had 
blown down the coolie houses and these had somehow 



42 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

taken fire. We were none the worse for the adven 
ture. I certainly suffered some inconvenience from a 
number of leeches which I had to pick off my body, but 
next day I slept none the less soundly on this account. 
Before leaving this strange out-of-the-way place, I 
was shown a hu^e man-eating alligator which had 

o o o 

been trapped in an adjoining stream. It appeared 
that a labourer on the bank was bathing his child, 
when the monster caught the babe between its jaws, 
and disappeared. The alarm spread ; the entire gang 
of coolies assembled, dammed the stream at two 
places, and finally secured the reptile with a baited 
hook. 

In another part of the province I fell in with a 
planter who proved a rather eccentric sort of cha 
racter, and whom I shall call Mr. Berry. He lived 
quite alone, and we made up a party to pay a visit to 
his plantation. The roads through the fields were 
everywhere bad, but became more especially so as we 
neared the house, and we kept falling into deep holes 
filled up with wood and rubbish. Mr. Berry admitted 
on each occasion that the hole was a bad one, perhaps 
as bad as any to be found on his estate, * but hearing 
you were coming, said he, I had just put a cart-load 
of fire-wood into the cavity to make it good. 

Mr. Berry was a man of middle age, wearing a sad 
but not unpleasant expression on his face, and spoke 
in an accent of broad Scotch. He informed us, amongst 
other things, in languid tones of regret, that he had 
just been doctoring the fire-bars of his engine, as he 
had no engineer to help him. He then invited us to 
his house, which had an air of solitude and desolation. 
Berry, however, as he stepped on to his balcony said. 



TAME BIRDS, 43 

Wait a bit, and I will introduce you to some of my 
friends. We therefore held back, and allowed our host 
to walk to the front verandah alone. There we saw 
him stretch out his hand and, whistling gently and 
soothingly, a bird came fluttering from the foliage, and 
perched upon his finger. * This wee birdie/ said Berry 
to us, i had once a mate, and the twa used to come at 
my whistle and take their meals beside me ; but now 
the hen s gone, I ve not seen her for some months. 
She s dead, and left this lad to my care, and I feed the 
bonny wee thing every morning. The scene was 
strange and touching ; and although Berry was good- 
naturedly chaffed for his isolation, it was useless to 
endeavour to force him into freer and healthier habits. 
He was plainly a man of gentle and very retiring dis 
position, but still it was puzzling to make out by what 
means he had managed to tame the birds which found 
a home among the weeds and fruit-trees of his garden. 



44 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



CHAPTER III. 

Chinese Guilds ; their Constitution and Influence Emigration from 
China A Plea for unrestricted Female Emigration The Perak Dis 
turbances Chinese Tin-mining Malacca Singapore Its Commerce 
and People Stuffing an Alligator The Horse-breaker Chinese 
Burglars Inland Scenery A Foreign Residence Amusements A 
Night in the Jungle Casting Brazen Vessels Jacoons. 

GUILDS and secret societies would seem almost indis 
pensable to the individual existence and social cohesion 
of the Chinese who settle themselves in foreign lands. 
If this were not really the case, it would be hard to 
say why we tolerate native institutions of this sort in 
the Straits Settlements at all, for they have proved 
themselves, and still continue to be, the cause of con 
stant trouble to the government. Avowedly estab 
lished to aid the Chinese in holding their own, not in 
commercial circles only, but politically against the 
authorities, and to set our laws, if need be, at defiance, 
it can nevertheless hardly be doubted that some of the 
rules laid down for the guidance of their members are 
good ones, and embody precepts of the highest moral 
excellence ; but other most objectionable instructions 
are to be met with, of which the following affords a 
good example ; and from it we may perceive the reason 
why our officials, both in the Straits and in China, are 
so often baffled in detecting crime. 1 If a brother 

1 Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India. Cameron. 



POLITICAL GUILDS. 45 

commits murder or robbery, you shall not inform 
against him, but you shall not assist him to escape, nor 
prevent the officers of justice from arresting him. In 
connection with the foregoing, let us take another of 
their regulations. If you do wrong, or break these 
laws, you shall come to the society to be punished, and 
not go to the authorities of the country. From the 
two specimens here given, we can get some insight 
into the obstacles which the Chinese secret societies 
manage to raise up to shield offenders from justice. 
So far as my half-score of years experience goes, I 
believe that under the rule first quoted a Chinaman is 
clearly enjoined to conceal the facts of a brother s 
crime even in a court of law ; and as perjury on behalf 
of a friend is esteemed an undoubted sign of high 
moral rectitude, and as in our courts a false witness has 
no torture to dread, no rack nor thumbscrews, the 
successful disclosers of secrets in China, he lies without 
let or hindrance, and thus the all-powerful society so 
effectually conceals a member s guilt as to render 
Chinese testimony practically useless. 

These societies are imitations of similar institutions 
in every province of the Chinese empire, where the 
gentry combine to resist the oppression of a despotic 
government, and the peasantry unite in clans and 
guilds to limit the power of local officials and of the 
gentry, and to promote their own commercial and 
social interests. The Chinaman, however poor he 
may be, has great faith in the infinite superiority of 
his own country, government and people, over all others ; 
and when he emigrates to some foreign land he at 
once unites in solemn league with his clansmen to 
resist what he honestly deems its barbarous laws and 



46 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

usages. He has no belief in a liberal and pure form 
of administration. After years spent, it may be, in some 
English colony or in America, he will yet be unable 
to shake off the feeling, that he, in a great measure, 
owes his success abroad to the protecting influence of 
some powerful clan or guild. 

Such societies were at the bottom of the disturb 
ances that threatened Singapore in 1872, and the prin 
cipal rioters concerned on that occasion were of the 
class described as the Sam-sings or fighting men, 
whereof each society has always a certain number in 
its pay. 

The immediate cause of these riots was the en 
forcement for the first time of a new ordinance, 
designed to regulate or suppress, as the Chinese 
chose to believe, a certain class of street hawkers. 
These hawkers, always useful, if not always innocent 
members of a Chinese community in Singapore and 
elsewhere in the East, naturally felt aggrieved at having 
the prospects of their livelihood curtailed. Some of 
them went so far as to resist the rough interference of the 
police. Their case was taken up by the fighting men 
in various quarters of the town, the Sam-sings, whom 
Mr. Whampoa (an old Chinese gentleman for many 
years resident in Singapore) thus describes : They live 
by looting, and are on the watch for any excuse for 
exercising their talents. Each hoey, or society, must 
have so many of them, but I don t know any means of 
ascertaining their number. I suppose they are paid 
by the hoeys and brothels. They are regular fight 
ing people, and are paid so much a month. If there 
is any disturbance, these people go out in looting 
parties ; whether ordered by the head men or not, 



CHINESE VILLAGE FEUDS. 47 

I cannot say ; perhaps they do it on their own account. 
From the same report I gather that such characters are 
at the present time plentiful, as they have been driven out 
of the neighbourhood of Swatow, in the south of China. 
In a previous work l I have noticed the disturbed state of 
a part of the province of Kwang-tung/ and the strong 
measures taken by Juilin, the present governor- 
general of the two Kwang, for the restoration of order. 
But some of the lawless vagabonds who escaped the 
vengeance of Juilin have settled in Singapore and 
other British possessions, and there under the protect 
ing wings of their guilds they obtain frequent and 
lucrative employment in the shape of pillage or per 
haps murder. At first sight it seems strange that the 
Sam-sings should find scope for their villanies in a 
British colony ; even greater scope, one would be apt 
to imagine, than they find under the corrupt govern 
ment of their own disorganised land. 

But any disinterested observer who has travelled 
through China will agree with me in this, that how 
ever far behind in other respects, the Tartar rulers, 
when it suits their convenience, (except when the popu 
lation is in actual revolt), know very well how to deal 
with and keep down marauders with a very strong 
hand ; so much so is this the case, indeed, that the scum 
of the population is frequently driven to seek refuge in 
emigration to more congenial climes. One element 
which operates successfully in maintaining order in 
China, is the superstitious reverence which the 
Chinese have for their parents. Should a son commit 
a crime and abscond, his parents are liable to be 
punished in his stead. This law, even supposing it 

1 Illustrations of China and its people. 



48 INDO CHINA AND CHINA. 

were put in force in a foreign land, would not 
affect the immigrants, as they seldom bring their wives 
or parents with them ; and to this fact alone the ab 
sence, that is, of the strong family ties held so sacred 
by the race we may attribute much of the difficulty 
encountered by our authorities in dealing with the crime 
and vice of this section of the population. It must 
also be borne in mind that a Chinese ruffian, who 
would soon be brought to justice (unless he could pur 
chase immunity) if he were practising on his country 
men in a Chinese city, enjoys, on the contrary, the coun 
tenance and support of his compatriots in a town such 
as Singapore. For there he commits his depredations 
on men of foreign extraction ; and the avenger of blood 
from whom he is hidden away is after all only an 
officer of those white devils/ whom it is the China 
man s delight anywhere and everywhere to oppose. 

A few of the Chinese immigrants marry Malay 
women, and settle permanently in the Straits ; but the 
majority remain bachelors. If any one , perchance, is 
unable to realise the hope of returning to his native 
village, if he should die on foreign soil, his friends ex 
pend the savings of the deceased in sending his body 
back to mingle with the dust of his forefathers in 
China. Thus we find a steady stream of the living 
and the dead passing to and fro between the Straits 
Settlements and the southern provinces of this 
Flowery Land. 

Surely something might be clone, in framing our 
treaties, to alter all this, and to improve the social 
and moral condition of the Chinese immigrants who 

o 

land in our tropical possessions. In certain districts 
of China the women are so greatly in excess of the 



CHINESE FEMALE EMIGRATION. 



49 



men, that many girls arc still sacrificed in their infancy 
by their parents. 

A small proportion of this surplus female popula 
tion is annually drawn off by native agents, who pur 
chase them for a few dollars and ship them, often as 
involuntary emigrants, to foreign ports where their 




CHINESE LABOURERS FROM THE KWANOTUXO PROVINCE. 

countrymen abound, and where they are imprisoned in 
opium-dens, and brothels, until their price and passage- 
money have been redeemed by years of prostitution. 
This vile type of emigration, like everything in Chinese 
hands, has long been systematised, and is protected by 
native hoeys established at different ports. I have 
no doubt that the coolies, who frequently leave their 

K 



50 INDO-CBINA AND CHINA. 

wives and families behind in China, would gladly bring 
their partners with them if permitted by government 
to do so, and if they themselves felt that degree of 
security in their prospects abroad which the laws of a 
Christian country ought to inspire. The free immigra 
tion of women should also be encouraged, for Chinese 
girls not only make excellent domestic servants, but 
are useful field labourers, and they would soon find 
industrious partners among their countrymen. This 
plan would also tend to check female infanticide in 
those regions of China from which the tide of emigra 
tion mainly flows 

I have already drawn attention to the Chinese 
faction fights in Perak. Perak is a Malayan state to 
the south of Ouedah, and with a coast line which 
adjoins Province Wellesley. 

The tin mines there have long been famous, and 
have attracted a large Chinese mining population. 
Hence it would appear that the Chinese owners of 
these mines found themselves strong enough to get 
the upper hand, and to do pretty well what they chose 
with the local authorities. 

The original scene of the recent disturbances was a 
small stream at the Laroot mines. One Chinese society 
took upon itself to divert the stream from its old course, 
and thus deprive the mines, on a lower level, of its use 
in washing the tin. The aggrieved hoey applied to the 
native rulers of Perak against their rival countrymen ; 
but the Muntrie, or inferior Rajah, proving unable to 
settle the dispute, either by arbitration or by force, the 
Chinese proceeded to drive him from the country, and 
settle the matter between themselves by the free use 
of arms. 



PERAK AND LAROOT. 51 

In addition to the claims of our own commercial 
interests, we are bound under a treaty to protect the 
Sultan of Perak and the Rajah Muntrie of Laroot in 
the event of domestic disturbance. Accordingly Sir 
Andrew Clarke, the present Governor of the Straits, 
adopted measures to restore order in the disquieted pro 
vince, where one of the contending parties had been ex 
pelled by its rivals, and had taken temporarily to piracy 
for a living-. Peace has at length been re-established, 
and the country placed under the direct protection of 
the British flag. A provisional treaty has been drawn 
up, and a resident English officer is to act conjointly 
with the Rajah Muntrie of Laroot in the administration 
of the country. All this appears to be satisfactory ; 
and I only hope that the decisive steps taken by the 
Governor of the Straits will meet with approval and 
confirmation at home, for the suppression of piracy and 
riot is of vital importance to trade ; and the metallic 
wealth of the country, which passes through the hands 
of our merchants in Penang, is in itself something 
worth guarding. A small strip of the Perak coast, 
with a depth of five miles inland, has now been ceded 
to our authorities, and I hope to see the same trans 
formation take place there which has happened in 
Province Wellesley, where foreign capital and ma 
chinery are busy in the production of sugar. 

In Perak the tin mines are entirely in the hands 
of the Chinese, but there is a wide field for the intro 
duction of modern mining appliances. 

We may form some notion of the methods of 
Chinese mining from what a recent writer in the 
Penang Gazette tells us on the subject. A China 
man, when he is prospecting for the metal, fills halt a 



K 2 



52 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

cocoa-nut shell with the earth ; and when he has washed 
this, if he finds that the residue of metal will fill a 
space equal in capacity to two fingers, he concludes 
it will pay him to work the mine. 

But when he opens his mine, he will sink a shaft 
no more than a few feet deep, fifteen or twenty at the 
most ; indeed, he can never be prevailed on to go 
down to a depth where he is no longer able to raise 
the water that gathers in the hole by means of his 
simple but ingenious chain-pump. When the shaft 
has become too deep for the power of this machine, he 
abandons it, and never dreams of tunnelling. 

The wage of the common Chinese miner is about 
one shilling a day, and the profit per cwt. of the pure 
metal laid down free of all charge in Penang, is sup 
posed to be about three pounds ten shillings. 

I paid a passing visit to Malacca, but finding it 
neither an interesting nor a profitable field, I made 
but a short stay in the place. Malacca is a quaint, 
dreamy, Dutch-looking old town, where one may enjoy 
good fruit, and the fellowship and hospitality of the 
descendants of the early Portuguese and Dutch colo 
nists. 

Should any warm-hearted bachelor wish, he might 
furnish himself with a pretty and attractive-looking 
wife from among the daughters of that sunny clime ; 
but let him make no long stay there if indisposed to 
marry, unless he can defy the witchery of soft dark 
eyes, of raven tresses, and of sylph-like forms. It is a 
spot where leisure seems to sit at every man s door 
way ; drowsy as the placid sea, and idle as the huge 
palms, whose broad leaves nod above the old weather- 
beaten smug-looking houses. Here nature comes laden 



MALACCA. 53 

at each recurring season with ripe and luscious fruits, 
dropping them from her lap into the very streets, and 
bestrewing the bye-ways with glorious ananas, on which 
even the fat listless porkers in their wayside walks 
will hardly deign to feed. It is withal a place where 
one might loiter away a life dreamily, pleasantly, and 
uselessly. 

These are but passing impressions, and Malacca 
may yet, after all, develop into something in every 
way worthy of the Straits which bear its name. 
Malacca is doubtless interesting from a purely historical 
point of view, for it was once the seat of a Malayan 
monarchy, powerful probably in the thirteenth century, 
when the Cambodian Empire was already on the de 
cline. At a later date, the city became one of the chief 
commercial centres established by the early Portuguese. 

Singapore, so far as we know, has no ancient and 
engrossing history. I gather, from old Chinese and 
European maps, that the original Singapura was a 
section of territory on the mainland of the Malayan 
peninsula, and not the island which now bears its 
name and usurps its place in ancient history. It has 
risen, as my readers are aware, since its annexation by 
Sir Stamford Raffles, to a position of great commercial 
and political importance. 

Not many years ago it was a mere desolate jungle- 
clad island, like hundreds of others in the Eastern 
seas, with a few fisher huts dotted here and there 
along its coast. But there is no need for me to dwell 
on the recent history of the place. When I first saw 
the settlement in 1861 I was startled by the appear 
ance of the European town, and since that time it has 
been yearly registering its substantial progress in 



54 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

steadily increasing rows of splendid docks, in bridges, 
in warehouses, and in government edifices. During 
these few years it has passed through strange vicissi 
tudes of fortune. At one time the harbour and roads 
were crowded with square-rigged ships, Chinese junks, 
and Malay prahus. Now, were we to take these as 
the true indications of the trade of the port, we should 
at once conclude that its commerce had rapidly de 
clined, for comparatively few sailing craft are to be. 
seen there at any season of the year. But we must 
bear in mind that within that period the march of pro 
gress (though almost imperceptible to those who have 
dwelt continuously in these distant regions) has been 
rapid and startling in its results. 

A submarine cable has brought Singapore within a 
tew hours of London, while the opening of the Suez 
Canal, and the establishment of new steam navigation 
companies engaged in the China trade, have, to a great 
extent, done away with the fleets of clipper-built ships 
that formerly carried the produce from China and 
Singapore, by the long Cape route, to England. In 
the same way the absence of Chinese junks may be 
accounted for by increased facilities afforded to native, 
as well as foreign trade, through steam navigation in 
the China seas. The Chinese and the Japanese too, 
for that matter, are gradually learning to take the full 
benefit of the advantages which have thus been 
brought to their doors. 

They travel as passengers, and ship their goods by 
Kuropean steamers. This is not all ; they are now 
themselves organising steam navigation companies of 
their own. The trade of Singapore, save in times of 
unusual depression, continues steadily to advance, and 



SINGAPORE. 



55 



since the transfer of the Straits Settlements to the 
Colonial Office, their commerce is reported to have in 
creased twenty-five per cent. 

In Commercial Square the business centre of 
Singapore, where buyers and sellers most do congre 
gate the visitor will find men of widely different types, 
and a great variety of nationalities ; among them all, 
perhaps, the most conspicuous is the dark statuesque- 
looking Kling from the Malabar coast, motionless 
beside his gharry, or darting out from the deep shade 
of the trees to present his active little pony and neat 
conveyance before some warehouse, which he has long 
been watching with a hawk s eye in the hope of a hire. 
Half-a-dozen at least of his fellow-countrymen crowd 
up as quickly to the spot as he, and vent their disap 
pointment in noisy gabble, when one more lucky than 
they rattles clown the road with the prize ; a pleasure 
party, perhaps, arrayed in white, and making the most 
of the short time at their command in a. survey of the 
beauties of the island, which are neither few nor 
far between. Let us imagine ourselves on the spot. 
The square rings with that babel of sounds which 
quarrelling Klings alone know how to raise. Baulked 
in their hopes, these gharry-men have it out among 
themselves, and deafen the passers-by with a jargon of 
most unmusical sounds. These Klings seldom if ever 
resort to blows, but their language leaves nothing for 
the most vindictive spirit to desire. Once, at one of 
the landing-places, I observed a British Tar come 
ashore for a holiday. He was forthwith beset by a 
group of Kling gharry-drivers ; and finding that a volley 
of British oaths was as nothing when pitted against the 
Kling vocabulary, and that no half-dozen of them would 



56 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

stand up like men against his huge iron fists, he 
seized the nearest man, and hurled him into the sea. 
It was the most harmless way of disposing of his enemy, 
who swam to a boat, and it left Jack in undisturbed 
and immediate possession of the field. 

Commercial Square is made up of buildings both 
old and new. There are the shops, the stores, the 
banking-houses, and the merchants offices. There 
Europeans and Chinese pursue their various occupa 
tions. But the rows of new buildings, with their 
colossal proportions, cast a cool shade over the less 
assuming, antique, green-venetianed structures, erected 
in the good old clays, in times when the residents 
might hear once in six months from home, and when 
two or three successful shipments of produce from the 
4 spice islands might bring a princely fortune to their 
proprietor. Those were good times indeed, said a 
worthy but unfortunate old merchant to me. We 
lived then above our offices, a small but a very happy 
community. Now we might almost as well live in 
London as here ; steam and telegraph bring us daily 
into communication with the old world. Our Sundays 
are not our own. By night and by clay we are at work, 
writing for the mail/ His words fell little short of 
the truth. If we follow the long, cool alleys which 
separate the blocks of buildings, fragrant odours of 
spices meet us on every side. Then suddenly we 
come upon an open court or warehouse, with piles of 
block tin glistening in the dim light, and with ship 
loads of pepper, tapioca, sago, gutta-percha, ratans, 
and other oriental products, awaiting exportation, or 
being carried busily by Chinese coolies to the ships. 
The lifting power of these Herculean coolies is startling 



COMMERCIAL SQUARE. 57 

even to those who have grown familiar with the scene. 
We next enter the office, where we may be able to ex 
change a few hurried words with the Tuan-busar, or 
chief ; but there is a mail signalled, expected, or going 
out, and clapper-looking clerks sit at their various desks 
engrossed with the correspondence. We retire, there- 
tore, in haste,, not without feeling that our society, how 
ever entertaining, creates an undesirable interruption 
there. 

Let us return for a stroll round the square, peeping 
as we pass through the open doors of the bank. Here 
our ears are almost deafened by the interminable jingle 
of dollars as they are rung and weighed, or counted by 
practised Chinese schroffs. Further on is a huge 
store, and the name of its proprietor, Boon Eng, 
painted on an imposing array of signboards. 

Boon Eng himself accosts you, and invites you to 
inspect his varied assortment of the choicest European 
wares. He suggests that you should be good enough 
to sample his sherry, or eau-de vie, as they are of 
number one l brands, while his stationery, hosiery, and 
saddlery, are, as he assures you, by the best English 
manufacturers. 

A fine specimen of the Anglo-Chinese shopkeeper 
is Boon ; tall, and portly withal ; but while he courts 
your patronage, you find yourself instinctively turned 
towards the splendid carriage and pair which has just 
drawn up at his door ; and your surprise is great when 
Boon Eng himself for it is just closing time lights a 
cigar, steps into the vehicle, and is driven swiftly off 
by his Malay coachman to some pleasant villa in the 
country. The coolies by this time are leaving their 
work, and even among them one sees many who, 



58 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

naked as they are, do not despair of one day wearing 
a silken jacket and riding in a carriage like Boon. 

But now the tinkle of a bell summons us across the 
square, and we there find that a horse sale is about to 
commence. The merchants and their assistants, freed 
for the day, are scattered about in groups, and assume, 
some of them, as horsey airs as any votary of Tatter- 
sail s famous mart. An Australian ship has just 
brought a full consignment of horses. There they are, 
tethered beneath the trees, some of them likely-looking 
beasts, but somewhat stale after the voyage. One by 
one they are trotted out by Malays, or Kling grooms, 
and sold for, from twenty to two hundred dollars a- 
piece. 

I remember Mr. Rarey, formerly a magistrate on 
one of these islands, investing, at an auction of this sort, 
in what was little more than the animated framework 
and leather of an animal. He, however, undertook, 
with characteristic pluck, to make a horse of his pur 
chase in about three months, and had a small circus 
made near his stables, in which Rosinante was carefully 
exercised. He wished to prove how much good living 
and kindness would do to build up and beautify a jaded, 
worn-out animal. A few weeks afterwards my sanguine 
and enthusiastic friend invited me once more to ex 
amine the brute, as he thought it was now filling up. 
Its head and stomach seemed indeed to have become 
larger ; its powers of eating were enormous ; but I 
was constrained to confess that it was even less like a 
horse than on the day when it had changed proprietors. 
Ultimately, I believe, it died of a fit of indigestion. 

Rarey had strange fancies about animals. I found him 
on one occasion stuffing an alligator over twelve feet 



STUFFING AN ALLIGATOR. 59 

long. I had returned from a trip to the interior, and 
dropped from idle curiosity into the magistrate s court. 
Rarey descried me from his seat on the bench, and 
beckoned me to a place beside him. Now, he said, I 
have been here for a mortal hour, moving heaven and 
earth to get that prevaricating Kling rascal to tell the 
truth. He is a witness in rather an important case, 
and I really believe that for the last half hour he has been 
struggling against a heaven-born impulse to make a 
clean breast of it, and feel for once the novel sensation 
of honesty. But his efforts, mental and physical, have 
reduced him to hopeless imbecile confusion, and the 
wretch is perspiring so freely that he has quite vitiated 
the air. 

Burgoman, throw open that door ! My friend 
had evidently been waiting with impatience for a 
gleam of light from the dusky witness, and he had 
covered the paper on his desk with clever, but by 
no means flattering delineations, of his oily, shining 
countenance. 

The case had to be adjourned, and we retired to 
an open space in the rear of the court. There, 
stretched out upon tressels, and with its capacious full- 
fanged jaws at their widest, lay the largest alligator I 
have ever seen. I am stuffing this monster/ said 
Rarey, and shall send it to my brother to set up in 
his hall ; for he, like myself, is fond of curiosities which 
cannot be picked up every day. He has been a man- 
eater, this fellow ; no mistake about it ; but there s no 
stuffing the brute. I wish one or two of my peons 
(native police) would crawl clown his throat. They 
would never be missed. But lend me your cane ; the 
last lot of stuff I put in is not yet crammed down. I 



60 INDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

lent my cane accordingly, but I never recovered it, for 
it stuck fast where many a daintier morsel had van 
ished in former days, and Rarey, in an effort to get 
hold of it, only pushed it further out of his reach, and 
in the end it was associated with the stuffing. 

As I have already mentioned, some of the Aus 
tralian horses are very fair specimens ; but others, and 
those the majority, are Roman-nosed, unsightly vicious 
beasts ; and one which I bought and tried to break 
for the saddle a full-chested, fine-limbed animal had 
a nasty habit of showing the white of his eyes, and 
used to buck until his back was like a camel s. 
Mr. Kugleman, a horse-breaker, undertook to cure him 
of this trick. Mr. Kugleman was a very powerful 
man ; it was his boast he had never been thrown 
in his life. I have seen him lift a horse by the 
fore-legs, and back it into a carnage. Making 
light of the caution I was careful to administer, he 
proceeded without delay to mount my steed ; and after 
about half an hour s labour, which covered the horse 
with a lather of foam, he got him to leave the stable 
and start down the road freely, at a canter, as if quite 
subdued. In about another half-hour they returned, 
the rider with his coat ripped up the back, his face cut, 
and bearing all the marks of a heavy fall. It turned 
out that the horse took fright at a stream where Ben- 
gallee washermen were beating clothes on the rocks, 
reared, fell backwards, rolled over, and finally got up 
again with his rider still on his back. So, after all, 
Kugleman could still continue to brag that all his life 
through he had never been thrown. 

I must own that I was invariably unfortunate 
in my dealings with Australian horses. Once I had 



SUMATRAN PONIES. 61 

a young chestnut cob, not quite broken for the saddle, 
and as I rode him along the esplanade, a buggy, at a 
furious pace, rounded a sudden bend in the road, and 
one of the shafts of the buggy cut deep into his haunch. 
However, I had the wound sewn up, and in a few 
weeks time he was well and fit for the road again. 
By far the prettiest specimens of horse-flesh to be seen 
in the Straits are the native Sumatran ponies. These 
are the perfection of symmetry ; with small well-formed 
heads, full tender eyes, and necks that arch gracefully 
beneath a profusion of mane. Their chests are broad, 
their limbs fine, their hoofs round and compact ; and so 
full of spirit are these fiery little animals that many of 
them, if given the rein, would keep their pace up until 
they dropped down. 

But let me now bring my reader back to Commer 
cial Square, and pilot him along Battery Road to the 
Creek, where Malay sampans and Chinese lighters 
abound. Crossing this creek by the newly-built iron 
bridge, we next reach Beach Road and the Esplanade, 
and may see a number of well kept European hotels 
peeping out amid the trees of the gardens in which 
they stand. The esplanade runs round a large en 
closure of fine green turf a convenient cricket-field 
and recreation ground while the road itself forms a 
fashionable resort where in the cool of the evening, 
and in a double row of carriages, the wives and 
families of the residents move continuously in opposite 
directions for one or two hours at a time. In these 
daily circumgyrations we not only meet our acquaint 
ances, and exchange nods of recognition, but enjoy the 
gentle exercise and the fresh sea breeze, which are so 
essential to good health in the tropics. The number 



62 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

of equipages is surprising, and so is the nature of their 
occupants. It appears to have become necessary 
nowadays for every resident of standing to keep his 
carriage, and this because the dwelling-houses are fre 
quently a considerable distance apart. Fashion also 
demands that the carriage should be as costly a one, 
and the house as showy, as the owner s means will 
admit. After all, judging from the luxurious style in 
which the foreign residents live, we may discover, in 
some measure, how it comes that times are altered, and 
why magnificent fortunes are not piled up so easily nor 
so speedily as in former days. 

Perhaps the change is in no way to be regretted, for 
I question whether it is possible, in any part of the 
world, to find a prettier home. 

The residents, therefore, take the common sense 
view of the case. They are likely to remain long on 
the island, and determine accordingly to spend the 
time as pleasantly as they can. Their fine equipages 
must, of course, create a spirit of rivalry and a feeling 
of vanity, but it would be a dull and matter-of-fact 
world without these two instincts working everywhere 
around. 

Starting from the square again in another direction, 
we enter the native quarter, or Kling bazaar, where the 
shopkeepers sell cotton and woollen goods, cutlery and 
all sorts of glass and hardware. On the opposite side of 
the street dwell Chinese mechanics and shopkeepers, 
and there you may get almost anything made which 
you choose. 

These Chinamen are most unsightly to behold. 
Many of them are as nearly naked as possible, and if 
at all stout, they delight to expose their piggish pro- 



CHINESE ATTRIBUTES OF GREATNESS. 63 

portions to what they believe to be an admiring public 
gaze. 4 A large facie man and large belly man is 
looked upon by the Chinese as a very high type of the 
human race. He is sure to be good-hearted and 
wealthy, endowed with wisdom, and blessed with 
length of days. He is therefore careful to exhibit his 




CH1NKSK TAILORS. 



unrobed corporation to his admiring countrymen. 
Thus at mid-day his dress will consist of a pair of 
straw slippers, and cotton trowsers about six inches 
long; while if the weather is cool, his shoulders are 
covered with a white cotton jacket unfastened in front. 
But let us stop and take a look into this tailor s shop. 
A long table, covered with a white straw mat, runs up 



64 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

the centre of the apartment, and at it squat a dozen 
or more men, busy stitching" various articles of attire. 
These industrious tailors are as naked as our fat friend 
who employs them. They make garments for others, 
and go themselves uncovered. Their needles are of 
English manufacture, although similar ones are made 
in China, and they stitch away from instead of to 
themselves, as is the practice with us. 

In Singapore the Chinese far outnumber the 
Malays, and therefore they hold a more important 
position than in Penang, where the Malayan population 
is in excess. Were any serious outbreak to occur 
among the Singapore Chinese, I believe it could be 
suppressed most easily by arming the Malays, for they 
make first-class fighting men, or else by setting the 
members of one Chinese faction against the members 
of another. There are at the present time a number 
of Chinamen who fill responsible positions. One is an 
unofficial member of the Legislative Council, others 
are justices of the peace, and others again hold the 
opium and spirit farms. Many more own extensive 
tracts of cultivated land, or have large capital invested 
in commerce, and it is obviously the interest of such 
personages as these to promote peaceful and indus 
trious habits among the lower orders of their country 
men. 

If we knew nothing of Chinese clanship and 
Chinese guilds, we should think it strange that the 
wealthier Chinamen are rarely made the victims of the 
great gang robberies that, during my time, used 
frequently to occur. These robberies are perpetrated 
by bands of ruffians numbering at times as many as a 
hundred strong, who surround and pillage a house that 



CHINESE THIEVES. 65 

is always the residence of a foreigner. Chinese thieves 
are thorough experts at their profession, adopting 
the most ingenious devices to attain their infamous 
ends. I recollect a burglary which once took place at 
a friend s house, when the thief found his way into the 
principal bedroom, and deliberately used up half a box 
of matches before he could get the candle to light. 
His patience being rewarded at last, he proceeded 
with equal coolness in the plunder of the apartment, 
not forgetting to search beneath the pillow, where he 
secured a revolver and watch. These Chinese robbers 
are reported to be able to stupify their victims by using 
some narcotic known only to themselves. I have no 
doubt this was done in the case just referred to, by the 
agency of the Chinese house-servants, who perhaps in 
troduced the drug to my friend s bed. 

Chinese, when it suits their purpose, do not stick at 
trifles, as may be gathered from the fact that a China 
man, esteemed a respectable member of society, at 
tempted, on one occasion, to poison the whole foreign 
community of Hongkong with the bread he supplied. 
The Malays have told me of cases where, as they 
averred, the cunning Chinese thief passes the door 
way of the house to be pillaged, and tosses in a handful 
of rice impregnated with some aromatic drug. This 
drug soon sends the inmates off into a deep repose, 
from which they will seldom awaken till long after the 
robber has finished his undertaking, and that in the 
complete and deliberate style which suits the taste of 
the Chinese. For I must tell you that they at all times 
object to vulgar haste, whatever be the business they are 
pursuing ; and they prefer, if possible, to avoid sudden 
surprises and unexpected attacks. The slightest sound 



66 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

will make them take to cowardly flight, dropping their 
booty, and their nether garments, if any, in order to 
facilitate escape. 

But when they have a daring burglary on hand, 
they go quite naked, with the body oiled all over, and 
the queue coiled up into a knob at the back of the 
head, and stuck full of needles on every side. The 
following adventure with a Chinese burglar befel a 
friend of mine. About midnight, as he lay awake in 
his bed, with the lamp extinguished and the windows 
opened to admit the air, he saw a dark figure clamber 
over his window-sill and enter the apartment. He 
kept himself motionless, till the thief, believing all to be 
safe, had stolen into the centre of the room, and then 
sprang out of bed and seized the intruder. Both were 
powerful men, and a furious struggle consequently 
ensued ; but the robber had the advantage, for his only 
covering was a coat of oil ; so that at last, slipping like 
an eel from the grasp of his antagonist, he made a 
plunge at the window, and was about to drop into the 
garden beneath when his pursuer, with a final effort, 
managed to catch him by the tail. The tail, stuck full 
of needles, and alas ! a false one too, came away by 
the weight of the fall, and was left a worthless trophy 
in the hands of the European whom its proprietor had 
vainly tried to rob. 

The interior of the island of Singapore is less 
bold in outline than Penang, its highest peak, Buket 
Timor, being only 500 feet above the level of the sea. 
Yet Singapore has beauties of its own such as few 
other lands can boast. A number of low hills lend 
variety to the landscape, and high-roads are carried in 
broad even lines alon^ the intervening plains. Not 



SINGAPORE SCENERY. 67 

unfrequently we may travel by these roads for miles 
through unbroken avenues of fruit-trees, or beneath an 
over-arching canopy of ever-green palms, while from 
the same sylvan thoroughfares we may descry the red- 
tiled roofs of the foreign houses, on the slopes and 
crowns of the hills. The long and well kept approaches 
to these European dwellings never fail to win the 
praise of strangers. In them may be discovered the 
same lavish profusion of overhanging foliage which we 
see around us on every side, besides that there are 
often hedges of wild heliotrope cropped as square as if 
built up of stone, and forming compact barriers of 
green leaves which yet blossom with gold and purple 
flowers. 

Behind these fences broad bananas nod their bend 
ing leaves, and fan the hot path beneath, while cooler 
breezes gently ripple among the palm-trees high above 
our heads. A choice flower-garden, a close-shaven 
lawn, and a green for croquet, are not uncommonly the 
surroundings of the residence. 

If it be early morning, there is an unspeakable charm 
about the spot. The air is cool, even bracing ; and 
beneath the shade of a group of forest-trees which the 
axe has purposely spared, we see the rich blossoms of 
orchids depending from the boughs, and breathe an 
atmosphere saturated with the perfume which these 
strangely beautiful plants diffuse. Songless birds 
twitter or^ croak among the foliage above, or else 
beneath shrubs which the convolvulus has decked 
with a hundred variegated flowers. Here and there 
the slender stem of the aloe, rising from an armoury of 
spiked leaves, lifts its cone of white bells on high, or the 



68 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

deep orange pine-apple peeps out from a green belt of 
fleshy foliage, and breathes its ripe fragrance around. 

Having turned the last bencl of the path, we come 
at length upon a wide flight of steps in front of the 
house. The tiled roof and wide eaves cover a 
spacious verandah, which runs round the building on 
all sides. This verandah is supported by a row of 
plastered brick pillars of classic proportions, and is 
enclosed by a carved railing of hard polished wood. 
It has rattan blinds to shade it, and these may be let 
down, or rolled up beneath the eaves, as the position 
of the sun may require. Flowers in China vases orna 
ment the steps, and stand at intervals on the gravel 
drive in front. On one side a wall of dark foliage 
casts its cool shade over the dwelling, and from the 
other we can see through some leafy spaces the rising 
sun, casting long shadows athwart hill and dale, or 
mark its faint pencillings of golden light on the distant 
palm-crowned islands that are gradually emerging from 
the morning mists in the far-off waters of the Straits. 

If perfect peace can steal through the senses into the 
soul if it can be distilled like some subtle ether from 
all that is beautiful in nature surely, in such an island 
as this, we shall find that supreme happiness which we 
all know to be unattainable elsewhere. But here, as 
in other quarters of the globe although the residents, 
many of them, live in princely style, although the air 
is balmy, and nature bountiful cares and bitter experi 
ences still make their presence felt. In my own time 
I have had friends, who, buoyant with high hopes, and 
in the flush of youth, have left their dear old homes to 
seek fortune on this distant island, and who have 
passed away, far from the tender hands that could 



DOMESTIC SERVANTS. 69 

smooth their pillows, gazing vacantly upon the darken 
ing palms outside their windows, or dreaming of the 
sweet music of familiar voices. 

But there are other special drawbacks to life in 
Singapore. The heat, for example, is great, and must 
tell on the European constitution at last. The ther 
mometer shows an average in the shade, all the year 
round, of between 85 and 95 Fahrenheit, and this 
high temperature tends with other influences to pro 
duce a variety of the most serious disorders which flesh 
is heir to in the tropics, and a multitude of minor 
annoyances, of which prickly heat is by no means the 
least troublesome. 

The Chinese, as they stand heat well, ought to 
enjoy life to the full in such a place as this. Stepping 
round to the servants quarters, built on a slip of land 
in the rear of the house, and hidden away among the 
trees, we find that Ah-Sin, the cook, has been 
gambling overnight, and is not yet astir. There he 
lies, stretched on the Malay mat which he has spread 
for himself over a bench, and his head pillowed not un 
comfortably upon a billet of wood. A decided smell of 
opium pervades the room; but, after all, that must only 
be our own fancy, as no Chinese domestic ever smoked 
the vile drug, according to his own account. Here, 
too, is a long brick oven and fireplace, flanked by the 
usual array of pots and pans. The latter all look 
clean. This evidence of cleanliness in the Chinese 
cook is no small advantage, as I once actually found a 
Kling cook boiling a pudding in one end of the narrow 
cloth which formed his only covering, the other ex 
tremity being wound round his loins. The cook s 
mate, or larn pidgin, as they call them in Hong- 



70 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

kong, has already lit the fires, and is making his toilet. 
He must feel cool, for he wears no other apparel 
except his tail, and we see him busily engaged in 
rubbing himself down with a hot, moist cloth. At our 
approach he rapidly resumes his clothes, and puts on a 
merry look. Perhaps he has been early astir to see 
the sun rise. We enquire, and the answer is No, he 
never saw the sun rise. He evidently thinks we are 
chaffing him, as he adds, he never knew any man 
who did. 

Perhaps he admires the scenery. No ! but he 
would like, if we could tell him how, to make one dollar 
into two, and two into four, and it will probably not be 
long before he discovers the secret. The servants 
quarters are well built, and kept clean and comfortable ; 
for, with the exception of the groom and gardener, who 
are * Bugis, the domestics are all Chinese of the same 
clan from Hainan. The house-boys are now up and 
at work ; one soothes his friends by playing a native 
air on a Chinese fiddle, fashioned by drawing a snake- 
skin tightly over about two-thirds of a cocoa-nut shell 
fastened on to a long handle and tail-piece, and then 
the strings are stretched lute-fashion outside the whole 
apparatus. Our friend, the owner of the bungalow, 
has been out for a morning 1 ride, and has just returned 
to give us a hearty welcome, and to invite us to break 
fast when we have completed our inspection of his 
abode. The house is floored throughout with polished 
planks of hard wood. In the centre of the building 
stand the drawing- and dining-rooms, which we entered 

o o 

from the verandah, and which are separated from each 
other by siken screens, reaching half way up to the 
ceiling. To the right and left are the bedrooms, 



SINGAPORE RESIDENCES. 71 

approached through arched doorways, and shut off by 
similar screens, opening on hinges, and so constructed 
as to secure complete privacy, while they yet admit 
the air. In one the bed is enclosed in a huge muslin 
cage propped on a framework of wood, and large 
enough to contain also a table and reading-lamp, and 
an easy chair. This cage is entered by a tight-fitting 
doorway, and is designed as a protection against the 
moschettos, for even one of these troublesome insects 
is sufficient to banish sleep for a whole night through. 
There are long punkahs in the public rooms, and that 
luxury is not excluded even from this airy bedroom, 
for on hot nights a native sits up all night long fanning 
his lord and master to sleep. It is, doubtless, a great 
luxury to have a man servant in constant attendance 
upon one in such a place as Singapore ; but at the 
same time I have no hesitation in saying that it, and 
other evils consequent upon contact with an inferior 
race, has a debasing effect on weak natures. Youths 
who have been accustomed to none of these things, 
having once acquired the noble science of concocting 
claret-cup and cocktails, their tropical education 
rapidly extends to requiring the most contemptible 
services from long-suffering domestics. When they 
have acquired a smattering of the Malay patois/ they 
indulge in vulgar abuse, or assume a tone of injured 
forbearance ; and the keynote of their complaints is 
Boy ! what have I done that you neglect to relieve 
me of my boots and coat, prepare my bath, or help me 
to bed, administer a sherry and bitters when I seem 
languid, or a cocktail (an American drink) at seasons 
of prostration ? 

The hot climate renders some natures extremely 



72 INDO-CH1NA AND CHINA, 

irritable, and I have known really good-hearted men 
always in a ferment with their servants ; either paying 
them off in a moment of passion, or praying that they 
might return to their duties. Thus, some residents 
are despised by the humblest of Chinese dependents, 
as in their own country an ungovernable temper is 
accounted one of the lowest attributes of humanity. 

The Singapore residents have devised many 
amusements for themselves. They have their clubs, 
their bowling-alleys and fives courts, and their race 
course. Picnics are numerous, and the frequent 
gatherings at private houses are pleasantly diversified 
by performances at the Theatre, and concerts in the 
Town Hall. 

There used also to be a sporting club, and more 
than once I have been out tiger-hunting with its mem 
bers, but I never encountered anything more formidable 
than a deer. Singapore has a great name for tigers ; 
however, I never saw but one in its native jungle, 
during three years residence on the island. I have fre 
quently heard them roaring at night round my house at 
Bendulia, a plantation in which I held a share. It may 
be safely said that tigers do not nowadays destroy a 
man per diem, as they are reported to have done in 
former times. Nor is the Singapore tiger an animal 
at all likely to attack a man face to face. What they 
usually do is to pounce upon a single unfortunate 
victim as he bends over his work in some lonely field. 
The natives say that the tiger almost always attacks 
from behind, and I once saw the body of a coolie who 
had come thus to his end. Though only slightly muti 
lated, it had been thoroughly drained of its blood, and 
showed deep ragged incisions along the back and 



AN ADVENTURE IN THE JUNGLE. 73 

behind the head. Herds of pigs roam wild in the 
jungle, the pests of the Chinese squatters, whose sweet 
potatoes and other produce they ravenously devour. 
They afford good sport to Europeans. 

I once went out pig-shooting with a party, to spend 
the night in the jungle. We put up in a small watch- 
house, one of many such which are elevated in the 
jungle, standing on posts of bamboo about ten feet 
above the ground, and with a platform or flooring not 
more than six feet square ; above is a thatched roof of 
palm-leaves. We were a party of four, one of us an 
American gentleman, the finest shot in the Straits or 
supposed to be, by many. Having proceeded to a 
clearing close to the jungle, we entered on the business 
of laying in wait a ceremony by no means the most en 
joyable among those incident to the sport. These wild 
pigs feed in herds by night ; so we spread a store of 
pine-apples on the ground, and then, with such patience 
as we could muster, we tarried to see what fortune 
would send us. Our clothes were of the thinnest ; the 
stinging ants never tired of their attacks ; while the 
bloodthirsty mosquitos buzzing about our heads, and 
diving into our ears, supported the invading armies of 
ants by light incursions, which harried our necks and 
heads, so that it became most difficult to maintain the 
silence essential to the success of our expedition. At 
length, after three protracted hours of weary watching 
and unreproachful agony, we heard the distant snorts 
and grunts that heralded the approach of the swine. 
As turtle to aldermen, so are dainty pine -apples to 
these denizens of the jungle. They had got scent 
of our bait, and were moving in our direction. They 
came on, but not incautiously. Now they come 



74 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

on in bristling phalanx, and snort for the encounter, and 
now they grunt a signal to halt. Swift and agile I 
already knew them to be ; but now, too, I discovered in 
them such a happy combination of boldness and pru 
dence that I thought if undomesticated pigs could but 
overcome their greediness, they might rank among the 
noblest creatures of the forest. But, alas ! in this case as 
in too many unhappy instances of the past, the prospect 
of a rich feast was a temptation too great for their 
grovelling nature ! On they came crashing towards us, 
through the jungle in front. We grasped our rifles so 
as to sweep the clearing, and awaited the charge of the 
foe ; but unhappily preferring American to English in 
stitutions, they swept suddenly round to the field com 
manded by the doughty sportsman from the United 
States. 

Then a rifle report, a yelling and a grunting, fol 
lowed by the hasty pattering of the feet of our enemies, 
as they turned their trotters in full flight ; and lo ! when 
we hurried to the spot, expecting to find at least one 
victim to the trusty weapon of our friend, we, to our 
dismay, discovered him seated on the ground nursing 
one leg, and threatening in most unparliamentary 
language Baboo his native servant, who laughed, and 
lurked behind a tree. It appeared that the leader of the 
herd, a huge hog, had charged our friend before he 
could take aim, had ran through between his legs and 
toppled him over in the act of firing, and carried his 
followers into the jungle unscathed. Disappointed, 
but not discouraged, we determined to keep watch, 
in the hope that the pigs would return. So we fixed 
Baboo as a sentinel on the bamboo ladder of the hut, 
in such a way that he would fall off if he went to sleep, 



MALAY BRA/JRR. 75 

and then ourselves retired to rest. When we awoke 
the hot sun was shining brightly. Baboo, coiled round 
the ladder like a snake, was still fast asleep, and the 
pigs, undisturbed, had feasted upon the pine-apples 
beneath our feet. 

There are a few Malay workmen in Singapore. One 
of these, a certain * Tukang Timbago, or worker in 
brass, whose shop I used to visit, was a maker of rice- 
bowls, teapots, and spirit-flasks. His mode of casting 
the brass was most ingenious, differing from any plan 
which I have seen employed elsewhere. His patterns 
were minutely made on an instrument resembling a 
potter s wheel ; on this he placed a ball of beeswax, 
which, in a few minutes, he spun up with his fingers 
into the form of the vessel he was about to cast ; by 
this time the material had become exceedingly thin. 
If the vessel was to have a narrow mouth, he made 
his wax model in two halves, which he afterwards 
joined together. This done, he next fixed on small 
cylinders of wax, designed to form ducts for the molten 
metal. After completing the wax model, he proceeded 
to cover it with a coating inside and outside of fine 
soft clay, which he followed up with a second coating 
when the first was dry, and by continuing this process 
the whole was at length enveloped in a mass of clay, 
which was then baked hard in an oven, and the whole 
of the melted wax model allowed to flow out of the 
ducts, leaving a most perfect mould inside the clay. 
A vessel cast by this method presents a wonderfully 
smooth surface, and is quite true, and ready for the 
wheel on which it is turned for use. The extreme 
thinness, trueness, and smoothness of the casting sur 
passed anything I had ever seen before. 



7 6 JNDO-Cff/NA AND CHINA. 

J chore is, in many respects, the most interesting- 
Malayan province on the mainland. It is separated 
from Singapore by a narrow strip of water, and it is in 
its wild forests and inland mountains that we meet 
with a type of man by far the most primitive that these 




JACOONS. 



regions have to show. These are the Jacoons, who, 
like the Orang-outan, or Mias of Borneo, are reported 
to dwell in trees ; and yet this poor remnant of an 
aboriginal people has at times proved of more use to 
the ruler of the state than the Malays themselves. 



y A COONS. 77 

The Tumongong, who is the Malayan chief of 
Johore, has steadily sought the friendly intercourse 
and council of his English neighbours ; and in place of 
spending all his leisure in the time-honoured science of 
gambling, in cock-fighting, and in his harem, he has set 
himself to the task of developing the resources of his 
country. He has planted steam saw-mills at the point 
opposite Singapore, this being the place most con 
venient for the exportation of timber ; and he has run 
a line of rails up to his forests, where giant specimens 
of the finest timber in the world are to be found. 
While thus making clearings on new soil, and offering 
facilities for the industrious Chinese pioneer to settle in 
his dominions, he is steadily adding to his resources by 
the export of wood which grows in unlimited quantities 
in his vast primeval jungles. But while doing all this, 
he is driving from their wild haunts a simple, untutored, 
and most interesting type of the human family, the 
Jacoons, to whom I have referred. This is a race 
living almost solely on the bounty of nature, in the 
food-producing trees and shrubs that grow w r ild in the 
interior. They are said to be the true aboriginal 
inhabitants of the land. The pure specimens among 
them are woolly-haired and dark-skinned ; the same 
sort of people, indeed, whom we meet with in the 
Papuans of New Guinea, in the natives of many of 
the Pacific islands, and in the mountains of Indo- 
China. My only regret is that I do not know more 
about them. They have been used in various ways 
by the Tumongong, in cutting wood and clearing a 
route for the railway. They, however, detest the 
Malays, and hold no direct intercourse with them. 



78 IN DO CHINA AND CHINA. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Siam The Menam River Bangkok Buddhist Temples The King, 
Defender of his Faith Missions Buddhist Priests The Priest in his 
Cell The first King s Visit to the Wats The Court of the Dead 
Chinese Speculator investing in a Corpse The Krum-mun-along- 
kot An Inventor wanted Taking the King s Portrait The King 
describes the Tonsure Ceremony The King s Request Mode of 
administering Justice Gambling Floating Houses A Trip . to 
Ayuthia Creek Life Visit to Petchiburee. 

THE Menam, or Mother of Waters, is for some miles 
above its entrance a broad, sluggish, and uninteresting 
stream, flowing between low banks, and flat alluvial 
plains. When I visited Siam in the steamer Chow 
Phya/ I went ashore at Paknam, the first town on the 
river, and made the acquaintance of a native officer who 
had charge of the customs station, and who honoured 
me with an audience at his residence. There I found 
him surrounded by a group of crouching slaves, by half- 
a-dozen children, and by as many wives. The impres 
sion the scene made is still fresh in my recollection. 
The house and inmates differed from anything I had 
ever come across among the Malays or Chinese ; nor 
were tokens of refinement wanting, in embroidered 
wedge-shaped cushions, couches covered with finely 
plaited mats, wrought vessels of gold or silver, and 
robes of silken attire. The cool and peculiar fashion of 
dressing the hair, adopted by both sexes, alike resembled 



THE MEN AM RIVER, SI AM. 79 

an inverted horse-brush laid upon the crown of the 
head. But the sanitary arrangements were extremely 
defective ; oppressive odours of putrid fish and garlic 
pervaded the establishment, while the dresses of the 
party, though finely wrought, were insufficient for the 
purposes of decency, according to our own more fas 
tidious Western tastes. Everywhere, from Paknam to 
Bangkok, we fell in with numbers of the people, but with 
few who were not boating, or bathing themselves in the 
stream. Here and there a scattered hamlet stood up 
above the steaming, unwholesome, moschetto-haunted 
marshes, like some giant grasshopper sunning its back 
while it cooled its feet in the mud. 

As we near the capital, the scenery grows more in 
teresting and varied. Palms, fruit-trees, and groves of 
feathery bamboo, diversify the plains ; and the latter, 
when covered with half-grown crops of rice, present a 
vast surface of vivid and beautiful green. I arrived in 
Bangkok on September 28, 1865, and steamed up 
through the floating city in the dimness of the early 
morning light. It is a place which other travellers 
have already described ; yet, as I spent some time there, 
the reader will pardon me if I give my own impressions 
of what struck me as its most remarkable features. 
When I use the term * floating city, I mean to say that 
the dwellings of the people are for the most part afloat 
on rafts, and it is impossible at first sight to determine 
where land begins, and where it ends. Before proceed 
ing to describe these aquatic abodes and their amphi 
bious-looking inhabitants, I must remind the reader 
that my first ideas as to the splendour of this oriental 
city were gathered at dawn, when I was gazing upon 
the towers and roofs of more than half a hundred 



So 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

temples, standing each of them in its own consecrated 
ground. I enquired of what material these strange edi 
fices were made, for their towers seemed ablaze as with 
jewels, and sparkled like refined gold. The thought 
(I confess) crossed my mind, how great a profit 
some powerful Christian government might secure by 
despoiling these heathen idols, and pulling down these 
4 summer-palace ? looking shrines ! But the reply to my 
enquiry somewhat modified my views, and I learnt to 
my disappointment that these temples are nothing 
more than brick and mortar embellished with gilding, 
foreign soup-plates, and bits of coloured glass. A trader, 
as I afterwards learnt, not many years back, imported 
a ship-load of foreign crockery, including toilet-services, 
dinner-services, dessert-services, and other miscellaneous 
china wares. But the stock was long in tempting 
buyers, and remained unprofitably on the owner s hands. 
At last, however, he persuaded a wealthy native noble 
man, who was engaged in the completion of a Buddhist 
shrine, to invest in the lot, assuring his purchaser that 
in European places of worship hand-basins and other 
less ornamental but highly useful vessels were esteemed 
the most recherche adornments. The simple-minded 
devotee proceeded in all good faith to decorate his 
temple, sticking willow-pattern pudding-plates a-row in 
the plaster, and working hand-basins or dish-covers 
fantastically into the balconies and parapet ornamenta 
tion. But the deception was not long in coming out, 
and the trader in consequence lost his reputation, 
together with all future prospect of business with the 
Siamese. It was said, and I believe with truth, that he 
was even never paid for the crockery, some of which 
may still be seen imbedded immovably in the mortar, 



SIAMESE BUDDHIST TEMPLES. 81 

to point a silent moral on the consequence of commer 
cial disingenuousness. Temple spires in Siam are 
decorated, most of them, with rich mosaics of glass, 
porcelain, and enamel, and present, as they shine in the 
sunlight, a dazzling coruscation which it is difficult to 
describe. These edifices are usually erected during 
the lifetime or out of the proceeds of the estate of some 
nobleman, as sacred and meritorious works. There 
were, as nearly as I could make out, sixty-five Buddhist 
temples in the city during the time of my visit, and 
the priests attached to these numbered more than nine 
thousand. Bangkok is one of the great Buddhist centres, 
and the faith there is of a purer type than in the Chinese 
Empire, where the teachings of Gautama are mixed up 
with Taouism, with Confucianism, and with the remains 
of a form of worship still earlier even than these. No 
Siamese is qualified for an official position until he has 
been at least three months in the cloister, wearing the 
yellow robes of Buddhism, and performing the services 
of a priest. 

The King himself is High Priest, and defender 
of the faith. The late monarch spent about thirty years 
in monastic seclusion before he ascended the throne, 
and the distinguished reputation for his knowledge of 
Sanscrit and Pali scholarship, which he subsequently en 
joyed, was due to his having made the Buddhist litera 
ture his study throughout this period of his career. 
Late in life he turned his attention to English, and at 
tained such a proficiency in that language as enabled 
him to write and converse in it with comparative ease, 
though with an idiomatic quaintness and force of ex 
pression by which his not unfrequent communications 
to the Bangkok Recorder were at once detected. 



82 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

He disliked to have his Anglo- Siamese manuscripts 
mutilated or corrected; and for this reason he established 
a royal printing-office, where his English, probably 
under penalty of death, was set up just as it was written 
down. At one time a series of letters from his pen 
were published in the Bangkok Recorder under the 




SIAMESE r.UDDHIST PRIEST. 



signature of the Buddhist Champion, and in these he 
sought to defend and vindicate his own creed. These 
letters were answered by the late and much-esteemed 
Dr. Bradley, who spent his life as a Protestant mis 
sionary in Siam. Among other things the King main 
tained that Buddhist images were never set up as 
objects of worship. These images, always so remark- 



BUDDHIST IMAGES. 83 

able for their expression of perfect serenity and repose, 
were simply designed to aid the souls of the devout in 
their abstracting themselves from all the cares and strife 
of natural existence, and in reaching that supreme in 
animate repose typified by the idol, and regarded as the 
chief attribute of the great Gautama himself. 

This is all very well for the cultured Buddhist, but 
then there are millions of men in Siam and China who 
hardly know who Buddha was, and who have an 
ignorant belief in the images themselves. The King 
admitted that the teveda (or angels) of the temples 
were more or less mythological characters. He did not 
know whether they had any real existence, or what sort 
of duties they were designed to fulfil. If Christians/ 
he said, have more prosperity than any other sect, if 
they have more wealth, live to a greater age, have more 
happiness, and do not grow old, nor die, nor do not 
become poor, I will agree with you that the Christian 
religion is indeed a blessing. But this blessing I do 
not yet see, and how can I hold it ? Another style of 
argument, and one not so easy to confute, was that 
Christians are disagreed among themselves as to what 
their creed should be. There was only one Christ, and 
there are a great many different sects ; the broadest 
differences existing between Roman Catholics and re 
formed churches, while narrower shades of faith divide 
the Protestant ranks. The King therefore summed up 
his case by the very natural enquiry as to how he was 
to determine which sect was in the rirfit. 

o 

But after all there is no more uniformity of doc 
trine among the Buddhists than is to be found within 
the Christian Church ; yet, I cannot forbear remarking 
hero, that in the Buddhist countries which I have 



84 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

visited, the sectarianism of the Christian missions is 
a great bar to their success. If Missionary Societies 
.would but unite, if they would but sink their narrow 
differences, and agree to abide by one scholarly trans 
lation of the Bible into the language of the land they 
labour in, they would by so doing command a far 
wider influence among the educated and influential 
classes than at present, unfortunately, it is in their 
power to do. As a rule, the missionaries who meet 
with the greatest respect, even among the lower orders 
of the natives, are the men of the highest culture and 
attainments ; those indeed, who made the greatest 
sacrifices when they abandoned their home and pros 
pects, to work on with patient long-suffering, and in 
obscurity, in these distant heathen lands. Each Budd 
hist monastery is in charge of an abbot or chief priest, 
who receives a small monthly stipend from the 
Government or noble to whom the establishment be 
longs. Under the abbots are the priests, the novices, 
and the pupils ; the latter receiving their education 
at the hands of the monks, who are the only school 
masters in the land. When twenty years of age, the 
novice, if he chooses, may be ordained a priest ; and 
shaving his head and eyebrows anew, and donning 
the full canonicals of his yellow-robed order, he 
takes the priestly vows. Indolent persons and men of 
doubtful character not unfrequently take to the cloister, 
for reasons best known to themselves. Each Wat or 
temple contains as many of the sacrecl order as the 
neighbourhood can afford to feed. Every morning, at 
daybreak, these pauper priests may be met going their 
rounds by land in silent Indian file, or else sitting like 
Buddhas, in their small canoes, which their pupils 



A BUDDHIST MONK. 85 

paddle for them from house to house. Mutely they 
halt before each door, and await the dole of rice, fruit, 
and vegetables on which they depend for support, the 
bundles of burees (cigars) and their scraps of betel- 
nut and seri, with which their long hours of leisure are 
to be beguiled. Their chambers in the monasteries 
are almost like prison cells. One priest I knew well, 
and was in the habit of visiting, divided his atten 
tion between the pursuits of literature, perfect self-ab 
sorption, and the taming of a colony of white rats and 
mice. This devotee s cell was lit by a small window, 
and screened by a faded filthy Buddhist robe, which 
allowed a feeble streak of sunshine to struggle into the 
cold interior. At one end of the apartment there was a 
simple platform of wood, covered by a straw mat. On 
this he slept at night ; on this he sat, wrapped in silent 
meditation, brooding over his sins by day. 

Above, in a dark corner, was a cage where his little 
favourites were busily at work upon a tread-mill. 
These rats and mice he tended with the most peculiar 
care, because their white skins have a sacred signifi 
cance for the Buddhists, and each tiny body may con 
tain, as is supposed, the spirit of some Buddha of the 
future. 

A number of sacred books on a shelf, one or two 
bowls of brass or coarse eathenware, and a mat on the 
clay floor, completed the furniture of the dwelling. 
This recluse had a taste for drawing, and was occupied 
in decorating the inner wall of a royal Wat with ob 
jects of Buddhist mythology. The cartoons produced 
were remarkable for gracefulness of outline, richness of 
colouring, and strange imagery ; the faces of several he 
copied from photographs, and other pictures which I 



86 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

supplied to him ; and he would experiment sometimes 
with my water-colours, though, on the whole he pre 
ferred his own, or those of Chinese make. The 
majority of the Buddhist priests in Siam are, I suspect, 
but moderate scholars. They can read Siamese of 
course, and possess, some few of them, a smattering of 
Pali ; but, though they profess greatly to venerate 
Sanscrit, theirs is the reverence of the ignorant, rather 
than an admiration for that which they really com 
prehend. I make this remark from the fact that, after 
my visit to Cambodia, a number of the most noted 
priests translated one or two of the inscriptions found 
on the ancient temples in that country. But although 
the original texts were in every case the same, the 
renderings were never alike. My fellow-traveller, Mr. 
Kennedy, who is now at work translating these in 
scriptions, has found them to be in an ancient Pali 
character, much allied to the Kawi of the Javanese ; 
and had the priests been able to travel at all beyond 
the strict language of their own sacred books, they 
would assuredly have made these inscriptions out. 
The late King of Siam was a man of a different stamp ; 
had he given his attention to this subject, I feel no 
doubt that he could have translated the inscriptions 
into Siamese, at any rate, if not into the English 
tongue. 

It is the annual custom for the King, in the month 
of November, to visit certain royal temples, and to 
make offerings to their priests. On these occasions the 
monarch may be seen arrayed in all the splendour of 
his jewelled robes, enthroned in his state barge, and 
paddled by about a hundred men. Behind him follow 
the nobles of his court, almost as grand, and thus the 



WAT SEKET. 87 

pageant moves in long procession down the river or 
along its network of canals. This progress in boats 
was one of the most imposing spectacles I ever beheld 
in the East. I do not, however, suppose that either the 
first or second Kings ever visited Wat Seket, or even 
the outer precints of that temple. The principal build 
ing at Wat Seket is a huge unfinished pile of bricks 
and mortar intended, as I suppose, to symbolize Mount 
Meru, the centre of the Buddhist universe the sum 
mit of which commands an extensive view of the palm 
groves, and house roofs of Bangkok ; but the special, 
and most melancholy feature of this sacred edifice is a 
court in the rear, where the bodies of the dead, who 
have no friends to bury them, are cast out to the dogs 
and vultures to be devoured. I paid one visit to that 
place. Few would willingly turn their steps thither a 
second time ! Following a narrow path through an 
avenue of trees, we came at length upon a walled-in 
enclosure intended for the reception of the dead. In 
the centre stood a small charnel house, while the pave 
ment round about was covered with black stains and 
littered with human bones, bleached white by the sun. 
An overpowering stench of carrion pervaded the 
atmosphere of the place. On a sudden the light was 
obscured, and down dropped a troop of vultures from 
the trees above, lazily flapping their dry parchment- 
looking wings, and sweeping a pestilential blast into 
our faces as they rustled slowly through the air. Next 
a hungry pack of mangy clogs rushed howling into the 
enclosure. And then, tardily wending its way up the 
avenue, followed a procession of slaves and mourners, 
bearing a naked corpse upon a bier. We made way 
for this funeral train, and saw them deposit the dead 



88 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

body upon the ground ; the vultures meanwhile limping 
forward with a whistling, jerking noise, thrusting out 
their bare scaly necks to within a few feet of the 
corpse, and only kept off by an attendant with the 
aid of a bamboo rod. At length, when the funeral 
train had withdrawn, the leader of the vultures ran 
forward, tapped the corpse on the forehead to make 
sure that life was extinct, and then, in an instant, had 
scooped out its eyes. Horror-stricken, we rushed 
away from the spot, and left these ill-omened birds to 
feast and squabble over their prey. This was by no 
means the only sickening sight I encountered in 
Bangkok. One clay, when passing along the main 
thoroughfare in the city, I found a Chinaman seated 
by a temple gate, with a naked corpse at his feet. His 
object was to collect contributions from the devout to 
defray the costs of cremation. The Siamese responded 
well to his appeal, as they believe that by practising 
acts of charity they will win favour in a future state. 
But as for the Chinaman, he had purchased the body 
as a pure speculation. He was, indeed, bound to burn 
jt, and he had paid the bereaved family about half-a- 
crown, promising to remove their deceased relative and 
burn him at a Wat. Out of the money collected by an 
exhibition so sensational, this curious undertaker 
supplied funds for firewood, and pocketed a handsome 
balance. 

I applied, through the British Consul, for permission 
to photograph the first King s palace. This was at 
once conceded, and his majesty was pleased to ap 
point a day on which I should take his own portrait as 
well. The King requested me to visit his abode on 
Monday, October 6, in the company of the Krum- 



A UM-MUN- AL ONGKOT. 89 

mun-alongkot, a nobleman holding the position ot 
chief astronomer, that is, the head of the astrologers 

> 

attached to the palace. His majesty s letter informed 
me, among other things, that his royal brother was 
well understanding of the work of taking photographs, 
and being with Mr. Thomson will have good oppor 
tunity to do according to his pleasure in and about this 
palace. Here was indeed a fine sample of Siamese 
king s English. I found the Krum-mun an agree 
able old mandarin, but, if anything, a little inclined to 
boast of his own scientific attainments. He stood 
about five feet four inches, and was 53 years of age ; 
but he wore a very haggard expression, and indeed 
looked much older than he really was. He was 
dressed, when at home, in a light jacket, much too 
small to cover him, and wore a band of silk around 
his loins. His shrunken limbs were bare, and his feet 
encased in richly-embroidered slippers ; but on other 
occasions, when he paid me a visit, for example, he 
assumed much more ample and costly attire, putting 
the last finish to the whole toilet by covering his head 
with a European cap, braided all over with gold lace. 
Mahomet AH, a Malay in the service of Mr. Ames, 
the commissioner of police, acted as my interpreter, 
translating the Siamese into Malay. Ali was, however, 
sometimes at a loss to make out the prince s words, as 
his mouth was frequently stuffed with a ball of seri- 
leaf and betel. Although kind and hospitable, the 
prince was not a man calculated to inspire awe into his 
beholders. Around his singular figure were grouped 
a number of his attendants and slaves, who crowded 
reverently on their hands and knees. The room in 
which we were received was filled with foreign ma- 



90 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

chinery, scientific instruments, and articles of domestic 
use. In one corner there was a telegraphic machine, 
backed by a statue of Buddha. In the lap of the 
image there was a Siamese flute (the idol was off 
duty and under repair), and an electro-plated coffee-pot, 
which had evidently been forced into some unnatural 
use. There were also watch- tools, turning-lathes, and 
telescopes, guitars, tom-toms, fiddles, and hand-saws ; 
while betel-nut boxes, swords, spears, and shoe-brushes, 
rifles, revolvers, windsor-soap, rat-paste, brass wire, 
and beer bottles, were mingled in heterogeneous con 
fusion. 

Having been dismissed to a sumptuous native 
repast, served up for me in one of the smaller apart 
ments, I rejoined my conductor at the King s palace 
gate. 

Before leaving this subject, I must confess that I 
was surprised at the ingenuity which this royal astro 
nomer displayed, and at his honest desire to understand 
the foreign instruments which he set up in his apart 
ment for contemplation. One day he took a very fine 
sextant to pieces in order to discover how it had been 
constructed, and having fathomed the mystery, he felt 
very grateful to me for helping him to set it again 
together. Another time he called upon me with a 
royal letter in a splendid gold case, which set forth 
that his brother the King (who was a decided wag) had 
commanded him to find a foreign inventor, a man who 
could invent anything, and he wished to know how 
much monthly salary such a genius would require. 
The King, he said, desired when taking an airing of an 
evening to indulge freely in shooting his subjects ; 
but the gun must be planned so that the progress of 




A SI. \MI.SI. I KIXi ! . AM) AIII NhANI 



AN INVENTOR WANTED. 91 

the ball would be arrested when it had just penetrated 
half an inch beneath the skin. He only wanted, in 
this way, to strike terror into the hearts of his people 
by firing at them and then miraculously saving 
their lives. My noble friend Krum-mun-alongkot 
may have been a very accomplished Siamese astro 
nomer, able to determine, from the march of the 
heavenly bodies through stellar space, whether the 
year, as it passed, was that of the rat, the hog, or the 
goat ; but although he had a number of our finest 
instruments, he had made but little progress in the 
science as we understand it. His sextants and quadrants 
were out of adjustment, his chronometers refused to 
keep time, and the lenses of his telescopes were 
dimmed with oxidation. I found him one day busily 
studying * Thomson s Tables ; but the book was upside 
down, and he gave it up in despair as he was called off 
to put a fresh spoke in a wheel of a royal carriage. 

After we had become better acquainted, he intro 
duced me to his family circle. He had, I believe, 
sixteen wives, although I never saw more than twelve 
at a time ; some of these were young and pretty, but 
no less timid in their behaviour, than unhappy in their 
looks. He told me it was a difficult task to keep his 
wives cheerful ; they were modest and graceful ladies, 
and they expressed their surprise that a foreigner was 
after all a very harmless sort of animal. They were 
usually engaged in embroidery, and their needlework 
displayed both beauty of design and skill. I thought 
it a pity to see them smoking cigarettes, or chewing 
betel-nuts, the teeth blackened with the incrustation, 
and their mouths disfigured with blood-reel juice ; they 
had also perforce a nasty habit of spitting into golden 



92 1NDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

vases which their slaves held up dutifully for the pur 
pose. As for the children, they seemed to be born 
with a cigarette in their mouths. I have actually seen 
a child leave its mother s breast to have a smoke. 
This buree or cigarette is made of native tobacco, 
rolled up in a strip of dried plantain leaf, and cut even 
at the two ends. These cigarettes may be bought in 




SIAMESE LADY. 



bundles of one hundred for a few cents, and are really 
very good smoking. 

But to the palace. In front of the entrance gates 
we found a guard of soldiers drawn up, who presented 
arms to the Prince as he passed through. Soon 
we reached an inner court, and there fell in with a 
group of nobles, who crouched upon the pavement 
before our royal guide, and seemed, many of them, 
as if vainly anxious to render their portly figures 



THE LATE FIRST KING OF SIAM. 93 

invisible to a personage of such exalted rank. After 
a pleasant refreshment of fruit, cake, and wine, we 
were informed that his majesty was engaged in his 
morning devotions, and that during his absence we 
could amuse ourselves by examining the objects of 
interest in the audience hall. This palace has been 
constructed partially in a foreign style. A flight of 
broad marble steps conducts us within the audience 
hall, and facing us, as we enter, is the throne of state, 
ablaze with gold and jewels, and erected in the centre 
of the back wall of the apartment. The furniture in 
the room made up a miscellaneous collection of Chinese, 
Siamese, and European wares ; the pillars were covered 
with polished brass to the height of four feet above 
their bases. At one end of the hall were life-sized 
portraits of Napoleon III. and the Empress of the 
French, while a well-executed picture of the late 
Siamese King adorned the opposite side of the apart 
ment. A shrill blast of horns heralded the approach 
of the King, and caused us hastily to descend into the 
court. His majesty entered through a massive gate 
way, and I must confess that I felt much impressed 
by his appearance, as I had never been in the presence 
of an anointed sovereign before. He stood about five 
feet eight inches, and his figure was erect and com 
manding ; but an expression of severe gravity was 
settled on his somewhat hazard face. His dress was 

oo 

a robe of spotless white, which reached right down to 
his feet ; his head was bare. I was admiring the 
simplicity and purity of this attire, when his majesty 
beckoned to me to approach him, and informed me 
that he wished to have his portrait taken as he knelt 
in an attitude of prayer. I accordingly adjusted my 



94 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

instrument, but not without a feeling of some surprise, 
for I had thought, incorrectly, as I afterwards dis 
covered, that a Buddhist had no need of prayer. All 
was prepared beneath a space in the court, which had 
been canopied and carpeted for this special purpose ; 
when, just as I was about to take the photograph, his 
majesty changed his mind, and without a word to any 
one passed suddenly out of sight. I thought this a 
strange proceeding, and fancied I must have given 
him some offence ; but it was possibly only one of his 
practical jokes. I appealed to the Prince ; but his 
reply was simply that * the King does everything which 
is right, and if I were to accost him now he might 
conclude his morning s work by cutting off my head. 

As that would have been a result distasteful to his 
royal highness, we patiently waited, and at length 
the King reappeared, dressed this time in a sort of 
French Field Marshal s uniform. There was no 
cotton stuff visible about his person now, not even 
stockings. The portrait was a great success, and his 
majesty afterwards sat in his court robes, requesting 
me to place him where and how I pleased. I con 
sulted the Prince, who said * Yes, place him, but do 
not for the life of you lay hands on him, more especi 
ally on his thrice sacred head. 

Here was a difficultty. How to pose an Oriental 
potentate who has ideas of his own as to propriety in 
attitude, and that, too, without touching a fold of his 
garments ? I told the King, in plain English, what I 
wanted to do, and he said, Mr. Town-shim, do what 
you require for the excellency of your photograph. 
He enquired my nationality. I told him I was born 
in Edinburgh. Ah ! you are Scotchman, and speak 



THE TONSURE FESTIVAL. 95 

English I can understand ; there are Englishmen here 
who have not understanding of their own language 
when I speak. 

When all had been finished, his majesty thanked 
me and retired, and then the Krum-mun-alongkot 
invited me to join him at a table spread with Siamese 
and foreign delicacies. The nobles also, at his high- 
ness s invitation, added their presence to the repast. 

By request of the King I afterwards attended the 
great Tonsure Festival, or So-Kan, as the Siamese call 
it, when the heir-apparent, Prince Chowfa Chul-along- 
korn, who has since come to the throne, was deprived 
of the top-knot of his boyhood for the first time a 
solemn hair-cutting ceremony conducted with all the 
pride, pomp, and circumstance of a sacred Brahminical 
rite. The festival lasted six days, and was concluded 
on January 6, 1866. 

Within the grounds of the first King s palace, there 
is a large paved quadrangle surrounded by picturesque 
buildings of an architecture purely Siamese, and 
shaded, here and there, by the wide-spreading banyan 
and other umbrageous trees ; flowering shrubs adorn 
this enclosure, and in the centre there had been erected, 
by the King s command, an artificial hill known as 
Mount Khrai-lat, and bearing a tiny shrine upon its 
summit. In this shrine were deposited the sacred 
vessels, a throne for the reigning sovereign, and a 
font of holy water which the priests of Brahma had 
blessed. As to the hill itself, it rested on a strong 
substructure of teak-wood, and was entirely made up, 
externally, of thin sheets of lead ; so fashioned as to re 
present a variety of rocks and fantastic caverns with 
tanks for water hollowed here and there. The whole had 



96 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

been artfully painted and patched with moss, while 
living trees and flowers were stuck about it in a pro 
fusion that far outstripped nature in her most gorgeous 
tropical luxuriance. 

Perhaps the most important, certainly the most 
conspicuous feature, in the pageant was the procession 
which each afternoon escorted the young Prince thrice 
round the sacred Mount Khrai-lat. This procession 
was got up on a scale of great splendour. The chief 
members of the nobility marched in its ranks, arranged 
in costumes of an ancient type ; hundreds of the King s 
wives followed, glistening in silks of varied hues ; while 
female slaves dressed up to represent the women of 
various foreign nations brought up the rear of the 
phalanx. The imitations of English ladies were par 
ticularly ludicrous, for while the contrast between the 
graceful, modest native costumes and the huge crino 
line and chignon of the West, could not fail to strike 
every beholder, the awkward carriage and the faces 
stained a golden colour till they looked like harvest 
moons, gave a rendering of the pretty English originals, 
of which their country is so justly proud, rather less 
faithful than a stiff painted Dutch doll. The most at 
tractive element in the whole procession was a white- 
robed band of children, the daughters of the nobility, 
who bore peacocks feathers, or other emblems, in front 
of the young Prince s palanquin. Three of the ladies 
were dressed in cloth of gold jewelled with a dazzling 
array of precious stones, and dancing in front of the 
throne. Among other photographs which I took 
on the spot, one represents his majesty as he receives 
his son and places him on his right hand, amid the 
simultaneous adoration of the prostrate host. Mrs. 



SACRED BRAHMINICAL NUMBERS. 97 

Leonowens, who ought to have known better, has 
made use of this photograph in a work on Siam which 
recently appeared under her name, and described it 
wrongly as Receiving a Princess. 

After this ceremony two ladies, here in waiting, 
conduct the Prince down the marble steps of the 
Pavilion, and two pretty young damsels are in 
readiness below to bathe his feet in a silver urn. 
Thence he betakes himself to a temple hard by, where 
the top-knot is solemnly removed. The next business 
is to dedicate the sacred hill, by a sort of baptism of 
fire, the priests carrying lighted tapers thrice round its 
base on three successive nights. The entire ceremony 
is long and tedious ; but I think the most interesting 
feature was the purificatory ablution, which the Prince 
performed in a tank at the foot of Mount Khrai-lat. I 
believe, however, that I was the only European who 
witnessed this important part of the Brahminical cere 
mony. It is curious to remark, throughout these 
ancient Oriental rites, the importance attached to the 
sacred numbers three and nine. Thus we find that 
the circle of fire which is carried round the Mount is 
completed three times each day for three days in suc 
cession, in all making up nine circles of fire. The same 
mystic reverence for certain numbers may be observed 
in parts of the Chinese Alar as well as in the ceremonial 
at the Temple of Heaven, in Peking. There we have a 
triple terrace and triple roofs, while nines, or multiples 
of nine, may be counted in the steps and balustrades, and 
even in every circle of stones with which the terraces and 
top are paved. In Cambodia, also, we find a kindred 
symbolism in the three chief approaches on the outer 
cruciform pavement of Nakon-Wat, in the three gate- 

H 



98 INDO CHINA AND CHINA. 

ways on each side, in the three terraces leading to the 
central tower, and in the three ornaments which crown 
the brows of the Teveda (angels) sculptured on its 
walls. Many of the great stone images of Cambodia 
are still called Phrom or Brahma by the natives, and 

there can be little doubt that the three cfalleries of this 

t> 

temple were designed for the use of the priests in 
carrying out Brahminical ceremonials, after the pattern 
of the Sokan and other Siamese festivals. I shall per 
haps have more to say on this point when we reach 
the succeeding chapter. 

After I returned from Cambodia I witnessed the 
actual ceremony of cutting the top-knots of five of the 
second King s sons. The first King having sent for 
me, I had accompanied the Prince Krum-mun- 
alongkot, to await his majesty in an outer court in 
the palace of the second King. There, at length, I 
fell into the procession of soldiers, priests, and 
Tevedas or angels, marching to the temple in which 
the ceremony was to be performed. In the front court 
of this temple we were detained for about half an 
hour, and then his majesty came out, walked up to 
me, and gave me his hand. He enquired kindly about 
our journey, said he was glad to know that we had 
got safely back, but could not forbear wondering why 
two rational Englishmen should undergo so long a 
journey, at the risk of being either devoured by wild 
animals, or carried off by jungle fever, only to sec 
some stone buildings very much out of repair, and this 
more especially as he placed no restriction upon our 
looking at his own magnificent Wats in Bangkok. I 
presented his majesty with a set of my photographs 
of the Cambodian antiquities, with which he seemed 



AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KING. 



99 



very much astonished. What can I do for you, Mr. 
Tomo-shun ? said he. I will give you, if you wish, a 
free passage to Singapore. Perhaps he took me for 
a yak or evil spirit, and wanted me well out of his 
dominions. At any rate he may have honestly 
thought that anyone who would take the trouble to go 
so far to examine dilapidated specimens of ancient 
masonry had better be looked upon as insane, and 
treated as a dangerous character. This conversation 
ended, the King led me by the hand to the door of 
the Wat, and there described to me the hair-cutting 
ceremony. I was startled by the unexpected beauty 
of the scene within. The walls were frescoed with 
cartoons, their bright colours softened by the dim 
religious light ; while at the inner extremity was a 
pyramid decked with flowers, and surmounted by a gilt 
image of Samana Khodom. The floor was of marble, 
and there was a low altar in the centre, on which a 
number of slender tapers burnt. The five royal chil 
dren sat to the left of this altar, robed in white, and 
having nobles of hiq^h rank on their riirht hand. 

O O O 

Arranged in, circles around the central group were 
others of the King s children, many of them of rare 
beauty, and all perfectly motionless and silent. At 
length, and as if prompted by the monotonous strains 
of music that broke on the ear, the most venerable 
noble took a lighted taper from the altar, and delivered 
it to the outer circle of priests, who, in their turn, 
passed it on from hand to hand, until the fire had com 
pleted the circuit. This was repeated three times, and 
thus the objects of the ceremonial were consecrated by 
what the King tolcl me was an ancient Brahminical 
ceremony, and which we have seen above as the rite 



H 2 



ioo INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

most prominent in the dedication of Mount Khrai-lat. 
His majesty then asked me if I thought that the 
ancient temples of Cambodia belonged to Siam. I 
said I supposed they did, and he promised to give me 
some information on that subject before I quitted his 
dominions. Faithful to his word, the King afterwards 
paid my passage to Singapore, and presented me, in 
addition, with two golden mangoosteens and a cigar-case 
elaborately inlaid with gold. He also sent me a letter 
in English, from which I take the following extract : 

I beg to take from you a promise that you should 
state everywhere verbally, or in books, and newspapers, 
public papers, that those provinces Battabong and 
Onger, or Nogor Siam, belonged to Siam continually 
for eighty-four years ago, not interrupted by Cambo 
dian princes or Cochin China. The fortifications of 
those places were constructed by Siamese Government 
thirty-three years ago. The Cambodian rulers cannot 
claim in these provinces, as they have ceded to Siamese 
authority eighty-four years ago. 

Space will not admit an exhaustive account of my 
travels and experiences in Siam. I must leave out 
much that might interest the reader, and as briefly as 
possible conclude this part of my subject, before I pro 
ceed to Cambodia. The physical characteristics of the 
Siamese have been frequently described ; I need only 
say, therefore, that they resemble the Chinese more 
closely than is the case with the Malays, and on the 
other hand there is something so purely Indian in 
their appearance as to forbid our classing them with 
the Mongolian or Tartar races. They are indeed 
Indo-Chinese, and their institutions, political or re 
ligious, their manners and their customs, partake of 



THE MAGISTERIAL MARKET. 101 

the same mixed character. The state ceremonials 
are of ancient Brahminical origin, while in their mode 
of governing, and in their code of laws, they have 
borrowed much from China in former days. As in 
the Celestial Empire, many of the magistrates of Siam 
receive but a nominal salary (or practically, no salary 
at all), and they undisguisedly make up for the lack of 
revenues by a not unrecognised system of corruption, 
a handsome bribe being found to be a powerful witness 
in favour of a client in the court where his case is tried. 
Polygamy, too, flourishes among the Siamese with 
greater vigour even than in the Flowery Land. 
Opium is a luxury in both countries, and gambling 
among each nation is a ruling vice. I remember 
visiting a magistrate s court in Bangkok, where a case 
of some importance was under investigation, and I 
noticed the same agencies at work there as in China, 
only that in the latter country the system of corruption 
is managed, by subordinates appointed for the purpose, 
with a degree of subtle polish and refinement, which 
almost persuades the grave and sober judge himself 
to believe in his own absolute integrity, though 
he knows full well that a little gold dropped mysteri 
ously into the scales will make the balance of justice 
kick the beam on one side or the other. But it was 
not so in Siam. There, in an open court, we found 
the fat judge, a single silken cloth around his loins his 
only judicial robe seated at a small window, with one 
flabby leg hanging over in the sunshine ; a slave girl 
fanning him, his mouth filled with betel-nut, and 
thus snorting out his enquiries from time to time. The 
prisoners were shut up in a sort of cattle-pen in front, 
while their friends and supporters, laden with gifts of 



[02 [NDO-CHINA AND CfffNA. 

fruits, cakes, or other produce, crawled through the 1 
court in a continuous procession, and presented their 
offerings for inspection as they passed the judge s 
chair. The latter- when some fat side of pork, or other 
similar delicacy, won his special approval would squirt 
out a mouthful of saliva, grunting and pointing with 
his nose or chin to some ever- watchful slave, who thus 
understood that the tit-bit referred to was to be re 
tained for his master s table. The train of tribute- 
bearers thus passed on through a gateway into the 
magistrate s house, and thence to deposit their burdens 
upon the stalls of a small market kept by the family of 
this impartial ornament of the judicial bench. With 
these influences at work, we may be sure that a 
prisoner, if his friends were numerous and liberal, had 
little or nothing to fear. But, in justice to the govern 
ment and the late King, I must add, grave offenders 
were not allowed to escape unpunished. I shall never 
forget the scene I witnessed inside a Bankok prison. 
The public executioner lived close by, so we paid him 
a visit before we entered the jail. He \vas a hideous- 
looking fellow, but proudly conscious of his brawny 
chest and sinewy arm, that with one fell swoop of the 
sword had closed many a luckless criminal s career. 
He readily produced his fatal weapon, bright with 
recent polishing, passed his fingers lightly, nay, almost 
lovingly along its sharp-edged blade, grinned, and 
disappeared. I meanwhile watched his retreating 
figure, and then took a long breath. I thought the 
fellow eyed me professionally ; he certainly looked at 
my neck, which was thicker than the average of those 
with which he had commonly to deal. In one part of 
the prison grounds men heavily ironed, and covered, 



A J3AATGKOK PRISON. 103 

one or two of them, with old sores, were making bricks 
in a mud pool. Some had been in chains for years, 
and their condition reminded me of pictures of the 
Buddhist hells which I had seen on the walls of their 
temples. The air was filled with the wails of distress 
and the clank of fetters. Seated on a bench there was 
a condemned woman, who had been implicated in a 
murder. She seemed to be treated with mercy, and 
even indulgence, as she wore no chains but those which 
bound her to a pretty little child that lay smiling and 
crowing in her lap, and struggling to bring back the 
sunshine to its mother s worn and haggard brow. It was 
afterwards reported that she had been reprieved, partly 
for the sake of the child ; and I can readily believe the 
rumour, as the King had a passionate affection for his 
own children, and devout Buddhist potentates deem 
it a merit rather to save life than to take it away. 

The Siamese are great gamblers ; they amuse 
themselves also with cock-fighting and betting, not 
perhaps so unrestrainedly as the Malays, for the 
Buddhist laws forbid the wanton destruction of life ; 
but they sink at times to depths much lower than this, 
and I have been present in a gambling-house in 
Bangkok and seen an unfortunate player gamble his 
family one by one into slavery. A great variety of 
games of chance are known in Siam, for the most part 
imported from China. Among them are dice, cards, 
and dominoes. Sometimes we meet men playing the 
simple game of odd or even ; at other seasons they will 
bet upon the number of pips in an unopened durian or 
other kind of fruit ; and there is, besides these amuse 
ments, the ever-recurring lottery, an institution purely 
Chinese. In Bangkok at least two-thirds of the native 



io 4 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

population pass their lives in their boats, or else in 
houses which float on the surface of the river. These 
floating houses are built upon platforms of bamboo, for 
the hard durable stems of this useful plant grow to 
great dimensions in that country, and offer special 
advantages in the construction of a raft. Thus the 
long hollow stem is divided naturally into a certain 
number of water-tight compartments, separated from 
each other by solid diaphragms of wood. The 
bamboo, too, will remain for a great length of time 
under water without deteriorating ; and even should 
the stem by chance spring a leak in any one of its 
compartments, this still will not affect the buoyancy of 
the rest. It may have been from that fact alone that 
the Chinese derived the idea of building their boats in 
water-tight compartments. The bamboos of the 
foundation or raft are piled up one above the other, 
in longitudinal and transverse layers ; these are then 
lashed together with ratan, and when sufficient buoy 
ancy has been obtained to float the dwelling above, 
the platform is launched and moored in the stream. 
The raft, when moored, is fastened at each of the four 
corners to a strong pile which has been driven into the 
river bed for that purpose. The fastening consists of 
a loop of stout ratan rope, which will move or travel 
freely up and down the pile, and thus the abode will 
rise or sink with the ebb and flow of the tide. When 
the raft has been got into position, the house is then 
erected above its surface, and may be constructed of 
teak-wood or bamboo, according to the taste or 
means of its proprietor. Not uncommonly the eaves, 
the windows, the panels, and the balustrading, are 
carved and varnished ; often they are painted and 



FLOATING HOUSES. 105 

gilt, so that they form highly picturesque objects on 
the water. As to the interior apartments, these are 
so comfortable and well arranged as to furnish a 
cool and suitable dwelling even to the most fastidious 
tastes. From a sanitary point of view these river 
dwellings offer many advantages. Thus they do 
away with the need of a borough engineer, and the 
complicated systems of subterranean drainage which 
burden the rate-payers in Europe. The Siamese, too, 
are much addicted to bathing, and like to have their 
water close at hand. These floating houses are gene 
rally moored close together in compact lines, and are 
difficult to deal with in case of fire a calamity happily 
of rare occurrence. Not many years ago one of the 
houses in a long row having caught fire, the neigh 
bours immediately cut it adrift, and let it go blazing 
down the stream. It was not long before it fouled a 
barque at her anchorage, and the latter was soon 
in flames and burnt to the water s edge. Floating 
houses are rather in the way of unskilful pilots, es 
pecially at points where the river narrows, and if the 
current is strong. I remember once lifting a part of 
the roof off one of these abodes with the bowsprit of a 
steamer. Two merchants, an engineer, and myself, 
having had a steam launch placed at our disposal, 
determined to visit the ancient capital of Ayuthia. We 
armed ourselves with a chart of the river, and took 
turn about at the helm, leaving the engines to the 
charge of our professional friend. 

Things went on pretty smoothly during the first 
clay, until at night we reached a district where the 
country was flooded, and it was difficult to keep to the 
main channel of the stream. About eight o clock, 



io6 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

when, of course, it was already dark, I found we were 
steering bow on for a green mount, which loomed up 
in the distance. By reversing the engines and altering 
.the course we just cleared the obstacle, but having 
rounded and taken bearings, we discovered to our dis 
may that we were in the centre of a paddy (rice) field. 
Here we halted till daylight, and, enabled to regain the 
bed of the channel, soon after arrived in safety at our 
destination. Having examined the Kraal and the 

o 

Sala or Grand Stand, whither the King repairs pe 
riodically to see the wild elephants driven in, and 
the most promising specimens secured, we took our 
way to the Royal Elephant Stables, where about a 
dozen of these huge animals are usually to be seen. 
Near to the river a splendid buffalo cow was feed 
ing tethered to a stake, and with a calf at her heels ; 
she looked up fixedly and steadily at the white faces 
of our party ; so steadily, that I determined to photo 
graph her. But the sight of the camera, and the 
mysterious dark tent, disgusted the brute more than 
ever, and she began to assume a disagreeably threat 
ening look. Now, I said, let one of you open out 
your umbrella suddenly, just as I am about to photo 
graph, and we shall have an attitude of surpassing 
grandeur. One of my friends, therefore, cautiously 
approached her and fired off his umbrella. This 
was too much for the buffalo, and, with a wild toss 
of her head, she broke the rope, and I just got a 
glimpse of her in full career, as she charged in the 
direction of her aggressors. The next moment I 
found that the owner of the umbrella had tumbled 
into an elephant midden, and though in a disagreeable 
position, was safe from harm. As for my China boy, 



PHOTOGRAPHING A BUFFALO. 107 

he had consigned himself to the river, and only con 
sented to crawl out of his place of refuge on being in 
formed that a huge alligator was at his heels. \Ye 
started for home shortly after, and came down beauti 
fully with the ilood, but the steering required constant 
attention ; and, finally, at a most unfortunate conjunc 
ture, when -we were just entering the city of Bangkok, 
we lost all command of the helm ; the steamer would 
not steer ; first she stuck her nose into the reeds on 
the bank, then she turned round with the flood, came 
out again into mid-channel, and at last crossed to the 
opposite shore, and carried the roof away from the 
floating house aforesaid. When we had leisure to look 
for the cause of this strange behaviour, we found that 
the steering-chain had got displaced. Things w r ere 
put to rights at last, and we reached the jetty without 
further disaster. 

vSiam has greatly changed since the time of my 
visit to that country. The first and second Kings 
have both been gathered to their fathers, and their 
sons now reign in their stead. Antiquated laAvs and 
objectionable customs have passed out of date, and a 
liberal policy is being steadily pursued. Slavery has 
been abolished, and the custom of crouching in the 
presence of a superior has been discontinued by the 
express order of the Sovereign. His majesty lately 
visited Singapore and Calcutta, and the experiences 
which he gained there seem to have been taken to 
heart. The education which this young King received 
from the English Governess, Mrs. Leonowens, at his 
father s court, must have had its effect in forming his 
character, while constant intercourse with foreigners, 
together with his own manly ambition to make the most 



io8 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

of his inheritance, have all contributed to render his 
career an exceptional one in the history of his country. 
One might almost suppose that he has in his veins 
some of the blood of those ancient Cambodian rulers 
who built their marvellous cities and temples, who con 
quered and subdued the surrounding countries, and 
founded for themselves a mighty empire, of which no 
traces save their stone monuments remain. The in 
fluence of a newspaper, published partly in English 
and partly in the vernacular, must not be overlooked 
when we take account of the progress of Siam. 

The late Dr. Bradley kept this newspaper, the 
Bangkok Recorder/ afloat for many years, some 
times under difficulties which would have effectually 
swamped the undertaking in the hands of anyone less 
devoted and zealous than he. I had the pleasure of 
joining the venerable doctor in a trip to Petchiburee, a 
southern province of Siam. At the start we passed 
first through the Bangkok-yai canal of Great 
Bangkok, and then turning to the left we travelled 

o o 

along the Klong-Bang-luang, or Creek of the King s 
Hamlet. The people on the banks of these creeks 
dwelt either in floating houses or in cottages built on 
piles, so that they overhung the stream. And thus, 
from the window of our boat, we enjoyed a series of 
views of humble city life. Yonder we could see a 
Siamese shopkeeper lazily smoking his cigarette, while 
his wives assorted and sold his wares, or else tended a 
troop of naked children that never seem to tumble into 
the water, although they are reared and dwell within 
a foot of it all their days. Women were to be 
observed on the verandahs of nearly every house, loll 
ing about, nursing children, smoking, or asleep. Few 



BANGKOK CANALS. 109 

of them could pretend to any beauty, but all for the 
most part were as lightly clad as Siamese decency 
would permit; for, with the exception of a silken langouti 
wrapped round the loins, tucked up between the legs, and 
fastened in the waist behind, they sought for no other 
adornment than their own bright olive skins ; and yet 
these women are both modest and chaste. In other 
verandahs were groups displaying their fair proportions, 
and indulging their passion for gambling. At length 
we came upon the pretty floating harem of a noble. The 
cut represents two of his Lakon, or dancing-girls, wearing 
the masks and costumes in which they appear on festive 
occasions. The facade of this house was elaborately 
carved, painted, and varnished ; an ornamental w r ood 
rail swept round the broad platform in front, and we 
could there see a number of female slaves and concu 
bines crouching before their master, who had but just 
arrived, and was listening to the musicians on his 
baree. The leader of these native musicians was 

o 

performing a jubilant Siamese air on the whong 
kong, a circle of musical bells, supported by the cluae 
(flageolet), and the Laos reed organ, on which the per 
formers kept up a running accompaniment, inter 
mingled with the woody tones of the bamboo har- 
monican or Ranat. The combined effects of these 
instruments, when softened by distance, was very 
pleasing at times. But there appears to be nothing of 
a soul-stirring nature in the Siamese music ; it is too 
vague. One hears a few notes, and fancies them the 
prelude to some sweet soothing measure. The illusion 
lasts but for a moment ; the effect is cut short by a 
tumult of sounds, and the sweet fragment of melody 
flies off the instruments like a nightingale startled by 



no 



INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



the howling of a menagerie let loose. We passed a 
number of rice-mills on the banks of the creeks, where 
enslaved debtors were working out their redemption. A 
number of these unfortunates had dragged their chains 




DANCING GIRLS. 



down to the water s edge, and laughed and joked as 
they bathed, as if they were the happiest of mortals. 

It requires a careful study of the tidal influences 
upon the network of creeks of this region to make a 
quick trip to Petchiburee. Thus we quitted Bangkok 



THE SIAMESE TWfNS. 



i i i 



about an hour before the tide had ceased to flow, and 
carried it with us as far as Banban, from which place 
the ebb of the current swept us twenty- five miles on 
ward down the Tacheen river and to the mouth of the 
Ma Klong. At Ma Klong village we had to wait 
twelve hours. This was the birthplace of the Siamese 
twins, but the people there seemed to have forgotten 
their existence. At the local temples we found a " lusus 
naturae " in the shape of a biped pig, which was fed and 
tended by the priests. Besides the pig, there were two 
pitiable idiots at large in the temple grounds, and a 
herd of starving pariah clogs. It is contrary to the 
Buddhist creed to take away life ; hence many of their 
temples become places of refuge for troops of famished 
clogs, who remain there till they die. For though the 
priests give them what food they can spare, there is 
never enough for them all. These dogs, then, are 
usually animated skeletons, their skins destitute of 
hair, and covered with many sores. I tossed them a 
little food ; it gave rise to the most savage fight I ever 
witnessed. One or two wretched curs limped away 
from the strife torn and lacerated, probably to lay 
down and die. This canine community fierce, hungry, 
and diseased must surely be one of those many 
Buddhist hells where sinners expiate their crimes. 
The animals are deemed to be animated by the spirits 
of the departed, and are undergoing a lifetime of 
torture. The priests, if they are good men, look on at 
their misery with pious complacency, and probably 
take the lesson to heart, lest they too in the next stage 
of their existence should be condemned to howl for 
offal or garbage to satisfy the hungry fangs and sore- 
eaten frame of starving pariah dogs. The male idiot 



ii2 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

whom we encountered here was constantly beating" his 
head and muttering, The trouble is here is here ; 
beat a little more and it will be out. He had been 
beating thus for years, until the palm of his hand and 
a patch on his forehead had become as hard as horn. 
The female manifested what to the Siamese mind 
seemed a very aggravated sort of madness ; she was 
simply striving, with the few rags which did not cover 
her, to hide her nakedness from the public gaze. Not 
long after we left Ma Klong we noticed a certain 
conical hill, which appeared to be taking a morning 
walk round and round our position an extraordinary 
fact in geology, only to be accounted for by the wind 
ings of the stream. 

Petchiburee is one of the finest and most productive 
provinces in Siam. The chief town, unlike Bangkok, 
was mainly built on land, and in some parts bore quite 
an English look. Thus, there were rows of well-built 
brick cottages, and a stone bridge across the river, 
broad enough and strong enough to sustain the traffic 
even of a metropolitan thoroughfare. The builder of 
this new town was a very clever young noble, who had 
visited England with the Siamese embassy, and who, 
at the time of my visit, was the deputy-governor of 
Petchiburee. It was he, too, who designed and erected 
the king s new summer palace, after the model of 
Windsor, on the top of an igneous mountain which 
rises boldly above the plains about two miles beyond 
the town. To build this palace was no easy task, for 
the road to the summit of the hill, and the foundations 
for the edifice itself, had all to be cut out of porous 
volcanic rock, nearly as hard as flint. A line of rail 
was laid along the plain for the transport of stone and 



PETCHIB UREE PAL A CE. - 113 

timber to the mount, and an iron aqueduct had also 
been constructed to supply the palace from the river. 
At the palace end of the aqueduct a bath has been 
constructed for the special use of the King, the water 
flowing into it from the mouth of a serpent. There is 
also a sala or grand stand, whence his majesty may 
witness wrestling-matches, foot- and cattle-races, or the 
other out-door amusements of the country. From the 
palace on Khow Phra Nakon Kiree we obtained an 
unbroken view for at least twenty miles across a plain 
as level as a billiard-board, and presenting an almost 
continuous expanse of pale green fields of rice. These 
fields are banked off into squares for the purpose of 
irrigation, and fringed in many places by tall Palmyra 
palms. As for the rice-plants, they were partially 
covered with the still pools of water that lay between 
the rectangular ridges which divided field from field. 
Far away on the verge of the horizon we could descry 
a dense forest of dark sugar-palms, and about two miles 
to the north of us stood Khow Sang, a volcanic hill, 
hollowed with magnificent grottoes, which the natives 
at great cost had converted into Buddhist shrines. 
The avenue leading to the principal grotto is shaded 
by kamboga-trees, whose many flowers shed a de 
lightful fragrance, and are employed by the devout as 
offerings, which they reverently deposit on the palms 
of Buddha s hands. At the mouth of this grotto stand 
natural pillars 30 feet in height, and we found the 
dimensions of the great cave to be 180 feet east and 
west, and 140 feet north and south. 

The floor has been paved, and the whole interior 
adapted to the purposes of a magnificent temple, the 
light being admitted through an old volcanic vent in 

i 



ii4 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

the apex of the roof above. From the ceiling depended 
a number of huge pure white stalactites, while the 
crevices and cells in the rock were filled with images 
and votive offerings. Part of the area is occupied by 
large golden statues of Buddha. I descended, against 
the advice of the local priests, into a rent which dipped 
down through the rock, but I had to return quickly, 
half suffocated by strong sulphurous fumes. 

In the vicinity of Petchiburee are a number of 
pretty Laos villages, the abiding places of four or five 
thousand captives who have been planted there in 
former times. The Laos bondsmen are permitted to 
grow their rice on crown lands free of impost, but are 
taxed immoderately in other ways. Thus, at times 
they are compelled to give six months unpaid labour 
to the government. It was the Laos slaves of Petchi 
buree who built the palace for the King, and they had 
to find their own maintenance during the whole of that 
employment. But they are a frugal and industrious 
folk, simple and honest in their ways ; and although 
this burden must have pressed heavily upon them at 
the time, they soon recovered from its effects. The 
building is so well put together as almost to make one 
imagine that these Laos slaves have inherited some 
thing of the skill of the ancient Cambodian craftsmen. 
There can be, I think, little doubt that they are in 
many respects a superior race to the Siamese ; they 
are taller and handsomer. They weave fine cloth, and 
wear more of it to cover them, as only the feet are left 
bare. They are more painstaking and successful 
cultivators of the soil ; their musical instruments are 
ingeniously constructed, and their native airs are full 
of tenderness and pathos. I never spent a more 



A LAOS VILLAGE. 115 

pleasant day than when paying a visit to one of the 
Laos villages. One always feels a certain degree of 
sympathy with captives in a strange land. 

Mr. McFarlane and myself set out on horseback. 
The Prapalat had kindly furnished us with royal 
steeds. I had also six men bearing my photographic 
instruments. 

The road was in parts flooded, but every available 
foot f ground around was taken up with rice. On 
either side were thick hedges of the sweet-smelling 
gum-arabic tree, or of the Mai Phi or wood-bamboo, 
a plant studded with formidable prickles, and which 
forms, owing to its great strength, an impenetrable 
barrier. 

The bridges over the creeks were formed by single 
bamboo stems, so rather than risk our limbs upon them 
we made the best of our way through the water, and at 
length reached the Laos village, where I was favourably 
impressed with the fine appearance of the people. The 
men were larger and more muscular than the Siamese, 
while the poorest among them were completely clothed 
in dark blue cotton, closely resembling the dress worn 
by the labourers in some parts of China, and made up 
of a loose jacket, and trousers falling to two or three 
inches below the knees. The women, some of them, 
were of fair complexion and exceedingly pretty, having 
their long dark tresses coiled up so as to form an 
ample and picturesque covering for the head. Their 
costume consisted either of an embroidered jacket or 
long strips of cloth covering the bust, and a petticoat of 
striped red, yellow, and blue (primary colours), manu 
factured by themselves, and peculiar to the Laotian 
tribes. 



u6 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

The houses of the village were raised five or six 
feet above the ground on strong posts, and built of 
wood and bamboo ; the roofs were tent-shaped, and 
thatched with long dried grass. With the exception 
of a few articles of Chinese manufacture, everything 
about the village, and for domestic use, was of native 
make. Viewed from a distance, the settlement, hidden 
among palms and fruit-trees, rose from the wide ex 
panse of level plain like a green island in the sea. 
Everywhere around, the fields were cultivated with 
rice ; and the same evidence of ceaseless industry was 
carried to the very threshold of the dwellings, where 
each household had its well-tilled kitchen garden, and 
plot of tobacco, and cotton. The latter they dye with 
native vegetable and mineral substances, and weave on 
their own looms into fabrics for family use. 

There were huge bamboo baskets for holding 
produce, and small baskets of straw, utensils made of 
varnished wood, harrows, ploughs, and various other 
implements used in husbandry. The Laos of Petchi- 
buree and their surroundings bore a stronger resem 
blance to the Pepohoan of Formosa than to any 
other race I have encountered during my travels. 
The Laotian is the higher type of the two, as the 
Pepohoan is solely occupied in cultivating the soil. 
The villages of both races are characterised by the 
same peaceful surroundings, while the inhabitants of 
these primitive settlements are remarkable for their 
simple honesty, and for the absence of crime among 
them. In the Formosa Pepohoan villages I do not 
remember ever having seen either a prison or a 
pauper. The rapid inroads which the Chinese are 
making on that beautiful island will soon furnish both, 



CHARACTER OF THE VILLAGES. 117 

as their trade and ancient civilisation will disturb the 
social equality which only recognises the rank conferred 
by grey hairs and wisdom. Craft and duplicity will 
ere long invade their humble abodes that nestle in 
fertile valleys, watered by clear mountain springs, and 
shaded by primeval forests. 



uS INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 



CHAPTER V. 

An Expedition to Cambodia Bang Phra-kong Creek Prairie on fire 
A Foreign Sailor Wild River Scenery Aquatic Birds Kabin Kut s 
Story to the Chief A Storm in the Forest The Cambodian Ruins 
Their Magnitude Siamrap Nakhon Wat Its Symbolism The Bas- 
reliefs and Inscriptions The Hydra-headed Snake The Ancient 
Capital, Penompinh The King of Cambodia Dinner at the Palace 
The whole Hog Overland to Kamput Pirates Mahomet s Story 
The Fossil Ship The Voyage up the Gulf of Siam. 

I HAD already been in Siam several months before I 
could carry out the project which had originally taken me 
to that country. My plan was to cross overland into 
Cambodia, and there photograph the ruined temples and 
examine the antiquities which have been left behind 
by the monarchs of a once powerful empire. Mr. H. 
G. Kennedy, of H.B.M s consular service, consented 
to accompany me on this expedition, and we got away 
together on January 27, 1866. We had first intended 
to sail down the Gulf of Siam to Chantaboon, and 
thence to cross over the forest-clad mountains of that 
province to Battabong. But the Siamese Government 
declined to grant a passport for that route, which they 
reported as dangerous and impracticable. We were 
therefore reduced to the necessity of making a tedious, 
and, so far as health was concerned, more dangerous 
journey by the creeks and rivers, and across the hot 
plains and marshes of the south-eastern provinces of 
the interior. 



SANSEP. n 9 

We started in a long boat manned by eight stalwart 
Siamese, with Mohammed Ali, a Malay, a Siamese 
named Kut, and two Chinese men-servants, Ahong 
and Akum. Our way lay along the Klong Sansep, a 
creek cut some fifty years ago, and which penetrates 
from the left bank of the river Menam nearly due 
east, till it emerges, after a course of fifty miles, in the 
river Bang Phra-kong. This creek, at Wat * Tarn 
Phra, about ten miles from Bangkok, was only three 
or four feet in depth, and its banks were choked in 
many places with high prairie grass, through which we 
had to force a passage. It was harvest time, and the 
vast plains of Sansep district were covered with a 
golden crop of rice. Here and there we could descry 
groups of reapers among the grain, or isolated slaves 
stationed as scarecrows about the fields. 

At Wat Sansep, a small temple where we halted for 
dinner, the festivities of our evening meal were enhanced 
by the howling accompaniment of some dozen famished 
pariahs. The kindly curs barked for our entertain 
ment with a skill and assiduity that did them infinite 
credit, willingly repeating the choice passages at the 
barest hint for an encore. Jolly dogs these ; and yet, as 
I have already stated, the canine tribes who flee from 
worldly sorrows to consecrate their voices to the ex 
clusive service of the Buddhist faith, are generally 
miserable skeletons, veritable ascetics indeed ; and it is 
difficult to make out why so many dogs, endowed as 
they are with singular sagacity, should drift into these 
temples, unless indeed they love the seclusion and 
liberty of these monastic retreats, where they may die 
of starvation, or, maddened by hunger, devour each 
other. Here we fell in with an American sailor. Ali 



120 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

was the first to see him. He said Ah ! Orang puti 
cle blakang poko, ada ( There is a white man behind 
the trees ). 

He had deserted from his ship for the purpose, he 
said, of going to Saigon hospital overland, to have a 
broken arm reset. For several days he had been wander 
ing about the country, meeting with some kindness from 
the natives, but suffering fearfully from the bites of 
moschettos and other insects. When we met him he 
was literally one mass of sores, and his broken arm was 
much swollen and inflamed. After doing what we 
could to relieve his immediate wants, Mr. Kennedy 
called upon the nearest native official, who promised 
that the fugitive should be sent back to Bangkok. It 
appeared that some judicious friend had advised him 
to walk over to Saigon, some four hundred miles away, 
without food, without a passport, and without a cent 
in his purse. 

We spent our first night in the creek, to the joy 
of the moschettos, which attacked us in myriads, and 
effectually banished repose. We tried to sleep at a Wat 
(temple), but it was no good ; and then the boatmen, 
who were nearly as badly off themselves, volunteered 
to pull all night, in order to get clear of the marshy 
haunts where these vile insects abound, and to reap 
the benefit of a little breeze by keeping the boat con 
stantly in motion. All night long the buzzing of our 
invisible foes sounded like the discordant notes of an 
orchestra as it sets its stringed instruments in tune. 
Moschetto-nets were useless, and wrapping one s head 
in a blanket only drove them to sing on, and sting 
on, until they dropped off bloated and intoxicated with 
blood. Next morning our hands and faces were 



BANG PHRA-KONG RIVER. 121 

swollen, painful, and distorted ; but we had now reached 
a wider part of the creek, and were free from further 
persecution. The plain hereabouts was covered with 
grass which stood ten feet high. Some of this had 
caught fire, and was blazing with great fury when we 
passed. The flames were swept before the wind, 
roaring, crackling, and sending up a dense column of 
smoke in their wake, followed by vultures ready to 
pounce down upon the hapless victims of the devour 
ing fire. We landed, and had some sport ; but it 
was arduous, unprofitable work. Ali fell into a mud 
pool up to the neck, while my friend and I had to 
wade through marshes covered with water, and were 
obliged to undress and pick the leeches off our bodies 
when we returned to our boat. But it was quite by 
accident, and after some short interval of time, that we 
discovered the presence of the leeches. They fasten 
silently and without pain upon the flesh, where they 
at length produce a disagreeable itching sensation, 
which leads to their detection. 

The Kabin branch of the Bang Phra-kong river 
formed one of the most attractive parts of our route. No 
more romantically beautiful little stream is anywhere to 
be found in the world. When we passed into its 
placid waters, we seemed to have entered a region un 
known to man, and inhabited only by the lower orders 
of creation. Monkeys walked leisurely beside the 
banks, or followed us with merry chattering along the 
overhanging boughs, while tall wading birds with 
tufted heads, snow-white plumage, and rose-tipped 
wings, paused, in the business of peering for fish, to 
gaze with grave dignity upon the unfamiliar intruders. 
Some were so near that we could have struck them 



122 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

down with our oars, but to avoid this outrage they 
marched with a calm stately stride into the thickets of 
the adjoining jungle. 

The first report of our rifles wrought a change in 
the scene. The forest rang with voices of alarm ; the 
monkeys gibbered and scrambled out of sight, the tall 
storks rose slowly upon their giant wings and soared 
away in their flight till they looked like a curved line 
of light against the blue face of the sky. We made 
an attempt to preserve the skins of a number of rare 
aquatic birds, including one or two varieties of the 
kingfisher, which are to be found in great abundance 
in this part of Siam. Unfortunately our arsenical soap, 
and the facilities for drying, were insufficient for the 
purpose. Coming suddenly upon a wide reach in the 
river, we found its surface whitened with a fishing 
party of pelicans. Some, with pouches well stocked, 
lolled lazily along ; others skimmed the surface, ele 
vating their bills from time to time, and indicating by 
the glittering of their finny prey that the flock had 
chosen happy hunting-grounds, and were busily en 
grossed with their enterprise. Two fell victims to our 
rifles ; one of them escaped ; the other was of such 
colossal proportions that it took two men to haul him 
into the boat. Our Chinaman, with the masterly assist 
ance of Kut, who had a keen appreciation of the deli 
cacies of the table, produced a savoury breakfast of 
soup and pelican-steak. A hong was heard to remark 
just before falling asleep for a forenoon nap, Ah yah ! 
The fat of this king of birds is delicious. It recalls to 
my mind the pleasures of a pork dinner. Anyone unac 
quainted with the lower orders of the Chinese can form 
but little notion of the bliss implied in the above brief 



PR AC HIM. 123 

sentence. To be overcome by a full meal of pork, 
and to sleep off the effects of the repast, comes very 
near filling the cup of Chinese happiness to the brim. 

On the morning of the 3oth the maximum tem 
perature in the shade was 91 Fahrenheit, but at 6 P.M. 
it had fallen to 68, while strangely enough the water 
of the river showed a temperature of 85. We passed 
a place called Bang-Sang, where a royal palace had 
been erected for the reception of a sacred white ele 
phant, which died, it was reported, of a champagne 
dinner, on its progress to the capital. The untimely 
end of this brute was esteemed a national calamity, 
and was a cause of deep mourning to all devout 
Siamese Buddhists. 

On the same evening we passed a Chinese trading- 
boat, bound with a cargo of rosewood to Paknam. At 
Prachim we presented ourselves before the Prapalat or 
deputy-governor, and handed in our credentials. The 
old gentleman examined the King s letter with great 
reverence ; his chief clerk, meanwhile a powerful- 
looking functionary, well up in years devoting his 
whole attention to a bottle of * eau-de-vie/ which he 
would have finished on the spot, had it not been for 
the timely precautions of Ali. 

The river had cut a deep channel through this part 
of the country, and the exposed strata on the banks 
showed that the plain was made up of a series of thin 
argillaceous and sandy deposits, resting upon a sub 
stratum in which I noticed marine shells. During our 
journey across the country, I found constantly recur 
ring evidence that the plains of Siam had gradually 
emerged from the bed of ocean. The thin alternating 
upper strata were accounted for by the annual floods 



i2 4 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

which still inundate the land, depositing the alluvium 
upon which the rice crops depend. 

At a small Wat at Lan-yang-we, we noticed a 
venerable priest engaged in shaving his head and face 
without either mirror or soap, and wonderfully he 
managed it too. About a mile from Ban-hat-yai-kow 
we came upon a Laos settlement, where the women 
were weaving silk and cotton fabrics ; the latter of 
fine quality and long staple, and the former of the 
coarse yellow sort peculiar to Cambodia and the Laos 
States. 

They evidently took us for Yaks (wood spirits) or 
Teveda (angels), as they had never seen white men 
before. Angels of the Siamese mythology are quite 
different from anything we picture them. They are 
more like satyrs ; some have the tails of apes and 
claws of birds. 

On the 3ist of the month we reached Paknam 
Kabin, or the port of Kabin, the only place which we 
had as yet encountered of any commercial pretensions. 
Here, as might be expected, we found the pioneers of 
trade in the shape of Chinamen from Bangkok. There 
is great competition among these sons of Han, who 
carry on their transactions by barter, waylaying the 
elephant trains from Battabong and the far interior, 
and exchanging salt and Chinese and European wares 
for horns, hides, silk, dammar, oil, cardamums, and other 
products. 

At the town of Kabin there were no elephants to 
be had, so we were forced to content ourselves with 
ponies and buffalo-carts for the overland journey be 
fore us. Here it was that we gained our first experi 
ence of vexatious delay. We ourselves reached our 



A LATE BREAKFAST. 125 

halting-place by 9 A.M., but we had then to await the 
arrival of our men and baggage, who turned up at 
last in the afternoon at about 4 o clock, and discovered, 
when they arrived, that they had left the cooking- 
utensils in the boat, and we had not yet had break 
fast ! 

Hiring a pony, I started at once for Paknam, which 
lay about six miles off. But the journey was an arduous 
one, as my steed had no saddle, and only a bit of cord 
by way of bridle. The animal took its own way, and 
that, unfortunately for my clothes and skin, lay through 
the thickest of the prickly jungle. At last, just after 
dark, I met another of our carts, and returned with it 
to Kabin ; but there were still neither cooking-pots 
nor lamps. We, however, found a teapot and tin of 
salmon, and these supplies furnished us with breakfast, 
dinner, and supper, all in one. We called on the 
governor of Kabin, and presented him with a cadeau of 
European wares ; among other things, we gave him a 
micro-photograph in a small ivory telescope, and a 
bottle of perfume. Kut, whenever he made official 
visits, put on an old suit of his wife s uniform (she was 
an officer of the King s amazon guard). We after 
wards discovered also that he dealt largely in fiction, 
and had informed the Prapalat that the photograph 
(one of Her Majesty the Queen) had been sent 
specially as a mark of royal favour to this renowned 
chief ; and as to the perfume, it was the breath of a 
thousand beautiful English women put up in a bottle, 
and reserved exclusively to reward all governors who 
rule well and wisely. The Prapalat only remarked, 
he could never have supposed it, as the breath of his 
own women was so very different. He smelt, and 



126 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

wondered as he smelt, what manner of women those 
could be who breathed such sweet fragrance forth. 
He thought it strange, too, that our country should be 
ruled over by a woman ; and I have no doubt, from 
the questions he asked, the notion crossed his mind 
that we had come to Siam to pay tribute, and that we 
probably wanted the King to take our State under his 
protection. The people of his town, city, or village, 
were not remarkable for honesty. We slept in a sala, 
or open bamboo shed, erected on a clearing in the 
forest. This sala was raised about six feet above 
ground, and there were cracks between the boards 
which formed the flooring, large enough for us to 
insert our feet through if necessary, which was a very 
convenient arrangement. One morning early I was 
about to put on my nether garments, when I saw them 
depart mysteriously through one of these openings in 
the floor. This was ungenerous in the trousers, for I 
had been on friendly terms with them for some time 
previously. I have reason to suspect that some villain 
persuaded them to desert me at least, a dark shadow 
flitted soon after across the clearing into the forest. 
Anyhow, my garment left me, and I never saw it 
more. As for the natives, they put an absurd story 
afloat that the trousers had been stolen, but they did 
not go the length of suggesting a human thief. They 
concurred in saying that it must have been a spirit or 
a tiger, and no doubt great weight ought to be at 
tached to their opinion. 

I set out again in a bullock-cart for Paknam, where 
I discharged the boatmen, while Kennedy made ar 
rangements for our overland journey. The boat s 
crew behaved well the whole way, and two or three of 



STARTING FOR CAMBODIA. 127 

them, as we parted, carried me on their shoulders back 
to the cart. 

In the evening we enjoyed an entertainment at 
the governor s house, where a band of Laos musicians 
exhibited their skill, and a Laos girl sung a plaintive 
pleasing air to the accompaniment of a reed organ, and 
a soft-toned flute. 

About this time our two Chinamen, finding that 
pork was a rare luxury, their meals rather irregular, 
and their work rough, while the danger of being 
devoured by tigers was daily increasing as we pene 
trated further into the interior, thought that a little 
insubordination might not be wholly thrown away. 
By threats and coaxing, however, we calmed them for 
a time, and prevailed on them to proceed with us on 
our journey. 

At last, one evening, towards 5 o clock, with two 
wretched buffalo-carts and a pair of ponies, we set out 
for Cambodia. I had also engaged two extra carriers 
specially for taking charge of my chronometer, sextant, 
and other instruments. Our way, at first, lay through 
a stunted forest ; but it was not long before we reached 
a shrine on a small clearing, and halted for the night. 
At 3 on the following morning we again set out, 
ourselves in advance, and our baggage-waggons fol 
lowing slowly in the rear. We had not proceeded far 
before the forest was wrapped in deep gloom, and a 
thunder-storm burst upon our party. The rain was 
still falling in a deluge, when one of the buffaloes took 
sudden fright and upset our cart, our Chinamen, and 
our stores. Alarmed at the crash and uproar, we rode 
quickly back, gathered our men and provisions out of 
the mud and water as well as the darkness would 



128 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

permit, and then pushed on again till 8 o clock. 
By this time the rain had abated ; but Ahong dis 
covered, when we halted, that he had lost his box and 
all his cherished possessions. The box was recovered, 
but its contents had gone. Ahong and Akum next 
tried to make their escape, and at all hazards return to 
Bangkok ; but we intercepted them, and again per 
suaded them to carry out their agreement. We had 
little reason to complain of them afterwards, as to our 
surprise they faced the remaining difficulties of the 
journey with a pluck and manliness of which we had 
thought them destitute. 

Camping at night beneath forest-trees, or on the 
open arid plains ; halting at short intervals to repair 
our carts with the materials which the jungle afforded 
(for there was not a single nail in these vehicles), or to 
exchange them for others at the various settlements on 
the route ; we thus spent over a month in lumbering 
across the country, and, as may be imagined, had to 
endure some hardships from want of proper food, the 
bulk of our supplies having been lost or damaged in 
the storm when we quitted Kabin. At Ban-Ong-ta 
Krong I had a sharp attack of jungle fever, which 
left me so utterly prostrate that I had to hire a small 
bullock-cart to take me on. Kennedy, with regular 
doses of quinine and kind nursing, effected a rapid cure, 
but I could not take to my feet for some days. Had 
we succeeded in procuring elephants at Kabin, as we 
were led to expect, the whole journey might have been 
accomplished in half the time. 

It was our custom, when camping for the night, to 
make an enclosure with the carts, and branches of 
trees, placing the cattle inside, and keeping up a fire in 



A MIDNIGJfT VJSITOR. 129 

the centre. Wild animals were sometimes seen near 
our halting-places, and I brought away the skin of a 
huge leopard, shot close to a sala where we slept. 

On one occasion I remember being roused, and All, 
who slept beneath my cart, cried out that there was a 
tiger prowling round. The night was dark, but I 
could make out a black object not many paces from 
where we lay. The cattle were active too, and snorted 
uneasily. I raised my revolver, and would have fired, 
had Ali not arrested my arm, and advised me not to 
risk a shot in the dark, as had I only wounded the 
brute we should have been certain of a furious attack. 
At the sound of human voices it speedily disappeared 
into the forest. 

From Mrs. Leonowen s account of her expedition 
into Cambodia, I gather that she must have travelled 
along the same route as ourselves ; but I cannot make 
out, if that was the case, how her elephants could 
have pressed on heavily, but almost noiselessly, over 
a parti-coloured carpet of flowers. As to parti-coloured 
carpets, the convolvulus and other flowers, found in 
these regions, are of remarkably beautiful kinds, but it 
is on account of their extreme rarity that they are most 
highly prized. For my own part, I should have ex 
pected a longer and more detailed account of her 
journey from a lady who observes so accurately and de 
scribes so well. Can it be possible that it was she, after 
all, who aided in compiling M. Mouhot s posthumous 
narrative, where some of the passages which treat of 
the Cambodian ruins read like extracts from Mrs. 
Leonowen s own valuable work. For example, we find, 
on p. 305 of The English Governess at the Court 
of Siam : 



130 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

The Wat stands like a petrified dream of some 
Michael Angelo [what is a petrified dream ?], more 
impressive in its loneliness, more elegant and animated 
in its grace, than aught Greece and Rome have left us. 

In M. Mouhot s work, vol. i., p. 279, the same 
Wat is thus described : 

One of these temples a rival to that of Solomon, 
and erected by some ancient Michael Angelo might 
take an honourable place beside our most beautiful 
buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by 
Greece or Rome, &c. 

There is a slight difference between the two 

o 

passages. In the one the Wat is simply pronounced 
the work of some great master; while in the other it 
resembles an animated, petrified dream, whatever 
that may be. But other ideas, on the pages quoted, 
will be found expressed in nearly identical words, 
furnishing an example of one of those strange coin 
cidences which so startle us occasionally in our experi 
ence of life. We regret, however, to discover this 
authoress, when she describes the Cambodian ruins, 
falling into a number of grave errors which might, 
some of them, have been avoided had she studied my 
photographs more carefully when she did me the 
honour of selecting them to illustrate her work. 

On the higher waters of the Sisuphon river we fell in 
with the first trace of ancient Cambodian civilisation in 
the shape of a ruined shrine, which had been built of 
exquisitely finished grey bricks, like blocks of freestone 
both in texture and appearance. The stream, at this 
point, was still faced with a strong stone retaining wall, 
and a broad flight of steps gave us access to a narrow 
path terminating in an elevated mound of earth, where 



AT/A:? ON 7 HE srsrriw.v RIVER. 131 

giant trees now grew. Buried beneath this overgrowth 
of j u no-1 e lay the foundations of an ancient edifice. I 
took the bearings of the mound with my azimuth ; and 
the men, when they saw me adjusting my instrument, 
concluded that I was after hidden treasure, and set to 
digging until they reached the wall, and unearthed 
some bricks. In the centre of the mound there was a 
thick brick wall built above arched vaults, while, 
beneath a rude shed hard by, we found the remains of 
two idols finely sculptured in stone. These idols were, 
life size, and modelled in very accurate proportions. 
One, a male figure, had been decapitated ; and we 
found the head with its stony diadem still lying among 
the rubbish close at hand. The features wore a calm 
benignant look, reminding one of the Hindoo type. 
The second figure, a female, was in much better pre 
servation ; both the contour of its bust, and the expres 
sion of its face, showed traces of an accomplished 
sculptor s hand. The Chinese annals of the. Sui 
dynasty tell us that the then Queen of Chinla ] was 
married to a Hindoo, and that it was he who taught 
the people Deva worship. There were no inscriptions 
to be found among the ruins here ; but it is just 
possible that these images may have been the statues 
of that Queen and King who reigned about the be 
ginning of the seventh century, and to whom the his 
torians of China allude. 

Fragments of sculptured stone everywhere met 
the eye, and impressed us with the conviction that the 
ancient temple-building race of Cambodia had reached a 
high pitch of civilisation. There was nothing rude, 
unfinished, or elementary about the work. The simple 

1 Sec Chinese Map. 
k 2 



132 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

bricks of the wall had been carefully and honestly 
finished, and their plain even surfaces were so true that 
when placed in position and fixed together without 
mortar, they left only a delicate line to mark where the 
joins occurred. 

But one ought to be careful in asserting that 
square honest work, and good material betoken a high 
pitch of civilisation, lest in some future age it may be said 
of ourselves that our much-vaunted progress and nine 
teenth century civilisation were but empty shadows ; that 
our domestic architecture, at least, was designedly de 
ceptive and dishonest ; that our greatest ambition 
was to please the eye with spurious imitations of sculp 
tured marble and stone, to supply tinsel in place of 
gold, paint and veneer for the tough fibre of the solid 
oak. But what shall we say of the stone cities and sculp 
tured palaces which we were now approaching monu 
ments of human labour with which even our greatest 
modern edifices can hardly be worthily compared ; of 
those cities where, as ancient travellers tell us, 1 there 
were images of pure gold within the palaces, and look 
ing down from above the city gates. 2 Another Chinese 
historian relates that the people of Bonam, or Siam, as 
early as the third or fourth century, were noted for 
their commerce, their honesty, and their thrift. All 
that we can say in regard to their buildings, in the ab 
sence of any historical records of their own, is that 
these old Cambodians must have built their towns and 
temples by the taskwork of slaves, or by cheap labour 
of some sort. And yet, as I have said, there is a 

1 History of the Tsin Dynasty, A.D. 265-419. 

2 It is stated, in the History of the Chinese Sui Dynasty, that a Chinese 
general carried off from the capital of Limyip (probably Siamrap) 
eighteen golden images. 



THE GREAT LAKE. 133 

thoroughness about their edifices, and a genuine love 
of art evinced in all their sculptures in the tender 
tracery lavished without stint upon the stones, in the 
uniform grace of every curving stem, in each delicately 
chiselled lotus, or lily such as never could have come 
out of the lash of the slave, out of ill-requited, unwilling 
hands, or out of the crushed spirit of a bondsman. We 
see a love of art in every line of ornament, which 
speaks of the enthusiasm of a master sculptor glorying 
in his work, and straining every effort of his hand 
and head that nothing might be lacking which could 
confer excellence on his toil. 

But I am anticipating. At * Dan Simah, on the 
Tasawi river, the chief of the district would have had 
us wait until he could find a suitable craft to convey 
us across the lake. But as we observed a boat which 
would suit our turn at his very door, we took posses 
sion of it at once, agreeing as usual, to pay for its use. 

This arrangement was concluded much too sud 
denly to enable the chief to take it in. He would have 
required at least a week to think over it. As we left 
in the vessel, he looked good-naturedly bewildered. The 
notion had not yet dawned upon him that it was all 
right, as our men pulled away out of sight, and had 
soon crossed the head of the Great Lake Tale Sap, 
and entered the Siamrap stream, whence we sent on 
our letters under Ali s charge to the Chow-Muang, or 
governor of the province where the chief antiquities 
are to be found. The great freshwater lake of Cam 
bodia I shall leave for the present undescribed ; but I 
may here mention that Battabong and Siamrap are 
two provinces which were wrested by the Siamese 
from the Cambodians eighty-seven years ago. All 



] 3 4 IN DO- CHIN A AND CHINA. 

returned in the afternoon, bringing a favourable account 
of his reception. The Governor had indeed done us 
the honour to despatch two elephants for our own 
riding-, and five buffalo waggons for our baggage. 
The elephant howdahs were dome-shaped, of a kind 
used only by persons of a superior rank. My friend 
had had experience of elephant travelling in Korat, 
but the sensation was new to me. The colossal, soft- 
eyed brute was requested, in Siamese, to give me a 
lift. Whereupon he bent his huge right fore-leg 1 , and 
then looked me over slowly from head to foot, before 
venturing to hoist me on to his back. I placed one foot 
firmly on his knee, and he then gently raised me until 
I could reach his neck, keeping me steady with his 
trunk until I had fairly scrambled into the howclah. 
This business finished, he then marches with a steady 
step onwards to his destination, knowing, apparently, 
all about the country. On he goes through pools and 
marshes, but keeping an eye the while on the spread 
ing branches of the trees above ; for somehow, with 
a marvellous exactness, he knows the howdah s height, 
and if a branch would barely clear it, he halts, raises 
his trunk, and wrenches it off before he ventures to 
proceed. 

When he comes to the steep bank of a stream, he 
sits and slides down into the water, and if hot and 
teased by the flies, he will duck howdah and all be 
neath the cold surface as he swims across. He charges 

o 

his trunk with water whenever an opportunity occurs, 
and this he carries along with him to quench his thirst 
or to squirt over his body and drown the unsuspect 
ing flies. Thus he plods on in perfect safety over 
obstacles which no other quadruped could surmount. 



ELEPHANT TRAVELLING. 135 

If he sees afar off some tempting tree, he shapes his 
course for it, in order to have a passing mouthful of its 
leaves. For all that, he is perfectly docile, and seems 
by his implicit obedience to understand every word 
his keeper utters. His attendant sits astride his neck, 
and guides him gently, when needed, with an iron- 
spiked staff. The elevated position, the straight 
course one shapes through forest and jungle, and the 
commanding view one obtains of the surrounding 
scenery, have at first a rare charm ; but after a time we 
feel that it would be a decided relief could we stay the 
regular gyration of the head, and seek another axis of 
motion than the small of the back. So we form some 
excuse, and descend to * terra firma ; but even then 
the motion still goes on, or appears to go on at any 
rate, for some time. 

The Chow Muang of Nakhon Siamrap received us 
with great courtesy, placing a house at our disposal for 
two or three clays, until a Laos chief, who had come 
with a considerable escort on a pilgrimage to Nakhon 
Wat, should have started on his homeward journey, 
and left room for our accommodation. The old town 
of Siamrap is in a very ruinous state the result, 
as was explained to us, of the last invasion of Cam 
bodia but the high stone walls which encircle it are 
still in excellent condition. Outside these fortifications 
a clear stream flows downwards into the great lake 
some fifteen miles away, and this stream, during the 
rainy season, contains a navigable channel. On the 
third morning of our stay we mounted our ponies, and 
passed out of the city gates on the road for Nakhon 
Wat, and the ancient capital of the Cambodian empire. 
One hour s gentle canter through a grand old forest 



136 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

brought us to the vicinity of the temple, and here we 
found our progress materially arrested by huge blocks 
of freestone, which were now half buried in the soil. A 
few minutes more, and we came upon a broad flight of 
stone steps, guarded by colossal stone lions, one of 
which had been overthrown, and lay among the debris. 
My pony cleared this obstacle, and then with a series 
of scrambling leaps brought me to the long cruciform 
terrace which is carried on arches across the moat. 
This moat is a wide one, and has been banked with 
strong retaining walls of iron-conglomerate. The view 
from the stone platform far surpassed my expectations. 
The vast proportions of the temple filled me with a 
feeling of profound awe, such as I experienced some 
years afterwards when sailing beneath the shade of 
the gigantic precipices of the Upper Yang-tsze. 

The secret of my emotion lay in the extreme con 
trast between Nakhon Wat rising with all the power 
which magnitude of proportions can give, a sculptured 
giant pyramid amid forests and jungle-clad plains and 
the grass-thatched huts, the rude primitive structures 
which are all that the present inhabitants have either 
wish or ability to set up. Nakhon Wat, like the ma 
jority of the buildings of Inthapatapuri and the other 
cities of Cambodia, is raised upon a stone platform. 
It is carried upward from its base in three quadrangular 
tiers, with a great central tower above all, having an 
elevation of 180 feet. The outer boundary wall en 
closes a square space measuring nearly three-fourths of 
a mile each way, and is surrounded by a ditch 230 feet 
across. This ditch is spanned on the west by the 
causeway (already described), having sculptured flights 
of stone steps leading to the water. These were pro- 



3-* 



, r .^ 



NTT 






^ 



X 






1 



B: :3 



c 



-i 

L \iy~\ fi^:;\iP 

^A1%L^ 

g %jpi Hy? c 

[^ j _P- J 1_ _ i~M t ** I " " "~ J n 



!__ 



Western Fagade. 
B First Terrace. 
C Second Terrace. 
D Third Terrace. 
E Central Shrine and Tower. 




Fig. i. Plan of Inner Temple of Nakhon, from a survey by the author. 
Fig. 2. Plan of area enclosed by outer wall, Nakhon Wat. 



NAKHON WAT. 137 

bably intended for the first ablutions of the worshippers 
at this Brahminical or Buddhist shrine. Facing the 
cardinal points of the compass, and in the centre of each 
side of the boundary wall, there are long" galleries with 
arched roofs and monolithic pillars, which present a 
striking and classical appearance. Entering the main 
gateway through the western boundary, and passing up 
a broad inner causeway, paved like the outer one with 
blocks of polished freestone, we approach the western 
front of the temple proper. Ascending to a cruciform 
terrace by a flight of steps sculptured with the most 
beautiful ornaments, and guarded on either side by 
colossal stone lions, we stand before the principal en 
trance of the shrine. The facade on this side is more 
than six hundred feet in length, and is walled in, in the 
centre, for a distance of some two hundred feet. This 
walled space is divided into compartments, and each 
compartment is lighted with windows. In every window 
there are seven ornamental stone bars, uniform in 
pattern and in size throughout. The floral ornamenta 
tion on these bars appear to represent the sacred lotus, 
and the flowers are as carefully repeated as if they had 
been cast from a single mould. These compartments 
recur in the centre of all the galleries ; the remaining 
two-thirds of the space always consisting of open 
colonnades, the back walls of which are adorned with 
the bas-reliefs which form one of the chief attractions 
of Nakhon Wat. 

The building, as I have already observed, rises in 
three terraces, one above the other, and it is out of the 
highest of the three that the great central tower springs 
up ; four lower or inferior towers rise around it, and 
the whole structure is probably meant to symbolise 



138 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

Mount Meru, or the centre of the Buddhist universe. 
This is all the more apparent when we consider that 
Meru is surrounded by seven circles of rocks ; 1 that 
there are seven circles on the central tower ; that 
the sacred mount is supported on three platforms (cor 
responding to the three terraces) one platform or layer 
of earth, one of water, and one of wind ; and that it 
rises out of the ocean. This part of the symbolism is 
indicated by the temple being- surrounded with a moat, 
and indeed during the rains, when the plain is flooded, 
the whole stupenduous structure would rise (like Meru 
from the ocean) out of an unbroken sheet of water. 2 

1 See Dr. Eitel s Sanscrit Chinese Dictionary, Art. Sumeru, p. 136. 

2 The accompanying note by the Rev. Joseph Edkins will show that 
in some of the Buddhist monasteries of Peking the ordination of the 
priesthood takes place on a triple terrace, similar to the triple terrace of 
Nakhon Wat. 

Admission to the Buddhist Vows on the Triple Terrace, 

Buddhist priests are received into the monastic community of that 
religion in great numbers at the monastery called Chiay tae sze, near 
Peking. This beautifully situated monastery commands a fine view of 
the Hwun ho and the Peking plain. 

The name Chiay tae means Vow terrace. The Vow terrace is in a 
square building on the east of the hall, in which are placed the principal 
images. It is built of carved stone, and is triple. The disciple ascends 
the lower terrace at the back. Going round it, he ascends the middle 
terrace, and after going round it in the same way he ascends the upper. 
On reaching the top, after three times making the circuit, he finds him 
self in front of the abbot and his assessors. The abbot sits on a throne 
which faces the south, and the assessors, two on each side, face the east 
and west. The ceremonies for the reception of neophytes are here carried 
through to their completion. 

I expect that there is a Chiay tae in every large monastery, or in most 
of them, but this is the best-known in the neighbourhood of the capital. 

At small monasteries priests are admitted with less formalities than in 
large ones. 

The first terrace is for Buddha, the second for the written law, and 
the third for the monastic community. 

The neophyte enters into a responsible relation to all three. lie 
leaves the sea of misery where he was without a helper and attaches him- 



KHAO KHRAf-LAT. 139 

111 many of the ancient temples of Java we find the 
same symbolic architecture. The shrine of Kalisari, 1 for 
example, we are told, is an oblong square divided into 
three floors, and there are many others of exactly the 
same design. On the ancient Buddhist temple or 
monument at Bora Bodo, there are, I believe, seven 
terraces (and no central tower) which would correspond 
with the seven circles of Meru. But the three terraces 
of Nakhon Wat may have another significance ; they 
may have been designed originally for the sacred rites 
and processions still practised in the ceremonials at the 
royal tonsure festivals of Siam ; for example, at the 
coronation of a king the priests march thrice, on three 
separate clays, round the sacred Khao Khrai-lat, the 
Siamese Buddhist Mount Mcru. It is difficult to say 
what may have been the origin of the sacredness attached 
in many heathen religions to the number three. We 
have them in the Holy Trinity of our own Christian 
faith a doctrine which does not claim a high antiquity ; 
in the supreme principle of creation ; in the Orphic My 
thology, 2 Council, Light, Life ; in On, Isis, and Neith 
of the Egyptians ; in the Magian trinity Mithras, Oro- 
mazdes, and Ahriman; the Indian triad Brahma, Vishnu, 
and Seeva ; while in China we have the classic doctrine of 
the powers of nature Heaven, Earth, and Man ; and 
the Buddhist Past, Present, and Future. We also find 

self to Buddha, who occupies the position of a Redeemer. lie escapes 
from ignorance into the knowledge of Buddhist doctrine. He gives up 
worldly enjoyments and sins in order to enter on what he expects to rind 
the pure life of the monks, far from the turmoil of city crowds. 

It is to symbolise this threefold refuge that he is made to pass along 
the railed pathway round three terraces rising successively in height 
before he arrives in the presence of the venerable robed abbot who 
admits him to the Buddhist spiritual life. 

1 Sir S. Raffles Jaw, ii. 25. ; See Halo s Chronology, \\. 472. 



140 1NDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

in the Temple of Heaven at Peking, where state wor 
ship is performed, an altar of three terraces, on which 
at certain times of the year three sacrifices are offered. 
These are the Ta-sze, 1 or great sacrifice; the Choong- 
sze, or medium sacrifice ; and the Seaon-sze, or lesser 
sacrifice. The symbolism of this Chinese temple is a 
subject full of interest, and has been very carefully 
examined by the Rev. Joseph Edkins. 2 

To return to Nakhon Wat. The ancient Chinese 
traveller says something in his narrative of a tradition 
relating to the worship of the snake in early times ; 3 
but he, at the same time, tells us that Buddhism was 
the religion which then prevailed in Cambodia. It is 
possible that this great building has been erected to 
the snake god (and this was the view taken by Prof. 
Ferguson after I had placed my plan, my photographs 
and the information I had gathered, at the disposal of 
that most distinguished authority on architecture) ; but 
after visiting China, and viewing the Hindoo deities 
which guard the gates of Buddhist temples there, and 
the mythological objects which adorn these shrines, 
I have been led to believe that Nakhon Wat is a 
Buddhist edifice, decorated about the roofs and bal 
conies with effigies of the seven-headed snake, who is 
honoured for ever, because he guarded Gautama when 
he slept. Nagas (snakes) appeared at his birth to 
wash him ; numbers of nagas conversed with him here 
and there, protected him, and were converted by him, 
and after the cremation of his body an eighth portion 
of the relics was allotted to the custody of nagas. 4 

1 Sir J. Davis, The Chinese, p. 210 

2 Journeys in North China, Rev. A. Williamson, ii. 353. 

3 < Chinla Tung-too-ke, by Chow Ta Kwan. 

4 Sanserif-Chinese Dictionary, Art. Naga, 78, Dr. Eitcl. 



ANCIENT CAMBODIAN CIVILISATION. 141 

The snake plays an important part in the Buddhism 
of China, and is represented, when on the earth, as 
man s great enemy ; and again, when a river god, as 
his great protector. It would appear, then, that the 
snake which guards the temple of Nakhon was nothing 
more than the natural protector of Gautama spoken of 
in the ancient Sutras. 

I cannot, however, do justice to this question here ; 
I must leave it in the hands of those who are better 
able to sift the evidence brought forward in elucidation 
of a deeply-interesting subject. 

I believe that a richer field for research has never 
been laid open to those who take an interest in the 
great building races of the East than that revealed by 
the discovery of the magnificent remains which the 
ancient Cambodians have left behind them. Their stone 
cities lie buried in malarious forests and jungles, and 
though many of them have been examined, not a few 
are still wholly unexplored ; and indeed it is impossible 
for anyone who has not visited the spot to form a true 
estimate of the wealth and resources of the ancient 
Cambodians, or of the howling wilderness to which 
their country has been reduced by the ravages of war, 
the destructive encroachments of tropical jungle, and 
the ignorance and sloth of its present semi-savage 
inhabitants. The disappearance of this once splendid 
civilisation, and the relapse of the people into a primi- 
tiveness bordering, in some quarters, on the condition 
of the lower animals, seems to prove that man is a 
retrogressive as well as a progressive being, and that 
he may probably relapse into the simple forms of 
organic life from which he is supposed by some to 
have originally sprung. 



142 



INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 



The bas-reliefs of Nakhon Wat wliich arc sculptured 
on the walls of the galleries are extremely interesting. 
They are contained in eight compartments, measuring 
each from 250 feet to 300 feet in length, with a height 




INTERIOR OF WKSTKKN UAI.I.KRY. NAKIION WAT. 

of 6i feet, and in a square space of 6- feet the average 
number of men and animals depicted is sixty. The 
majority of these representations are executed with 
such care and skill, and are so well drawn, as to indi- 



THE RAMAYANA. 143 

cate that art was fostered and reached a high state of 
perfection among the Khamen-te-buran, or ancient 
Cambodians. 

The chief subjects represented are battle-scenes, 
taken from the epic poems Ramayana and Mahabarata 
(which the Siamese are said to have received from 
India about the fourth or fifth century). Disciplined 
forces are depicted marching to the field, possessing 
distinct characteristics soon lost in the confusion of 
battle. In the eager faces and attitudes of the warriors, 




CAMBODIAN FEMALE HEAD-DRESS. ANCIENT SCULPTURE. 

as they press forward past bands of musicians, we see 
that music then, as now, had its spirit-stirring influence. 
We also find humane actions represented a group 
bending over a wounded comrade to extract an arrow, 
or remove him from the field. There are also the 
most animated scenes of deeds of braver) soldiers 
saving the lives of their chiefs ; chiefs bending over 
their plunging steeds, and measuring their prowess in 
single combat ; and finally, the victorious army quitting 
the field laden with spoil, and guarding the numerous 
captives with cavalry in front and rear. 



M4 INDO-CJfTNA AND CHINA. 

Perhaps the most wonderful subject of all the bas- 
reliefs is what the Siamese call the battle of Rama- 
kean. This is one of the leading incidents of the 
Ramayana, of which Coleman says, The Grecians had 
their Homer to render imperishable the fame acquired 
by their glorious combats in the Trojan war ; the 
Latins had Virgil to sing the prowess of /Eneas ; and 
the Hindoos have their Valmac to immortalise the 
deeds of Rama and his army of monkeys. The 
Ramayana (one of the finest poerns extant) describes 
the incidents of Rama s life, and the exploits of the 
contending foes. 

In the sculptures of Nakhon Wat many of the 
incidents of the life of Rama are depicted ; such as his 
ultimate triumph over the god Ravana, and the re 
covery of his wife Sita. The chief illustration of the 
poem, however, is the battle-scene which ensues after 
the ape-god Hanuman had performed several of the 
feats which formed the everyday incidents of his life, 
such as the construction of what is now known as 
Adam s Bridge at Ceylon. This he accomplished by 
a judicious selection of ten mountains, each measuring 
64 miles in circumference ; and being short of arms, 
but never of expedients, when conveying them to 
Ceylon, he poised one on the tip of his tail, another on 
his head, and with these formed his celebrated brido-e 

o 

over which his army of apes passed to Lanka. 

In another compartment the subject appears to be 
the second avatar of Vishnu, where that god is re 
presented as a tortoise supporting the Earth, which is 
submerged in the waters. The four-armed Brahma is 
seated above. A seven-headed snake is shown above 
the water, coiled around the Earth, and extending over 



ANCIENT CAMBODIAN SCULPTURES. 145 

the entire length of the bas-relief. The gods on the 
right, and the dinytas on the left are seen contending 
for the serpent. Hanuman is pulling at the tail, while 
above a flight of angels are bearing a cable to bind 
the reptile after the conflict is over. 

The example given in the woodcut will convey an 
idea of the accurate nature of the battle-scenes, and will 
also enable the reader to judge for himself not only 
regarding the art which they display, but also of the 
constructive mechanical skill which the Cambodians 
possessed, and which enabled them to build their war 
chariots at once strong enough for the rou^h usa^e of 

o o o o 

war, and light enough to secure that degree of speed 
upon which the issue of a conflict might depend. 

Take, for example, the wheel of the chariot. It 
must have been strong, and nothing lighter or more 
elegant could be constructed at the present clay among 
ourselves. Part of it at least must have been made of 
metal, and had we no further proof, the inference may 
hence be fairly drawn that the builders were skilled in 
the use of metals. In another compartment of the bas- 
reliefs however, we find mechanical appliances for the 
torture of human beings, such as a double-handed saw, 
or knife, a lever, the wedge, pestle and mortar ; and 
a number of other contrivances, which must have been 
in common use then, and are still, in our own land. 

It is impossible here, in the space of a single 
chapter, to give anything like a complete account of the 
information we gaiherecl during our expedition to 
Cambodia. I may say, however, before I leave this 
region, that the ruins are found to spread over an area 
very much larger than was at first supposed, which has 
since been broken up into, and occupied by different in- 

i. 



1 40 INDO- CHINA ^AND CHINA . 

dependent States ; and which, judging from the simi 
larity of the ruined buildings found in Siam, Laos, and 
Annam, and the identity of the characters with which 
they are inscribed, leaves little doubt as to the magni 
tude of the empire over which the ancient Cambodian 
dynasty must in former centuries have reigned. Much 
may yet be learned as to the true history of the race, 
when the inscriptions found carved upon the ancient 
temples shall have been made out. I took rubbings of 
some of these, but my efforts to obtain translations of 
them have hitherto been unsuccessful. Mr. Kennedy 
has, however, already been able to interpret some por 
tions, and perhaps I cannot clo better than quote what 
he says concerning them. There are, at any rate, three 
styles of writing adopted ; I do not say that the lan 
guages differ, I suspect that they will be found to be 
in all cases identical ; but the characters are funda 
mentally the same, and as more competent men than I 
have assured me, are modifications of the Devanagari 
alphabet. In reference to the difficulties to be en 
countered in translating, he says : * There is this pecu 
liarity to be noticed, which is probably one of the 
secrets of the failure hitherto of all attempts at inter 
pretation. These men of monosyllabic speech cut 
clown their long Pali or Sanscrit terms to the shortest 
possible dimensions. Thus Inclra becomes In, a 
disciple of a priest (Samanera) becomes Nen, and the 
name for a camel is not ushtra, but ut ; akshara 
(letters) becomes akson. But when these words are 
written down, in many cases their derivation is shown 
by a number of mute terminals, with an accent super 
scribed, denoting that that portion of the word is left 
without articulation. Now when we examine these in- 



ANCIENT CHINESE ARCHWAY. 147 

scriptions, it becomes necessary to inquire whether the 
engraver expended the time and labour requisite to 
write down the unpronounced part of the word which 
he had to engrave, or would he simply cut the letters 
of the shortened form, the word as pronounced, and 
not the word as written ? If this be indeed the case, 




AXCIKNT ARCH AT KEU-YUNG-KTYAN, NAXKOW PASS. 

it is strange and interesting to find inscribed on an old 
arch in the defile of the Nankow Pass, on the road to 
the Great Wall of China, a Buddhist prayer, which Mr. 
Wylie tells us is also in one section, at least, written in 

1 Sec paper read by H. G. Kennedy, Indian Section of Society of Arts, 
May i, 1874. 

I. 2 



i 4 8 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

the ancient Devanagari characters, and bearing the 
date 1345. It was probably somewhere about this 
date that the temple of Nakhon Wat was erected ; and 
when we further find it recorded that the ancient 
Cambodians were in the habit of sending ambassadors 
to China to obtain imperial titles for their religious 
edifices, it is possible that Cambodian sculptors may 
have been employed to construct this memorial, and 
more especially as we find on its keystone the same 
seven-headed snake which forms a leading ornament of 
the great Cambodian temple. 

At any rate we have here the seven-headed snake 
adorning a purely Buddhist structure, inscribed with a 
Buddhist prayer, engraved in a number of different 
languages. The bas-relief representations of the 
Hindoo gods found beneath the arch are the finest 
examples of the sculptor s art I found in China, and re 
sembled more closely the work of an ancient Cam 
bodian sculptor than of a Chinese artist. 

It would appear from the Chinese annals that the 
Cambodians, at an early period, were an exceedingly 
warlike race, and that they annexed many surrounding 
kingdoms. 

Thus, in the history of the Sung dynasty, there is a 
reference to the kingdom of Sanbotsi. That country 
is there described as conterminous with Cochin China 
(Cheng Cheng), and lying between Cambodia (Chinla) 
and Java! It is further represented as highly civilised, 
owning both Hindoo and Chinese institutions, and 
making use of Chinese state documents. Lastly, we 
are told that the education of the country was con 
ducted by means of Pali writing. 

In the year A.D. 1003, it is stated that the reigning 



LAST WORK OF THE ANCIENT CAMBODIANS. 149 

monarch sent an embassy to inform the Emperor of 
China that he was building a Buddhist temple, in the 
hope that so meritorious a work might add something 
to the length of his years. The edifice referred to 
might have been Nakhon Wat, but evidence from 




UNFINISHED I ll, LARS, NAKIION \VAT. 

other quarters points to a later elate for its construction. 
It would appear to have been built after the visit of 
the Chinese traveller of the thirteenth century (whose 
narrative M. Remusat has translated), as he makes no 
mention of it. He visited Cambodia in 1295, but the 



150 INDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

final overthrow of the empire by the Siamese did not 
take place (according to M. Gamier s account, p. 139) 
until 1373, when the still unfinished temple was 
abandoned, and the King fled to Annam. 

Nakhon Wat itself bears evidence that during the 
progress of its construction the Cambodian empire 
must have been overthrown by some crushing disaster. 
At any rate the building was never finished, and in the 
interior of an outer pavilion I found some pillars which 
were still rough hewn. They had been placed in 
position, it is true, but we could almost point out the 
spot at which the sculptor s hand had been arrested, 
leaving his task for ever incomplete. The plan followed 
had been to fit the rough monolithic stones into their 
places, and then to cover them with sculpture a system 
adopted now-a-days by our own builders when ela 
borate ornaments have to be carved. 

But I must quit a subject over which I fain would 
linger, and hurry forward on my journey. We spent 
several days at the ruined city of Nakhon, on the verge 
of the native jungle, and amidst a forest of magnificent 
trees. Here we were surrounded on every side by 
ruins as multitudinous as they were gigantic ; one 
building alone covered an area of vast extent, and was 
crowned with fifty-one stone towers. Each tower was 
sculptured to represent a four-faced Buddha, or Brahma, 
and thus 204 colossal sphinx-like countenances gazed 
benignly towards the cardinal points all full of that 
expression of purity and repose which Buddhists so 
love to pourtray, and all wearing diadems of the most 
chaste design above their unruffled stony brows. At 
the outer gate of this city I experienced a sort of 
modern battle of the apes. Reared high above the 



SCULPTURED TOWER. 



gateway stood a scries of subordinate towers, having- a 
single larger one in their centre, whose apex again 
displayed to us the four benign faces of the ancient 
god. The image was partly concealed beneath para 




SCULPTURED TOWER IX NAKIION TIIOM, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF 
CAMBODIA. 

The cut represents a single example out of fifty-one stone towers which adorn the ancient 
temple Prea-sat-ling-pown, in the heart of Nakhon Thorn, ur Inthapatapun. 

sitic plants, which twined their clustering fibres in a rude 
o-arland around the now neglected head. When I 

f> o 

attempted to photograph this object, a tribe of black 



152 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

apes., v. earing white beards, came hooting along the 
branches of the overhanging trees, swinging and shaking 
the boughs, so as to render my success impossible. A 
party of French sailors, who were assisting the late 
Captain cle Lagree in his researches into the Cambodian 
ruins, came up opportunely, and sent a volley among my 
mischievous opponents ; whereupon they disappeared 
with what haste they might, and fled away till their 
monkey jargon was lost in the recesses of the forest. 

On our return to Siamrap we found our old friend 
the Chow Muang busily engaged in the cremation 
services of the deputy governor, who had deceased not 
long before. The funeral pyre was set beneath an 
imposing catafalque, with a spire that reminded us of 
some Gothic church. A pavilion had also been erected 
to accommodate the spectators, of whom there were 
two hundred or thereabouts. The ceremony began with 
a procession of Buddhist priests, behind whom followed 
a band of musicians, a troop of hired mourners bringing 
up the rear. These mourners kept to their work bravely, 
the chief leading off with a shrill wail, and his associates 
supporting him with a chorus of sobs. While the body 
was still burning, the townsfolk gave themselves up to 
the delights of a banquet, or occupied their time with 
the theatricals and a variety of other amusements which 
had been provided for their entertainment, but gambling 
was the pastime most in vogue. The comic evolutions 
of a dwarf and a giant were received with general 
approbation, while a troop of pretty Lakon girls, who 
danced to native music, came in also to show that the 
burning of the body of a chief was by no means a 
subject to call forth intense mourning, any more than 
the burninq- of a house would with us, when one felt 



CREMATION. 153 

certain that the owners were safe and their effects 
insured. The deceased chief they supposed had gone, 
leaving behind nothing more than his old tenement of 
clay, that in his future state he might take possession 
of one better fitted for a being one degree nearer 
Nirvana. The only objection to the practice of cre 
mation in our own Christian country that can be 
reasonably urged, is the feeling that the relatives of 
deceased persons would be sanctioning, or taking part 
in, what to them might seem to be a barbarous des 
truction of familiar and much-loved forms, in place of 
consigning them to the silent, slow, but equally certain 
and more loathsome process of decomposition in the 
grave. Some, again, would ask, what if our real bodies 
are, one day, to be raised up from the dead ? putting 
no faith in the theory that the dust of the dead mixes 
with its parent soil, and is constantly being redistributed 
among living plants and animals ; and that the gases of 
the body pass into the air, and are carried with the 
wind over the wide world. Such persons would thus 
seek to limit the power of the Almighty by supposing 
that the process of cremation would in some way affect 
the ultimate designs of God. But this is a subject on 
which I cannot enter here. It seems to me, however, 
that no valid objections can be raised to cremation as 
a rapid means of disposing of the bodies of the dead 
in overcrowded cities, in the neighbourhood of which 
extensive and overstocked burial-grounds have proved 
detrimental to the health of the community. 

Next day we mounted our elephants and started 
for the Richi Mountains, about thirty miles distant 
from Siamrap. It is said that these mountains contain 
the quarries from which ancient Cambodians obtained 



154 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

their supplies of stone. On our route we passed more 
ruins, the most remarkable being a broad causeway 
which led right up to the foot of the hills, and which 
was still in very serviceable repair. The officer who 
accompanied us made a series of devout offerings at 
the shrines in the forest, in order to gain the favour of 
the malignant spirits that infest these wilds. We then 
set out bare-backed upon the elephants, to attempt to 
penetrate the thick jungle of the mountains. 

But riding bare-backed upon an elephant was by 
no means as agreeable as it was new to us. 

The loose skin on the back had a nasty way of 
carrying one over the hard spine of the animal. How 
ever, there was nothing for it but to submit and push 
on, as howdahs could not be used ; and we soon dis 
covered that even the elephants themselves could not 
make way through the gigantic wall of jungle and 
forest that closed us round on all sides. We had there 
fore to return, but not before seeing what we imagined 
to be traces of ancient stone quarries. The expedition 
occupied nearly three days, after which we pushed on 
for the head of Thale Sap lake. 

This lake rises during the rains to a very con 
siderable depth, and forms a sort of back-water to the 
river Mekong ; but when we crossed it, which it took 
us about five days to do, we found that the water was 
seldom more than three or four feet deep, whereas, at 
the end of the wet season, it becomes so full that even 
the forests on its banks are submerged. A number of 
fishermen s villages studded the lake, some of them 
far from the shores, and supported on piles which had 
been driven into the soft bottom of the lake. These 
villages, from their situation and general appearance, 



THALE SAP. 155 

reminded me of the accounts given of the pre-historic 
Lake-dwellings of Switzerland. The houses are 
erected above a platform of bamboo, common to 
the entire settlement, and used also for drying and 
curing fish. After descending Thale Sap, and entering 
the stream that connects it with the Mekong, we 
discovered that a great trade in fish-oil was carried on 
in the Annamese settlements along the banks. It sur 
prised us to see the enormous quantities of fish that 
were caught in this lake, and then sent to the Annamese 
villages to be boiled down into oil. 

The trade is a lucrative one, and gives employ 
ment to thousands of families the only really indus 
trious ones in this quarter. We came into contact 
with European civilisation once more when a sudden 
bend of the stream brought us in sight of a small gun 
boat, which was there awaiting the return of M. de 
Lagree from Siamrap. The meeting was as welcome 
as it was unexpected, and I shall be ever grateful to 
those kindly French officers for cordially receiving us 
on board. On March 26th we landed at Campong 
Luang, the first trading-place of any pretensions 
which we had yet reached on our downward voyage. 
There are many Malays settled in this town, as might 
be expected from the name it bears. Malay settle 
ments, indeed, are common on both banks of the 
stream ; but regarding the date at which they came into 
the country, the village chiefs whom I interrogated could 
give no certain information. They adhere to their 
own customs, are governed by their own chiefs, and 
are followers of the Mohammedan religion. 

The bazaar at Campong Luang presented a most 
animated scene, and we saw few there who were not 



156 1NDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

well-dressed and busy, and to all appearance pros 
perous. 

We reached Penompinh on the night of the 27th, 
and anchored off the palace, in the centre of the town. 
Just below this place there is a point at which several 
streams converge. Of these confluents the most im- 

o 

portant is the great river Mekong, and after that the 
artery which drains the lake at one season and fills it 
at another, and down which we had been shaping our 
course. The King treated us with great courtesy, 
assigning us a house within the palace grounds, and 
entertaining us repeatedly at his table, where excellent 
dinners were specially prepared for us in completely 
European style. The fact is, his majesty had a 
French cook in his pay ; and this was the secret of a 
culinary skill which at first took us somewhat by 
surprise. These dinners were a real enjoyment, for 
we had not had a good meal for some time ; as my 
readers will understand when I tell them that at 
Nakhon Wat thinking we should be all the better for 

o 

some strengthening food, and not being familiar with the 
American plan of cutting a steak as we required it, and 
keeping the animal going alive we had to purchase 
a whole bullock to secure a joint of beef. The animal 
afforded us about three good meals, and caused us to 
be looked upon as demons by the devout Buddhists 
for slaying an ox. We then tried to preserve portions 
of the carcase, but it was a failure. 

His majesty honoured us with a long performance 
of his dancing women. However, it was truly a 
tedious affair when the first novelty of the exhibition 
had worn off. As for the King, he lay stretched out in 
a nearly nude condition, betel-chewing and smoking, 



A MALAY FIRE. 157 

till the whole entertainment came to an end. Truly, 
the cares of state must sit easily on his royal breast. 

In return for a number of presents we laid at the 
feet of this easy-going potentate, he one morning sent 
us a whole pig. He must have done this without 
consulting the members of his Cabinet, for otherwise 

o 

a monarch so enlightened would hardly have been 
guilty of so inconsiderate an act. 

The sight was too much for our way-worn China 
men. Here was an entire fat porker, all our own, 
handed over to us as a free gift. Their masters 
would not eat of it, and that they well knew. Almost 
mechanically they stripped their jackets off, and whetted 
their knives, stopping every now and then to gaze and 
grin, and smack their lips in a sort of delirium of joy. 
After three days of uninterrupted feasting there was 
very little left of the pig ; but our celestial serving-men 
made a touching appeal to us to pay them their dues, 
and suffer them to remain behind in a country where 
pigs are given away. 

I photographed the King in his native robes of state, 
and a second time in the uniform of a French field- 
marshal. In the latter instance, I remember, there was 
some difficulty about the boots, which I think ended 
in his majesty borrowing a pair from his cook. 

One night during our stay a fire broke out in a large 
Malay settlement on the other side of the stream. 
The spectacle was a grand one, and we hurried across 
the river, to see whether we could be of any use. 
Judge our surprise to find the Malays men, women, 
and children coolly sitting at the water s edge watching 
the devouring flames. At length we made up to the 
Orang-datu, or chief, and prayed him to rouse the 



158 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

people to do something to save their effects ; but he 
laconically replied, Teda tuan ! (No, sir). * Why not ? 
Have they then, themselves, set fire to the village ? 
Teda tuan (No, sir), again. * Tuan Alia poonia krajah ! 
Kinappa bullie baut ? (It is God s work! What can 
we do ?) The old man afterwards informed me, when 
the fire had done its worst, that it was customary for 
good sons of Islam to allow a conflagration to take 
its natural course, as it was simply one of God s most 
direct ways of punishing a much-loved community for 
their sins. Praised be God/ he said, as the last house 
fell among the ashes, and the inhabitants prepared to 
spend the night beneath the cloudless sky. Had he 
said that the fire was the work of the devil, he would 
have been much nearer the truth. For there were 
others in the town who assured us that conflagrations 
of this sort are brought about by incendaries men who 
have just brought a large stock of bamboos to the 
place, and who will get a better sale for their wares if 
a fire brings building-material into brisk demand. 
Such conflagrations, therefore, are by no means un 
common, the simple inhabitants invariably setting it 
down to their own sins, while crafty Chinese speculators 
grow fat on the misery which their own mischief entails. 
The authorities are aware of this ; probably some of 
them get hush-money out of the nefarious traffic. 

Provided with elephants by the King, from whom, 
as well as from the French officers at Campong Luang, 
we received every kindness and attention, we set out for 
Kamput. The district crossed on our five days journey 
overland abounded in forest-clad mountains and richly 
cultivated alluvial plains ; but, as it was now the very 
height of the dry season, we suffered extremely from 



CROSSING THE COUNTRY. 159 

scarcity of water. The districts which lie between Pe- 
nompinh and Kamput are perhaps the most productive 
of any in the present kingdom of Cambodia. Rice is 
grown there in such abundance as to admit of a consider 
able export trade, although that grain is the staple food 
on which the people depend for their sustenance. Palm- 
sugar is another important article of commerce raised in 
this quarter. Silk also is produced and manufactured 
into the rich langoutis, prized no less for the brilliancy of 
their dyes than for the durability of their texture. At 
one spot in a plain which we crossed, a band of rebels 
had formerly been overthrown, and the skull of a ring 
leader who had been captured and put to death was 
still to be seen impaled upon a post, as a warning to 
evil-doers. The intense heats of the day were followed 
by a clammy night air, and by heavy falls of dew. Once, 
after a heavy day s march, we stretched ourselves out, 
as usual, to pass the night on the open plain ; and at 
daybreak, when I awoke and turned round to where my 
companion lay, I felt my limbs stiff and racked with 
pain, and I saw how my friend, where he still slept, had 
his head and hair glistening with a thousand drops of 
dew. After a while the rheumatic pains wore off, but 
we took care henceforward to observe greater caution 
in the selection of a resting-place. Passing through a 
rocky defile between mountains clad in evergreen 
forests, and rising five or six thousand feet above the 
plain, we emerged on April 9 on the cultivated lands 
around Kamput, hiving spent about five clays in the 
accomplishment of our journey. 

Kamput stands on the coast near the southern 
extremity of the Gulf of Siam, and is approached by 
a small shallow river not easily navigable, and having 



160 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

a bar at its mouth which obliges the ships that trade 
at the port to anchor in the road outside. The chief 
merchants at Kamput are, as a matter of course, China 
men. It is the Chinese, too, who cultivate the rice, 
sugar, and pepper which form the chief articles of the 
local export trade. But the business of the place had 
fallen off, and the port, at the time of our visit, was 
said to be blockaded by a piratical fleet of junks, owned 
and manned by men of the same race as the merchants 
whom they sought to plunder, but hailing from different 
provinces ; the merchants belonging mostly to Fukien, 
and the pirates to the island of Hainan. It was 
reported to us that some of these junks were bound 
for Bangkok ; and one of our own servants, a Hainan 
man, who brought us the information, suggested to us 
to embark among his piratical kinsmen ; but an old 
Malay chief, whom we fell in with at Kamput, gave us 
a hint of the danger, and we therefore declined the 
proposal. 

This Malay chief was an officer in the service of 
the King of Cambodia ; one who, with his trusty sword, 
had aided more than once in suppressing rebellion in 
the land. I enquired of him if, for any consideration, 
he would part with that sword. Bending the blade 
nearly double, and allowing it to spring out to within 
an inch of my throat, he replied No, sir ! when I part 
with my sword I part with my life. There is at 
Kamput a Malay settlement, of fighting men as far as 
I could make out. But our friend Mohamet, as I shall 
call him, though I did not learn his true name, told me 
a long story about a peaceful mission with which he 
had been entrusted, and one affecting the prosperity of 
the kingdom. He said, I was despatched to the dis- 



MOHAMET S EXPLORATIONS. 16 1 

tant mountains to search for a white elephant reported 
to have been seen by some " Orang Outan " or " Orang 
Bukit," wild men of the mountains, who dwell there. 
But who are these wild men ? I said. Mohamet, 
assuming an expression of compassion at my ignorance, 
replied, * Ah, you seem to know a good many things, 
and yet you don t know that/ * Did you ever see one 
yourself, Mohamet ? * No, sir, not exactly, not alto 
gether, but I have seen them flying off through the 
forest. They are very black and hairy, have a lan 
guage of their own, eat nuts and fruit, just like 
monkeys, and shoot game with the bow and arrow. 

1 Come with me and I will show you them. More 
over, if you are fond of sport, there are the elephant, 
rhinoceros, tiger, deer, besides a multitude of other 
animals which inhabit these wilds, and on which the 
" Orang Bukit " feed. More than that, if you give me 
ten days, as you hold the King s letter, I will take you 
over yonder mountains to a place near the summit of 
them, where sacred lotus pools are to be seen, and lilies 
big enough to sit in. There, at night, you hear the 
whisperings of strange beings around the pools, and 
see the weird lights of the " Orang Anto " (spirits), as 
they feed the reptiles that dwell in the waters. On 
the summit of the mountain there are foot-prints of 
animals of all sizes in the solid rock, some three feet in 
diameter, some smaller ; some cloven, and some with 
toes and nails ; all of them perfect, as if they had been 
moulded in clay. But I am coming to what I desired 
to tell you about, and by the holy prophet of Mecca it 
is true! Here he made a gesture, as if to cut his 
throat, as a token of his veracity. On the mountain 
top there stands a ship made of stone. It wants the 

M 



162 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

masts, it is true ; but there, on the deck, is a coil of rope, 
also of stone. It is an immense ship, worn in places ; 
but it is still complete, and who can say for how many 
tens of thousands of years it has stood where we may 
see it now. As to the white elephant, he was not to 
be found, nor could he open communication with the 
Orang Bukit. 

It was difficult to know what to make of such a 
story as this. Mohamet spoke as one who was record 
ing only what he had actually seen, and sketched me 
an outline of the stone ship with the point of his sword 
on the sand. 

Perhaps he may have seen what he related in some 
dream, and told the story repeatedly, till belief in its 
reality had ultimately taken possession of his mind. 
Perhaps he had discovered Noah s Ark, and the true 
Mount Ararat. Perhaps it was a pure fabrication, 
founded on the account of the deluge contained in the 
Koran. 

At any rate he volunteered to take us to the spot, 
and the offer was a tempting one ; but we decided that 
we were both of us much in want of change, for our 
health had been somewhat impaired by the heat 
of the climate, by the scarcity of pure water, and by 
the absence of nutritious food. So -we hired a boat with 
six men on board her, and set sail up the Gulf for 
Bangkok, a distance of about 500 miles. Trusting to 
a small map of this region, and to our compass, we kept 
watch and watch, Kennedy and myself, and made the 
run to the mouth of the Menam in rather less than five 
days. 

Some of the islands where we landed on our route 
were uninhabited, save only by birds, insects, and wild 



ARRIVAL AT BANGKOK. 163 

animals. On one we found the spoor of the elephant, 
where that animal had been recently feeding ; and this 
fact is valuable, in so far as it tends to corroborate the 
theory that these islands were originally attached to the 
mainland, and were separated probably by the subsidence 
consequent on volcanic action, as Mr. Wallace suggests 
when endeavouring to account for the natural history of 
the regions through which he travelled. There is hardly 
a bare spot on these islands. They are clothed with an 
evergreen foliage to their summits, and rise from the sea 

o o 

a glorious confusion of gigantic trees, tangled shrubs, and 
parasitic plants ; save when bold red cliffs peep out, 
here and there, amid a drapery of pendant creepers. 
Among the boulders and bright sand on the beach are 
found clear pools, filled with beautiful marine plants 
and sparkling shells. The surrounding bed of the 
ocean, seen many fathoms down through the glassy 
water, rivals the island in the rich colours of its corals, 
shells, and plants. 

On the night of the iSth we steered, as we thought, 
to fetch the mouth of the Menam ; but it was unfor 
tunately dark, and the land lay so low that we ran in 
shore about five miles to the eastward, and had to 
come to anchor with a heavy sea running, which 
favoured us with cold baths at short intervals through 
out the night. 

We made sail again next clay at daybreak, and 
reached Bangkok in safety, much to the surprise of 
some of our friends, who had recommended, when we 
left, that we should take with us our coffins, and have 
the Burial Service read before starting. 



M 2 



1 64 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Saigon ; its Harbour The Town The Resident Foreign Community 
Cholon, the Chinese Town River Dwellings Customs of the Cochin 
Chinese Chinese Traders The Cochin Chinese Village of Choquan 
The Sorcerer Plaine des Tombcaux Petruski. 

SAIGON, in French Cochin China, is approached by an 
offshoot of the great Mekong river, narrow and 
tortuous indeed, but nevertheless navigable for vessels 
of the heaviest tonnage. The town itself has a gay 
look about it, or had, at least, during the time of my 
visit ; but it has a somewhat straggling appearance. 
Facing the settlement there is a spacious haven, con 
taining a floating-dock, and a fleet made up of ironclads, 
steamers of the Messageries Maritime line, and other 
private trading companies, besides many square-rigged 
ships awaiting cargoes of rice, the chief product of the 
vast alluvial plains of southern Cochin China. Along 
the banks run a long low line of cafes and mercantile 
or government offices, surmounted by the flags of the 
different consulates, while by far the most conspicuous 
building was an hotel in progress of erection, which 
promised to become a very imposing edifice. 

The wide level roads, edged with rows of trees, 
and penetrating for miles in perfectly straight lines 
through the country, were an attractive feature in the 
settlement ; showing also that the Government had lost 
no time and spared no expense in adopting measures 



SAIGON. 165 

which materially contributed to the health and enjoy 
ment of the community. As for the residents them 
selves, they have provided their dwellings with many 
of the comforts and luxuries of home. As far, how 
ever, as I could judge, the bulk of the Saigon commerce 
is in the hands of the English and Germans. At the 
same time, there were a large number of French houses ; 
yet the French merchant, somehow, seems to carry on 
his trade with a degree of polite ease and light but 
elegant deliberation, which constitute his business a 
means of supplying a comfortable pleasant livelihood, 
rather than an instrument which, after clays of weary 
toil, sleepless nights, and continuous struggle, will en 
able him to wrest a competency from the hands of for 
tune. It is interesting to note how the day was usually 
portioned out. About half-past five or six o clock in 
the morning the man-servant (Chinese) would tap at 
the door. Tuan bangon adcla copee ! Awake, sir, 
coffee is ready, is the announcement he brings, in 
Malay, a language spoken by the Singapore Chinese. 
Refreshed with a cup of coffee of the true Parisian 
flavour, by the way and with a plate of freshly-gathered 
fruit, the merchant would descend in bajo and pajamas 
(sleeping costume) to the office on the ground-floor ; 
and there, having lit his cheroot, he would sit down to 
business till about half-past nine o clock. To bathe 
and complete the toilet is the next duty to be fulfilled, 
and after this follows breakfast, with its rice, curry, 
and so forth ; such a repast, indeed, with slight 
variations, as are the breakfasts which we know every 
where in the East. The meal concluded, time is 
whiled away with reading, sleeping, smoking, and loung 
ing, until the cool of the afternoon has arrived. Then 



1 66 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA, 

tiffin (luncheon) is served up, and after tiffin work is 
renewed for two or three hours. Some time is then 
spent in a promenade, to listen to the band ; in a game 
of billiards, or ecarte at the club ; or in sipping a 
glass of absinthe at the favourite cafe. After dinner 
the evening would be spent at home, or it might be 
at the club or cafe, where card -parties were made up 
and play carried on to a late hour. 

This sort of existence is, of course, varied by 
private balls, dinner-parties, and state receptions at 
Government-house. I remember meeting one or two 
of the representative Chinamen at a Government ball, 
and among them one who had never before been 
present at such a gathering. Some one had informed 
this gentleman that the dancing carried on with 
great seriousness and ceremonial was part of our 
European burial service, and he was gravely enquiring 
whether he should not have appeared in white (deep 
mourning) as a token of sympathy for the bereaved, 
till he discovered that he had been the victim of a 
hoax. But the imaginative Frenchmen sometimes 
will themselves fall a prey to delusion. On one 
occasion, at a quiet dinner given by a French mer 
chant, I found the guests could talk of nothing else 
but the untimely end of a devoted naturalist and 
distinguished traveller who had filled the position of 
director of the Jardin Botanique in Saigon. It was 
reported that this unfortunate gentleman had been 
robbed and murdered by a band of natives in a hill 
district, where he had for some months been prose 
cuting his botanical researches. Our party was truly 
a sad meeting ; the young martyr to science was loved 
and esteemed by all who knew him, and those present, 



CHOLON. 167 

one and all, vowed to wreak a speedy vengeance on 
the heads of the assassins, a number of whom so the 
rumour ran had already been secured. The tide of 
sympathy was now at its height, when a light foot was 
heard on the stairs in a moment the door flew open, 
and the murdered savant rushed into the arms of his 
sorrowing fellow-countrymen. He had, as it turned 
out, lost all his property, but a well-disposed native 
had saved his life. 

Cholon, the native quarter of Saigon, is separated 
from the European settlement by a distance of three 
miles. Let the reader join me in a morning walk to 
this half Chinese, half Annamese town. Our course is 
along the footway of the Grand Canal grand in 
nothing but its name, for the banks are overgrown with 
rank weeds, and the waters at high tide are muddy, 
and at low tide mud. A pack of pariah clogs rush 
madly across the road, and through the cloud of dust 
which they raise we can discern the outlines of a train 
of Cambodian carts, each cart having a pair of bullocks 
tethered by a rope through their nostrils to the con 
veyance immediately in front. The whole train is 
managed by a little boy, for the traders are still asleep 
among the tusks, hides, horns, gum-dammar and gam 
boge, which they are bringing to markcL for sale. 
The cart-wheels creak hideously around their dry 
wooden axles, and indeed would make the fortune of any 
speculator who should be enterprising enough to drive 
them up and clown some quiet London neighbourhood. 
We had now entered the main Cholon road. Yonder is 
the Gendarmerie on the left, and here come a long row 
of barefooted women, bringing fresh vegetables to the 
town. Their dress is similar to that of the Chinese 
peasant girls, excepting their hats, and these resemble 



1 68 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

huge baskets poised above their heads. Hats of this 
sort are made of dried leaves, and measure two feet in 
diameter, by six inches in depth. The men wear head 
pieces even larger still, conical in shape, and descend 
ing over the shoulders ; these huge extinguishers are 
tilted up in order to enable their wearers to see their 
way, and are of a sort well suited to the Annamese cha 
racter, for they afford shelter from rain, and this is 
everything among a people who deem pure water to be 
their deadliest foe. During a residence of three months 
in Cochin China, I do not recollect ever having seen a 
native wash himself, unless when requested to do so, 
that a fair photographic representation of his face 
might be obtained ; and even then the operation had to 
be carefully watched, for the washing was managed in 
such a way that it left a rim round the physiognomy, 
like an earthwork, thrown up to protect the features 
from further violence. 

Let us, however, proceed in our excursion. There 
has been no rain for months, the hedges and shrubs are 
bronzed with dust, but enlivened also by the varied co 
lours of the convolvulus. There is nothing of peculiar 
interest to be seen on the road at this early hour, until 
we get within a mile from the town ; and then we come 
upon the Plaine des Tombeaux, a burial-ground cover 
ing an area of about twenty miles. This ground was 
chosen by the native rulers hundreds of years ago, as a 
resting-place for the dead, in obedience to the advice of 
the court astrologers. The telegraph which skirts the 
road now tells of new life, and a new era in the history 
of the country. Cholon is now before us ; the principal 
inhabitants are Chinese, and Chinese characteristics are 
to be discovered everywhere around, no less in the 
temples and the houses than in the industrious activity 



CHOLON. 169 

of the population. The town was astir hours ago, and 
in the faces we encounter so full of business we 
recognize only Chinamen. 

In order to see something of the Cochin Chinese we 
must go to the river-side, where there are hundreds of 
boats grouped together, forming a native floating village. 
Many of the Chinese merchants are already clown to the 
boats, treating for the rice which they contain, while 
others have closed their bargains, and are paying the 
natives in basket-loads of copper cash. A few steps 
beyond we come upon the river dwellings. Can any style 
of life be more primitive than this ? The caves which 
our British forefathers inhabited were castles when com 
pared to these abodes, and the Swiss Lake-dwellings 
were palaces. Here a family of seven may be found 
domiciled in a hut which measures five feet by seven. 
The sanitary arrangements are simple. The structure 
is elevated on a platform a few feet above the stream, 
into which all the refuse and garbage is allowed to fall. 
The capitalist, if he proposes to build a river residence 
of this sort one offering every advantage to a large 
family in search of cheerful society, a commanding 
view of the stream, good fishing close at hand, unen 
cumbered by tolls and ground rent, and boasting a 
drainage system so unelaborated and cheap has to 
launch out the sum of two-and-a-half dollars, or twelve 
shillings, in the construction and decoration of the 
edifice. When built, the proprietor will let it on a repair 
ing lease. By referring to the picture it will be noticed 
that the Paterfamilias has modestly retired behind 
his children. As the morning is hot, his only article of 
clothing is a conical hat, the badge of parental dignity. 
He would, as he is partially civilized, have removed this 



1 7 o INDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

ornament when we approached, but as it might have 
led to a severe cold and an untimely end, I requested 
him to keep it on. Clothing in this neighbourhood is 
one of the most expensive items in the maintenance of 
a family, although articles of dress are usually un 
known to the children until they become five years old. 
In front of these huts we may see the canoes, scooped 
out of solid logs, and used for friendly visits, marketing, 
or fishing. These natives, as I have already said, are 
not cleanly in their habits. They are near water, but 
I fear soap would find a poor market among them, 
unless they took a fancy to eat it, which sometimes 
occurs. They labour as little as they possibly can, and 
spend their leisure in smoking, in chewing as much 
betel-nut as they can afford to buy, and in the chase ; but 
their hunting-ground is a caput humanum, and the 
tiny game is esteemed a great delicacy. Here, in 
Cholon, the Chinese is the dominant trading Asiatic 
race, and this is indeed the case in all the Malayan and 
Indo-Chinese nations to which they have emigrated. 
They are almost invariably found not only carrying on 
a direct import and export trade on their own account, 
but also acting as middle-men between the foreign 
merchants and the natives. I made the acquaintance 
of one or two China merchants in Cholon, who not 
many years ago arrived in the country as ordinary day- 
labourers, and who by their reputation for energy and 
honest dealing won for themselves the support and 
confidence of the European traders in Saigon. 

During the Chinese new-year holidays, I had an 
invitation to the house of one of these traders. The 
place was built in semi-Chinese, semi-European style. 
The front warehouse had changed its usual aspect. 



CffOQUAN. 171 

Tables with embroidered covers had taken the place 
of bales of piece goods and bags of produce, and were 
laden with substantial fare. Some hundreds of ver 
milion visiting-cards, each about the size of a sheet of 
note paper, and inscribed with Chinese names, adorned 
the walls. In a spacious apartment on the upper 
story a table was spread with European ware, wines, 
and delicacies. Our host apologised for the absence 
of certain plates and knives by saying that his Cochin 
Chinese friends had begged to be allowed to carry 
them off as curiosities. Some of these sons of Han 
settle permanently in the country, but the majority 
return to China, where, having purchased a petty title 
and personal security with a portion of their savings, 
they will retire, or resume business with what is left. 

The village of Choquan stands about half way be 
tween Saigon and Cholon. On the right of the path 
way by which it is reached there is a well-grown 
bamboo hedge, and on the left, in the centre of a rice- 
field, a deep pool in which buffaloes delight to wallow, 
plastering their hides with mud to prevent the attacks 
of the moschettos. Upon approaching Choquan there is 
nothing to be seen of the village, save the fruit-trees that 
cluster round the houses ; and at the time of my visit, 
orange and pumeloe-trees (Citrus decumana) were in full 
fruit, bending down over the enclosures with the burden 
of their crops. The village, in so far as I could make out, 
is entered through a narrow lane between two walls of 
prickly cactus ; this lane led to a labyrinth of other lanes, 
so I was puzzled to know which to take to find 
Choquan. But I had passed through the heart of the 
hamlet several times without being aware of it, as the 
scattered houses were each shut in by high hedges of 



172 INDO-C1I1NA AND CHINA. 

cactus or bamboo. The natives love privacy ; every 
prickle in the hedges that encompass their dwelling is, 
as it were, a token that the family within would rather 
be alone. If one be not satisfied with this, the outer 
doorway has only to be opened, when one or two ill- 
conditioned pariah dogs will show their fangs, and use 
them too. Groups of naked children roll about in the 
dust in the lanes, or loll in the shade smoking, in 
flating their chubby cheeks with the fumes of the 
cigarette and blowing them out again through mouth 
and nostrils with that air of intense satisfaction which 
belongs usually to maturer years. Men, too, block up 
the way squatting or (as the hedge is not an inviting 
object to lean against) lying down in the dust to have 
a talk, or else as there are no Swans, Wheat 
Sheaves/ or Royal Oaks/ one of which always seems 
to be the next house we come to in our village streets 
at home they betake themselves to their own abodes, 
bar the outer gate, get into the verandah, into seats, or 
upon matted benches furnished with wooden pillows, 
and then, in a recumbent position, with tea, cigarette, 
sam-shu and betel-nut within reach, resume the topic 
of discussion, the interest in which has carried them so 
far through the listless day. 

Now let us enter one of these dwellings. The two 
men (for what I relate I have actually witnessed), now 
prostrated with their conversational efforts, are land 
owners in the village, and their estates measure about 
an acre apiece. The pair of pleasant-faced unwashed 
little girls who fan their masters are domestic slaves. 
The lady of the house sits smoking and dandling her 
child in a dark corner of the interior. The edifice itself 
is well built, and the floor stands upon brick pillars 




A VILLA<;K ROAD, corn IN CHINA 



COCHIN CHINESE. 173 

about three feet above ground An ornamental 
framework of carved wood supports the tiled roof, and 
the interior is partitioned off into apartments for the 
decent accommodation of the family. In front there are 
verandahs on each side of the doorway, and above the 
lattice is a board inscribed with the owner s name or 
title, while suspended from the doorposts are addi 
tional boards bearing texts from the Chinese classics. 
If the owner be a man of wealth, the entire front of 
his house is carved into open \vork, which with the ad 
dition of paint and gilding presents an imposing aspect, 
and serves to screen the defects within, where the 
family are kept lively by the vermin that revel in the 
darkness and dirt. The fetid air of the interior deters 
one from a prolonged inspection. Let us notice, ho\v- 
ever, the unique arrangement of a boudoir where an 
old woman is seated on a table sewing, and an elderly 
gentleman reclines on a neatly-covered couch. A few 
chairs of Chinese make are ranged round the apart 
ment. On one of them stands a rice-pot filled with 
oranges, a bowl of rice, a cup of sam-shu, and one or 
two disused idols. On another we may see sundry 
articles of horse harness, and above it a Roman 
Catholic picture in red and yellow. Beneath the chair 
are a bag of fruits and a lot of agricultural implements. 
Chinese and European pictures are hung about the 
walls ; and one or two mirrors, which give most hideous 
contortions of the human face, make up the adornments 
of the dwelling. 

Now for a breath of pure air, and I will take you 
to another quarter of Choquan, where a sorcerer re 
sides. His house is situated in a retired part of the 
village, and is surrounded by a thick cactus hedge. 



J74 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

There is only one way by which this curious retreat 
can be entered, and that is by ascending a tree which 
bends over the hedge, then walking along a branch, 
and dropping from it to the doorway of the hut. 
When we have got inside we find the doctor, sooth 
sayer, and magician, bent over a volume. Strewn on 
a rough deal table before him are the herbs by means 
of which he works some of his potent spells. One herb 
there is in frequent demand, and is a love-philter ; and 
this, when used by some ardent but disappointed swain, 
must be reduced to a powder, and applied to the end 
of a cigarette which he presents to the unsuspecting 
but fickle fair one. When the first few whiffs of the 
enchanted vapour have been puffed through her 
nostrils, she loses her heart to its assailant, and is 
conquered. The posture of profound study assumed 
by the magician is altered at intervals, and the mys 
terious medicine-man at last reminds us that he is 
mortal by reaching forth his hand to refresh himself 
from a bowl of sam-shu (native whiskey). Now he 
pauses to take a whiff of his pipe, or to rivet his gaze 
upon nothing material, while he ponders over the most 
dangerous symptoms of his last patient, considering 
whether in the event of his succumbing to his disease, 

o 

or his physician s treatment, the friends of the deceased 
will be able to pay the full fee. It may be he is then 
interrupted by a fresh patient dropping down upon 
him with a broken head, or heart, the victim of a 
quarrel or the sufferer from disappointed love. But 
the branch of his profession on which he mainly de 
pends to fill his cash-box is the exorcism of the devils, 
which find a home in the hearts of his countrymen, 
When a poor man is troubled with a malignant spirit, 



SOjRCERY. 175 

it can be got rid of for about a dollar ; while, on the 
other hand, if the patient be a man of property, the 
demon is certain to prove refractory, and to require at 
least sixteen or twenty dollars worth of spells to bring 
about his ultimate expulsion. When called to a 
patient s bed-side, the doctor begins his operations by 
bleeding not the sick man, however, but himself. 
Into his own cheeks he first fixes two small skewers 
having lighted candles attached to their ends ; then 
bending over the bed, he recites the praises of the 
good spirit, Chau-xuong, and solicits its aid. Should 
this exorcism fail, he calls in his attendant who does 
the drudgery, stretches out the lad s right arm, and in 
his hand next places an idol, which is supposed to 
create involuntary motion in the extended arm. After 
the first hour or so, the involuntary motion resolves 
itself into one that takes the nearest bowl of sam-shu 
provided for the idol deity, who, on such occasions, 
has an intense thirst, producing strangely enough, a 
variety of complex and involuntary motions in the 
limbs of the assistant who supports him. The natives 
attribute all this to a kind of animal magnetism, not 
unknown in other parts of the world. Should the 
treatment described be unsuccessful, the physician, 
priest, and sorcerer is supposed to sleep on thorns, 
walk through fire, drink boiling resin, and accomplish 
a variety of feats, wherein the only visible spiritual 
a^ent is sam-shu. Another source of income to this 

o 

mysterious quack is derived from the Plaine des 
Tombeaux, or Dong-tap-trau, where tens of thou 
sands of the Cochin Chinese lie buried. He has 
simply to declare to some afflicted family that the 
cause of their affliction is the unfortunate position of 



176 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

the body of a deceased kinsman in relation to the 
terrestrial dragon ; he will then be engaged by the 
suffering survivors to remove the body to a more 
lucky site. 

The Cochin Chinese, like the Chinese, have many 
superstitions connected with the burial of the dead ; 
one of these accounts for the uniform direction of the 
graves in Dong-tap-trau, and another for their general 
structure. As in China, the dragon is frequently seen 
sculptured on their tombs. When death takes place 
in a family, this sorcerer or master of the mysteries of 
Feng-shui is called in to superintend the burial of 
one who, it may be, has been a victim of his quackery ; 
and, as a matter of business, he is expected to dispose 
of the corpse in such a way that the spirit in its new 
state will aid the fortunes of the house. He therefore 
proceeds to Dong-tap-trau, with a Chinese compass in 
the one hand, and an idol in the other. His first care 
is to find the position of the head of the terrestrial 
dragon, in order that he may rest the head of the body 
upon it. He then carefully takes the bearings of the 
stream that flows through the plain, so that the body 
may be placed with its feet towards the source. Were 
it placed with its head towards the source, it is be 
lieved that the spirit would be eternally engaged in 
striving to make way against the current, and thus 
suffer, through the neglect of surviving relations, the 
torments of a perpetual watery hell. 

The Cochin Chinese gentleman, like his prototype 
among other and more enlightened nations, generally 
exhibits in his physique and manners the evidences of 
superior breeding. When nature has had fair play, he is 
taller and more erect than the average specimens of his 



PETRUSKL 177 

countrymen of the humbler orders, while they are 
infinitely his superior in muscular development. He 
has never done a clay s work in his life. His hands 
are small, well formed, and soft like a woman s, while, 
as an indication of their utter uselessness, the nails of 
his third and little fingers are permitted to grow, or 
are cultivated, until they rival vulture s claws. Some 
of his actions, too, might be aptly compared to those 
of the king of birds. If he be a government official, 
he is frequently severe in the treatment of subordinates ; 
for it is he, together with his chief, who are responsible 
for their behaviour. In consequence of this system, 
clannish outbreaks are less frequent in French Cochin 
China than among the Chinese of Singapore and 
Penang. The life he leads is an indolent one ; when 
at home, he lolls on a couch or chair, surrounded by 
half-a-dozen attendants, one probably hunting for 
insects in the hair of his head, another fanning him ; 
while a third, who watches the inanimate face oi his 
lord, anticipates a wish, lights a pipe or cheroot, and 
quietly places it between his master s lips. Should a 
friend drop in for a chat, he fills his mouth with betel- 
nut and seri, as a polite intimation that anything like 
an animated conversation is not to be thought of, and 
only suited for the vulgar. The friend is then invited 
to do likewise ; and when both have the nut sufficiently 
chewed, gurgling growls, emitted through the plash of 
mastication, are interchanged, intelligible only to their 
own highly-tuned ears. A notable exception to the 
above type of native gentleman was Monsieur Pe- 
truski, a Cochin Chinese Christian, occupying the post 
of professor of his own language in the College des 
Interpretes of Saigon. He: had been educated in a 



178 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Roman Catholic college at Penang, and I shall never 
forget my surprise when first introduced to him. He 
addressed me in perfect English, with just a slight 
French accent, while in French he could converse with 
the same purity and ease. He was equally at home, 
I believe, when he spoke, or wrote in Spanish, Portu 
guese, or Italian ; and it was to his scholarly knowledge 
of Oriental tongues that he owed the distinguished 
position which he filled. On one occasion I visited 
his study, and I found him engaged on a work which 
had cost him years of labour A Comparative Ana 
lysis of the Languages of the World. He was sur 
rounded by a collection of rare and valuable books, 
some of which he had gathered when travelling in 
Europe ; others Sanscrit, Pali, Siamese, and Chinese 
he had obtained in various parts of the East. During the 
evening one of the Cholon missionaries joined us, and 
when I left he had engaged Petruski in a theological 
discussion in Latin. He is the author of a number of 
works ; among others, an Annamite Grammar, which 
opens by tracing the affinity between the most ancient 
symbolical characters and those of the modern written 
language of A imam. 



HONGKONG. 179 



CHAPTER VII. 

Hongkong Description of the Island The City of Victoria Its pre 
sent Condition Its Foreign and Native Population- The Market 
place Hongkong Artists Grog-shops Tai-ping-shan Expense of 
Living A Strange Adventurer A Mormon Missionary. 

AFTER leaving Cochin China I spent a short time in 
Singapore, and thence took voyage to the British 
colony of Hongkong. Hongkong was the first 
island I visited in Chinese waters, and it was there that 
I obtained my earliest impressions of the Chinese on 
their native soil, and formed the determination, which I 
afterwards carried out, of making myself acquainted 
with the manners and customs, and the wide-spread 
industries, of this ancient people in various provinces 
of their land. 

Hongkong, with its mixed population, its British 
rule and institutions, its noble European edifices, and 
Chinese streets, its Christian churches, and Buddhist 
temples, stands alone, on the verge of the great continent 
of Eastern Asia. This spot, moored to our little island 
by an electric cable that sweeps half round the globe, 
rises like a political beacon out of the China seas, and 
has by no means been without its influence in prevent 
ing the Tartar dynasty from foundering, in maintaining 
peace, and in casting the light of a higher civilization 
over some dark corners of the Flowery Land. 



i8o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

We may justly be proud of the policy which 
planted the British flag on this desolate island, and 
constituted it a Crown colony in 1843. A like praise 
worthy enterprise since those days has built a splendid 
city out of its granite rocks, cleared the surrounding 
seas of piratical hordes, and crowded the spacious 
harbour with a merchant fleet of all nationalities ; and 
yet, in some respects, the change is a disappointing 
one. Our liberal administration, and the freedom, and 
protection afforded by our laws, have rendered the 
place an asylum for the scum of Chinese cities and for 
ruffians too poor, or actually too depraved, to be able 
to purchase immunity from the penalties of crime by 
entering the Buddhist cloisters of their own land. 
Happily some of these mauvais sujets, finding a 
wider scope for honest energy, become respectable 
citizens, but the bulk of them are either supported in 
our prisons, or else prey upon the European and 
native community. 

Although the geographical position of the island 
is well known, it may not be out of place here to give 
some account of its general appearance before we dis 
embark. On the average it is about ten miles in length 
and four miles broad. A central rocky spine runs from 
east to west, rising in a series of jagged peaks, whose 
greatest elevation is 1,900 feet, and falling away 
towards the shore in a multitude of low hills, or bold 
crags. It is no longer the barren place of thirty 
years ago. There are wood-covered heights and grassy 
slopes, gardens in the valleys, and picturesque fisher 
villages nestling beneath the shade of umbrageous trees ; 
while on the north, the city of Victoria rears its granite 
buildings, like the side of a richly-sculptured pyramid, 



HONKONG. 181 

on the terraced cliffs beyond Victoria Peak. Below the 
town the shore curves round towards the mainland of 
British Kowloon, where a high ridge of hills encloses 
one of the finest harbours in the world, approached from 
the east by the Ly-ee-moon Pass, and entered through 
the Lama passage on the west, The view of Victoria 
from Kellet s Island, a small fortified rock in the east of 
the harbour, presents a striking scene, more especially 
during the rainy season, when the setting sun casts a 
deep purple veil over the town and over the peak, 




HONGKONG, FROM KELLET S ISLAND. 



which lie partly in shadow. At such a time I have 
seen the hill capped with a wreath of pearly cloud with 
a fringe of rose-pink or gold, and the edges of the stone 
buildings beneath gilded with sunshine looming out 
through the deepening gloom. The islands in the 
distance seemed like ruby clouds resting on the 
horizon, while near at hand a tangled forest of masts 
and spars rose up darkly against the face of the sky. 
The harbour was ablaze with light, broken by the sombre 
hulls of the ships, or the picturesque forms of native 



182 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

craft, with their huge sails spread out like wings to 
catch the evening breeze. 

Let us suppose that we land from a steamer that 
has just come to her anchorage. It is early morning, 
and there is a great tumult on deck. Passengers 
hurry, to and fro, in quest of baggage that had been 
consigned to the hold, and about which the officers 
seem to know nothing and care less. 

Trunks and boxes are all the while being speedily 
got up and arranged on deck, and the yells and impre 
cations of a hundred boatmen announce, not that they 
have come from the lower regions, but that celestial 
labourers are discharging cargo in their own way. 
Soon the ladder is let down, and up it scramble a 
number of petty traders arrayed in straw hats, long 
white cotton, or silk jackets which reach to the knees, 
dark blue breeches, white cotton leggings, and em 
broidered shoes with thick flat soles. To your sur 
prise, one accosts you familiarly as captain, and says, 
with a look of recognition, Tsing ! Tsing ! too 
muchee long tim my no hab see you ! This is the 
pidjin English for * I greet you ! it is a long time 
since I have seen you ! It is no use telling the fellow 
he is mistaken, as you have only arrived for the first 
time in China. He will reply, Ah, my sabby your 
broder, you alia same large facie mun ; he blong 
my good flin ; * or, Ah, I understand, I know your 
brother, you have the same broad benevolent face 
as he who was my friend. 

They have a notion, some of them, that England 
is a very small outside settlement on the borders of 
the Chinese Empire, and that we Englishmen all know 
each other, or are in some way akin. Hence they 



LANDING AT HONKONG. 183 

think they cannot go far wrong in asserting that you are 
some member of the family. These men are floating 
tailors, shoemakers, jewellers, washermen, artists, and 
curio-clealers ; but we will have a better look at 
them ashore. They are certainly very enterprising, 
and there is no end of competition among them. 
Others, a trifle more enlightened, imagine that Hong 
kong represents our greatest possession, and that the 
bulk of our people are merchants, who pass, to and fro, 
in ships engaged in the Chinese trade. We go ashore 
in a native boat, which is the floating dwelling of an 
entire family. There are, in Hongkong alone, more 
than 30,000 such people as these, who make their 
homes in their boats, and earn their subsistence by 
fishing or attending upon the ships in harbour. These 
folks carefully study the indications of the weather, 
and can calculate with great shrewdness the near 
approach of a storm. They usually verify their own 
observations by ascertaining the barometrical changes 
from foreign ship-captains in port ; and when they 
have settled in their own mind that a typhoon is at 
hand, they cross the harbour en masse, and shelter 
in the bays of Kowloon until the fury of the hurricane 
is past. The men in the boats are naked to the waist, 
and bronzed with constant exposure ; but the women 
are decently clothed, pretty, and attractive-looking. 
Some of them, if we may judge by their pale skins, 
their finely-formed features, and their large lustrous 
eyes, are not of purely Chinese blood. We have just 
time to observe that the Praya, or Bund, is faced 
with a retaining wall composed of huge blocks of 
granite which, as we shall see by-and-by, are not of 
sufficient dimensions or weight to resist the violence 

o 



i8 4 



INDO-CHINA AND CHTNA. 



of a typhoon when we arc landed opposite the 
Clock Tower at Pedclar s Wharf, and find ourselves 
mobbed and jostled by a crowd of Chinese coolies, 
who, if you don t look about, will tilt you into a chair 
and bear you off, nolens volens, to the nearest hotel. 




A FAMILY PARTY. KOXVLOON. 



These sedans take the place of our ilys, and are 
the only public conveyances in the town. They are 
licensed, and bear, each one, a printed tariff of charges, 
fixed at about half the cost of London cabs. Each 
chair will hold one passenger. It is made of bamboo, 



NATIVE SEDANS. 185 

roofed over with oilcloth, and is carried on two long 
poles that rest on the shoulders of the bearers. It is 
by no means a disagreeable mode of travelling, and 
affords, at the same time, a good opportunity for seeing 
the streets. If of a sensitive temperament, you are 
apt to feel compassion for the men who bear you 
through the hot thoroughfares, or toil up the hill paths 
in order that, without an effort of your own, you may 
breathe the fragrance or enjoy the wonders of the 
Flowery Land. These sedans are to be found at 
every street corner, also in front of the hotels and 
public-houses. The bearers make it their constant 
study to find out the habits of the European residents, 
so that a new-comer only requires to be about a week 
in the place, and it is ten chances to one, should he be 
dining out, and hail the first chair to take him home, 
the chair-coolies, without a word spoken on either 
side, will land him in front of his domicile. Nay, they 
have learned more ; they already know something of 
his personal character, and whether they ought to trust 
him and accept the paper which he offers. It is 
customary, in most transactions with the Chinese, to 
pay them with an order on the schroff, or Chinese 
cash-keeper of the house to which one belongs, while 
the schroff, in honouring these cheques, whenever he 
has the opportunity, will discharge the debt in light 
dollars, and charge full weight to his employer s account. 
This is the first sample of the systematic squeezing 
and overreaching process which is the keynote of 
Chinese society over the whole land. The system is 
so minute in its ramifications, that it is quite impossible 
for the European merchant who employs Chinese 
compradors and schroffs to place a check upon it. 



1 86 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Besides this, the value of the dollar in copper cash is 
subject to constant fluctuations. To-clay it maybe 1 10 
copper cash ; but should the cook, house-boy, or coolie 
be sent to market, he only accounts to his master for 
100 cash each ; the difference in exchange he pockets 
as his own legitimate squeeze. We are now in Queen s 
Road, which runs east and west through the town, and 
to the right, and left, a labyrinth of streets conduct us 
to the Praya, or to the upper terraces and roads cut 
along the face of the hill. Every available spot of 
ground in this quarter of Hongkong is taken up with 
shops, stores, offices, and banks. The Hongkong Club 
and Hotel are stone-built edifices, whose imposing pro 
portions would not disgrace the best part of London ; 
and as for the shops and their array of valuable con 
tents, Falconer the jeweller s, which is but a trifle more 
showy than the rest, looks like an establishment in 
the heart of Bond Street. The Chinese, on their part, 
vie with each other in the display of costly wares, 
Canton silks, carved ivory, jewellery, porcelain and 
paintings. Entering * Sun-Sing s, a Cantonese shop, we 
are welcomed by the proprietor himself, a Kwangtung 
gentleman speaking English. His attire is a jacket of 
Shantung silk, dark crape breeches, white leggings and 
embroidered shoes, and he displays all the pondorosity 
and ease of a prosperous Chinaman. His assistants 
are dressed with equal care, and stand behind ebony 
counters and glass cases the latter of spotless polish, 
and filled with curiosities, ancient and modern, from 
Canton. One side of the shop is occupied with rolls of 
choice silks, and samples of grass matting, all labelled 
and priced. The floor above is taken up with a cleverly 
arranged assortment of ancient bronzes, porcelain and 



THE MARKET-PLACE. 187 

ebony furniture and lackered ware. We invest in an 
ivory fan, and Sun-Sing designs and engraves on it a 
pretty English monogram. This shopkeeper, really 
a fine specimen of his race, much respected by the 
European community, and scrupulously fair in his 
dealings, will furnish one with the cheapest toy in 
his stock with as great politeness, and apparent satis 
faction, as if receiving an order for a shipload of em 
broidered silks. 

Crossing the street we enter the market-place, but 
there the chief business of the clay was concluded by 
about seven in the morning. Here the avenues are 
rendered picturesque by painted and gilded signboards 
inscribed with characters, Chinese or English, though 
the dealers are all of them Chinamen. Thus * Ah- Yet 
1 Sam-Ching, Canton Tom, and Cheap Jack/ an 
nounce that they are prepared, as ships compradors, to 
supply poultry, beef, vegetables, and groceries of the 
best quality, at the lowest rates, and solicit a trial, or at 
least an inspection of their stalls. Such men keep 
monthly market-books for their customers, and these, 
with each item supplied and its price jotted down, are 
settled at the end of each month. Apart from the 
well-filled shops of these useful members of society, 
there are a great variety of stalls which supply special 
commodities ; preserved European provisions, for 
example fruit, fish, and so forth. Perhaps the most 
interesting of them is the fishmonger s. This establish 
ment consists of an arrangement of tanks, or aquariums, 
filled with clear running water, and teeming with living 
sea or river fish, for the most part reared in the Canton 
fish-breeding ponds, and brought to market in water- 
boats. The purchaser stands over the tank, selects 



1 88 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

some finny occupant which takes his fancy, and this is 
immediately caught and supplied to him. I have never 
seen any of these fresh-water fish in Europe ; they revel 
in the most beautiful and varied colours, blue, green, 
brown, red, yellow, mottled, striped or spotted ; and there 
are others plain and uniform in tint, though no less curious 
in form. Then, at the butcher s, there are sundry deli 
cacies to be met with unknown to European palates, 
but which the natives delight in ; rats strung up by 
the tails, temptingly plump, and festoons of living frogs 
fattened for the epicure. Some say that here and there 
we may see small legs, and ribs, undoubtedly canine, but 
of this I am by no means certain. I have, indeed, in cities 
purely Chinese, seen dog s flesh sold for food ; the practice, 
however, is not a common one. As a rule, the Chinese 
are not very particular as to the kind of food they eat ; 
but they are cleanly in their modes of preparing it, and 
we might well learn some valuable lessons from them 
in this branch of domestic economy. Thus they are 
skilled in making very palatable and nutritious dishes 
out of odds and ends, and are far less wasteful and 
extravagant in the use of their food than we are. 

A number of our best European vegetables are 
sold in the Hongkong market ; beef and mutton, 
fowls, eggs, fish and game, are also to be procured at 
prices which seldom exceed what we pay for the same 
commodities at home. Besides all this, there are 
about fifty different kinds of fruit, nearly the half of 
them indigenous, and peculiar to China. Retracing 
our steps to Queen s Road, we pause before a display of 
huge signboards, each one glowing in bold Roman 
letters with the style and title of some Chinese artist. 
The first we come to is that of Afong, photographer ; 



CHINESE PHOTOGRAPHERS. 189 

to this succeeds Chin-Sing, portrait painter. Then 
follows Ating ; and many others make up the list of 
the painters and photographers of Hongkong. Afong 
keeps a Portuguese assistant to wait upon Europeans. 
He himself is a little, plump, good-natured son of Han, 
a man of cultivated taste, and imbued with a wonderful 
appreciation of art. Judging from his portfolios of 
photographs, he must be an ardent admirer of the 
beautiful in nature ; for some of his pictures, besides 
being extremely well executed, are remarkable for their 
artistic choice of position. In this respect he offers 
the only exception to all the native photographers I 
have come across during my travels in China. He 
shows not a single specimen of his work at his 
doorway, whereas his neighbour Ating displays a 
glass case containing a score of the most hideous 
caricatures of the human face that it is possible for the 
camera obscura to produce. Ascending a narrow stair 
case we reach the showroom of this celestial artist ; 
and there, in another case of samples, we find represen 
tations of men and women, some looking as if they 
had been tossed against a wall and caught in a 
moment of intense excitement and alarm ; others with 
their heads to all appearance spiked on the iron rest ; 
while, as far as the natives were concerned, the 
majority wore the Buddhistic expression of stolid in 
difference, and were seated all of them full front, with 
limbs forming a series of equal angles to the right and 
left. A Chinaman will not suffer himself -if he can 
avoid it to be posed so as to produce a profile or 
three-quarter face, his reason being that the portrait 
must show him to be possessed of two eyes and two 
ears, and that his round face is perfect as the full moon. 



1 9 o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

The same careful observance of symmetry is carried 
out in the entire pose of the figure. The face, too, 
must be as nearly as possible devoid of shadow, or if 
there be any shadow at all, it must be equal on both 
sides. Shadow, they say, should not exist ; it is an 
accident of nature ; it does not represent any feature of 
the face, and therefore should not be pourtrayed ; and yet 
they all of them carry fans in order to secure that very 
shade, so essential to existence in the South of China, 
and the element though they fail to recognise it as 
such to which, in conjunction with light, they are in 
debted for the visible appearance of all things animate 
and inanimate which make up the Chinese Empire. 

The walls of Ating s studio are adorned with 
paintings in oil, and at one extremity of the apartment 
a number of artists are at work producing large 
coloured pictures from small imperfect photographs. 
The proprietor has an assistant, whose business it is 
to scour the ships in port in search of patrons among 
the foreign crews. Jack, desirous of carrying home a 
souvenir of his visit to the wonderful land of pigtails 
and tea, supplies a small photograph of Poll, Dolly, or 
Susan, and orders a large copy to be executed in oils. 
The whole is to be finished, framed and delivered 
within two days, and is not to exceed the contract 
price of four dollars, or about one pound sterling in 
our own money. The work in this painting-shop, like 
many things Chinese, is so divided as to afford the 
maximum of profit for the minimum of labour. Thus 
there is one artist who sketches, another who paints 
the human face, a third who does the hands, and a 
fourth who fills in the costume and accessories. Polly 
is placed upon the celestial limner s easel an honour, 



CHINESE ARTISTS. 191 

poor girl, she little dreamt of and is then covered 
with a glass bearing the lines and squares which solve 
the problem of proportion in the enlarged work. A 
strange being the artist looks ; he has just roused him 
self from a long sleep, and his clothes are redolent of 
the fumes of opium. He peers through his huge 
spectacles into poor Polly s eyes, and measures out her 
fair proportions as he transfers them to his canvas. 
Then she is passed from hand to hand until, at last, 
every detail of her features, and dress, has been re 
produced on the canvas with a pre-Raphaelite exacti 
tude, and a glow of colour added to the whole which far 
surpasses nature. But let us examine the finished work. 
The dress is sky-blue ! flounced with green. Chains of 
the brightest gold adorn the neck. There are brace 
lets on the arms, and rings on the fingers gleaming 
with gems. The hair is pitchy black, the skin pearly 
white, the cheeks of vermilion, and the lips of carmine. 
As for the dress, it shows neither spot nor wrinkle, 
and is as taut, Jack will say, as the carved robes of a 
figure-head. On a very square table by the side of 
this brilliant beauty stands a vase, filled with flowers 
that glow with all the brilliant hues of native art. 

Surely all this will please the lover, and indeed it 
does. John Chinaman, he declares, made more of the 
lass than even he thought possible, and there is a 
greater show of colour within the frame than he ever 
beheld before. He proudly hangs the picture above 
his bunk ; but still, at times, he has his grave misgivings 
about the small hands and feet, and about the rainbow- 
htied sailor s goddess into which Poll has been trans 
formed. 

\Ye will now descend to the open street from 



192 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Ating s gallery of horrors. On the other side of the 
way there are numerous ivory-miniature-painters. 
These men also devote themselves to copying photo 
graphs, and their work is decidedly better than when 
the copies are enlarged, as in the latter the defects of 
the original are frequently exaggerated. It is, how 
ever, only on rare occasions that the miniature-painters 
produce fairly goo,d work. Their paintings are always 
highly finished ; but during my residence in the colony 
I fell in with one man only who, from his knowledge 
of art, could venture with any success beyond a mere 
servile imitation of a photograph. He was a sort of 
genius in his way, and, at the same time, a most 
inveterate opium-smoker. When I first knew him he 
was a good-looking dandy, in full work as a miniature- 
painter, fond of good company and high living, a 
frequenter of the music-halls and gambling clubs of 
Victoria. He used to smoke opium in moderation at 
first, but it gained upon him to such an extent, that 
when the hour for the pipe came on, no matter where 
he was, or how occupied, he had to rush off and 
abandon himself to the use of the drug which was 
bringing him fast to his grave. He used to work at my 
rooms, and when the moment arrived (never having a 
cent of his own), and he could hold out no longer, 
he would demand an advance of money with the fierce 
ness of a man suffering the death-pangs of starvation. 

Passing westward along Queen s Road, we come 
upon a quarter of the town much frequented by 
seamen of all nations. Here spirits are sold in nearly 
every second shop, and bands of common sailors may 
be seen spending their time and money on question 
able drink in more questionable company, roaring out 



GROG-SHOPS. 193 

some rough sea-song in drunken chorus, or dancing to 
the time of a drum and flute, accordion or cornopean. 

The keepers of these grog-shops might be mis 
taken for respectable members of society were it not 
for their bull-dog, battered, and damaged countenances, 
which betray sundry evidences of recent bruises and 
black eyes, received in taking the change out of their 
customers. The piles of Chinese houses which rise 
above this locality embrace Tai- Ping-Shan, or the hill 
of great peace. The name is a fine one, but a fine 
name will not hide the sins of the place. Tai-Ping- 
Shan is inhabited, for the most part, by Chinamen ; 
but men are found there belonging to all the nations 

o o 

of the East. As for women, these are principally 
Chinese ; they are numerous enough, but of the lowest 
type. There are strange hotels in this quarter, be 
sides music-halls and lodging-houses, the haunts of 
vagabonds well known to the police. I once accom 
panied an inspector of police on one of his periodical 
rounds through this region of darkness, and I should 
not like to describe everything I saw there ; but it 
proved that all which has been alleged of the im 
morality of the lower orders of the Chinese is perfectly 
true ; while, on the other hand, that the more respect 
able part of the community, had there many places of 
rational amusement, with which, in so far as I could 
judge, one could find no fault whatever. One great 
difficulty of our government in this new colony has 
been how most effectually to curb the crime and vice 
common to all great seaport towns, and avert its con 
sequences. The policy adopted has been to licence, 
and bring within direct government supervision, what 
ever they have found themselves powerless to suppress ; 



i 9 4 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

and the result, so far as statistics show, has proved 
the wisdom of the system. From a few particulars 
which I have gathered on the spot, but which it would 
serve no good end to publish here, I found no difficulty 
in estimating the magnitude and gravity of the question, 
how best to bring under control an evil which has 
always hitherto appeared inevitable. 

Among the largest music-halls there was one which 
had been but recently erected, and it may serve as a 
type of the more attractive sorts in a list of about one 
hundred and eighty similar establishments. The hall 
I speak of stands at the end of Holy wood Road, and 
is extensively decorated externally with porcelain floral 
ornaments. At the entrance we find an altar crowned 
with votive offerings, and dedicated to the god of 
pleasure, whose image surmounts the shrine. To the 
right and left of this hang scrolls, on which high 
moral precepts are inscribed, sadly at variance with the 
real character of the place. Half-a-dozen of the most 
fascinating of the female singers are seated outside the 
gate. Their robes are of richly-embroidered silk, their 
faces are enamelled, and their hair bedecked with 
perfumed flowers, and dressed in some cases to re 
semble a teapot, in others a bird with spread wings, 
poised upon the top of the head. On the ground- 
floor all the available space is taken up with rows of 
narrow compartments, each one furnished apparently 
with an opium-couch, and all the paraphernalia for the 
use of the drug. Here there are girls, in constant 
attendance, some ready to prepare and charge the bowl 
of the pipe with the opium, and others to strum upon 
the lute or sing sweet melodies to waft the sleeper off 
into dreamland under the strangely fascinating in- 



MUSIC SALOONS 195 

fluences which, ere long, will make him wholly their 
slave. On the first-floor, which is reached by a narrow 
flight of steps, there is a deserted music-hall, showing 
traces of the revel of the preceding night in the faded 
garlands which still festoon its carved and gilded roof. 
There were two more stories to the edifice, partitioned 
off both of them in the same way as the ground-floor. 

At another house we visited we found a goodly 
company in the music-saloon. The whole interior had 
been freshly decked with flowers, festooned from the 
ceiling, or suspended in baskets made cf wattled 
twigs ; while mirrors, paint, gilding, and all the skill of 
Kwangtung art, had been lavishly bestowed in the 
more permanent wall-decorations. At a table spread 
with the choicest delicacies, and the finest fruits, sat a 
merry throng of Chinamen young, middle-aged, and 
old. Hot wine in burnished pewter pots was passing 
freely round the board, and the revellers were pledging 
each other in small cups of the fuming draught. We 
had, in fact, dropped in upon a dinner-party, where, 
under the influence of native wine, melon-seeds, and 
pretty women, the guests were engaged in a noisy, but 
at the same time, friendly contest, in the art of versifi 
cation. Behind each guest, as is customary at such 
gatherings, a young girl sat ; and many of these girls 
might fairly claim to be called handsome, while all were 
prettily dressed in the most fashionable silks of Canton. 
Their hair was wreathed with flowers, and their faces 
painted until they resembled their native porcelain 
ware. An old Chinese merchant present, whom I 
knew, informed me that these women were all highly 
respectable. That might be the case ; at any rate, he 
assured me that they were not unfrequently carried off 



196 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

by the visitors, and raised to the rank of second wives 
or concubines. 

Music, of a high Chinese order, was being performed 
in the four corners of the room by four independent 
female bands, each accompanying the shrill piping voice 
of an old woman, who sang the adventures of an ancient 
hero of romance, a personage famous alike for his un 
scrupulous dealings, and for his ardent and amorous 
heart. 

During my residence in Hongkong that passion 
for gambling which characterises all Chinese com 
munities got the credit, probably with justice, of being 
at the root of much of the crime and petty larceny 
among servants and subordinate office employes. 
The police were found incompetent to keep the popular 
vice in check, and as a consequence it became more 
and more in fashion throughout the island. 

At last the authorities determined to try the ex 
periment of licensing gambling-houses, and instituted 
a gambling-farm, in order to bring the evil under the 
strictest surveillance and control. The experiment 
was a bold one, and as a matter of course was 
received in many quarters with violent opposition. So 
strongly did the current of public opinion pronounce 
against the policy, that no very long time elapsed 
before the new ordinance was suppressed. 

The licensing system, during its short career, con 
tributed about 14,000 dollars a month to the trea 
sury ; and judging from local government statistics, 
materially aided in the suppression of crime. It was 
besides supposed to maintain a higher moral tone 
among the native police, who, when secret gambling- 
houses flourish, are seduced continually by bribes into 



GAMBLING. 197 

dereliction of duty and corruption. One of the first prac 
tical difficulties in carrying out the newly inaugurated 
plan was the conscientious scruples which, apparently, 
even affected the promoters of the measure as to the 
application of a constantly accumulating fund derived 
from so polluted a source. It was even suggested to 
drop it silently into the sea, and be done with it. All I 
would say is, if the policy of sheltering this particular 
vice, in order to effect diminution of crime in the colony, 
was sound, the proceeds of the gambling-farm might 
have been worthily employed in rendering the police 
force still more efficient, and in lightening the general 
burden of taxation borne by the colonists. But the 
ordinance, as I have already stated, was suppresed 
probably before the efficiency of such a hazardous and 
unpopular experiment could be thoroughly put to the 
test, as a means of suppressing crime. The Hongkong 
police force is numerous and expensive, and its reputed 
inefficiency has been a subject of frequent comment in 
the press of Victoria ; but the last of these character 
istics may not impossibly be, in a very considerable 
degree, due to other and simpler causes than the 
wiles of Chinese gambling parties. The constables 
were, many of them, Chinese under the command of 
European inspectors, who, for the most part, knew 
nothing of the language and habits of the men under 
their charge. One section of the force was made up of 
Indians, who, with rare exceptions, were alike ignorant 
of Chinese, and therefore of very little service in 
detecting crime ; while some of them were sufficiently 
well up in Chinese manners to know something of the 
security and dignified silence procurable by a judicious 
use of the coin of the realm. 



198 i ND O.CHINA AND CHINA. 

Gambling is a luxury in which all Chinese more or 
less indulge. During the time when gambling-houses 
were under Government supervision, they became the 
open resort of most respectable-looking Chinamen 
men whom one might take for patterns of native 
virtue, and yet who must needs have acquired their 
secret passion for this vice when it was still under the 
ban of the law. It took me by surprise, when visiting 
a gaming-house, to find one or two Chinese shopkeepers, 
otherwise noted for eminent respectability, busily 
engrossed at the table ; indeed I should hardly have 
been more amazed had I beheld an elder of the Scotch 
Kirk cautiously staking his savings after church hours 
on Sunday. 

These establishments were well worth inspec 
tion. As you approached one from the street, you 
would notice an European seated at the outer door 
way. This individual was supposed to select and 
admit the men who ought to gamble, and to exclude 
those whose morals were of greater importance to the 
community ; among the latter were included domestic, 
and office servants. He must have been endowed 
with rare powers of perception to be able to deter 
mine the occupation of each visitor to the house (it 
would have been called a hell before the new ordinance 
came into force, but now it was a sort of heaven with 
a gate-keeper who separated the wheat from the chaff) 
for tickets could afford no protection, as they might be 
passed from hand to hand. This watchman could 
also test for himself the power of the new law to 
suppress bribery and corruption. At the top of a 
narrow wooden staircase we found an apartment lit by 
a smoking oil lamp. This room was nearly square, 



A CHINESE GAMBLING-HOUSE. 199 

and the ceiling above it had been pierced in the centre 
with a large square opening leading to the next floor, 
or gallery. Above the gallery is a contrivance to 
accommodate the upper ten, some of whom are bending 
over the railing and looking eagerly down upon a long 
gambling table spread before us. 

One would scarcely, at first, suppose it, but we were 
pressing forward for a good place amongst some of the 
most desperate ruffians of Hongkong. But let me 
now bring you to the spot to watch the game ; the 
stakes are being made. That close-shaven, smooth - 
visaged, fat, placid Chinaman on the right, is the 
banker ; see how orderly is his array of coins and bank 
notes, and how deftly he reckons the winnings and 
interest on the smallest sums, deducting a seven per 
cent, commission from the gains of every transaction. 
Behind him is his assistant, weighing the dollars, broken 
silver, or jewellery of the players. Then at his side is 
the book-keeper, and on the left the teller. On the 
centre of the table is a square pewter slab crossed 
with diagonal lines, and the sections thus formed bear 
the numbers one, two, three, and four respectively. 
The player is at liberty to stake on any of these 
numbers, when, unless he stakes on two numbers 
separately, and at once, he will have three to one 
against him, plus seven per cent, on his winnings, if he 
succeeds. Some of the players spend the entire day 
in the house, and on starting open an account with the 
bank, which is kept carefully posted on a pewter slab 
before them, and balanced at the end of the day. All 
the stakes have now been made, including those dropped 
from above, in a small basket attached to a cord. The 
teller sleek, fat, and close-shaven, like his confreres 



200 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

sits there conducting the vital part of the game with an 
air of stolid indifference ; a man to all seeming, of the 
strictest probity and honour, and yet, if report be true, 
he knows tricks in his trade which defy the detection 
of the hundred hawk-like eyes that watch his every 
movement. His sleeves are short, nearly up to his 
armpits, and in his right hand he wields a single thin 
ivory rod. Before him on the table there is a pile of 
polished cash. From this he takes up a huge handful 
of coin, places it on a clear space, and covers it with a 
brass cup. When all the stakes are made, the cup is 
removed, and the teller proceeds, with the extreme end 
of his ivory wand, to pick out the cash in fours, the 
remaining number being that which wins. Before the 
pile is half counted, provided there are no split coins 
or trickery in the game, a habitual player can always 
tell with puzzling certainty what the remainder will be, 
whether one, two, three, or four, and it is at this stage 
of the game that we observe a striking peculiarity in 
Chinese character. There are no passionate exclama 
tions, no noisy excitement, no outbursts of delight, no 
deep cursing of adverse fate. It is only in the faces of 
the players that we can perceive signs of emotion, or of 
the sullen desperate determination to carry on, at all 
hazards, until fortune smiles once more, or leaves them 
beggared at the board. 

Gambling, in those days, was not entirely con 
fined to the licensed houses. It was still carried on 
secretly in clubs and private abodes ; even by the 
coolies, in their leisure moments, at the corners of the 
streets. Dice, too, were in constant demand among 
petty , traders and hawkers ; and I have seen children 
form a gambling-ring round some byeway vendor of 



LOTTERIES. 201 

sweets, and eagerly stake their cash in the attempt to 
win a double share of his condiments. I have found 
coolies, too, in my own employment, sit down delibe 
rately and gamble away their next month s wages, till 
their very clothes were held in pawn by the lucky 
winner. 

Lotteries are also in great vogue in China at all 
times. For these there are tickets sold, upon which a 
series of numbers have been engrossed. The purchaser 
pays his cent and marks ten of the numbers those 
which, by some secret process of his own, he may have 
fixed on as the lucky set. The marked ticket is then 
paid in, and the holder receives in exchange a duplicate 
ticket marked in the same way. On the day of 
drawing the numbers are supposed to be dealt with by 
a mystic being, who dwells perpetually in darkness. 
He who holds three of the winning numbers receives 

o 

back his even money, and he who holds the ten numbers 
receives six thousand times his stake. Assuming that 
the whole transaction is honestly carried through, the 
banker not ^infrequently pockets as much as fifty per 
cent, as his profit for managing the lottery. 

Although gambling is a common Chinese vice, it 
does not, so far as I am aware, meet with direct recog- 
tion from the Chinese Government, although it might 
be made to contribute largely to the imperial revenue. 

Following Queen s Road through Wong-nei-chong, 
or passing along the Praya to the east of Victoria, we 
reach the shady approach which leads to the Happy 
Valley, where the race-course and the cemetery are to 
be found. This European burial-ground lies behind the 
grand stand, where all the gaiety and fashion of the 
island assemble annually to view the races, which have 



202 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

long been one of the institutions of the place. The turf- 
loving- residents look forward to the race-meeting from 
year to year as the crowning pleasure of the whole 
twelvemonth, making up to them for all the heat and 
hardships of a place which has been termed the grave 
of Europeans. Although, strangely enough, but a 
step divides the living from the dead in this truly 
picturesque valley, the island itself is accounted one of 
the healthiest stations on the coast of China. The 
present style of living has probably something to do 
with the improved health of the community. The 
houses are better adapted to the climate than they 
were some twenty years back. The sanitary arrange 
ments are also more complete ; whereas, when first the 
city was being built, vast surfaces of decomposed 
granite were laid bare as the workmen cut into the face 
of the hill ; from the exposed spots noxious miasmas 
were exhaled, and to them are attributed those maladies 
which prevailed so fatally at that time, and which 
proved themselves the worst enemies our troops had to 
contend against in China. Even now, whenever the 
soil has to be opened anew, we still hear cases of this 
Hongkong fever occurring near the spot. The 
Chinese geomancers attributed the prevalence of this 
disease to our ignorance of the laws of Feng Shui - 
literally * wind and water/ but denoting something like 
good luck brought about by a knowledge of astrology 
and geomancy and it must be acknowledged that they 
correctly foretold the results which befel the colony 
as soon as the hill-sides were opened. 

Tree-planting was carried on vigorously under 
Sir Richard MacDonnelPs administration ; and this, 
while it adds greatly to the picturesqueness of the 



EUROPEANS IN HONGKONG. 203 

island, has clone not a little to promote the good 
health of its inhabitants. 

Europeans in Hongkong live in a very expensive 
style ; much more expensively, one would think, than 
they need do, when we consider that many of the 
necessaries of life are to be had at prices very little in 
advance of our market rates at home. 

Beer and wine, however, and the countless other 
little luxuries which one has to purchase at the Euro 
pean stores, make up a startling monthly bill ; and, 
after all, the dollar which would be four shillings and 
sixpence in London is equal to little more than a 
shilling in Hongkong, in exchanging it for such com 
modities as are brought from home. The newly- 
arrived resident may furnish his dwelling cheaply 
enough by buying at the constantly recurring auction 
sales of the householders who are leaving the colony ; or 
else of a Chinese tradesman, who will fit up his house 
for him throughout at a comparatively moderate charge. 
But then servants are indispensable, and add greatly 
to the expense of living. The following is a list of 
those required for an ordinary family, where there are 
one or two children to be maintained : 

Monthly Wages. 

Cook ......... 10 dollars 

Two chair-coolies . .... 14 ,, 

One nurse or amah . . . . . .10,, 

One house-boy 8 

One house-coolie 7 ,, 

$49 

This, at a low rate of exchange, is equal to one hundred 
and twenty pounds a year for domestic servants alone. 
Then all the washing is done by a Chinese laundryman, 
whose charge is the same as we pay in London. As 
for the doctor, he will make a contract to attend the 



204 INDO-CHfNA AN!} CHINA. 

family for an annual retaining fee, say forty pounds, or 
thereabouts, and no end of medicine has to be bought 
at prices which, if need be, will afford your medical 
adviser a consideration of twenty-five per cent. The 
doctor is not supposed to have anything to do with the 
dispensing chemist ; but, nevertheless, the enormous 
quantity of drugs ordered, and at times tossed out at 
the window by the patient, leads people to draw con 
clusions which are not always just. Rent would be 
about one hundred and forty pounds a year for such a 
house as may be obtained in London for sixty ; and 
altogether, the expense of living in Hongkong may 
be fairly set down at something more than double 
what it is at home. 

Strange characters are not rarely to be met with 
here ; men who, from time to time, turn up with 
wonderful schemes for the benefit of the human race, 
but quite unable to tell you how their projects are to 
be carried into effect, or by what means the money 
is to be provided. Mr. Gabriel was an adventurer 
of this sort. I knew nothing of him, and had never 
seen him before the night on which he came to 
my house as a stranger, and requested permission to 
bring his baggage into my rooms until he could find 
some suitable lodgings elsewhere. This I granted, 
and about an hour afterwards he returned, saying he 
had not succeeded, and that he would feel grateful if I 
would allow him to sleep in any corner. A couch was 
prepared for him, and he settled himself for the night, 
but not before he had detailed to me his plans for 
rendering the island of Borneo one vast coffee-plan 
tation, and bringing its coffee-coloured people out of 
the darkness of savaoedom into the licfhtof civilisation. 



A STRANGE ADVENTURER. 205 

Appearing to find pleasure in my society, Gabriel had 
remained under my roof for ten days, when I suggested 
to him that Borneo was all this while a howling 
wilderness, and its inhabitants still preying on each 
other for the want of schools and coffee. He had 
come from the Sandwich Islands, where he had been 
a schoolmaster, but his occupation there was unre- 
munerative, as he had brought no money with him. 
At length he persuaded a ship captain that it was his 
duty to afford him a free and comfortable passage to 
Singapore, and he accordingly left for that port, where 
he found out some of my friends, and got them to help 
him on his way to Borneo. In about two months 
Mr. Gabriel again appeared at my door with his cotton 
umbrella in one hand, a hymn-book in the other, and 
a decidedly crest-fallen expression in his face. He 
had landed on Borneo, but strange to relate, every 
body there, even to the Bishop and the European 
community, so he said, were of opinion that he had 
made a mistake ; and the very natives themselves 
seemed disinclined for coffee, commerce, and schools. 
How he managed to get back I never clearly made 
out. Gabriel s countenance was a good one, and he 
always appeared in all he did to be actuated by 
the purest motives, and the deepest sincerity. He 
had a mild, dreamy eye, and he would sit for hours 
alone, picturing to himself the results of the great 
reformation which he was destined never to accom 
plish. Again taking up his abode with me, he pro 
fessed his willingness to do anything, or to go 
anywhere to do good ; his life in one hand, his um 
brella in the other, to gain a living. At last I got him 
into the police force ; he wore their uniform for about 



206 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

two clays, and then he returned to me again, and in 
a state of the deepest depression. He had resigned ; 
he could not stand the rough work, and rougher talk, 
to which he had been exposed. He was next em 
ployed at the sugar factory, and when he paid me his 
last visit it was to plead for the loan of eighteen dollars 
to settle his rent, for the ruthless landlord of the small 
house he occupied was about to seize his all for debt, 
as he could not appreciate his philanthropic object in 
desiring to live rent free. I lent him the money, but 
never saw any more either of him or it. I feel sure he 
would have paid me if he could, and I should really 
like to have heard what was his ultimate fate. 

A well-known clergyman told me of another 
character, who accosted him one day as he was leaving 
his church, and announcing himself, in a tone of mys 
terious confidence, as the bearer of a divine message, 
summoned to Hongkong to publish what had been 
thus revealed, requested permission to occupy the pul 
pit during the afternoon. My friend, noted no less for 
his caution than distinguished for his learning, said, 
Where are your credentials ? If you have a mission 
direct from heaven, you are no ordinary person ; and 
seeing you have been sent to Hongkong, you have 
doubtless been gifted with the Chinese tongue ; so if 
you will just repeat what you have stated in Chinese, 
I will let you have the chapel. This he could not ac 
complish ; but he did what surprised my worthy friend 
nearly as much he confessed to being a faithful 
follower of the Mormons, and asked the clergyman if 
he had an old pair of trousers to bestow, as those he 
wore were not his own. 

Like other small communities at home and abroad, 



GERMAN MERCHANTS. 207 

Hongkong has a little artificial society of its own 
divided into sets or cliques ; but on the whole the in 
habitants pull well together in all matters where they 
have common interests at stake. The trade of the port 
is divided among men of different nationalities ; 
American, French, German, Dutch, Chinese, Parsees, 
Hindoos, all enjoy a share of the commercial prosperity of 
our little colony. Next to the English and Americans, 
German merchants hold the foremost place. They have 
just built a splendid new club, and they are our close and 
successful competitors in almost every avenue of trade. 
Some of these German houses have a very high 
standing indeed, and their undoubted successes are 
spoken of at times with feelings not unmingled with 
bitterness. Nevertheless, we cannot but award them 
just praise for conducting their business with tho 
roughness, economy, and energy qualities which 
have secured them a not unimportant position in 
commercial circles in the East, and have also brought 
them to the front rank among Continental nations 
at home. There are, doubtless, times when the 
British merchant imagines he has just cause to com 
plain of the manner in which the petty German 
trader secures his ends, and probably he is right. But 
if he is, it is ten chances to one that the trader who, 
like a mole burrowing in the soil, seeks the shady and 
doubtful paths of commerce, will be found out in the 
long run by the Chinese with whom he has to deal, 
and turn out a loser in the end. Be this as it may, it 
seems to me that the Germans are masters of some 
elements of success with which even a Scotchman, with 
all his thrift, can boast but a rudimentary acquaintance ; 
in a word, they manage their business more cheaply than 



2o8 2NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

we do. They are, many of them, less expensive in their 
mode of living. Their assistants are not so numerous ; 
they board together in their houses comfortably, if not 
quite as luxuriously, as in the English establishments ; 
and often they are masters of more than one Eu 
ropean language ; at any rate most of them not only 
know their own tongue thoroughly, but can speak our 
language well enough, if need be, to occupy posts 
even in an English house. This in itself enables 
them to join a British firm, for the express purpose of 
adding to their already extensive experience a know 
ledge of the English trade. Many of them have been 
in houses in London, Manchester, or Liverpool, and 
while there have made the most of their opportunities. 
Few of our countrymen, on the other hand, have had 
similar facilities for acquiring German, or have even 
thought it worth their while to fit themselves to trans 
late a simple German document. 

Nothing surprised me more in Hongkong than 
the expensive way in which English assistants were 
housed, and the luxuries with which they were indulged. 
Indeed few more luxurious quarters were anywhere to 
be found than the junior messes of the wealthy 
British firms. There the unfledged youth, coming out 
from the simplicity^ of some rural home, was apt to 
develop into a man of epicurean tastes, a connoisseur 
in wines, and to become lavish in his expenditure ; 
proud of his birthright, as a Briton ; honest, hospitable, 
extravagant ; despising meanness, and, alas ! even thrift. 
This sort of education was not calculated to prepare the 
merchant of the future for the cheese-paring shifts of 
modern times, when markets are overstocked, when 
competition runs strong, when Chinese companies and 



ENGLISH SOCIETY IN HONGKONG. 209 

German economy are set in array against us, and 
when to trade and win a share ot the wealth, that 
seemed almost forced upon us in the olden times, re 
quires now patience, self-denial and determination. 
But Hongkong is rapidly shaping itself to the nervous 
energy of the times, and her English merchants still 
hold their own in the great trade of China. Their 
assistants still live well, although not so lavishly as 
in former days ; they are still hospitable, still liberal, 
and no unfortunate fellow-countryman is ever left des 
titute in their streets. Often in my time old residents 
have died and left penniless families behind them ; 
then subscription lists were opened, and responded to 
with such liberality that the widow and children went 
home with a very comfortable pension. But as I 
said, the times have changed ; now there are constant 
telegrams and steamers, and no less constant anxiety 
and care. The luxury and the extravagance have 
abated, but yet the style of life is higher and the 
amusements of the residents are more varied ; and alto 
gether society in Hongkong resembles more closely 
what one is accustomed to see at home. 

The climate of this quarter of the globe is for about 
six months of the year dry, with cool nights, and an 
almost cloudless sky ; but when the hot weather and 
the rain come round, the sky seems to descend and 
rest like a sponge on the top of the hill ; and this sponge, 
always full of moisture, is frequently squeezed over the 
town, and the rain falls in a sheet, and floods the streets 
and rises in hot vapour with the sun ; books and 
papers become limp and mouldy, and the residents 
feel as in a vapour-bath, while reclining in their chairs 
and languidly watching the flying ants that settle in 

p 



210 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

thousands in the lamps, or alight on the table, when, 
casting their wings, and, crawling like worms, they 
seek an asylum in one s soup-plate, or in the various 
dishes of the dinner-table. But after all one gets 
used to these things and the place is by no means an 
unhealthy, or a disagreeable one, to reside in. 

I happened to be. in Hongkong in 1869, when 
His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh visited 
the colony. He was the first English Prince who had 
roamed so far and wide over the world, and who, 
according to the Chinese notion, had braved the dangers 
of the deep in order that he might, for once, feast his 
vision on the glories of the Great Middle Kingdom. 

Whatever may have been his impressions of the 
Celestial Empire and her rulers, any feeling of dis 
appointment on that score must have been dispelled by 
the hearty British welcome he received when the 
Galatea steamed through the throng of native and 
foreign craft, and moored in the smooth waters of 
Hongkong harbour. 

I well remember his landing. Ships of all nations 
vied in the splendour of their decorations ; long lines 
of merchant boats guarded the approach to the wharf; 
and on a thousand native craft, adorned with flags 
and shreds of Turkey red cloth, appeared dusky multi 
tudes of the floating population, swarming over the 
decks or clinging to the rigging of their vessels. The 
wharfs, too, and landing-stages, were covered with a 
sea of yellow faces, all eager to catch a glimpse of the 
great English Prince. Nor can I forget the regret 
expressed by some at finding he was only a man and a 
sailor after all. Some even ventured to suggest that 
sailor-man no saby proper Prince pidjin/and indeed he 



VISIT OF H.R.H THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH. 211 

was only attired in a captain s uniform, with no display 
of purple and fine linen, and with none of the mystic 
emblems of royalty to hedge his dignity around. A 
different being, this, surely, from the offspring of their 
own great Emperor, who is brother of the Sun, and full 
cousin to the Moon, and on whose radiant countenance 
no common mortal may look and live. 

The Prince s sojourn on the little island furnished 
a gay and festive episode in its history. The Prince 
and his gallant officers were never behindhand in con 
tributing to the enjoyment of the residents. Their 
crowning effort was a theatrical performance given by 
them in the pretty City Hall Theatre, where they not 
only displayed histrionic skill, but where the orchestra, 
under the able leadership of the Prince himself, proved 



a great attraction. 



2i2 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Snakes in Hongkong A Typhoon An Excursion up the North Branch 
of the Pearl River Fatshan The Fi-lai-sz Monastery The Mang 
tsz-hap, or Blind Man s Pass Rapids Akum s Ambition The Kwan- 
yin Cave Harvest From San-shui to Fatshan in a Canoe Canton 
Governor Yeh s Temple A Tea Factory Spurious Tea Making Tea 
Shameen Tea-tasting. 

BEWARE of snakes is a caution very necessary to the 
new comer who may delight in morning rambles over 
the hills or through the grassy valleys of the island. In 
deed the snakes we find at Hongkong belong some of 
them to the most venomous sorts. Thus I once myself 
encountered a hooded * cobra among the rocks at 
Wong-nei-Chong. When taking a photograph I sud 
denly noticed a dark object moving close to my feet. 
I raised my camera in order to use the tripod as a 
weapon of defence, whereupon the reptile reared its 
head, erected its hood, and with a hiss slid down off 
the rock into the underwood. A well-known doctor 
in the colony captured three live cobras one after the 
other in the hospital grounds ; these he kept for some 
time in a cage, and instituted a series of interest 
ing experiments to test the best mode of treating the 
wounds which they inflicted. At one time he had a 
fine specimen in his possession. It had been but 
recently secured, and was an object of great interest to 
his acquaintances. But I confess my own curiosity 
was somewhat marred when one afternoon, before 



SNAKES IN HONG KONG. 213 

dinner, my medical friend informed me with much 
gravity that he hourly expected a visit of the cobra s 
mate, as they were frequently found in pairs. If you 
should see it about the room, said he, just sit quiet 
and don t bother yourself. It might be beneath the 
table, you know, but it would nt attempt to bite unless 
you happened to tread on it, and even then you might 
hear it hiss, and have time to get out of its reach. At 
any rate if the wound was treated at once you probably 
would not be a whit the worse for it. Suddenly the 
dispenser appeared, to announce that the snake had 
arrived, and was in the adjoining room. Now, he 
said, coolness and a quick eye are all that we require 
for his capture. Come along, and mind your legs, for 
the cobra is very quick in his movements. We ac 
cordingly proceeded to the scene of action, and found 
the enemy beneath a chest of drawers, from which he 
was successfully dislodged and secured in spite of his 
forked tongue, his ferocity, and his poisonous fangs. 
These snakes never survived long, so that the experi 
ments which promised to yield important results could 
not be carried to a satisfactory issue. The doctor was 
a man of wonderful resource. During the intense heat 
of summer he was troubled with sleepless nights, so in 
his bath-room, near the chamber where he slept, he 
fitted up two bathing-jars, one above the other, and 
fixed a water-wheel between them. This wheel had 
originally belonged to a bicycle, but was soon metamor 
phosed and became the driving-wheel which kept a 
punkah continually at work, fanning him on his bed all 
night. The water falling on the wheel descended to 
the lower jar, and was ready for his morning ablu 
tions. 



2i 4 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

I had for long been anxious to see a typhoon, and I 
had my wish gratified in Hongkong on more occasions 
than one. The strength of the wind at such times, 
is greater than I could ever have thought possible. It 
whirls ships helplessly adrift from the firmest moorings ; 
and I have seen them emerge from the storm with 
canvas torn to shreds, spars carried away, and masts 
broken off nearly flush with the decks. In Hong 
kong the wind with a sudden blast has riven away the 
corners of houses, and sent projecting verandahs flying 
across the streets. During the height of the gale the 
residents for the most part shut themselves closely in 
their houses, carefully securing their windows and doors, 
and so remain with constant apprehension and dread, 
lest the dwelling should in a moment be swept away, 
and themselves entombed beneath the ruins. Once, 
while the storm was at its worst, I ventured down to 
the Praya in time to see the crowd of Chinese boats 
and trading craft that had been blown inshore, and 
piled up in a mass of wreck just below the city, at the 
western extremity of the beach. One or two intrepid 
foreigners had been there, and had rescued a large 
number of the natives, but many more had gone down 
with their boats. The sky was of dark leaden colour, 
and there were moments when the fierce strength of the 
wind abated, but only to gather fresh violence, catching 
up the crested waves and sending them in long white 
streaks of vapour across the scene, through which the 
dismantled ships were dimly descried drifting from their 
moorings, and the steamers with steam up ready for 
an emergency. Besides, the heavy stone-faced wall of 
the Praya had given way, and the great granite blocks 
of which it was composed had been washed in upon 



(iMIllllllllllllllll lllllfllli l l " :i 







A TYPHOON IN HONGKONG HARBOUR. 215 

the road. Half blinded by the waves as they leapt 
over the road and dashed in angry foam against the 
houses, and leaning forward in the efforts, often fruitless, 
to make headway against the tempest, I at length 
reached the east end of the settlement, where a number 
of foreigners were attempting to rescue two women 
from a small Chinese boat. These boatwomen were 
using the most desperate exertions to keep their tiny 
vessel in position, and to prevent it from being dashed 
to pieces against the breach in the Praya wall, where 
jagged blocks of stone were interspersed with the 
fragments of boats that had already been destroyed. 
So strong was the wind that the wild raging ocean 
seemed reduced nearly to a level, for the tops of the 
waves were caught up by the tempest in its fury and 
hurled in blinding spray into, and even over the houses. 
We had to cling to the lamposts and stanchions, and to 
seek shelter against the doorways and walls. Advan 
tage was taken of a slight lull in the storm to fire off 
rockets, but these were driven back like feathers against 
the houses. Then long-boats were dragged to the 
pier, but the first was broken and disabled the moment 
it touched the water, while the second met a like fate, 
and its gallant crew were pitched out into the sea. In 
short, every effort proved abortive, and as darkness set 
in the boat and the unhappy women were reluctantly 
abandoned to their fate. Next morning the whole 
length of the Praya presented a scene of wreckage and 
desolation. Many of the Chinese, notwithstanding 
their shrewdness in predicting storms, had been taken 
quite unawares, and hence the fearful sacrifice of life 
and the loss of property which had ensued. 

In 1870, accompanied by three Hongkong resi- 



2i 6 IN DO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

dents, I made an excursion up the north branch of 
the Pearl River of Canton. This northern affluent 
joins the main stream at a spot called San-shui or 
* three waters/ lying above the city about forty miles 
inland. To reach it, we must pass through the 
Fatshan Creek, where Commodore Keppel fought his 
famous action in the year 1857. The town of Fatshan 
exceeds a mile in length ; the creek passes right 
through its centre. It is said to be the nucleus of the 
greatest manufacturing districts of Southern China. 
Cutlery and hardware are the two chief industries, 
hence Fatshan is sometimes designated the Birming 
ham or Sheffield of the Flowery Land. It seemed a 
strange thing to me when I examined the knives, the 
scissors, and the pans of brass and copper which find a 
ready market all over the country, that similar articles 
of a superior English make have done so little to 
paralyse the industry of these Fatshan factories. 
This is partly caused by the cheapness of Chinese 
labour, and partly by the suitableness of the articles 
manufactured to the local popular requirements. 
Chinese scissors, for example, are quite different in 
form from those in use with us, and, if we were to 
attempt to cut with them, we should be apt to tear the 
cloth. In the hands of a native tailor they are made to 
work wonders, and indeed use had taught the latter to 
prefer them to our own. I have no doubt it would be 
well worth the while of an English manufacturer to 
visit Fatshan and make himself acquainted with the 
exact form of all the different kinds of tools in use 
among the Chinese, so that afterwards he might 
imitate and export them himself. The iron used in this 
district is imported from foreign countries, although it 



FATS HAN CREEK. 217 

has been said that ore abounds in the Yan-ping division 
of the province, 1 of a quality so good, as to yield 
70 per cent of the pure metal, and contiguous also 
to deposits of valuable coal. So long, however, as 
Feng-shui and shortsighted Government interest hold 
their sway, mines are certain never to be opened up. 
As we pass through the city we notice numerous im 
posing edifices substantially built of brick, the resi 
dence of native merchants, temples with a grotesquely 
sculptured granite facade, and a large customs station ; 
but the houses in the suburbs which border the creek 
are raised above water on piles, and their temporary 
miserable appearance is in striking contrast to the 
princely abodes and evidences of wealth which we en 
counter in the heart of the town. These poor propped- 
up tenements suggest the idea of a procession of 
invalids, staggering forth on their way into the country, 
much the worse for the dissipation of city life. The 
creek is the principal thoroughfare, and is crowded 
with thousands of junks and boats, all busily engaged 
in loading or discharging cargo, or else in bearing 
passengers to and fro along the extremely narrow 
channel which winds its way through this floating- 
Babel, where endless discord reigns. This creek is 
evidently much too contracted for the traffic of the 
place ; and I can readily imagine how, seventeen years 
ago, the Chinese squadron, fleeing before a handful of 
British tars in their small boats, drew up like a wall 
across this narrow passage, and poured a hailstorm of 
shot upon their gallant assailants, spreading death and 
destruction among the little band. As for the Com- 

1 China Review, 1873, p. 337. 



218 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

modore, with his boat shot away from under him, with 
his coxswain killed, and every man of his crew wounded, 1 
he calmly retired to await reinforcements and returned 
at last from a severe attack, with five of the largest 
junks in tow. The Chinese themselves, who are by 
no means destitute of courage, are said honestly to have 
acknowledged their admiration for the pluck, and 
daring of the man who started with seven small boats 

o 

to capture Fatshan and its 200,000 inhabitants, and 
who destroyed their entire fleet the terror, as was 
supposed of the foreign fire-eating devils, who were 
held never before this to have fought a fair fight ; 
but to be always taking their foes in the rear of their 
forts, instead of bravely coming to the front and facing 
the guns which had been set up with so much pains 
for the very purpose of receiving their assaults. 

Whenever a block-up among the boats in the creek 
takes place which happens frequently, and is pro 
tracted indefinitely for a long period of time one has 
leisure to notice the numerous floating tea and music- 
saloons, and many flower-barges moored close against 
the banks. These boats carry elevated cabins on their 
decks, and are very prettily painted, gilded, and 
decorated throughout. The windows and doors are 
curtained with silk ; and through one of these, which 
stood conveniently open, we could discern gaily-dressed 
young dandies, and even elder sybarites, flirting with 
gaudily-painted girls, who waited upon them with silver 
pipes or Chinese hookahs, or served up cups of tea. 
There were pleasure-boats, too, fitted up with private 
cabins, in which families were being conveyed into the 

1 China, G. Wingrovc Cookc. p. 35. 



WONG- TONG VILLA GE. 2 1 9 

country to enjoy a glimpse of the green rice-fields and 
orchards. 

At San-shui we entered the north river, passing 
into a picturesque district, in some places not unlike 
the Scottish lowlands, covered with ripening fields of 
barley. Halting not far from the town of Lo pau, at 
Wong-Tong village, on the right bank of the stream, I 
prepared to take a photograph, and my intention was 
to include a group of old women who were gossiping 
and drawing water ; but when they saw my instrument 
pointed towards their hamlet, they fled in alarm, and 
spread abroad the report that the foreigners had re 
turned and were preparing to bombard the settlement. 
A deputation soon set out from the village, led by a 
venerable Chinaman, the head man of the clan, and to 
him we explained that we had come on no hostile 
errand, but only to take a picture of the place. He 
gave us a hearty welcome to his house, spreading tea 
and cake before us. This was one of those many in 
stances of a simple genuine hospitality which I experi 
enced all over the land ; and I feel assured that any 
foreigner knowing enough of the language to make his 
immediate wants understood, and endowed with a 
reasonable even temper, would encounter little opposi 
tion in travelling over the greater part of China. But 
there is always a certain amount of danger in the 
larger and more populous cities. We offered one or 
two small silver coins to the children of the house, but 
the old gentleman would not permit them to be 
accepted, until it had been carefully explained to him 
that they were simply gifts to be worn as charms, and 
not intended as a recompense for his hospitality. 

On the bank of the river in the Tsing-yune district 



220 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

Inarrowly escaped sinking into a quicksand. We spent 
a night before Tsing-yune city, but were kept awake 
by the noise of gongs and crackers, by the odour of 
joss-sticks, and by the smoke of cooking from the ad 
joining boats. At length we reached the monastery of 
Fi-lai-sz, perhaps the most picturesque and one of the 
most famous of its kind to be seen in the south of 
China. The building is approached from the brink of 
the river by a flight of broad granite steps; this con 
ducts us to an outer gate, whereon is inscribed in 
characters of gold, Hioh Shan Mian. The monastery 
has been built on a richly wooded hill-side, and half 
way up to it, on the verge of a mossy clell, we reach 
the Fi-lai-sz shrine. Three idols stand within this 
shrine, one of them representing, or supposed to repre 
sent, the pious founder, who is said to have been 
transported hither, shrine and all, on the wings of a 
fiery dragon, more than two thousand years ago. A 
favourite resting-place this for travellers, one where 
they are hospitably entertained, and where the monks, 
with impious sympathy for human weakness, supply 
their guests with opium, and sell carved sticks, cut 
from the sacred temple groves, as parting relics of their 
visit. 

The Tsing-yune pass, in which the monastery lies, 
is in great repute as a burial-ground. There, thousands 
of graves front the river and stud the hill slopes to 
a height of about 800 feet. To every grave there is a 
neat facing of stone, something in the form of a horse 
shoe, or like an easy-chair with a rounded back. The 
interior of the temple cloister is paved with granite and 
decorated with flowers set out in vases and orna 
mental pots ; thus art lent its aid to a scene of natural 



LIEN- CHO W-KWONG. 221 

loveliness the most romantic and beautiful. On the 
opposite bank of the stream a narrow path leads to a 
wooded ravine, whither the monks retire when they 
seek to abstract themselves from the world, forgetting 
existence, with its pleasures and sorrows, and culti 
vating that supreme repose which will bring them 
nearer Nirvana. It seemed to me, when I inspected 
the cell-like chambers of these devotees, that some 
among them were not unfamiliar with the fumes of the 
opium-pipe, and that they must, poor frail mortals ! at 
times endeavour to float away to the western heavens 
steeped in the incense of that enslaving drug. I cannot 
picture anything more dreary and depressing, than the 
unnatural existence which these recluses are supposed 
to lead, droning their dull lives away in chanting a 
tedious, and to some of them, meaningless ritual ; seek 
ing to attain the perfect holiness of doing nothing, learn 
ing nothing, and feeling nothing ; struggling, indeed, 
to crush out all consciousness of life, and to resolve 
themselves into the inanimate material out of which all 
things have been created. 

We next halted at a village called Lien-Chow- 
Kwong. It was a miserable specimen of its kind, 
planted in a desolate neighbourhood, and with an air 
of poverty and destitution pervading both it and its in 
habitants. The wretched unwashed peasant, in his 
tattered coat, leant from sheer weakness against a wall, 
in order to get a steady look at us, while the lean 
and ill-conditioned fowls were plucking their own 
feathers out to appease the pangs of hunger ! The 
passes in this river present some bold rock and hill 
scenery, while the short reaches and sudden bends 
of the stream remind one of Highland lochs. In 



222 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

other places the hills slope gently downwards towards 
the water, and terminate in a bank of glittering sand, 
not unfrequently a mile broad. These sand-banks 
glare like miniature deserts beneath the blazing mid 
day sun, but are happy in the association of a re 
freshing stream which flows clear and cool along the 
margin. The Mang-Tsz-Hap, or Blind Man s Pass, is 
one of the finest on the river. Here the bold crags 
shoot up in precipices that are lost in shreds of drifting 
mist, as if the heavy clouds, sweeping across jagged 
pinnacles of rock, were riven into a hundred vapoury 
fragments. The weather was now cold and stormy, 
but fitful gleams of sunshine broke in upon the dark 
ness, now lending its brightness to a patch of vivid 
green among the rocks, now shooting a solitary beam 
through clouds and haze, to light up some distant spot 
upon the waters. Once, caught in a rapid by a sudden 
gust of wind, our boat seemed like to have been 
shattered in the breakers ; but her crew in a twinkling 
slipped the tracking-line, and she drifted safely clown 
mid-stream. At another time we ran aground, and the 
sudden shock sent one of the boatmen headlong over 
board. He was thoroughly exhausted when we picked 
him up again ; but after a glass of brandy he speedily 
recovered, and expressed his willingness to be rescued 
from drowning, and revived in the same way, as 
frequently as we chose to repeat the dose. 

The Chinese get the credit of being exceedingly- 
temperate, and in the majority of cases this is true ; but 
at the same time, among the lower orders, especially 
the boating population, temperance is only observed 
because sheer necessity compels restraint ; and many of 
the boatmen on the rivers along which I have travelled 



YING-TEK CITY. 223 

will drink sam-shu to excess during the cold weather, 
whenever they can win a few extra cash. These men 
are about as poor and miserable a class as one can 
meet in the most poverty-stricken districts of the land. 
In the southern provinces their sole food is steamed 
rice flavoured with salt, or rendered more savoury with 
a fragment of salt fish ; and when times are good, they 
even indulge in the luxury of a little bit of pork fat. 
It is surprising how they stand the cold, more especi 
ally in the northern regions, and how a drop of spirits 
will send the warm blood tingling through their veins 
and cause them to display a muscular power and a 
strength of endurance not easily accounted for, when 
one considers the simple nature of their food. 
Millions of these hardy sons of toil live from hand to 
mouth, and are only kept from starving, from piracy, 
and from rebellion, by the cheapness of their staple 
food, and by the constant demand for their labour. 
But there are pirates to be found in this very river ; 
our crew themselves told us of it, and added, that for 
anything they knew to the contrary there might be a 
swarm of them in the boats among which we moored 
at night. 

At Ying-Tek city I fell in with a spectacle which 
fully confirmed this assertion, and at the same time 
produced in me a sensation of horror that it will be 
impossible ever to forget. Ying-Tek stands on the 
right bank of the stream. Beneath its outer wall 
there stretches a bank of reeking filth and garbage, 
which at mid-day must pollute the air for miles 
around. We picked our way over slimy treacherous 
paths and across putrid-looking pools, till we passed 
through the gateway into the main street of the town. 



224 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

It was an exceedingly narrow thoroughfare, and had at 
one time been paved, but the pavement was now 
broken and disordered ; while, as to the people, they 
looked sickly, sullen, dirty and dispirited. But it was 
in the market-place we beheld the most shocking sight 
of all. There the bodies of two men were exposed to the 
public gaze, their position indicated by swarms of flies, 
and the air telling that decomposition had already set 
in. One of these malefactors had been starved to 
death in the cage in which he stood, and the other had 
been crucified. 

Beyond the rapids of this part of the river we reach 
vast cultivated plains, out of which isolated limestone 
rocks and parallel ranges of mountains rise up in 
shapes most fantastic, and disorder most picturesque. 
It was from a hill above the Polo-hang temple that we 
obtained the finest view of the country. The cultivation 
hereabouts was of a kind I had never seen before. In 
the foreground were a multitude of fields, banked off 
for the purposes of irrigation, but already shorn of 
their crops. Here and there was a mound covered 
with temples and trees ; and beyond, reaching to the 
base of the distant mountains, were groves of the pale 
green bamboo rocking their plumage to and fro in the 
wind, like the waves of an emerald sea. The bamboo 
is reared in this and other districts, and forms a valu 
able article of commerce, the wealth of a landowner 
being frequently estimated by the number of clumps 
which he has on his estate. Its growth is rapid and in 
dependent. It requires neither care nor tillage, and is a 
source of abundant riches in this part of the country. 

When looking on this scene my old Chinaman, 
Akum, came up. I do not think he has yet been intro- 



THE KWANG-TUNG PROVINCE. 225 

duced to my readers. He was a faithful servant, or 
boy, as they are here called, about forty years of age. 
who had been in my employment in Singapore, and 
afterwards turning trader, had lost his small capital. 
Well, he said, what are you looking at, Sir? 1 At 
the beautiful view/ I replied. Yes, he said ; I wish 
I had the smallest of these hills ; I would settle 




I.onKI.NC, NORTH FR<)M THE PO-LO-HANG TEMPLE, K\VA M ;- I I V , . 

there, on the top, watching my gardeners at work below, 
and when I saw one labourer more industrious than 
the rest I would reward him with a wife. 

He spoke to me often afterwards about this ideal 
hill on which he hoped one clay to sit, and reward the 
virtue of his servants. 

Hereafter I may say something as to the multi 
tudinous uses to which the bamboo can be applied. 



o 



226 1NDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

There is good snipe and pheasant-shooting in this 
quarter. 

We noticed quantities of the reeds employed for 
making Canton mats. Mats of this sort are manu 
factured extensively in three places, 1 viz. Tun-kun, 
Lin-tan, and Canton. They afford occupation to many 
thousand operatives, and are indeed an important 
industry of the province of Kwang-tung. About 
112,000 rolls, measuring 40 yards apiece, are said to 
be annually exported from Canton. 

About two hundred miles above Canton we visited 
the most remarkable object which we had encountered 
in the course of our journey. This is the celebrated 
grotto of Kwan-yin, the goddess of mere};, formed out 
of a natural cave in the foot of a limestone precipice 
which rears its head high abov 7 e the stream. The 
mouth of the cavern opens on the water s edge, and 
the interior has been enlarged in some places by 
excavation, and built up in others so as to render it 
suitable for a Buddhist shrine. A broad granite 
platform surmounted by a flight of steps leads us into 
the upper chamber, and there the goddess may be seen 
seated on a huge lotus-flower ; sculptured, so they tell 
us, by no human hands, and discovered in situ within 
the cave. The priests placed implicit faith in the 
story, but they could not be persuaded to believe that 
the flower might be the fossil of a pre-historic lotus of 
monstrous dimensions. Barbarians might credit such 
childish fables as that flowers or fishes can be turned 
into stone, but not the enlightened followers of 
Buddha : No ; they say the lotus was created in the 

cfit ii , 1873, P- 2 55- 



THE GODDESS K WAN- YIN. 227 

cave for Kwan-yin to sit upon ; there was no getting 
over that. 

According to their account, this goddess of mercy 
has a marvellous history. She first appeared on earth 
in the centre of the world, that is China, as the 
daughter of a Chinaman named Shi-kin, and she was 
made visible to mortal eyes as a child of the Emperor 
Miao-Chwang. The sovereign ordered her to marry, 
and this she steadfastly refused to do, thus violating 
the native usages, whereupon the dutiful parent put 
her remorselessly to death. But this measure, con 
trary to Miao-Chwang s expectation, only caused his 
daughter to be promoted into the proud position she 
now fills. Afterwards Kwan-yin is said to have visited 
the infernal regions, where the presence of such trans- 
cendant goodness and beauty produced an instantaneous 
effect. The instruments of torture dropped from the 
hands of the executioners, the guilty were liberated, 
and hell was transformed into paradise itself. 

The goddess now looks down with a benign ex 
pression from her seat upon the lotus throne, but she 
seems to be urgently in need of repairs. 

The priests who dwell within the cave sit over 
looking the river from an opening in the upper face of 
the rock, which serves the purpose of a window. As 
we see them with the sun at their backs they appear 
to be like a row of badly-preserved idols, so motionless 
do they sit, and so unconscious, to all seeming, of the 
presence of foreigners. But when we confront them 
and display a bright coin, they wake up, and manifest 
an unholy zeal to appropriate it. 

The money is offered and accepted, and then a 
venerable member of the order shows us through the 

o ? 



228 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

interior of the cave. A number of smaller idols, the 
attendants of Kwan-yin, are ranged along niches in the 
rock ; a little lighted taper burns in front of each, while 
cups of sam-shu and votive offerings of food are spread 
out before them. A group of stalactites hangs in front 
of the window ; above and around them hover a number 
of pure white doves, that descend at the call of the 
aged priest, and feed out of his hand. It was interest 
ing to notice the outstretched hand of the old man ; it 
was withered, shrunken, and encumbered by a set of 
long yellow nails that looked dead, and were already 
partly buried beneath the unwashed encrustation of a 
lifetime. This recluse said that the spotlessness of 
the doves is emblematic of the purity of the goddess, and 
admitted that for anything he knew to the contrary these 
doves might contain the departed spirits of former 
monks. Judging from the appearance of our vener 
able unwashed friend, the spirits of departed monks 
would feel extremely uncomfortable in their new 
quarters, having exchanged their filthy robes and 
filthier bodies for the spotless plumage of the dove. 

It is harvest-time, arid the grain in many places is 
already cut, and has been piled up in farm-yards in 
stacks, to be thrashed with flails, or trodden beneath 
the heavy-footed ox. The season has been a plenteous 
one, and the farmers are full of joy, praising the god 
of agriculture for the abundance of this their second 

o 

crop, from a soil which has yielded produce during 
centuries of constantly recurring harvests. The 
Chinese are careful farmers, and were probably the 
first to understand that their land requires as much 
consideration as their oxen or their asses ; that the 
substnce which it gives up to a crop has to be re 



HARVEST-TIME. 229 

placed by manure, and that it requires a time of rest 
after a season of labour, before it will yield its greatest 
increase. How the Chinese acquired this knowledge, 
and at what epoch, are questions which Confucius 
himself would probably have been puzzled to answer. 
There is no doubt that they succeed in raising 
green crops and grain alternately from their fields at 
least twice in the year. But this extraordinary fertility 
is clue in part to the small size of their farms, which 
are, most of them, of so limited an area that the pro 
prietors can cultivate them personally with unceasing 
care, and partly also to the abundant use of manure in 
fashion among the peasants of China. We see evi 
dences of the social economy of the people in a multitude 
of instances and a variety of ways. Thus, when the 
farmer is near a town, he pays a small sum to certain 
houses for the privilege of daily removing their sewage 
to his own manure-pit. This sewage he uses, for the 
most part in a fluid state, often to fertilise poor waste 
lands which have been leased to him at a low rental. 
If his farm is some distance from villages or towns, he 
is careful to use every opportunity for securing cheap 
supplies of the manure which he so much needs, and 
accordingly he erects small houses for the use of way 
farers aloncr the ed^e of his fields. His neighbour is 

O <I> O 

equally careful to have houses of the same description ; 
and they vie with each other in keeping them as clean 
and attractive-looking as possible. 

I returned to Canton alone from San Shui, in a 
small boat, leaving my friends to find their own way 
leisurely back. At one place there were only a few 
inches of water above the bed of the stream, so I had 
to hire an open canoe, while my baggage was carried 



2 3 o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

overland to the next bend of the river. In this canoe 
I descended, or rather raced, down to Fatshan amid a 
number of similar craft whereon Chinese traders were 
embarked. The distance was about twenty-five miles. 
We contrived to reach the town about half an hour 
ahead of the rest, and passed at once clown the narrow 
channel between the crowded boats. This was by far 
the most disagreeable experience of the journey. At 
tempting to land quietly and have a look at the town, I 
was assailed on the bank by a mob of roughs, who 
drove me into the river, where I was taken into a boat 
by a couple of good-natured women, and by them 
rowed down stream till I could succeed in engaging a 
fast-boat to convey me as far as Canton. 

Canton and the Kwang-tung province, as my reader 
is doubtless aware, continued for many years to be 
almost the only places in the vast Chinese Empire 
with which Europeans were acquainted. I need hardly 
do more here than refer those of my readers who take 
an interest in the obscure and checquered history of 
Canton to an elaborate and interesting account, trans 
lated and published in China by Mr. Bowra, of the 
Imperial Customs. In this narrative it is stated that 
the first authentic notice of Kwang-tung province is 
found in the native writings of the Chow dynasty B.C. 
1 122. The fifth century of our era is set clown as the 
date at which Buddhist missionaries introduced their 
religious classics, and not only founded the sect which 
now predominates in the country, but led to the estab 
lishment of commercial relations between the Empires 
of India and China. The intercourse which the 
Chinese have ever since that time carried on with other 
nations has been subject to periodical interruptions, 



CANTON STEAMERS. 231 

and its history has been one of endless strife ; China, 
on the one hand, adhering" steadfastly to her policy of 
exclusiveness, and throwing all kinds of barriers in the 
way of foreign trade ; while outside communities, with 
equal persistence, applied a pressure to which the 
Chinese have been gradually giving way, and thus the 
mutually advantageous treaty relations have by tardy 
steps been established. 

The city of Canton stands on the north bank of the 
Chu-kiang or Pearl River, about ninety miles inland, 
and is accessible at all seasons to vessels of the largest 
tonnage. Communication between the capital and the 
other parts of the province is afforded by the three 
branches which feed the Pearl River, and by a network 
of canals, and creeks. A line of fine steamers plies daily 
between the city and Hongkong, and the submarine 
telegraph, at the latter place, has thus brought the once 
distant Cathay into daily correspondence with the 
western world. It is a pleasant trip from Hongkong 
up the broad Pearl River. From the deck of the 
steamers one may view with comfort the ruins of the 
Bogue forts, and think of the time and feelings of 
Captain Weddell, who, in 1637, anchored the first fleet 
of English merchant vessels before them. From this 
point the gallant captain, through the misrepresentation 
and slander of the Portuguese, had to fight his way up 
to Canton, where he at last obtained cargoes at rates so 
unprofitable that the trade was abandoned for a quarter 
of a century afterwards. The Chinese cabin in the 
Canton steamer is an interesting sight, too. It is 
crowded with passengers every trip ; and there they lie 
on the deck in all imaginable attitudes, some on mats 
smoking opium, others on benches fast asleep. There 



232 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

are little gambling parties in one corner, and city 
merchants talking trade in another ; and viewed from 
the cabin-door the whole presents a wonderfully con 
fused perspective of naked limbs, arms and heads, 
queues, fans, pipes, and silk or cotton jackets. The 
owners of these miscellaneous effects never dream of 
walking about, or enjoying the scenery or sea-breeze. 
I only once noticed a party of Chinese passengers 
aroused to something bordering on excitement, and it 
was in this Canton steamer. They had caught a 
countryman in an attempt at robbery, and determined 
to punish him in their own way. When the steamer 
reached the wharf, they relieved the delinquent of his 
clothing, bound it around his head, and tied his hands 
behind his back with cords ; and in this condition sent 
him ashore to meet his friends, but not before they had 
covered his nakedness with a coat of oil-paint of various 
tints. 

My readers will remember the celebrated Governor 
Yeh of Canton, who was carried prisoner to Calcutta. 
He would almost be forgotten in this quarter were it 
not for a temple erected to his departed spirit. It may 
be seen on the bank of a suburban creek. A very 
pretty monument it is to remind one of our lively 
intercourse with the notorious Imperial commissioner 
in 1 85 7, an intercourse marked by trouble and bloodshed 
throughout, and which ended in the capture of that 
unfortunate official in an obscure yamen. Yen s temple 
is a handsomely finished, pretty edifice, among the best 
of its kind in Canton, and it conveys to a visitor an 
excellent notion of the temple architecture now in vogue 
at that city. 

The Fatee gardens, so often described, are still to 



THE FA TEE GARDENS. 233 

be found, almost unchanged, at the side of a narrow 
creek on the ri^rht bank of the river. These gardens 

o o 

are native nurseries for flowers, dwarf shrubs, and 
trees. Like most Chinese gardens they cover only a 
small area, and have been contrived to represent 
landscape gardening in miniature. Thus the walks 
are intentionally narrow. Here and there are dwarf 
trees and stunted shrubs, little rockeries crowned 
with temples and pagodas equally diminutive in 
their proportions, while small pools set out like lakes 
are spanned with dainty little marble bridges in their 
narrower parts. In the Fatee nurseries, besides rare 
and beautiful flowers, a great attraction is found in 
the shrubs trained to form small barges, dwellings, 
and dragons ; some have even been turned into bird 
cages, where living birds might find a more congenial 
home than in the bamboo cages in common use. It is 
interesting to notice the dwarfing of trees. An or 
dinary tree is selected, and around a suitable branch 
the gardener binds a baof of mould, which he is careful 

o o 

to keep moist until, at length, the branch strikes roots 
into the mould. It is then cut from the parent stem 
and planted to form the trunk of the dwarf, that soon 
bears leaves, and flowers, and fruit. 

Some distance below the Fatee creek, on the same 
side of the river, a number of Tea Hongs and tea-firing 
establishments are to be found. To these I now 
venture to introduce the reader, as he must needs feel 
more or less interest in the tea-men, and their mode of 
preparing this highly-prized luxury. Passing up the 
creek along the usual narrow channel, between densely- 
packed rows of floating craft, we land on a broad stone 
platform, cross a court where men are to be seen 



2,34 INDO CHIAA AND CHINA. 

weighing the tea, and enter a large three-storied brick 
building, where we meet Tan Kin Ching, the pro 
prietor, to whom we bear an introduction from one of 
his foreign customers. One of the clerks is directed 
to show us over the place. He first ushers us into 
a large warehouse, where thousands of chests of the 
new crop are piled up, ready for inspection by the 
buyer. The inspection of this cargo is an exceedingly 
simple process. The foreign tea-taster enters and 
places his mark on certain boxes in different parts of 
the pile. These are forthwith removed, weighed, and 
scrutinised as fair samples of the bulk. The whole 
cargo is shipped without further ceremony should the 
parcels examined prove satisfactory ones ; and, indeed, 
nowadays it seldom happens that shortcomings in 
weight and quality are at the last moment detected, 
for the better class of Chinese merchants are remark 
able for their honesty and fair dealing. I am the more 
anxious thus to do justice to the Chinese dealers, 
because the notion has recently got abroad that, as a 
rule, they are most notorious cheats ; men who never 
fail to overreach the unsuspecting trader when an 
opportunity occurs, and upon whose shoulders must 
fall the full weight of the charge of preparing and 
selling those spurious or adulterated teas which have 
recently reached this country in a condition not fit for 
human food. It seems clear to me that the Chinese 
manufacturer of this sort of rubbish is by no means 
the most reprehensible party in the trade. He it is, 
indeed, who sets himself to collect from the servants of 
foreigners or natives, and from the restaurants and tea- 

o 

saloons, the leaves that have been already used, and 
to dry them, cook theirij and mix them with imitations of 



THE TEA TRADE. 



2 35 



the genuine leaf. This process completed, he next adds 
pickings, dust, and sweepings from the tea-factory, and 
mixes the whole with foreign materials, so as to lend 
it a healthy surface hue. Lastly, he perfumes the lot 
with some sweet-smelling flower the chloranthus, olea, 
aglaia, and others ; and thus provides a cheap, fragrant, 
and polluted cup for the humble consumers abroad. 
They, poor souls, are tempted by the lowness of the 
cost ; while, as for the grocer from whom they buy 
their pennies -worths of the dear herb, or whatever we 
ought to call it, he probably knows about as much of 
the chemistry of tea and of the science of tea-tasting as 
he does of the spectroscope and -the composition of a 
comet. He might just as reasonably, in some instances, 
be fined for ignorance of the chemistry of the stars as 
for unacquaintance with the properties and composition 
of the tea he sells. I must not, however, be under 
stood to say that the retail dealer is ignorant of the 
market value of the tea he buys. I only affirm that 
he is fairly entitled to take it for granted that tea on 
which duty has been paid, and which is offered to him 
for sale, is fit for human food. The evil will only be 
cured when the market for such stuff is closed in China, 
and when those who traffic in it shall be content to 
follow the legitimate course of trade, and to compete 
with the foreign tea-merchants who are armed with a 
staff of highly-trained, honest assistants, and who buy 
only what they themselves know to be sound and 
good. The tea-trade is more or less a speculative one, 
always full of risks (as some of our merchants have 
found out to their cost) ; and though a vast amount of 
foreign capital is annually invested in the enterprise, 
it is probably only every second or third venture that 



236 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

will return, I clo not say a handsome profit, but any 
profit at all. 

Tea-mixing is also carried on, to a certain extent, 
at home, in order to meet the taste and means of 
European consumers ; but the materials which form 
the spurious class of teas to which I have already 
referred are brought from the Central Flowery Land ; 
and it may be set down as a guide to the public that 
tea pure and simple cannot be sold in England at much 
under two shillings, or two shillings and sixpence a 
pound, although cheaper teas or mixtures may at the 
same time be obtained of a perfectly harmless quality. 

We will now proceed to another apartment and see 
the method adopted in the manufacture of gunpowder 
teas. First the fresh leaves of black tea are partially 
dried in the sun. These are next rolled either in the 
palm of the hand, or on a flat tray, or by the feet in a 
hempen bag ; then they are scorched in hollow iron 
pans over a charcoal fire, and after this are spread out 
on bamboo trays, that the broken stems and refuse 
may be picked out. In this large stone-paved room we 
notice the leaves in different stages of preparation. 
The labour required to produce the gunpowder leaf is 
the most curious and interesting of the many processes 
to which the plant is subjected. We are surprised to 
notice a troop of able-bodied coolies, each dressed only 
in a short pair of cotton trousers tucked up so as to 
give free action to his naked limbs. One feels puzzled 
at first to conjecture what they are about. Can they 
be at work, or is it only play ? They each rest their 
arms on a cross beam, or against the wall, and with 
their feet busily roll and toss balls of about a foot in 
diameter (or the size of an ordinary football) up and 



SHAME EN. 237 

clown the floor of the room. Our guide assures us it 
is work they are after, and very hard work too. The 
balls beneath their feet are the bags packed full of tea 
leaves, which by the constant rolling motion assume 
the pellet shape. As the leaves become more com 
pact, the bag loosens and requires to be twisted up at 
the neck, and again rolled ; the twisting and rolling 
being repeated until the leaf has become perfectly 
globose. It is then divided through sieves into 
different sizes, or qualities, and the scent and bouquet 
is imparted after the final drying or scorching. 

Most of the tea shipped from Canton is now grown 
in the province of Kwang-tung ; formerly part of it used 
to be brought from the Tung-ting district, but that 
now finds its way to Hankow. Leaves from the 
Tai-shan district are mostly used in making Canton 
District Pekoe and Long Leaf Scented Orange 
Pekoe, while Lo-ting leaf makes Scented Caper and 
Gunpowder teas. 

In order to see the foreign tea-tasters prosecuting 
a branch of science which they have made peculiarly 
their own, we must cross the river to Shameen, a pretty 
little green island, on which the foreign houses stand ; 
looking with its villas, gardens, and croquet-lawns, like 
the suburb of some English town. There is a neat 
home-like church there, too, and near it resides the 
Archdeacon, who is constantly being found engaged 
in some tender-hearted self-sacrificing mission to the 
poor foreign sailors that frequent the port. We as 
cend a flight of steps in a massive stone retaining wall 
with which Shameen is surrounded ; and this clone, we 
might wander for a whole day, and examine all the 
houses on the island, without discovering a trace of a 



238 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

merchant s office, or any outward sign of commerce at 
all. Those who are familiar with the factory site, and 
who can figure what that must have been in olden 
times, when the foreign merchants were caged up like 
wild beasts, and subjected to the company and taunts 
of the vilest part of the river population, and to the 
pestilential fumes of an open drain that carried the 
sewage of the city to the stream, will be surprised at 
the transformation that has, since those days, been 
wrought. 

The present residences of foreigners on this grassy 
site (reclaimed mud flat raised above the river) are 
substantial elegant buildings of stone or brick, sur 
rounded each by a wall, an ornamental railing, or 
bamboo hedge, enclosing the gardens and outhouses in 
its circuit. Except the firm s name on each small brass 
door-plate, there is nothing anywhere that tells us of 
trade. But when we have entered, we find the dwell 
ing-house on the upper story, and the comprador s 
room and offices on the ground-floor ; next to the 
offices, the tea-taster s apartment. Ranged against 
the walls of this chamber are rows of polished shelves, 
covered with small round tin boxes of a uniform size, 
and bearing each a label and date in Chinese and 
English writing. These boxes contain samples of all 
the various sorts of old and new teas used for reference 
and comparison in tasting, smelling, and scrutinising 
parcels, or chops, which may be offered for sale. In 
the centre of the floor stands a long table bestrewed 
with a multitude of white porcelain covered cups, 
manufactured specially for the purpose of tasting tea. 
The samples are placed in these cups, and hot water of 
a given temperature is then poured upon them. The 



SPURIOUS TEA. 239 

time the tea rests in the hot water is measured by a 
sand-glass ; and when this is accomplished, all is ready 
for the tasting, which is a much more useful than 
elegant operation. 

The windows of the room have a northern aspect, 
and are screened off so as to admit only a steady sky 
light, which falls directly on to a tea-board beneath. 
Upon this board the samples are spread on square 
wooden trays, and it is under the uniform light above 
described that the minute inspection of colour, make, 
general appearance, and smell, takes place. All these 
tests are made by assistants who have gone through 
a special course of training which fits them for the 
mysteries of their art. The knowledge which these 
experts possess is of the greatest importance to the 
merchant, as the profitable outcome of the crops selected 
for the home market depends, to a great extent, on 
their judgment and ability. It will thus be seen that 
the merchant, not only when he chooses his teas for 
exportation, but at the last moment before they are 
shipped, takes the minutest precautions against frau 
dulent shortcomings either in quality or weight. It 
is possible, however, for a sound tea, if undercooked, 
or imperfectly dried, to become putrid during the home 
ward voyage, and to reach this country in a condition 
quite unfit for use. This I know from my own experi 
ence. I at one time was presented with a box of tea by 
the Taotai of Taiwanfu in Formosa, and when I first got 
it I found that some of the leaves had a slightly green 
tint, and were damp. I had intended to bring this tea 
home to England ; it was of good quality, but it spoiled 
before I left China. Judging from the quantites of tea 
that have been recently condemned, the importation of 



2 40 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

spurious cargoes can hardly be a lucrative trade, and it 
might probably be done away with altogether were 
competent public inspectors appointed to examine every 
cargo as it arrives. 

Although Chinese commercial morality has not run 
to such a very low ebb as some might imagine, yet 
the clever traders of the lower orders of Cathay are by 
no means above resorting to highly questionable and 
ingenious practices of adulteration, when such practices 
can be managed with safety and profit. Thus the 
foreign merchant finds it always necessary to be vigi 
lant in his scrutiny of tea, silk, and other produce, 
before effecting a purchase. But equal care requires 
to be observed in all money transactions, as counterfeit 
coining is a profession carried on in Canton with mar 
vellous success ; so successful indeed, are the coiners 
of false dollars that the native experts, or schroffs, who 
are employed by foreign merchants (Mr. W. F. Mayers 
assures me), are taught the art of schroffing, or detect 
ing counterfeit coin, by men who are in direct commu 
nication with the coiners of the spurious dollars in 
circulation. 

In many of the Canton shops one notices the inti 
mation Schroffing taught here/ This is a curious 
system of corruption, which one would think would be 
worth the serious attention of the Government. Were 
counterfeit coining put down, there would be no need 
for the crafty instructors of schroffs ; and at the same 
time the expensive staff of experts employed in banks 
and merchants offices could be dispensed with. 

But the dollar in the hands of a needy and ingenious 
Chinaman is not only delightful to behold, but it 
admits of a manipulation at once most skilful and 



SPURIOUS DOLLARS. 241 

profitable. He will set to work and saw it in two, 
rewarding himself for his patience and labour by appro 
priating everything but the silver shell and super 
scription. He will then fill up the two halves with 
baser metal, and solder them together in such a way 
that, both in sound and appearance, the coin will seem 
good to all but the trained expert. Devices more 
daring still he frequently resorts to, when only the 
outer mould and colour of the dollar are furnished to 
resemble the true coin. 



K 



242 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Canton Its general Appearance Its Population Streets Shops 
Mode of transacting Business Signboards Work and Wages The 
Willow-pattern Bridge Juilin, Governor-General of the two Kwang 
Clan Fights Hak-kas The Mystic Pills Dwellings of the Poor 
The Lohang-tang Buddhist Monastic Life On board a Junk. 

CANTON is by no means the densely packed London 
in China which some have made it out to be. The 
circuit of the city wall very little exceeds six miles, 
and if we stand upon the heights to the north of the 
city, and turn our faces southward, we can trace the 
outline of these fortifications along a considerable por 
tion of their course. This, then, is the entire area 
strictly included in the limits of the town ; but there 
are large straggling suburbs outside the walls which 
spread for no little distance over the plain. In these 
suburbs there are many open spaces. Some, shaded by 
trees and orchards, form the parks and gardens of the 
gentry ; others, again, display the carefully tended pro 
duce of the market-gardener ; while military parade 
grounds, rice-fields, and ponds where fish are bred, are 
scattered at intervals between more thickly populated 
ground. There is, indeed, nothing in the whole picture 
of this southern metropolis suggestive of a teeming 
land population, save the centre of the city itself. But 
to the south of the wall there is the broad Pearl River, 
and communicating with this stream a network of 



PAWNSHOPS, CANTON. 243 

canals and creeks, the whole more densely populated 
perhaps than the city. In the boats which crowd these 
water-ways a vast number of families pass their lives, 
and subsist by carrying merchandise or conveying pas 
sengers to different parts of the province. The popu 
lation of Canton is computed at about a million souls, 
although the official census returns it at a figure con 
siderably higher. 

As in Peking, so at Canton, the space within the 
walls is divided into two unequal parts, the one occu 
pied nominally by the Tartar garrison and official 
residences only, and the other containing the abodes 
of the trading Chinese population. But the descen 
dants of the old Tartar soldiers, too proud to labour, 
and too haughty to stoop themselves to the mean 
artifices of trade, have become impoverished in process 
of time, and have disposed of their lands and dwellings 
to their more industrious Chinese neighbours. As to 
the houses themselves, they everywhere preserve one 
uniform low level, but the monotonous appearance 
thus produced is at rare intervals broken by some tall 
temple which rears its carved and gilded roof from 
amid a grove of venerable trees, or by the nine-storied 
pagoda, or lofty quadrangular towers that mark the 
pawnshop sites. The pawnshops in this strange city 
rear their heads heavenward as proudly as church 
steeples, and indeed at first we mistook them to be 
temples. What was our surprise, then, to discover in 
them the Chinese reproduction of that money-lending 
establishment which is found in the shady corners of 
our own bye streets, beneath a modest trinity of gilded 
balls, and whose private side entrance stands invitingly 
open the refuge of the widow or the fatherless, when 



R 2 



244 INDO-CI1INA AND CHINA. 

they creep thither at the last moment, in the twilight, to 
part with jewels whose paltry lustre perhaps gleams with 
many a bright memory to them. But there is no 
romance about these Canton pawnshops. They are 
square bold-looking edifices, lifting their benevolent 
grey brick heads to a height which positively, in Chinese 
eyes, invests them with sanctity. 

Ah-sin, and Ah-lok, indeed look up with something 
akin to veneration at their plastered walls, narrow 
stanchioned windows, and .at the huge rock boulders 
poised on the edge of the roof above, ready to drop 
down upon any robber who might dare to scale the 
treasure-sheltering sides. I recollect visiting one of 

o o 

these places for the purpose of seeing within, and to 
obtain a view of the city. Armed with an introduction 
from a leading Chinese merchant, I presented myself 
one morning before an outer gate in the high prison- 
looking wall which encircled the tower. My summons 
was answered by a portly gate-keeper, who at once 
admitted me inside. Here I found a number of military 
candidates going through a course of drill ; the porter 
was himself an old soldier, a sort of drill-sergeant, and 
was now instructing pupils in the use of the bow, and 
how to lift up heavy weights. After exhibiting one cr 
two specimens of their powers, we were taken to a 
narrow barred gate at the base of the tower. The 
office for transacting business was on the ground-floor, 
and above this a square wooden scaffolding, standing 
free of the walls, ran right up to the roof. This scaf 
folding was divided into a series of flats, having ladders 
which lead from one to the other ; the bottom flat was 
used for stowing pledges of the greatest bulk, such as 
furniture or produce ; smaller and lighter articles occu 
pied the upper flats, while the one nearest the roof 



THE BRITISH CONSULAR YAMEN. 245 

was devoted to bullion and jewellery. Every pledge 
from floor to ceiling was catalogued, and bore a ticket 
denoting the number of the article, and the date on 
which it was deposited. Thus anything could be found 
and redeemed at a moment s notice. Such towers are 
places for the safe custody of the costly gems and robes 
of the wealthy classes of the community, and are really 
indispensable institutions in a country where brigand 
age and misgovernment expose property to constant 
risks. Besides this, a licensed pawnbroking establish 
ment makes temporary advances to needy persons who 
may have security to lodge ; the charge being three 
per cent, per month on sums under ten taels, save in 
the last month of the year, when the interest is reduced 
to two per cent. If the amount of the loan exceeds 
ten taels, the rate is uniformly two per cent, per month. 
The pledges are kept for three years in the better class 
of pawnshops. It is the custom of the poor to pawn 
their winter and summer clothing alternately, redeeming 
each suit as it may be required. 

Not far below the Heights in the Tartar quarter of 
the city, is the British Consulate or Yamen. This edifice 
stands in the grounds of what was once a palace, and 
is made up of diverse picturesque Chinese buildings, 
environed by a tastefully laid out garden and deer park. 
Hard by is the ancient nine-storied pagoda ascribed to 
the reign of the Emperor Wu-Ti, in the middle of the 
sixth century of our era. It is octagonal in shape, and 
170 feet high. In 1859 some British sailors, weary of 
shore life, and longing to go aloft, managed, at the risk 
of their necks, to scale this crazy-looking monument 
an event which greatly disgusted the Chinese, for they 
hate to have their dwellings overlooked from a height, 



246 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

more especially by a pack of foreign fire-eating sailors. 
Descending from the height, and passing southwards 
down to the main street of the town, we are struck by 
the appearance of the closely-packed shops, which 
differ from anything we have ever seen before. We 
observe that the folks who lounge about, even in the 
meanest looking dwellings, are, most of them, good- 
looking the men tall and shapely, and the women 
in no instance disfigured by small bandaged feet. 
There are also a number of soldiers, not far from the 
parade ground fellows who, erect and muscular, carry 
themselves with a dauntless military air. These are 
the remnants of the once powerful Tartar camp. They 
have been instructed in foreign drill, and are said 
to make good soldiers. They certainly contrast 
favourably with many of the troops I saw in other 
quarters of the Empire. As to the shopkeepers, they 
are all Chinese, but their small-footed consorts are 
nowhere to be seen ; the fact is, they keep them 
strictly secluded. Some of these handsome Tartar 
matrons have their children seated in bamboo ca^es 

o 

at their doors, and pretty little birds they make, too. 

One is almost bewildered by the diversity of shops, 
and the attractive wares which they display. There 
are so many things that one would like to carry home. 
Everything is so beautiful, everything so costly, and 
not unfrequently cumbrous too. Then the shop 
keepers are so very fascinating in their manners. 
Have a good look at them ; they are about the best 
class of men in China honest, industrious, contented, 
and refined too, some of them. A short time back a 
curious though not uncommon sort of lottery was got 
up among the shop keepers of Canton. 1 Wang-leang- 

1 See China Review, 1873, p. 249. 



SHOPKEEPERS. 247 

chai, of the Juy-Chang boot shop in Ma-an street, seized 
with a passion for poetry, organised a sort of literary 
lottery, and offered the stakes as prizes to the suc 
cessful composer of the best lines on five selected 
subjects. 

Frequently, on entering a Canton shop, you will 
find its owner with a book in one hand and a pipe 
or a fan in the other, and wholly absorbed in his 
studies. You will be doomed to disappointment if you 
expect the smoker to start up at once, all smiles and 
blandness, rubbing his hands together as he makes 
a shrewd guess of what he is likely to take out of 
you, and receiving you obsequiously or with rudeness 
accordingly. Quite the reverse ! Your presence is ap 
parently unnoticed, unless you happen to lift anything ; 
then you hear that the fan has been arrested, and feel 
that a keen eye is bent on your movements all the 
while. But it is not till you enquire for some article 
that the gentleman, now certain you mean to trade, 
will rise without bustle from his seat show you his 
goods, or state the price he means to sell at with a 
polite yet careless air which plainly says If it suits you, 
we make an exchange, I take the money, you the 
goods, conferring a mutual benefit on each other ; but if 
not agreeable, depart and leave me to my pipe and 
book. After all, by adhering to this independent style, 
I believe they sell more, and make better profits, than 
if they were perpetually soliciting patronage by word 
and gesture. On our way homewards we pass through 
Physic Street, or Tsiang-Lan-Kiai. Here the shops are 
nearly all uniform in size, a brick party-wall dividing 
each building from its neighbour. All have one front 
apartment open to the street, with a granite or brick 



248 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA*. 

counter for the display of their wares. A granite base 
also supports the tall upright signboard, the indispen 
sable characteristic of every shop in China. Opposite 
the signboard stands a small altar or shrine, dedicated 
to the god who presides over the tradesman and his 
craft. This deity is honoured regularly when the shop 
is opened, and a small incense-stick is lighted, and kept 
burning in a bronze cup of ashes placed in front of the 
shrine. 

The shops within are frequently fitted with a 
counter of finely-polished wood and finely-carved 
shelves, while at the back is an accountant s room, 
screened off with an open-work wooden partition, so 
carved as to resemble a climbing plant. In some 
conspicuous place stand the brazen scales and weights, 
ever brightly polished, and adorned with reel cloth. 
These scales are used for weighing the silver-coin 
bars, and fragments of the precious metal, which form 
part of the currency of the place. When goods are 
sold by weight, the customer invariably brings his own 
balance, so as to secure his fair and just portion of the 
article he has come to buy. This balance is not unlike 
an ordinary yard-measuring rod, furnished with a 
sliding weight. It is a simple application of the lever. 
But the tendency of this simple mechanical contrivance 
is not calculated to elevate the Chinese in our estimation. 
It proves a universal lack of confidence, which finds its 
way down to the lowest details of petty trade, for 
which the governing classes may take to themselves 
credit. The people are in this, as in many other 
matters, a law unto themselves. A ceaseless struggle 
against unfair dealing has, therefore, like other native 
institutions, become a stereotyped necessity. 




A STREET IN CANTON 



SIGNBOARDS. 249 

It is by no means pleasant to be caught in one of 
these narrow streets during a shower, as the water 
pours down in torrents from the roofs and floods the 
pavement, until it subsides through the soil beneath. 
The broadest streets are narrow, and shaded above, in 
some places, with screens of matting, to keep out the 
sun. So close, indeed, are the roofs to each other in 
the Chinese city, that, viewed from a distance, they 
look like one uninterrupted covering a space entirely 
tiled over, beneath which the citizens sedulously 
conceal themselves until the cool of the evening 

o 

when weary of the darkness and of the trade and 
strife of the day, they swarm on the housetops to 
gamble, or smoke, or sip their tea until the shades of 
night fall, and they retire again to the lower regions, 
to sleep on the cool benches of their shops. 

The signboards of Cantonese shops are not only the 
pride of their owners, but they are a delight to students 
of Chinese. The signboards in the engraving may 
be taken as fair examples of Chinese street literature. 
In the high-flown classical, or poetical phrases by 
which public attention is drawn to the various shops, 
one fails to see, in most instances, the faintest refer 
ence to the contents of the establishment. Thus, 
a tradesman who sells swallows nests for making 
soup, has on his board simply characters signify 
ing Yun-Ki, sign of the Eternal. But here is a list, 
translated by Mr. W. F. Mayers from the signboards 
in the picture. 

Kien Ki Hao the sign of the symbol Kien 
(Heaven) Hwei-chow, ink, pencils, and writing ma 
terials. This is, indeed, a very high compliment to 
literature. 



250 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Chang Tsi Tang (Chang of the family branch 
designated Tsi). Wax, cased pills of select manu 
facture. Chang is evidently proud of his family con 
nection, and probably offers it as a sufficient guarantee 
for the quality of his pills. 

Tien Yih (Celestial advantage). Table-covers, 
cushions for chairs, and divans for sale. Now what 
* Celestial advantage can a customer be supposed to 
derive from table-covers or cushions, unless, indeed, 
one supposes that the downy ease conferred by the 
use of these cushions is almost beyond the sphere of 
terrestrial enjoyment. There must be some notion of 
this sort associated with upholsterers shops, as we 
have here another sign embodying a high-flown phrase, 
flavoured with a little common sense. 

Tien Yih Shen (Celestial advantage combined with 
attention). Shop for the sale of cushions and ratan 
mats. 

Yung Ki (sign of the Eternal). Swallows nests. 
Money-schroffing taught here. 

K ing Wen T a ng (the hall of delight in scholar 
ship). Seals artistically engraved. 

Notwithstanding the narrowness of the streets of 
Canton, they are extremely picturesque ; more espe 
cially those in which we find the old curiosity-shops, 
the silversmiths, and the silk-mercers ; where the sign 
boards present a most attractive display of brilliant 
and varied colours, as, indeed, in the one through 
which we have just been passing. 

Striking thence by a narrow alley into a back lane, 
we find ourselves in a very poor neighbourhood, with 
dingy, dirty hovels filled with operatives, who are 
busily at work ; some weaving silk ; others embroider- 



WORK AND WAGES. 251 

ing satin robes ; others, again, carving and turning the 
ivory balls and curios which are the admiration of 
foreigners. Entering one shop, we are shown an 
elaborately carved series of nine ivory balls, one 
within the other. It is commonly believed that these 
balls are first carved in halves, and then joined to 
gether so perfectly as to look solid. But as we watch 
a man working on one of them the mystery is 
gradually solved. The rough piece of solid ivory is 
first cut into a ball ; it is then fixed into a primitive- 
looking lathe, and turned with a sharp tool in various 
positions, until it becomes perfectly round. It is then 
set again in the lathe and drilled with the requisite 
number of holes all round. After this one hole is 
centred, a tool bent at the end is passed in, and with this 
a groove is produced near the heart of the sphere ; 
another hole is then centred, and after that another ; 
the same operation being carried out with all the 
holes until all the grooves meet, and a small ball 
drops into the centre. In this way all the balls one 
within the other are ultimately released. The next 
operation is carving the innermost ball ; this is accom 
plished by means of long drills and other delicate 
tools and in the same way all the rest of the balls are 
carved in succession, the carving gradually becoming 
more easy and elaborate until the outside ball is 
reached, and this is then finished with a delicate beauty 
that resembles the finer sorts of lace. Close by these 
ivory-turners are men designing patterns for em 
broidery, and shops full of children, sewing the most 
beautiful patterns of birds, butterflies, and flowers on 
satin robes. The wages of the people who do this 
lovely work are very small indeed. The artist who 



252 INDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

furnishes the designs receives about i/. 5^. a month, 
and the following table gives the average at which 
skilled labourers are paid. 

s d 

Shoemaker . . . . 15 o a month, with food. 
Blacksmith . . . .100 
First-class ivory carver . .280 
Skilled embroiderer . . 150 
Silversmith . . . . I 12 o 
Painter 18 o 

It takes about ten days to complete the embroidery 
of a pair of shoes ; and these, when soled and finished, 
fetch fifteen shillings a pair. The wages of the em 
broiderer, according to this calculation, would amount to 
six shillings or thereabout, and the balance, to cover 
cost of material and making, would leave but a modest 
profit to the master ; but then embroidered shoes are in 
constant demand, and a lady of rank will require some 
thirty pair for her marriage trousseau alone. Some 
ladies embroider their own shoes, but the practice is 
by no means a common one. The dress shoes of the 
men are embroidered too, and are used by all except 
the poorest class. It will be seen from the foregoing 
notes that skilled labour is so cheap in China as to 
give artisans a great advantage in all those various 
branches of native industry which find a market 
abroad ; and this will one day render the clever, careful, 
and patient Chinaman a formidable rival to European 
manufacturers, when he has learned to use machinery 
in weaving fabrics of cotton or silk. 

Many of the beautifully embroidered stuffs we see 
in our shops at home are made by hand in China, and 
yet they can be sold in London at prices that defy 
competition. The opposition to the introduction of 
the machines used in Bradford and Manchester comes 



SKILLED LABOUR. 253 

mostly from the operatives themselves. The masters, 
who understand the foreign markets, would many of 
them be glad to set up European looms, and even to 
use steam to drive them. But the poor operatives, 
who earn their miserable pittance by their handwork, 
would strike and starve rather than tolerate two or 
three new wheels and spindles, which, as they believe, 
would throw them out of employment. I was assured 
by one Chinese silk merchant who accompanied me to 
his factory in the country, that he once tried to in 
troduce a foreign contrivance to his reeling machines ; 
but his people left him in a body, and perseverance in 
the innovation would simply have involved him in 
ruin so at least he said. This gentleman employed 
the greater portion of the men, women, and children, of 
a whole village a rare thing in China, where labour is 
so minutely divided, and where nearly every house 
holder is his own master. But these villagers were 
only hired to reel and dress the silk during certain 
months of the year ; and they, most of them, had small 
farms where they cultivated the raw silk on their own 
account. It is perfectly astonishing to see what these 
Cantonese can accomplish on their own inferior looms. 
Give them almost any pattern or design, and they will 
contrive to weave it, imitating its imperfections with 
as much exactness as its beauties. I like to linger 
over these shops, and to meditate on these scenes of 
ceaseless industry, where all goes on with a quiet 
harmony that has a strange fascination for the observer. 
Amid all the evidences of toil, the poorest has some 
leisure at his command. Then, seated on a bench or 
squatting tranquilly on the ground, he will smoke or 
chat with his neighbour, untroubled by the presence of 



254 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

his good-natured employer, who seems to grow fatter 
and wealthier on the smiles and happy temperament 
of his Avorkmen. Here, too, one can see how the 
nucleus of this great city is more closely populated 
than at first sight one would suppose. Most of the 
workshops are kitchen, dining-room, and bed-room too ; 
here, the workpeople breakfast on their benches ; here, 
at nightfall, they stretch themselves out to sleep. Their 
whole worldly wealth is stored here too. An extra 
jacket, a pipe, a few ornaments which are used in 
common, and a pair of chopsticks these make up each 
man s total worldly pelf ; and, indeed, his greatest trea 
sures he carries with him a stock of health and a 
happy contented mind. Surely, one would think, such 
men as these, accustomed to nothing but endless toil 
and simple fare, would be tolerably wretched at times ; 
that there would be moments when they would call 
to mind their barren prospects, and resolve to make a 
struggle to raise themselves above their fellows. But 
then we must recollect that Chinamen, for the most 
part, only become wretched and ambitious when they 
leave home and go to a foreign country. Here, in their 
own land, they seem to think little about the future, 
save when some one among them, more provident than 
the rest, hoards up cash, and invests in a coffin for use 
after his own decease. The Chinese operative is com 
pletely content if he escape the pangs of hunger, 
endowed with health sufficient to enable him simply to 
enjoy the sense of living, and of living, too, in a land 
so perfect that a human being ought to be happy in 
the privilege of residing there at all. It is a land, so 
they seem to suppose, wherein everything is settled and 
ordered by men who know exactly what they ought to 



CHINESE AMBITION. 255 

know, and who are paid to keep people from rising, or 
ambitiously seeking to quit the groove in which Pro 
vidence placed them at their birth. Many will say 
that the Chinaman is not without ambition, and in a 
sense they will be right. Parents are ambitious to 
educate their children, and to qualify them for candida 
ture at the Government examinations ; and there are 
probably no men who lust more after power, wealth, 
and place than the successful Chinese graduates, simply 
because they know that there is no limit to their pros 
pects. If they have interest and genius, the poorest of 
them may fairly aspire to become a member of the 
Imperial Cabinet ; but then these are the men of letters, 
and not the poor labouring masses, the populace whom 
I have just described. 

Before I quit Canton I must give some account of a 
spot there which I visited more than once, and which is 
commonly known as the garden of Pun-ting-qua. Pun- 
ting-qua or Pun-shi-cheng, the original owner, had been 
a wealthy merchant at Canton, but his Government ulti 
mately drained him of his wealth, by compelling him to 
pay a certain fixed sum for the monopoly of the trade in 
salt. Falling into heavy arrears, and being unable to 
raise the amount, his property was sequestrated, and 
his splendid garden raffled in a public lottery. A notable 
instance, this, of the danger of becoming too rich in 
China. His house, a singularly beautiful place, was sold 
to the anti-foreign anti-missionary society of Canton ; 
and at the time of my visit to this quaint pleasure- 
ground traces of decay had already set their stamp 
upon the curious structures that adorned it. I first 
made my way up Sulphur Creek, which sweeps round 
to the west of the city, and passed many a strange 



256 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

crazy-looking edifice rising above the dull water, and 
bending over a frail wooden jetty which divided it from 
the stream. Most of these jetties were themselves 
decayed, and had been propped up only at the last 
moment, as their green mouldy timbers were about to 
settle down and bury themselves in the muddy bed of 
the creek. Small barred windows pierce the gaunt 
walls of the moss-covered brick buildings, and sundry 
garments dangle from bamboos and ropes, which are 
stretched from wall to wall. Women are washing, and 
children sit upon the steps and jetties in a way that 
makes one tremble for their safety. Dogs bark and 
snarl at the doorways, domesticated pigs or fowls look 
out upon the throng of boats, while the men are busy 
dipping dark blue cotton fabrics into the stream. A 
three-storied pagoda marks the site of Pun-ting-qua s 
garden, which we enter through a gateway in the outer 
wall. Once arrived inside, we seem for the first time 
to realise the China pictured to us in our schoolboy 
days. Here we see model Chinese gardening ; droop 
ing willows, shady walks, and sunny lotus-pools, on 
which gilded barges float. Here, too, spanning a lake, 
stands the well known willow-pattern bridge, with a 
pavilion hard by. But we miss the two love-birds ; 
there is no dutiful parent, with the fishtail feet, leisurely, 
and with lamp in hand, pursuing his unfilial daughter as 
she, with equal leisure, makes her way after the shepherd 
with the crook. I photographed this willow-pattern 
bridge, but when I look at my picture, I find it falls 
far short of the scene on our soup-plates. Where, for 
example, is the pavilion which is all ornaments, the tree 
above it which grows nothing but foot-balls, and that 
other tree, too, on which only feathers bloom. Where 



JUILIN. 257 

is the fence that meanders across the platform in the 
foreground ? And yet these gardens have a quaintness 
all their own. Their winding paths conduct to cleverly 
contrived retreats ; and tunnels cut through mossy 
fern-covered rocks land us in some pavilion or theatre, 
on the edge of a glassy pool, where gold fish sport in 
the sunshine, and glistening frogs sit gravely on broad 
dew-spangled lotus-leaves ; or else we discover some 
spacious open saloon, where a party of native gentle 
men, seated on square, cool, marble-bottomed, ebony 
chairs, enjoy a repast of tea or cake, or listen to the 
strumming of a lute, and to the shrill song of some 
lady in attendance. 

Juilin, the governor of the province of which 
Canton is the capital, and of the adjoining province of 
Kwang-si as well, is an officer who has seen distin 
guished service, and one as widely known to Europeans 
as any dignitary in China. A man of singular ad 
ministrative ability, he has done much to promote the 
prosperity of the provinces which he controls, and it is 
probably owing, in a great measure, to his influence that 
peaceful relations with foreign nations have been so 
well maintained. Besides this, he had organised a 
steam gunboat service, which had already made its 
presence felt among the pirate vessels on the coasts. 
Juilin is a Manchu by birth, and at an early age was 
employed in public functions at the capital. Here he 
won the goodwill of the Emperor Tao Kwang, and rose 
to be cabinet minister. He was afterwards degraded, 
owing to the defeat of the Chinese troops at Pa-li Chiao, 
when the allied forces made their advance upon Pekin, 
but was subsequently restored to favour and appointed 
general of the Tartar garrison of Canton. From this 

s 



258 1NDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

post he was transferred shortly afterwards to the office 
which he at present holds. His career as governor- 
general has been marked by signs of progress and by 
an enlightened or even liberal policy. He has restored 
order in the distracted district near Chao-chow-fu, and 
rendered life and property secure there, successfully 
suppressing the village clans which for many years 
previously had set all authority at defiance. These 
villages were each like a garrisoned fortress, inhabited 
by one large family or clan, and at feud with all the 
other surrounding villages and clans. Thus wars on a 
tiny scale were for ever being carried on, the youths 
of the villages being the fighting men, and their pay 
being provided by the elders. 

When in Chao-chow-fu I visited several of these 
villages, and got some notion of their style of fighting. 
Those unfortunates who were carried off as prisoners 
of war were frequently detained in slavery, or met a 
fate even w r orse than this, for their captors would 
dispose of them to be sent, as involuntary emigrants, to 
foreign shores. At harvest-time one village would 
make a midnight raid upon its neighbour, and carry off 
all the crops ; and at Sinchew I found an old feud 
existing between that village and a number of smaller 
hamlets. One Aching and his brother, tired at last of 
fighting, and of being constantly interrupted in more 
peaceful and profitable pursuits, resolved to go into the 
Fukien Province, and there to seek for work. With 
their bundles on their backs they started from their 
native place, but halted when not far on their journey 
to fish in a neighbouring stream. While thus engaged, 
a boat full of their enemies carefully disguised made its 
approach, and one of the crew offered to buy their 



VILLAGE WARFARE. 259 

stock of fish. The two brothers falling into the snare, 
were thus carried off to the hostile village, and there 
killed and mutilated in an open space in front of the 
settlement. Aching s heart was cut out, boiled, and 
eaten by his savage captors, under the notion that they 
would become more daring and bloodthirsty in conse 
quence of this revolting deed. This occurred in 1869. 
Another example of native treachery and cunning will 
suffice. Two men of opposite clans had made up their 
minds to quit the province with the loot they had 
gained in war ; they, both of them, went to Cheng-lin at 
the same time, in search of the same object, viz. a boat. 
The one, hearing of the other s presence, hired a 
number of ruffians to slay him, promising them six 
pounds for his enemy s head and heart. The gang, 
tempted to the crime by the prospect of this liberal 
reward, soon caught their man ; but he, enquiring how 
much they were to receive for his head, at once offered 
them, on better security, double terms for the capture 
of his crafty foe. They had no hesitation in accepting 
the proposal, and it was their first employer, therefore, 
who fell a victim to their guile. In the end a small 
army was sent into the provinces, and all who refused 
to come to terms, and obey the law, were mercilessly 
put to the sword. So it came about that at the time I 
visited the place a well-clressed man might walk abroad, 
and no longer fear lest he be stripped and sent adrift 
without a rag to cover him, or else sold into slavery or 
even killed. 

There is a hardy race of people found in this and 
several other districts. These are known as Hak-kas, 
and some are of opinion that they are a people distinct 
from the Chinese, as they speak a language of their own, 

S 2 



260 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

and resemble Indians in physical appearance, rather than 
the Chinese type. Others, again, hold that the Hak-kas 
emigrated some eight hundred years ago from the Ning- 
hwa district in the Fukien province, and a recent writer in 
the China Review undertakes to prove from the Hak- 
kas family records that Ning-hwa was really their original 
home. Be their origin what it may, they have carved out 
an important place for themselves in the rich province 
of Kwangtung. I also met them increasing, multiplying 
and spreading their industry in the island of Formosa. 
It was they who, having no sympathies in common 
with the Puntis of Canton, formed the Coolie corps to 
the allied troops, and won a high reputation for perse 
verance and bravery. They have even been known to 
rescue British soldiers, when wounded and drowning, 
amid a perfect storm of bullets. Dr. Eitel, who 
laboured among them for many years, and who kindly 
furnished me with some of his experiences, described 
them as the hardest workers and the most industrious 
men in Kwangtunp; ; and when the interests of Hak- 

o o 

kas and Puntis, or natives of the province, clashed, the 
former have always distinguished themselves by their 
readiness to fio-ht For more than two centuries a 

o> 

stream of Hak-ka emigration has been flowing into 
the Ka-ying-chow department, taking its course more 
especially through the mountainous and thinly popu 
lated parts. This movement is still going on. 

The process, in individual cases, is more or less as 
follows. A couple of Hak-kas come to a Punti 
village, and there they hire themselves out to labour 
on the farm. In process of time, when they have laid 
up a little money, they rent a few acres of mountain 
land, or unredeemed bog. The insecurity caused by 



HAK-KAS. 261 

robbers and banditti makes it difficult in sparsely 
populated districts to cultivate land far from a villag e. 
The Hak-kas, therefore, easily find landowners willing 
to rent their outlying acres at a merely nominal rate. 
All further difficulties are gradually overcome, and at 
last the persevering Hak-kas send for their families 
and friends, and settle down in mud huts, which they 
build like forts, surrounding them with ditches, with 
thorny thickets, and impenetrable bamboo. Success 
in most cases follows, the hamlet grows rapidly, and 
a flock of immigrants from their native province crowd 
in to plant a settlement in the neighbourhood. These 
scattered settlements form a confederation among 
themselves, and forthwith demand a reduction of the 
ground rent. If this be not acceeded to, things will 
progress pleasantly for a short time longer, until the 
confederation feels itself strong enough to wage war 
with the original owners, and refuse to pay any rent. 
But, lest the Government should interfere, they are 
careful to inform the mandarins beforehand that they 
will pay lawful ground-rent to them. Besides, in many 
public offices in the Kwangtung province, the subordi 
nate employes are Hak-kas. This always enables them 
to judge of their own strength, to meet intrigue with in 
trigue, and to keep their quarrels outside the limits of 
Government intervention. As this class of village wars 

o 

is looked upon as harmless by the authorities, they only 
interfere to squeeze both parties. The Punti employ 
braves to fight for them, while the Hak-kas fight their 
battles for themselves, and that is why the latter always 
win. 

It is impossible to say whether this distinguished 
soldier and diplomatist Juilin entertains any kindly 



262 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

feeling" towards foreigners, or any desire to encourage 
friendly intercourse with outer nations. If he has 
one or the other, he is an exception to the general 
race of Chinese statesmen ; and I expect that he 
adopts a careful conciliatory policy, partly because 
his duty to the Imperial Government constrains him 
to that course, and partly because he well knows the 
power and resources of European nations. Recent 
occurrences in the Kwangtung province prove that 
there still exists, among the governing classes, a deep- 
rooted hostility to foreigners. The latest develop 
ment of this feeling was in the Shan-shin-fan out 
rage in 1871, when the movement, had it not been 
checked in time, might have led to a wholesale mas 
sacre of the native and foreign Christians of the 
province, as well as to bloodshed in our own colony 
at Hongkong. Certain individuals belonging to the 
so-called literati class are said to have been at the root 
of the whole affair ; through their instrumentality in 
flammatory placards were printed and put extensively 
into circulation ; pills also were manufactured, and freely 
distributed to the populace ; pills, it was said, concocted 
by the missionaries, and possessing the power to 
bewitch innocent women, and to proselytise foolish 
men ; they were besides this accounted capable of 
working miracles of a character too disgusting 1 to be 

o o > 

described. The results of all this trickery were riots 
in different quarters. A chapel was burnt at Fatshan, 
and a feeling of intense repugnance and bitter hatred 
to foreigners was stirred among the simple, superstitious, 
and peacably inclined peasantry. Public feeling, in 
deed, was just as excited as before the Tientsin 
massacre ; but the prompt action of the lieutenant- 



DWELLINGS OF THE POOR. 263 

governor of Hongkong, who despatched a gunboat to 
Canton, backed by the strong representations of the 
acting British Consul on the spot, roused the native au 
thorities to a recognition of the danger, and led them to 
take such vigorous steps that order was speedily restored. 
Before I quit Canton, it may be worth while to 
glance at a quarter of the town which has undergone 
improvements within the past ten years. Not far from 
the old factory site, and close to the river, there stands 
a row of well-built brick houses. In 1869 these houses 
had not yet been built, and the ground was occupied 
by a strange mixed population of the poorest classes. 
Too poor to live in boats, or in the houses of the city, 
they squatted on this waste land between the river and 
the wall, existing, most of them, nobody knew how. 
Some of the hovels in which they dwelt would not 
have made decent dog-kennels ; and yet, amid all their 
poverty, they seemed a tolerably contented lot. I 
remember one hut which had been pieced together out 
of the fragments of an old boat, bits of foreign packing- 
cases, inscribed with trade marks that betrayed their 
chequered history, patches of decayed matting, clay, 
mud, and straw ; a covering of odd tiles and broken 
pottery made all snug within. In the small space thus 
enclosed accommodation was found for a lean pig that 
lived on garbage, two old women, one old man, the 
old man s daughter, and the daughter s child. A small 
space in front was arranged as the kitchen, while part 
of the roof, and one or two pots, were taken up with 
vegetables or flowers. I have seen the inmates, in the 
morning sunshine, breakfasting off a savoury meal of 
mixed scraps that they had picked up in their peram 
bulations about the city. There were many such 



264 1N.DO-CIITXA AND CHINA. 

dwellings in this neighbourhood, and the district 
physician lived not far off. The doctor had a very 
aged look, as if, at some distant period, he had been 
embalmed and preserved in a driecl-up state, though 
still alive. He might be consulted at all hours, and 
would be found at his doorway among his herbs and 
simples, dressed in a pair of slippers and cotton 
breeches, and with ponderous spectacles across his 
shrivelled nose. But the door and wall of this public 
benefactor s abode were covered with an array of black 
plasters, to which the old man pointed with great pride 
as incontestable evidences of his professional skill. 
These plasters had a wide celebrity among his poor 
patients, and many a man, as a token of deep gratitude 
for some signal cure, had brought his plaster back as a 
certificate to adorn the residence where his deliverer 
dwelt. 

Leaving this quarter, and striking for the suburbs 
north of the foreign settlements, we come upon a 
temple perhaps the most interesting in Canton. This 
is the temple of 500 gods ; said, in Mr. Bowra s trans 
lation of the native history of the province, to have 
been founded by Bodhidharama, a Buddhist monk 
from India, about the year 520 A.D. It is Bodhid 
harama whom we frequently see pictured on Chinese 
teacups, as he ascends the Yangtsze river on his 
bamboo raft. The temple was rebuilt in 1755, under 
the auspices of the Emperor Kien-lung. It contains 
the Lo-hang-tang, or hall of saints, and with its temple 
buildings, its houses for priests, its lakes and its 
gardens, covers altogether a very large space. Colonel 
Yule, in his last edition of Marco Polo, says that one of 
the statues in this temple is an image of the Venetian 



THE LO-HANG-TANG. 265 

traveller ; but careful inquiry proves this statement in 
correct, for none of the images present the European 
type of face, and all the records connected with them 
are of an antiquity which runs back beyond Marco 
Polo s age. I made my first visit to this temple about 
five years ago, in the company of a Chinese gentleman 
attached to the customs department. The aged 
abbot, who is the centre figure in the group of chess 
players on page 266, received us with great cordiality, 
and showed us into his private apartments, where we 
enjoyed a repast of tea and cake, and spent some time 
in examining a collection of dwarf trees and flowering 
shrubs, which he had arranged in a court in front of his 
sitting-room. In the centre of this court stood a tank 
containing fish, and a group of sacred lotus-flowers in 
full bloom. The golden fish darted in and out among 
a multitude of brilliantly-green aquatic plants that 
floated on the surface of the water. The old gentle 
man had spent many years of his life in seclusion, and 
seemed to be devoted to his garden, expressing his 
delight to find a foreigner who could share in his love 
for flowers. The apartments of this prelate impressed 
me with a sense of cold squareness and rigid uni 
formity. The flooring was marble, and the tables and 
chairs were either wholly of marble, or ebony and 
marble combined. If the chairs sent too rheumatic 
a chill through your blood, you could test the comfort 
of a block of polished rock in the corner, or try one or 
two cold glazed porcelain stools. Sundry texts from 
the sacred classics were hung about the dim walls, the 
strange characters looking like huge spiders marching 
in Indian file to the ceiling. Everything was in order, 
and everything scrupulously clean. But at length we 



2 66 



INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



discovered, when a number of the monks had joined 
our party, that the shaven, silent, thoughtful-looking 
inmates of the cloister, could unbend if they chose, 
and take a natural and ardent interest in the current 
gossip or scandal of Canton. Nay, they conducted us 
to a snuggery in an inner court, where a table was 
sumptuously spread, embowered beneath plantain- 
trees, and shaded by their 



hu^e 

o 



waving leaves. 




CHESS-PLAYING IN A BUDDHIST MONASTERY. 

Round a lotus-pool, in the centre of this court, ran a 
paved pathway, and an ornamental railing, draped 
with the green leaves of a creeping plant. Here we 
left the monks engaging their venerable abbot in a 
game at chess, while I took my way to the interior of 
the shrine to obtain a photograph of the central altar. 
I found a number of people at worship within, making 
votive offerings to the idols whose aid they sought. 



BOA T- WOMEN. 2 6 7 

Some ladies were there, decked in their finest silks ; and 
my entrance so startled these fair devotees that they 
would have fled but for the intervention of the priests, 
who gave me a high character as one in search of know 
ledge, who had wisely come from an obscure island to 
view the greatest temple in all the Central Flowery 
Land/ and to carry pictures of its wonders home. 
The images in this temple, though most of them are 
remarkably grotesque, yet, in the diversity of their 
attitudes, in their modelling, and in the varied expres 
sions which their faces wear, reveal to us a knowledge 
of this particular branch of art, to be found perhaps 
nowhere else in China, and rather Indian in its character 
than Chinese. 

Wending our way back to the river through narrow 
tortuous streets, and passing third-rate tea establish 
ments, where men mix the fragrant leaves and toss 
them about with their naked feet on mats spread out 
in the sun, we at length embark in one of the many 
small boats which ply for hire at the jetties. 

The crew of the little craft consists of three young 
girls, and these boatwomen are the prettiest and most 
attractive-looking of their sex to be met with out of 
doors in this part of China. They never paint, and 
are therefore set down by their countrywomen as of 
doubtful respectability. This is really true of some of 
them, although in the presence of Europeans who may 
hire their boats they behave with uniform modesty 
and decorum. Their boats are the perfection of neat 
ness, and their dress as simple as it is picturesque. 
There is a hue of health, too, about their olive cheeks, 
and sparkling in their lustrous eyes, while the darkness 
of their raven tresses is charmingly heightened by a 



268 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

crimson flower in the hair. They scull or row with 
great dexterity, skimming in and out among the crowd 
of shipping, or along the narrow ways that form the 
thoroughfares in the floating town of boats, where 
natives in their tens of thousands pursue their various 
avocations quite apart from the dwellers on shore. A 
brisk trade is carried on in many of these narrow 
avenues, and the small merchants who engage in it 
have their shops in the bows of their boat, and their 
residences at the stern. If business happens to be dull 
at one end of the town they move to the other, or else 
take a tour in the provinces, carrying their whole 
establishment to a region where the family can enjoy 
balmy air, and where they will delight the hearts of 
the rustics with their display of city wares. 

Steering clear of a floating market in one of the 
main alleys of this aquatic Babel, we come in front of 
a row of flower-boats, the floating music-saloons of this 
quarter of the stream. It is growing dark, and the 
numerous lamps which hang round these boats produce 
a very striking effect. Each saloon rears its head 
hicrh above the water, and is carved into the most 

o 

elaborate representations of the animal and vegetable 
world, of the beauties on earth, or the wonders in the 
heavens above. Through the interstices of the carving 
we can make out some exceedingly pretty female faces, 
and suddenly a crowd of fine young damsels rise above 
the woodwork, looking like a pretty continuation of the 
ornaments beneath. Suddenly again they disappear, 
as a gay group of youths in silken robes step out of a 
boat, and pass into the nearest saloon. Then we hear 
the warble of the lute, and the damsels piping in shrill 
treble tones ; for these maidens have descended from 



DECK OF A CHINESE JUNK. 269 

their perch above, and are entertaining the city youths, 
who are come to dine in the saloon, to enjoy a whiff of 
opium, and to bask in smiles so sweet that they seem 
like to crack the enamel off the faces of .the fair 
musicians. 

Pulling back is hard work for the crew ; but they 
redouble their efforts, for as they say, Plenty piecee 
bad man hab got this side, too muchee likee cut throat 
picljin/ and soon we are once more in mid-stream. 
Here we pass close under the dark frowning hulks of 
a fleet of old weather-beaten junks that lie moored in 
a long double line. As everyone already kno\vs all 
about these junks what they look like, with their big 
eyes set in front to scare off the demons of the deep I 
need not attempt to describe them here ; but I may 
inform the reader that the accompanying picture of the 
deck of a junk was one which it cost me some trouble 
to obtain. I got it under the following circumstances. 
Two artistic friends and myself were one day pulling 
about Hongkong harbour in quest of a good subject 
for a picture, and after having scrambled by the aid of 
a convenient rope on to the deck of a junk at anchor 
there, we found the crew busy with a complex 
machinery of ropes, poles and windlasses, and indeed 
on the point of making sail. Suddenly they forsook 
their work, confronted us with angry gestures, and 
threatened to bar our advance. We enquired for the 
captains, of whom not uncommonly there are half-a- 
dozen on board, for these junks are built in water-tight 
compartments, and each owner of cargo is a captain so 
far as concerns that compartment, where his own 
goods have been separately stored. Thus, if the com 
partments be six, the captains are six, and each captain 



270 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

has a sixth part of the vessel under his own command. 
The result of this equitable arrangement is that the 
craft is sometimes required to travel in six different 
directions simultaneously, and to stand for six different 
points at a time ; and in the end the crew take the 
steering into their own hands, or else consult Joss, who 
stands in his shrine in the cabin unmoved though 
tempests rage. As it happened in our case, there were 
but two captains on board, the one anxious to be civil 
and the other ready to pitch us into the sea. At 
length they requested us to remain, while they referred 
the case to Joss. The idol, it appeared, gave us a 
hearty welcome, for captains and crew returned from 
the interior to unite in helping me to get up a success 
ful picture. 




Sii-!,; 



CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. 271 



CHAPTER X. 

The Charitable Institutions of China Macao Description of the Town 
Its Inhabitants Svvatow Foreign Settlement Chao-chow-fu Swatow 
Fan-painters Modellers Chinese Art Village Warfare Amoy The 
Native Quarter Abodes of the Poor Infanticide Manure-pits 
Flu nan Remains in Jars Lekin Romantic Scenery Ku-lang-su The 
Foreign Settlement. 

THE charitable institutions of China are far from 
numerous, and but ill organised as a rule. In 1871 an 
establishment under Chinese supervision, and supported 
entirely out of Chinese funds, was about to be opened 
in Canton for relieving the sick and destitute, and 

o 

supplying coffins to the poor. The intention of its 
founders, so it is supposed, was to counteract the in 
fluence of the hospitals and charities supported by the 
foreign Christian Missions in their city. But when I 
left Canton the place was still unopened, although a 
house had been already bought, which had been occupied 
as a private residence by Pun-ting-qua, the last of the 
Hong merchants whose property, as I have said 
already, had been confiscated by Government. This 
house was one of the finest I have seen in China, and 
its magnificent costly decorations conveyed some notion 
of Pun-ting-qua s great wealth, which had been quietly 
absorbed by the authorities. Strange to relate, a similar 
charity exists in Hongkong; similar in so far as it is 
a hospital supported by the Chinese community. It 
is stated in the Report of the Medical Missionary 



272 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA, 

Society of China for 1867 that the Chinese themselves 
contributed 47,000 dollars, and the Colonial Govern 
ment 15,000, towards the expenses of founding this 
establishment, and providing- it with a site. Native 
physicians are to be employed at this hospital men 
who have never taken a degree of any sort, and whose 
chief qualification for the post will probably rest on 
their skill in mixing quack nostrums, and in their 
knowledge of the days most lucky for administering 
doses to patients ; and there they will be able to enjoy 
the luxury of either curing, or killing their sick fellow- 
countrymen, and yet escape the danger, imposed upon 
them in Chinese cities, of losing their fee if they should 
not achieve a success. It is not too much to say that 
the Chinese know comparatively nothing of medical 
science. Good luck and favourable omens are all- 
important in their eyes ; but a sound constitution, that 
will pull a patient through the effects of their worst 
medicines, has a great deal to do with the recovery of 
the unfortunate sufferer who in Hongkong may fall, 
or rather be deliberately delivered, into the hands of a 
celestial quack. Perhaps after all they follow a sound 
principle when they administer to a patient, who obsti 
nately refuses to get well, a little of everything, in order 
that his disease, whatever it be, may select its own 
remedy from the heterogeneous compound. This 
Hongkong hospital is, or ought to be, under European 
supervision, and it is probably intended that native 
practitioners may gradually be led to adopt our medi 
cines, and to study our system of therapeutics. But 
with the Chinese blind belief in their own superiority 
as men and as physicians, they cannot fail to account 
our meeting them thus half way as a tacit acknowledg- 



FOUNDLING HOSPITAL. 273 

ment of the excellence of a system made up in reality 
of ignorance and superstition. On the other hand the 
Chinese Government appear to have returned the com 
pliment by appointing Dr. Dudgeon to a lectureship in 
the college at Peking, where, from what I know of that 
gentleman s abilities as an English physician, and from 
his intimate acquaintance with the language, I feel sure 
that the students will be so systematically trained that 
they may one day prove themselves the founders of a 
new school of medicine in China. 

Among the charities in Canton there is a Leper 
Village. These sort of asylums for plague-stricken 
men and women are found in various quarters of the 
Empire, but as I only visited one place of the kind I 
shall reserve what I have to say about them for a future 
page. There are also institutions for the aged and 
infirm, and a foundling hospital, in which the poor 
children, who may be left at its door, are nursed on the 
slenderest fare. Dr. Kerr gives some interesting 
details as to the management of this hospital in the 
China Review for September 1873. One wet nurse, 
so he tells us, has at times as many as three infants to 
feed, and she must herself be reduced to starvation 
allowance, as her pay is only about eight shillings a 
month. Many of the nurslings die, as might be ex 
pected, while those who survive are sold for about 
three shillings a-piece. It is mostly female children 
that are brought to this benevolent institution, for girls 
are esteemed nothing but encumbrances to poor parents 
in China, the reproach of their mothers, who ought to 
give birth to boys alone. These foundlings are bought 
by the wealthy, and brought up as servants or concu 
bines ; or else they are disposed of to designing hags, 



274 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

who purchase them on speculation and reserve them 
for a more miserable fate. This custom of investing 
in girls as speculative property, and of rearing them 
carefully till their personal attractions will command a 
high market value, is one of the worst aspects of that 
traffic in slaves which is carried on without shame or 
concealment all over Chinese soil, and more secretly 
by the natives residing at Hongkong, as the police 
reports will show. The evil might be mitigated if we 
could but persuade the Chinese Government to encou 
rage female emigration by any means in their power, 
more particularly to those lands where as yet only 
males have found their way from China ; lands where 
there is valuable work for female hands to do, but 
where, as for instance in California, their vices could 
well be dispensed with. Besides this there are countries 
in which the Chinese are as yet almost unknown 
Africa, for example where, with wives and children 
around them, a congenial climate, and a rich soil to 
cultivate with produce which they have been accus 
tomed to grow, vast tracts of the waste lands of the 
earth might be colonised and redeemed. Thus would 
the parent country be relieved from the pressure of 
over-population, which hitherto has been mainly kept 
in check by famine, infanticide, and civil war. Colonel 
Gordon better known as Chinese Gordon of the 
ever-victorious army is now on a mission to the heart 
of Africa ; and he, perhaps, should he ever think of such 
a scheme, might be able to open up new sources for 
the enterprise of the toiling husbandmen of Cathay, to 
whom once already he has appeared as a deliverer in 
years now gone by. 

Macao is interesting as the only Portuguese settle- 



MACAO. 275 

ment to be found on the coast of China. It may be 
reached by steam, either from Hongkong or Canton. 

J o o 

and it is a favourite summer resort for the residents of 
our own little colony. In that pretty watering-place 
we may enjoy the cool sea-breezes, and almost fancy, 
when promenading the broad Praya Grande, as it sweeps 
round a bay truly picturesque, that we have been 
suddenly transported to some ancient continental town. 
Macao is a magnificent curiosity in its way. The 
Chinese say it has no right to be there at all ; that it is 
built on Chinese soil ; whereas the Portuguese, on their 
part, allege that the site was ceded to the King of 
Portugal in return for services rendered to the Govern 
ment of China. These services, however, cannot have 
been properly appreciated, for the Chinese in 1573 
built a barrier-wall across the isthmus on which this 
town stands, to shut out the foreigners from Cathay. 
The place has had a chequered history since the time 
of its original foundation, sometimes being under its 

o o 

own legitimate Government, and at others being claimed 
and ruled by the Chinese. But its history, however 
important to the parent country, had better be left 
alone, more especially as there are passages in it which 
reflect no great lustre on the nation whom Camoens 
adorned. We will, therefore, content ourselves by a 
look at the chief objects of interest in the settlement. 
From the Praya Grande, with its fine pier, Govern 
ment-house, and painted buildings, we pass up one 
of the numerous small streets, shut in by high walls 
on either side. It is mid-day, and there is nobody 
to be seen abroad. You remark many iron bars 
about the windows ; yes, those prison-like dwellings 
are barracoons ; the offices, that is, of various emigra- 

T 2 



276 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

tion agents. These agents have a strange way of 
watching over the innocent emigrants. There are 
savage-looking men on guard at the doors, set there to 
prevent any of the coolies from getting out and running 
the risk, poor things ! of losing themselves in the town. 
Alas ! for these unfortunate ( emigrants ; they have 
been kidnapped most of them ; and I have seen 
them at early morning taken down in gangs, forced 
into the boats, and pulled off to the ship lying out 
yonder in the glassy bay. They have all to be con 
veyed to make their fortunes by digging guano on the 
islands of Peru. One ship left Macao in 1865 with 
500 emigrants on board. On touching at Tahiti the 
number had dwindled to 162. That cargo of slaves, 
for slaves they practically were, turned out a bad specu 
lation ; but the traffic has been recently put a stop to 
under the enlightened administration of a very unpopular 
governor unpopular because he has thus seen fit to 
abolish an exceedingly lucrative sort of trade. 

The Chinese Government, too, are looking after the 
interest of native emigrants, and have recently sent a 
deputation to Peru to enquire into the condition of 
Chinese labourers in that quarter. We pass the 
gaol, and through the stanchioned windows see a 
number of wretched native prisoners, who beg of us to 
befriend them. An American captain with whom I 
afterwards ascended the Yangtsze-kiang, told me the 
following story connected with this prison, which seemed 
to him to corroborate his belief in spiritual agency.- 
His father, who had been a skipper too, was one 
morning about to make sail from Macao, and passed 
the prison on his way to join his ship. Arrested by 
the desparing cries of the men within, he turned aside 



DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN. 277 

to make enquiries, and learned that three of the 
captives were condemned to be executed next day. 
Tossing a quantity of cents inside, he took his depar 
ture, and thought nothing more of the incident. But 
when he reached San Francisco he hastened to his 
owner s office, and was surprised to find no letters 
awaiting him from home. He concluded something 
must be wrong, and the merchant advised him to visit 
a certain spiritual medium who resided in the town. 
This he did, and when the seance commenced the 
medium informed him of the presence of certain spirits 
around him, reverently bowing before him, and 
thanking him for some great boon he had conferred on 
them. They carried their heads beneath their arms, 
and were declared by the medium to be the spirits of 
Macao Chinamen beheaded the day after the captain 
left that port, now come across the ocean to thank 
him. 

The main streets in Macao are deserted. The 
houses there are painted in a variety of strange colours, 
some of the windows being fringed with a rim of 
red, which gives them the look of inflamed eyes in 
the painted cheeks of the dwellings. But there are 
magnificent staircases, wide doorways, and vast halls, 
though the inmates for the most part are a very 
diminutive race ; they are called Portuguese, but they 
suffer by comparison with the more recent arrivals from 
the parent land, being darker than the Portuguese of 
Europe, and darker even than the native Chinese. 
There is trade goirg on in the streets, but it is of a 
very languid kind, and the gambling-houses or the 
cathedral are the chief places of resort. 

The forts are of course garrisoned with troops from 



278 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

Europe, and the sounds of trumpet, kettledrum, or 
bugle, which issue uninterruptedly from these strong 
holds would make a stranger fancy that the soldiers 
were being constantly mustered to repel some invading 
Chinese host. Macao must be a very devout place 
indeed ; the church bells there seem never to be tired 
of ringing ; and at morning, noon, and eventide, the 
townsfolk. may be met flocking to the cathedral or the 
chapels, to renew their religious worship. At 4 P.M. or 
thereabouts the settlement wakes up ; carnages whirl, 
along the road ; sedan-chairs struggle shorewards, that 
their occupants may taste the sea-breeze ; and the mid 
day solitudes of the Praya Grande have been converted 
into a fashionable promenade. Ladies are there, too, 
attired in the lightest costumes and the gayest colours ; 
some of them pretty, but the majority sallow-faced and 
uninteresting, and decked out with ribbons and dresses 
whose gaudy tints are so inharmoniously contrasted 
that one wonders how Chinnery the painter could have 
spent so many of his days among a community so 
wanting in artistic tastes. The young men for there 
seem to be no old men here, at least all dress alike, 
quite irrespective of years are a slender race, but not 
more slender than diminutive. On the adornment of 
their persons these pigmy dandies bestow no incon 
siderable study and care, striving to conform to fashion 
to the utmost their moderate incomes will admit, and 
some of them so I know for a fact living sparingly, 
and having their salaries mortgaged, to provide the gay 
neckties, the kid gloves, and patent leather boots, in 
which they worship at the cathedral, or on the Praya at 
the shrine of the fair. Meanwhile from the windows or 
balconies glancing eyes look down behind their fans, and 



SWATOU . 279 

send a thrill through the blood of each admiring 
devotee below. But if Macao is interesting" as a 

o 

Portuguese settlement, and the only one which now 
remains to Portugal of those which her early traders 
founded in China, it can also boast of historic 
associations giving it a special, and independent at 
traction. Here the poet Camoens found a retreat, and 
here, too, Chinnery produced a multitude of sketches 
and paintings which have really had some influence 
on art in the south of China. 

Swatow is the next place on our route northward, 
and to reach it we take steamer from Hongkong. 
There is, I must tell you, almost daily a service of 
magnificent steamers up and down the Chinese coast. 
The splendid passenger accommodation, and the 
facilities for conveying merchandise supplied by these 
vessels, are of a kind not easily surpassed ; and con 
sidering the nature of the coasts they navigate, and the 
dangerous typhoons to which they are exposed, very 
few accidents occur. 

Swatow is the port of the city Chao-chow-fu, and lies, 
as I have said already, in the province of Kwan-tung. 
Chao-chow-fu ought really to have been an entrepot 
for foreign trade, but this idea was given up in conse 
quence of the turbulence of the surrounding clans. 
The town is built upon the banks of the Han, and the 
district through which that river flows is one of the 
most fertile in the province. Swatow has a harbour 
available even for vessels of the largest tonnage ; and so 
far as that point goes, therefore, the place is better 
suited to foreign trade than Chao-chow-fu would 
have been ; for the latter place stands some thirty 
miles up the river, and can only be reached by lighters 



280 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

of a shallow draught. The foreign settlement, or 
rather the residences of foreigners, are perched upon a 
low range of hills which reminds one of the barren 
cinder-looking hills of Aden. Huge boulders of 
granite are planted up and down these hilly slopes in 
the most extraordinary positions ; some are like 
Druidical circles, others resemble great obelisks. Not 
unfrequently, too, they bear inscriptions in Chinese 
characters ; and thus, supposing that the Chinese were 
ever to be driven from the region, a rich field would 
present itself for antiquarian research. Many theories 
would be forthcoming to account for these sacred 
circles and carved obelisks, which have simply been 
left in their positions as the soil around disintegrated, 
and was washed away from the slopes of the hills. As 
for the inscriptions, they are nothing more than the 
productions of Chinese who have sought to gain an un 
profitable immortality by graving their names, or their 
poetical effusions, or else a record of some local 
incident, upon the imperishable surface of these stones. 
Here the foreign houses, and many of the native ones 
too, are built out of a local concrete made of the 
felspar clay which abounds in the neighbourhood, com 
bined with shell-lime. In process of time this com 
pound hardens into a stony substance producing solid 
and durable walls. The interiors of these dwellings 
are no less remarkable, for the ceilings are adorned 
with the most beautiful stucco cornices, representing 
birds and flowers, in endless variety and profusion. 
The men who execute this sort of artistic work are to 
all appearance coolies, receiving for their labour but 
little more than they could earn by tilling the soil or 
drawing water ; and yet, to fit themselves for their 



FAN-PAINTERS. 281 

tasks, they must undergo what is a high art training at 
least to a Chinaman. When at work they squat on the 
floor with a hod full of stucco before them, and a sort 
of small baking-board at their feet. On this board, 
with their fingers and a trowel, they model flower after 
flower stems, foliage, fruit and all besides birds of 
one or two kinds ; passing the portions, as they complete 
them, up to a workman whose business it is to 
group the bits together and fix them in position. No 
moulds are used, no wooden pattern of any sort ; all is 
done with the unaided hand and eye, and exquisitely 
done to. 

Of the native settlement of Swatow I need only 
say that it is more or less like the river quarters of 
Canton, or Fatshan, or any other town in the south of 
China ; but I cannot refrain from introducing the 
reader to the Swatow fan-painters, as they, too, are 
most remarkable men. There are a number of fan 
shops in the main street, and one which is perhaps 
more celebrated for the beauty of its work than any of 
the others can pretend to be. To this shop, then, I 
repaired, in the company of an English merchant, 
whose warm hospitality proved him to be no exception 
to the majority of his associates in China. We were 
here shown some of the most beautiful and delicate 
fan-painting that I have ever come across, representing, 
for the most part, garden scenes. Asking to be intro 
duced to the artists, I was shown into an apartment at 
the back of the premises, where I found three occu 
pants. Two were seated before a table, engaged in 
designing on the yet unpainted fans, while the third 
lay stretched on a couch, indulging in an opium-pipe. 
They were all of them opium-smokers ; and it struck 



282 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

me that their most finely imaginative paintings were 
executed under the influence of the drug. As I have 
said, the pictures produced by these men were re 
markable for their beauty, and that because the 
drawing and perspective were excellent, and the 
designs full of delicacy and tender feeling. Here, 
then, we find Chinese art pure and simple, without the 
admixture of any foreign element, as in Hongkong; 
and my opinion is that it is a higher class of art than 
we are apt to suppose the Chinese to possess. But 
then we must bear in mind that after all we do not 
know much about China and her art. It was only the 
other day, when in Peking, that I picked up one or 
two old pictures which had formed part of the collection 
of a private Chinese gentleman, and that alone gave 
me a much higher opinion than before of, at any rate, 
the ancient school of Chinese artists. One specimen, 
a series of original sketches, representing children at 
play, was as remarkable for its quaint humour as for 
its clever execution ; yet the pictures are nothing more 
pretentious than unelaborated pen-and-ink sketches. 
In a postscript attached to his book, the artist modestly 
tells his readers, I have made up a portfolio of twelve 
sketches, consecutively illustrative of the four seasons 
of the year, beginning with a representation of new 
year festivities, and ending with the drawing of the 
snow lion ; and, though I cannot pretend to the per 
fection of the artists of bygone days, perhaps I may 
aspire to six or seven-tenths of their talent. Written 
on the 4th day of the 4th month of the year Woo-shin, 
by Se Hea of Hang-chow/ There can be no doubt 
that art has declined in China, and this the Chinese 
themselves confess, as the above note will serve to 



ANCIENT CHINESE ART. 283 

show. Moreover, as with ourselves, the wealthy and 
cultivated classes in China will expend large sums of 
money in collecting" the works of the ancient masters, 
which they carefully preserve. Many of these old 
paintings have been executed on silk scrolls, and thus 
a Chinese picture gallery is quite unlike what we should 
expect to see, for the pictures are not framed and ex 
posed on the walls, but are kept carefully rolled up 
and protected against the light or air. It is only by 
some rare chance that Europeans are permitted to 
view any of the art treasures which are thus kept 
sacred by a host of private collectors. My friend 
Mr. Wylie, who is well known to Eastern scholars, 
when examining several old pictures which I had 
brought from Peking, made some interesting remarks 
on this point. He said, Many anecdotes are on hand 
re^ardinor the achievements of the old masters. Thus, 

o o 

in the third century we are told of a painter, Tsaou 
Puh-ying, who, when he had finished a screen for the 
Emperor, added some flies to the picture by a few 
touches of the pencil here and there ; great was his 
gratification at seeing his majesty take up a handker 
chief to drive these flies away. Not less celebrated 
was Hwan Tseuen, who flourished about A.D. 1000. 
and who introduced several pheasants into a mural 
decoration in one of the halls of the palace. Some 
foreign envoys, who had brought a tribute of falcons, 
were ushered into this hall ; and no sooner did the 
birds of prey get sight of the pheasants on the wall 
than they made a precipitate dart at their victims, 
more of course to the detriment of their heads than to 
the satisfaction of their appetites. The fan-painters 
of Swatow are about the most worthy representatives 



284 INDO CHINA AND CHINA. 

of the ancient masters to be found in the south of 
China ; and were the old practice still in vogue of 
recruiting the royal harem from a portrait gallery of 
the belles of the Empire, the talents of these Swatow 
artists might find lucrative employment in picturing 
the future favourites of the palace. Fans of the very 
best workmanship are in great demand, and conse 
quently difficult to procure ; and yet it seems strange 
that this should be the case, in a district where we 
may frequently see most respectable-looking natives 
cooling themselves by an expedient much more simple 
than the use of a fan. Between Swatow and Chao- 
chow-fu I have met wayfarers on a hot day stripped to 
the skin, every article of their clothing bound around 
the head, and thus marching along, to all appearance, 
without the slightest sense of impropriety. The higher 
one ascends the Han the more savage-looking are the 
people we encounter there ; but, as I said before, the 
clan- fights had been suppressed, and peace re-estab 
lished in the province, at a very recent date. At one 
village, called Oting-poe, the natives some short time 
previously, attacked a boats crew from the English 
gun-boat Cockchafer, and had their village blown 
about their ears in retaliation. The whole affair, 
indeed, was settled with a promptness and despatch 
that took the semi-savage clansmen by surprise, and 
rendered them civil even to us within a five-mile radius 
from the ruined walls. At Chao-chow-fu my experi 
ence was somewhat different. I got up one morning 
before daybreak to photograph an old bridge across 
the river there, and I fondly thought that, being so 
early astir, I should get clear of the city mob ; but, as 
it happened, there was a market held on the top of the 



CHA O- CIIO IV- FU. 285 

bridge, and even before it was quite light long trains 
of produce-laden coolies were pouring in from every 
side. I had just time to show myself and take a 
photograph, when a howling multitude came rushing 
down to where I stood near my boat on the shore. 
Amid a shower of missiles I unscrewed my camera, 
with the still undeveloped photograph inside, took 
the apparatus under my arm, and presenting my iron- 
pointed tripod to the rapidly approaching foe, backed 
into the river and scrambled on board the boat. I 
lost the cap of my camera, and the bright lens received 
a black eye of mud in exchange. However, the picture 
turned out a good one, and I may make it my boast 
that I took the bridge at the point of the tripod. 
Chao-chow-fu bridge is not unlike that at Foochow 
which spans the river Min. It is built of stone, and 
contains a great many arches, or rather square spaces, 
for the passage of boats beneath. On each side of the 
causeway above a row of houses has been erected, and 
these project beyond the parapets, and overhang the 
stream for as much as three-fourths of their entire 
depth. There seems, indeed, to be no part of each 
house, except the brick wall in front, which rests upon 
the bridge ; while as to the fabric itself, it is held up 
by a series of long stout poles, which abut upon the 
projections of the buttresses below, and thus serve to 
support the dwelling like the under-props of a bracket. 
This was what one would call a break- neck sort of 
architecture, and yet the great market of the town is 
held on this bridge, and there we find the dwelling- 
houses and shops of the merchants. There they trade 
and there they sleep, calmly awaiting the hour which 
shall drop them and their frail tenements into a muddy 



286 INDO-CHlNA AND CHINA. 

grave. But they had other means still to ensure safety 
both for property and life. Suspended between each arch 
way hang two slender wooden frames, and these barriers 
the householders piously let down at night to deter 
malignant spirits from passing beneath their dwellings 
a device, I need hardly say, universally successful. 

Chao-chow-fu is open to foreign trade, and on one 
or two occasions the attempt has been made to establish 
a British Consulate in the town ; but it has always 
hitherto been a failure. Turbulent mobs continually 
stone foreigners, and during the time of my visit the 
Vice-consul was the only European in the place. He, 
when I told him how I had been attacked by the 
rabble, said quietly, You are no worse off than your 
neighbours ; it is just what every white man must 
expect at the hands of the lawless ruffians of the town. 
So I was not sorry when I turned my back upon this 
part of Kwang-tung, and descended once more to 
Swatow. Every year sees an increase in the number 
of emigrants who leave this part of China to work on 
the plantations in Siam, Cochin China, or the Straits. 
More than 20,000 such persons are computed to have 
sailed from the port in 1870, and we may be sure that 
the price of labour in China is at a very low ebb when 
we find that wages running from two to four dollars a 
month are all the inducement held out to allure the 
coolies from their homes ; and that such a sum as this 
even is, by the toiling poor, esteemed sufficient to 
enable them to save money to invest in a farm on 
their return to their native land. It was up into this 
region that Juilin sent a military mandarin with a 
force of 2,000 men. This officer, at the time of my 
visit, was in the district known as Chao-Yang. His 



FANG-YAO S MARCH. 287 

task was approaching completion, and there was con 
sequently more of peace and prosperity in the country 
than had been its lot for many previous years. Fang- 

Yao, for that was the mandarin s inharmonious desitr- 

t> 

nation, pursued a rough and ready sort of system in 
the conduct of his operations for putting matters to 
rights. Thus, at the village of Go-swa, near Double 
Island, he seized a man named Kwin-Kong, well 
known to foreigners, and required him to surrender 
200 of the chief rebels of his village. K win- Kong 
produced 100, many of them, poor wretches, innocent 
substitutes for the true offenders. Under pressure and 
threats a few more victims were ultimately given up, 
and the whole were then beheaded, K win- Kong s own 
skull being tossed into the pile to swell the number of 
the sufferers. It must have been bloody work; more 
than 1,000 are said to have been decapitated during 
Fang-Yao s memorable march. 

Swaboi, one of the most powerful villages in the 
province, stands about two miles distant from Swatow, 
and for many years has monopolised the right to supply 
coolies to that town. About ten years ago, seventeen 
other villages combined against Swaboi, and resolved 
by force, if necessary, to put a stop to its monopoly of 
labour. The war lasted four years, and terminated in 
favour of Swaboi. At such times the villagers practise 
the most heartless cruelties on each other, burying their 
enemies, for example, while still alive, and head down 
wards, in graves prepared with quicklime and earth. 
It was, indeed, in this district that I gathered a notion of 
the inhuman treatment of idiots practised in some parts 
of China. The late Dr. Thomson, of Swatow, in one 
of his excursions, observed a small-footed woman 



288 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

limping along without her staff. She showed that she 
was a lunatic by making for his sedan, for there is no 
sane Chinawoman in this quarter who would not flee 
from a* foreigner. Arrived in his presence, she pros 
trated herself at his feet, as if he were some official 
high in rank. Her hair was hanging in wild disorder, 
and her head was fearfully bruised and wounded ; her 
arms, too, were cut and bleeding, and her dress hung 

O fc> 

in rags about her shrunken limbs. Dr. Thomson 
wished to convey her to the nearest village to have 
her wounds dressed, but the Chinese chair-bearers 
would have nothing to do with her ; they said She is 
mad ! she is mad ! let her herd with the crows, I 
myself have seen an idiot exposed outside a village in 
a wooden cage, and there left for the passers-by to feed 
him, or better still, to starve and die. I afterwards 
went a second time to see this being, that looked more 
brute than man, but he had died in his cage. 

Amoy is the next open port in our northern route ; 
and though situated in the province of Fukien, its 
geological features resemble those of Swatow. Thus 
the same decomposing hills, crowned with huge granite 
bare boulders, are to be seen at the entrance of the 
harbour ; and one of these boulders, which faces the 
port, has some passages connected with the local 
history of the place engraven in huge characters upon 
its stony sides. Several of them rear their grey heads 
to a great height out of the water, or above the shore 
close by, and these the natives look up to with rever 
ence and awe, as objects intimately connected with 
the Feng-shui, or good luck of the port. But in such 
a place as this it is but seldom that good luck waits 
upon the lower and most superstitious classes. The 



AMOY. 289 

Amoy men make good soldiers, so at least it is said ; 
they certainly fought well for their independence, and 
were the last to yield to the Tartar invaders, and those 
upon whom the conquerors seemed to have pressed 
most heavily. To this day they wear the turban 
which they assumed to hide the tonsure and queue 
imposed on them by the conquerors. The dialect here 
is so different from that spoken in Canton as to lead 
my boys to imagine that they were once more out of 
China, and in some foreign realm. But a glimpse of 
the town quickly reassured them. There they fall in 
with men from their own province, and with odours 
and appearances so unmistakably Chinese that there 
is no getting over the fact ; and they soon acknowledge 
that this indeed could still be no other than their own 
Chinese land. At Amoy, as in Swatow and most 
other Chinese seaport towns, the houses in the native 
quarter are huddled together like a crowd of sightseers, 
all eager to stand in the front row along the water s 
edge. Many of these dwellings are in a sad state of 
decay and dilapidation ; and the long, dark, narrow 
street which runs the length of the settlement is paved 
with cross flags of stone so worn and loose, that they 
rest for the most part in treacherous pits of mud ; and 
thus, if a foot be placed hastily on the rocking flag, a 
shower of most offensive dirt is splashed up over one s 
clothes. Every second shop reeks with a smell of 
roasting fat and onions. Mangy clogs and lean pigs 
yelp and grunt as we disturb their occupations. 
These are the sanitary authorities of the locality, and 
to them the duty falls to clear up the refuse and 
garbage. Nor were these the only inconveniences ; 
on nearly every occasion when I waded my way along 

u 



290 JNDO-CJIINA AND CHINA. 

the uninviting thoroughfare, I found it blocked at some 
point by a strolling band of players, hired to perform 
in public by one of the more liberal-spirited tradesmen. 
The approach to the foreign merchants establishments 
can hardly be accounted better than the miserable 
Chinese alley which I have just described ; but the 
offices themselves, when the difficulty of reaching them 
is overcome, are found to be venerable structures, 
filled with all sorts of produce beneath, and showing all 
the evidences of business above. 

The trade of this port has grown, and is likely to 
continue growing, just in proportion as the rich island 
of Formosa opposite is developed, and its tea, sugar, 
and other products increase. The import trade, and 
the distribution of foreign goods inland, is pretty 
effectually choked off by the illegal system of transit 
duties levied at the various stations, and regulated 
chiefly by the need or avarice of the local officials at 
the various points along the route. There is also a 
grievous charge called Lekin, originally imposed as a 
war tax on foreign goods, and. never since withdrawn. 
The only other ports similarly heavily burdened are 
those of Formosa. 

The American Consul, in writing on the subject, 
said : l At Swatow the local taxes levied on imports 
remain unchanged ; that is to say, about one-fortieth 
of what they are in Amoy ; and he goes on to ob 
serve that natives can still bring foreign goods over 
land from Swatow to the Amoy districts, and sell 
them at a cheaper rate than if they were imported and 
sold direct in Amoy. This Lekin tax was instituted 
to defray the expenses either of the Taiping rebellion 
or of the small knife rebellion, or both. The 

1 Report on Amoy and the Island of Foi inosa, by A. W. Le Gendre. 



< THE SMALL KNIFE REVOLT. 291 

small knife rebellion of 1853 was a serious affair for 
Amoy. The rebel chief, or ringleader, of this dagger 
society was said to be a Singapore Chinaman of the 
name of Tan-keng-chin. The outbreak was, in fact, a 
development of one of the secret societies that have 
been a source of continual trouble to all the countries 
into which Chinese labour has flowed. 

In 1864, a few months after Nankin fell into the 
hands of the Imperialists, and when the cause of the 
Tien- Wang or Heavenly King was all but crushed, 
the last remnant of his followers made a final effort 
and captured Chang-chow-fu, a city which stands in 
the same relationship to Amoy as Chao-chow-fu to 
Swatow. The place was eventually retaken by the 
Imperialists after a protracted struggle ; and this bar 
barous war then closed, amid scenes of cold-blooded 
massacre as inhuman as any that have stained the 
annals of the Taiping revolt, whose overthrow was 
brought about by foreign intervention, and by one or 
two powerful decisive blows dealt at the strongholds 
of the rebel towns. Alas ! these successes were but 
too frequently followed up by indiscriminate slaughter, 
for those are the means by which a weak government 
seeks to strike terror into the hearts of the people. 

Occurrences such as that which I am now about to 
describe were accordingly by no means rare. The 
fight was ended, and the fruits of the victory were 
being reckoned up. It was reported to the conqueror 
that there were 254 heads, and 231 queues and ears 
of people supposed to be rebels. At any rate they 
were heads and ears and queues, and these the 
Imperialist troops had to lay at the feet of the 
authorities. It is astonishing how some of these 

u 2 



292 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

mutilated wretches survived. Thus I myself saw a 
man who reported that his head had been nearly 
severed from his body, and he had actually to hold it 
on until he reached Amoy. There were certainly 
marks of a severe wound on the neck, similar to those 
described by Mr. Hughes in the China Review for 
June 1873. I have also seen a man enjoying good 
health who had both ears chopped off and part of the 
scalp carried away. Mr. Hughes again tells us, in 
another paper, that female infanticide is perhaps worse 
in this part of the Fukien province than in any other 
quarter of the Empire, and this corroborates the con 
clusion I myself had come to from enquiries I made 
on the spot. 

Mr. Hughes one day met a stout well-to-do look 
ing man of the coolie class, carrying two neat and 
clean round baskets slung on a pole, which he bore 
across his shoulder. Hearing the cry of a child, I 
stopped him, when I found he had two infants in each 
basket ; and it is recorded that this crafty old 
speculator in innocents was on his way to sell his 
living burden at the Foundling Hospital, where he 
would receive 100 cash, or about fivepence for a female 
child, and as much as three pounds for a boy. 

This Foundling Hospital was organised by a 
native merchant whom I had the pleasure of meeting, 
and it is a lamentable fact that the prospect of receiving 
fivepence will tempt a mother to part with her babe. 

The Amoy Hospital is, however, conducted on 
rather more liberal principles than that in Canton ; for 
if any one wishes to obtain a child, he may get one 
here free of charge, provided that he can deposit suit 
able credentials as to his own respectability. One of 



THE POOR OF AMOY. 293 

the resident Christian missionaries informed me that 
he felt convinced that 25 per cent of the female 
children of Amoy were destroyed at birth. The 
natives themselves make no secret of this crime, and 
I saw one old woman who confessed to having made 
away with three of her daughters in succession. They 
excuse their misdeeds on the ground of extreme 
poverty, and they certainly are poor and wretched to a 
degree I had no conception of before I visited their 
abodes. The district around is naturally barren and 
unproductive, and plundering raids of rebel and Im 
perial troops have most effectually crippled the energies 
of the needy inhabitants. War, it is true, has thinned 
the population, but not to such an extent as materially 
to affect its density. 

An able-bodied man can here earn only fivepence a 
day, and skilled workmen, of whom there are many, 
are paid about eightpence per diem. There is a great 
trade carried on in one quarter of the town, or rather 
in a suburb, in the collection and preparation of 
manure, which is afterwards sold to the farmers to 
fertilise their poor lands. The people who deal in this 
commodity dwell on the edge of the foul pits into 
which filth of all sorts is thrown, and for the use of the 
hovels in which they reside many of them pay about 
fivepence a month in rent. 

Close to this spot is a hill on which the poor are 
buried. There is no lack of recent graves, but all such 
are covered with lime, mixed with fragments of glass 
and pottery, in order to keep pigs and dogs from 
digging up the bodies. How the people subsist here 
it is hard to say ! Judging from the multitude of 
graves they must die in great numbers, and who can 



294 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

wonder at it, in an atmosphere that smells so putrid ? 
I looked into one or two of the dwellings ; they were 
single-roomed huts, reared above the naked sod. Often 
they contained no furniture at all, and their ragged 
lean occupants were filthy in the extreme ; and yet 
numerous children were to be seen running about, 
pitching pebbles into the pools, or chasing the pigs and 
pariah dogs, to prevent them from eating up the only 
article of trade in the locality. Most of the children 
were boys, and boys after all cost as much to nurse 
and rear as females would ; so that the pressure of 
immediate want will not suffice alone to account for 
infanticide. Want is doubtless one of the causes, an 
indirect as well as a direct one, and this because it 
induces a supreme callousness, and a savage stony 
selfishness of heart, which petrifies the instincts of 
maternity, and renders a mother capable of selling or 
even destroying her child. 

There was another hill not far off, and commanding 
a view of the harbour. On this I found a row of 
glazed earthern pots, each containing a skeleton ; one 
had been broken, and the bones lay scattered over the 
face of the rock, while a number of children were 
playing catch-ball with the skull. What mean these 
dishonoured relics, over which some Ezekiel might 
prophecy, lamenting the degradation of his people ? 
These are the remains deposited here to await inter 
ment a ceremony which can only be properly accom 
plished by attending to the times and places which the 
Feng-shui may prescribe. But alas ! too many of these 
unsepulchered skeletons will never know any resting- 
place more hallowed than the pots in which they were 
originally stored There they crumble unfriended and 



ARTIFICIAL FLOWER MAKERS. 295 

forgotten, for their surviving kinsmen are perhaps them 
selves cut off from the land, or else too poor to pay the 
expenses of the for ever deferred burial rites. Now, 
then, my readers can appreciate the true motives of a 
Chinaman who, as I have said already, will devote his 
earnings to the purchase of a coffin, funeral raiment, and 
a burial site in anticipation, many years before his death. 
My sketch of Amoy thus far has been a dark one, 
and yet the true picture is not without some glances of 
light, striking down even into the lowest quarters of 
the town. Thus, in one of my many perambulations, I 
came to a very narrow and very dark lane, where I 
found the humble tenants of the houses engaged in 
what, to me, was quite a new industry. Men, women, 
and children were all busily occupied in the manufac 
ture of most beautiful artificial flowers, from a pith ob 
tained in Formosa, from the same plant (Aralia fapy- 
rifera] as that out of which the so-called rice-paper is 
made. I entered shop after shop, and everywhere found 
thousands of flowers spread out on trays, and each one 
so life-like that it might almost be mistaken for nature 
herself But tiny hands were at work here too, and 
roses, lilies, azalias or camelias, grew up with wonderful 
celerity beneath them. The workshops are the dwel 
lings, the offices, and the warehouses of each firm, or 
family ; and the workers within are so closely packed 
that strangers not unfrequently must watch the process, 
or make a purchase, by taking up a position outside. 
I bought a great many of these flowers from a man in 
a very mean shop indeed. He was extremely poor, 
and he asked me for an advance of money, offering to 
furnish security if I wished. I lent him a few dollar^ 
without troubling him for securities ; and though I knew 



296 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

nothing about him, he carried out the transaction with 
the most scrupulous honesty. 

There are many wealthy Chinese merchants in 
Amoy, who live in good style and in superior houses 
on the hills above and beyond the town. On those 
hills, too, we may find temples and monastic establish 
ments, built in the most romantic situations among 
great granite boulders which tower in some places 
many hundred feet above the plain. Thus from the 
rock on which the White Stag monastery stands 
one obtains a commanding view of the town, harbour, 
and island of Ku-lang-su. It is on Ku-lang-su 
that European settlers chiefly reside ; and there the 
houses, environed with parks and gardens, are second 
to none in China. Some Christian missions also are 
established in the same quarter, and not unfittingly, for 
there is a wide opening for mission labour in a field so 
benighted and so woe-stricken as Amoy. I may add, 
however, that in spite of all I have related of the 
townsfolk and their peculiar institutions, one may pass 
a month very agreeably in Amoy, and the warm hospi 
tality of the merchants there will add, not a little, to 
the pleasure of the trip. I had every facility afforded 
me for visiting places of interest. Thus one gentleman 
would place his boat at my disposal, and another would 
lend me his pony for a little exercise on the race 
course. This race-course is situated on a narrow plain, 
close under some of those forts which fell one after 
the other into our hands in 1841. A few huge rusty 
guns still remain on the spot to mark the scene of a 
struggle which ended in the capture of the island of 
Amoy. This island has been a favourite foreign 
trading resort for two or three centuries past, but it 
is only of late years that its commerce has become 



CROSSING TO FORMOSA. 297 

important. I saw a number of old European grave 
stones on the hills, some dating back to the fifteenth 
century. 

From Amoy I crossed over by steamer to Formosa 
on April i, 1871 ; but before I left the harbour I had 
time to pull off to the steamship Yesso, and take a 
hurried leave of an esteemed friend, broken down in 
health, and then homeward bound. I never saw him 
again, for lie died before reaching home. His is, alas ! 
a too frequent case ; the invalid lingers on in a climate 
that is undermining his health, in the hope that the 
cold season may set him up again for work. Too late 
he discovers that he can bear no further delay ; the cold 
season is long in coming, and at last he hastens to seek 
the sea-breezes in the homeward-bound steamer, which 
only carries him to his grave. I had a pleasant com 
panion in Dr. Maxwell, the medical missionary of Tai- 
wan-fu, in Formosa, and from him I heard some in 
teresting accounts of the savages on this strange 
island. Leaving the harbour at 5 P.M., we passed the 
Pescadore group of islands at daybreak next morning. 
The wind all the while blew strongly from the north, 
forcing me to forego my dinner, and to confine myself 
a prisoner in my berth, until I was summoned on 
deck to see land. It was a grateful sight, very, but 
how the ship was rolling ! and the land, alas ! the only 
thing that struck me about it was that it must be a very 
long way off. Having once gained my sea legs, I had 
one or two hours leisure to scrutinise the coast and the 
inland mountain ranges, which lost themselves in the 
clouds above. A narrow rocky inlet was pointed out 
to me as the only harbour accessible in this quarter ; 
and it was abreast of this spot, some two miles from 
shore, that the steamer came to her moorings. Here 



298 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

on a sudden I found myself keenly interested in the 
experiences of a Malay on board, who informed me 
that vessels were constantly being wrecked along this 
shore, and that their crews were invariably eaten to a 
man by the bloodthirsty savages, who perpetually 
scoured the beach in search of prey. He had probably 
heard of the wreck of the schooner Macto in 1859, 
and how the crew were massacred on this very beach 
by the natives ; or else he may have been referring to 
the murder, at a later date, of a number of American 
castaways by the Aboriginies further south. That 
certain native tribes here are cannibals there can be 
little doubt ; and they have assuredly robbed and 
murdered unfortunate men and women who have from 
time to time been wrecked upon their shores. It is to 
punish outrages of this sort that a Japanese army has 
lately been despatched to Formosa, in retaliation for 
some particular barbarities which chance to have been 
practised upon a Japanese crew ; so say the Japanese. 
As Formosa is a Chinese possession, it is hard to tell 
how, or where this armed interference on the part of the 
Japanese may end. I predicted, in my previous work, 
the probability of coming difficulties between Japan 
and China, as the former is now beginning to look 
upon her Chinese neighbours in the light of inferiors. 

We are told by the Pall Mall Gazette that when 
the Japanese fleet anchored off Formosa, and before a 
single soldier landed, a Chinese corvette and a gun 
boat steamed into sight with guns run out, men at 
quarters, and everything prepared for action. Between 
them, these two vessels, as they assure us, might have 
sunk the whole Japanese squadron ; but after some 
palaver, the Chinese men-of-war quietly steamed off 
again, and the Japanese troops were landed. 



FORMOSA. 299 

Before we disembark and proceed on our journey 
inland, it may be as well to give the reader some 
genera] notion of the island and its position. Isla 
Formosa, or the Beautiful Island, as the Portuguese 
named it, lies at the distance of about one hundred 
miles off the mainland, and was discovered by an 
enterprising Celestial, who, getting up one morning 
before his neighbours, a few hundred years ago, to see 
the sun rise over the ocean, discovered the mountain 
peaks of Formosa. 

In time the Chinese crossed over and planted n 
settlement on the island, driving the savages high up 
into the almost inaccessible mountains. 

Formosa runs nearly north and south, its length is 
about 250 miles, and it is about 84 miles broad across 
its widest part. Down its centre a rocky spine of lofty 
mountains stretches longitudinally nearly from sea to 
sea, with peaks, in some places, about twelve thou 
sand feet high. The Chinese occupy only the western 
half of the island and a small portion at its northern 
extremity, while the whole of the mountainous region 
to the east is held by independent tribes of Aborigines. 
The island is ruled over by a Taotai resident at 
Taiwanfu, and appointed by the Central Government. 
The Taotai of Formosa is the only officer of the same 
rank in the Empire who enjoys the privilege of direct 
appeal to the throne. The population is about three 
millions, viz., two arid a-half million Chinese, and half 
a million Aborigines. 

Naturalists suppose that Formosa has originally 
been joined to the mainland ; and what confirms them 
in this view is the great similarity of its flora and fauna 
to that of the nearest provinces of China. But let us 
land and see for ourselves. 



TNDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



CHAPTER XL 

Takow Harbour, Formosa La-mah-kai Difficulties of Navigation 
Tai-wan-fu The Taotai His Yamen How to cancel a State Debt 
The Dutch in 1661 Sylvan Lanes Medical Missions A Journey to 
the Interior Old Watercourses Broken Land Hak-ka Settlers 
Poah-be Pepohoan Village Baksa Valley The name Isla Formosa 
A Long March The Central Mountains Bamboo Bridges Pau- 
ah-liau Village The Physician at Work Ka-san-po Village A Wine- 
feast Interior of a Hut Pepohoan Dwellings A Savage Dance 

Savage Hunting-grounds La-lung Village Lakoli Village Return 
Journey. 

A CHINESE pilot, named Opium, came off to the 
steamer, and brought her to a secure anchorage about 
a mile from shore. There was a pretty heavy sea on 
at this time, rendering it dangerous, even in a surf-boat, 
to make for the mouth of the harbour ; so Dr. Maxwell 
and I determined to go ashore with Opium, trusting to 
his local knowledge to land us safely somewhere along 
the coast. This pilot was a cool, imperturbable seaman, 
a daring specimen, who had been out in all weathers, 
and who was said to have earned his singular cognomen 
of Opium from his notoriety as a smuggler of that 
valuable drug. It is truly wonderful how in California 
the genius of the Chinese race has been times without 
number equal to the task of carrying on an untaxed 
opium traffic, and that too under a system of police 
surveillance that only falls short of submitting the 
Chinaman and his effects to a process of sublimation, 
which would leave the hidden juices of the narcotic 



TAKOW. 301 

behind. Nevertheless, their dodges have been detected 
one by one ; a layer of opium glued in between the 
polished sides of a trunk will never reach shore, nor 
pass unnoticed though wrought into the well-made soles 
of a silken boot, or stitched into the skirts of a padded 
robe. But we are now on the top of the breakers, 
plunging as if the boat were going bow-foremost to the 
bottom. Opium is looking calmly on the while, with 
a countenance at once soothing and reassuring. We 
soon roll over the last billow, and are swept into a small 
haven amid the rocks. These rocks are of igneous 
formation, and look like molten metal suddenly chilled 
while in a state of violent ebullition. We land, and 
scramble over a multitude of cell- like cavities, with 
edges hard as flint and sharp as splintered glass. 
Many of these cavities have the hollows filled up with 
a little sandy soil, in which luxuriant shrubs and a sort 
of dwarf date-palm grow. The wet sand along the 
beach was of a deep black hue. 

As we made our way through the native town of 
Takow I was much struck with the tropical appearance 
of the place, and with the shady palms, which reminded 
us of the villages in the Malayan Archipelago. But 
evidently neither Mohammedans nor Malays dwelt here, 
for huge porkers roamed free about the settlement, or 
kept watch around the cabin doors. At length we 
reached the Mission Station, and met with a cordial wel 
come. Here the Rev. Mr. Ritchie gave me some notion 
of the lawless state which prevailed in this portion of 
the island. One day, when on a mission-trip inland, he 
fell in with the deputy magistrate (Chinese) of the 
Tung-shan district, returning to his Yamen from a 
place called La-ma-kai, with a troop of armed retainers 
at his heels. Passing this official, and proceeding on to 



302 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

La-mah-kai, my friend there met a band of ruffians carry 
ing spears, daggers, and firearms ; and behind them fol 
lowed an old woman, who besought the marauders to 
return her son s matchlock, which one of them had just 
stolen from her house. The first question asked of Mr. 
Ritchie, when he reached the Chinaman s hut where he 
proposed to sleep, was whether these armed men had 
been seen, as they were a band of highway-robbers that 
had been plundering the neighbouring settlements. The 
magistrate, it appeared, had been despatched by his 
superior officer to seize on a rich relative of one of the 
bandits, and to hold him as a hostage ; but the crafty 
knaves had been forewarned of the threatened surprise, 
most probably by one of the servants in the mandarin s 
train, and had forthwith met their enemy with so over 
whelming a force as to compel him to an undignified 
and speedy retreat. 

A wholesome dread of Europeans, inspired by the 
vigorous action of Lieutenant Gordon at Tai-wan-fu, 
saved my friend from falling an easy prey into the 
hands of the gang. 

Two or three of the European firms at Amoy have 
branch establishments in Takow, or had at the time I 
speak of (April 1871) ; and behind these foreign houses 
there rises a hill more than i ,000 feet high, and com 
monly known as Apes Hill, from the large apes, its 
only inhabitants, which may be seen in great numbers 
about the crags. From this hill I obtained a com 
manding view of Takow harbour, and the observations 
which I made here, as well as closer inspections carried 
out from other points, led me to the conclusion that, in 
the hands of a civilised foreign power, a portion of the 
soft sanely lagoon, which is gradually invading and 



TAKOIV HARBOUR. 303 

narrowing the available anchorage of the harbour, 
might soon be added to the now limited accommodation 
for shipping ; while the bar at the mouth of the port 
might no less easily be removed. As the case now 
stands, with wind and tide favourable, a barque drawing 
twelve feet of water can find her way through the 
rocky entrance. Rapid physical changes have taken 
place within a recent period on this the western side of 
Formosa, as I shall be able to demonstrate conclusively 
when we get to a point further north. It struck me, 
however, that the natural formation of the harbour of 
Takow belongs to a modern date. Thus when the Dutch 
occupied the island a considerable river existed at the 
southern extremity, and the channel, now nearly dry, 
is still known as Ang-mang-kang, or estuary of the 
red-haired race. The combined action of the sea silting 
up ddbris on the one side, and of the river on the 
other, has formed a natural barrier several miles in 
extent, now covered with a belt of most luxuriant 
tropical trees. This bar is joined at its northern ex 
tremity by a riclge of igneous rocks ; and it is in this 
ridge that the break or flaw occurs which forms the 
mouth of the harbour. Much of the six or seven miles 
enclosed by this natural wall consists of a shallow 
lagoon, with a bottom of extremely soft mud. It is 
only towards the northern end that a depth of water is 
obtained sufficient for ships trading to the island. 

Owing to the disturbed state of the country I 
deferred my visit to the aboriginal tribes of the south, 
and went with Dr. Maxwell to see Tai-wan-fu, the 
capital, twenty-five miles further north on the coast. 
Starting at daylight in the steamer Formosa, we 
reached the outer roads at 8 o clock. It is singular to 



304 TNDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

observe that there is now no harbour at Tai-wan-fu. 
We could descry the old fort Zelandia, erected there 
by the Dutch in 1633, about two and a half miles from 
where we lay, and surrounded by water so shallow as 
to render any nearer approach impossible ; and yet in 
the Dutch accounts of Formosa it is stated that 
Zelandia was an island where a spacious haven was 
formed ; and further, that on April 3ist, 1661, Kok- 
singa s fleet appeared before Tai-wan-fu, ran into the 
spacious haven between Zelandia and Provincia, and 
came to anchor between the two forts. The two forts 
referred to are Zelandia and Provincia, separated by a 
distance of more than three miles ; and the haven in 
which the Chinese invader anchored his fleet is now a 
dry arid plain crossed by a high road, and having 
a canal cut through it, communicating with the old 
port of Tai-wan-fu. A small portion of the plain 
is flooded at high tide, while off the fort the water is 
now so shallow that vessels have to anchor, as we did, 
two miles out to sea. Neither is it an easy or a safe 
business to cross these vast shallows, at least when the 
sea is rough ; and if there is a strong south-west mon 
soon blowing, it cannot be clone at all. As for our 
selves, we went ashore in a catamaran, a sort of raft 
made of poles of the largest species of bamboo. These 
poles are bent by fire so as to impart a hollow shape to 
the raft, and are lashed together with ratan. A strong 
wooden block, made fast to the centre of this surf-boat, 
supports the mast, which carries a large mat sail. 
There is not a nail used in the whole contrivance, and 
the most curious feature about the strange vessel is the 
accommodation provided for passengers. This is 
nothing more than a capacious tub. I thought it pos- 



TAI. WAN-FU. 305 

sible at first that these were the boats of the local 
washerwomen ; but, so far as washing is concerned, the 
natives of Formosa confine themselves to washing 
their customers occasionally ashore in the tub and 
mangling them on the beach a very simple process, 
for the tub is in no way fixed to the raft, so that a heavy 
sea would, and does frequently, send it adrift. The 
tub into which we descended would hold four persons, 
and when we squatted clown inside it we could just see 
over the top. Not feeling very comfortable, we came 
out and sat on the bare raft, to which we had at times 
to cling manibus pedibusque as the waves broke over us. 
Tai-wan-fu, the capital of Formosa, is a fortified city 
of 70,000 inhabitants. The walls enclose a space of 
about five miles round, planted to a great extent with 
fields and gardens, and still showing traces of the 
ancient Dutch occupation, in the ruins of Fort 
Provincia and in the extensive parks shaded with fine 
old trees or groves of tall bamboo. The suburbs are 

o 

intersected by a multitude of green lanes, which run 
between walls of cactus, interspersed with the brilliant 
flowers of the wild fuschia, and clusters of major con 
volvulus, or else shaded by bamboo hedges, which 
form a pointed archway above the path. The inhabi 
tants of this part of the island are chiefly natives of the 
Fukien province, and the Hak-kas already described. 
These between them are daily carrying arts and 
agriculture further into the territory claimed by the 
aboriginal tribes. 

Armed with an official introduction I paid a visit to 
the Taotai (or governor) of Tai- wan (Formosa). Wait 
ing in my chair outside his yamen while my card a red 
one, the size of a large shcel of note paper was sent in, 

x 



306 INDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

I found myself surrounded by the idle crowd that is 
always certain to collect about a stranger in China 
whence the gazers came, and whither they go would 
be difficult to tell and all sorts of conjectures being 
thrown out as to the nature of my business. A little 
naked boy, with a face full of perfectly untutored in 
nocent curiosity, ventured a trifle too near, so I leaned 
slightly forward and frowned at him. Bursting into a 
fit of screaming terror, he flecl from the yamen, while 
the mob looked grave, and wondered what devilry I 
could have practised on the child. Soon an officer 
appeared, and behind him followed a train of yamen 
attendants, who wore the usual conical hats with red 
feathers that suggested the idea of flames burning 
through the top of an extinguisher. Thus escorted, I 
was ushered into the yamen. Passing through the 
hall of justice, I noticed various instruments of torture, 
the substitutes for our sacred oath, to extract truth 
from a witness, or confession from the lips of a 
prisoner. Here I met a more venerable official, 
dressed in a long silk robe, a stiff girdle, and heavily- 
soled satin boots. By him I was conducted through a 
court, and along a series of corridors, and finally 
presented to the Taotai, with infinitely greater official 
ceremony and pomposity than when I was introduced 
to Prince Kung, or Li-hung Chang. Indeed it seems 
to me that the Chinese are not exempt from the 
peculiarity which makes small officials everywhere self- 
important, and fearfully exacting in all matters touching 
their personal dignity. The private quarters of the 
Taotai and his retainers were prettily laid out, the 
open courts being shaded with palms, and decked with 
flowers in vases, besides shrubs, ferns, and creepers ; 



7 HE TAOTAI OF TAI-WAN. 307 

and the whole interior was surrounded with saloons or 
pavilions. 

Into one of these last I was led, and there presented 
to a full-faced pleasant-looking Chinaman who, to my 
surprise, held out his hand, and addressing me in per 
fect English, said, Good morning, Mr. Thomson, I am 
glad to see you here ; when did you come over ? I 
recognised the speaker, after a time, as a man whom I 
had met in Hongkong as a compradore, or a schroff in 
a bank. He told me he was the nephew of the Taotai, 
and I have a strong suspicion that that functionary 
himself had at one time been engaged in trade, and 
that he had somehow obtained this post, out of which, 
if report spoke true, he was making a very good thing 
indeed. After partaking of tea and fruit, my friend, 
whose mind was evidently imbued with the notion that 
I had come to the place on some secret mission, tried 
all he could to gain exact information as to my inten 
tions. I told him plainly that my purpose was to go 
into the heart of the island to see the aborigines. He 
wanted to know why I should take the trouble to 
trudge so far on foot, through a region where no proper 
roads existed, merely to see the place, with the 
chance perhaps of being killed. Depend upon it, he 
assured me, you will never get near them ; you will be 
shot with poisoned arrows, or lose yourself in the 
forest paths. But come and see the Taotai. This 
gentleman was rather a good-looking man, of middle 
age, and said to be remarkable for his administrative 
ability. At any rate, although apparently affected 
with suspicions as to my design in visiting the abori 
gines, he showed me some kindness, and, in return for a 
portrait which I took for him, he sent me a small box 

X 2 



3 o8 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

of tea and some dried lichees. The tea unfortunately 
spoiled before I reached Hongkong, but the lichees 
were very good. 

A curious incident occurred in this town during the 
rule of the preceding Taotai. When the fort of 
Anping had been stormed by Lieut. Gordon and his 
party, the military mandarin in command of the troops 
at Anping was supposed in some measure to have 
failed in his duty. To this charge was added an accu 
sation of treason ; for it was known that he had saluted 
Mr. Gibson, the late British Consul, with three guns, 
when that functionary left for Amoy. This unworthy 
commander, then, was dining one night with the Prefect, 
when a message was sent from the Taotai, directing the 
Prefect to detain his military guest until morning. At 
daybreak a second messenger arrived, who brought 
instructions for the Prefect to repair with his prisoner 
to the Taotai s yamen, and forthwith, as the business 
was urgent. When they reached the yamen, a servant 
came out to say that the Taotai would not receive the 
military mandarin, and ordered him to prepare for 
instant death. The unhappy officer insisted on an 
interview, and with his men forced his way into the 
yamen, where he demanded an appeal to the Emperor. 
The Taotai informed him that the edict had been 
received from Peking, had him stripped of his official 
clothes, hurried off, and put to death on the spot. In 
another such instance of summary vengeance a wealthy 
mandarin, who had aided the government with loans 
of money, determined, as he saw no probability of re 
payment, to withhold a certain proportion of the local 
taxes. Shortly after he had taken this step an official 
was dispatched by the Governor-general to inquire 



A NEW WAY TO PAY OLD DEBTS. 309 

into the matter. The district governor hereupon 
invited the defaulter to a quiet dinner to meet the 
governor-general s emissary, and during the course of 
a convivial evening the host and his friend between 
them so managed to outrage the feelings of the guest 
that a quarrel finally ensued. Then the * yamen 
runners were called in, the expostulating guest was 
cut down, and this was the new way in which an old 
state debt was paid. 

A large tract of land outside Tai-wan-fu is known 
as the execution-ground, and this spot I visited in 
company with Dr. Maxwell. I tried to make a picture 
out of it, but there was nothing to lend pictorial grace 
to the scene ; for the plain here is a perfectly flat one, 
whence the grand old trees of Tai-wan may be 
seen crowding away into the background, as if they 
shrunk from rooting themselves in unhallowed earth. 
Hardly a .shrub relieves the monotony of this gloomy 
place of death ; and yet with what a fearful interest it 
must have been gazed on by that band of Europeans, 
1 60 in number, who were led out there to execution 
one morning in August 1842 ! The mob of the city 
followed behind them with yells of exultation ; but before 
the terrible massacre had closed, their savage laughter 
was changed into panic terror, for the sky became 
overcast, and a dire storm burst upon the scene. The 
watercourses were filled with impetuous torrents that 
flooded the land, sweeping trees, houses and produce 
before its swollen streams, while the cries of perishing 
people were drowned in the fierce tumult of the 
tempest. Thus, say the thoughtful and superstitious 
natives, God wiped out the bloody stain from the 
ground. It is alleged that about 2,000 persons 



310 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

perished on that eventful day. A tragic history 
attaches to Tai-wan-fu, apart both from the incident 
which I have just related, and the storming of Anping 
fort, more recently still an event too full of details to 
permit description here. 

In olden times the city was the scene of the fierce 
struggle which ended in the expulsion of the Dutch 
from Formosa in 1661, after a nearly twelve months 
siege. Koksinga, who drove the doughty Hollanders 
from this beautiful island, must have been a bold 
adventurer. He was indeed a sort of Chinese sea- 
king, levying black mail from all the surrounding 
islands. China now-a-days needs just such an admiral 
to command her new steam fleet. With resources so 
great at his command, he would teach the ambitious 
inhabitants of the small kingdom of Japan that their 
safest policy is to keep their troops at home. As the 
case now stands we see 2,000 Japanese soldiers actually 
landed at Lang-kiau in southern Formosa, while the au 
thorities of China are looking on from the mainland, in a 
sort of dreamy amazement at the audacity of the enter 
prise. But when I took my rambles through the sylvan 
lanes of Tai-wan-fu, no feature so much struck me as 
their perfect repose ; not a sign or a sound recalled the 
fearful conflicts which they too often witnessed. The 
languid air was filled with no noise more warlike than 
the hum of insects, the creak of produce-laden carts on 
their way to market, or the merry prattle of children 
at play. Alas ! the quiet glades of Formosa may soon 
be stirred once more with the din of a vital struggle 
for supremacy, between two races who for the first time 
will confront each other with modern weapons in their 
hands. The conflict, if it ever takes place, will with- 



TAI- WAN-FU HOSPITAL. 3 1 1 

out doubt be protracted and severe ; and its issue may 
lead to important results in opening up the vast conti 
nent of China ; or perhaps the Chinese, in the flush of 
victory, may be hurried into a final attempt to close 
their country for ever against the hated intrusion of 
foreigners. The latter, however, is not a probable 
contingency, for China will find that her only safety 
lies in keeping herself always fit to cope on terms of 
advantage with her restless Japanese rivals. 

I cannot leave Tai-wan-fu without noticing the 
medical mission over which my friend Dr. Maxwell 
presides, and expressing my regret that hospitals of 
the same kind are not more numerous in other quarters 
of China. One who lives at home in an English city 
where the poor are always with us, but where they 
are tended and cared for in an infinite variety of ways, 
quite unknown to the ancient civilisation of the Flowery 
Land cannot picture the train of miserable diseased 
wretches who daily drag their way to the Mission 
hospital. Many who have heard of the fame of the 
good foreign medicine-man, accomplish long weary 
pilgrimages ; almost believing, poor souls, like the 
woman of old, that they have but to touch the hem of 
the physician s garment, to be cured of diseases that 
have made their lives, for years, one prolonged cry of 
pain. Sometimes the maladies are simple in them 
selves, though beyond the power of native skill, and a 
single probe of the lancet will send such a heaven of 
relief, as almost to tempt the poor sufferer to fall down 
and worship his deliverer. The scenes I myself 
witnessed in a single day at that hospital made me feel 
perfectly appalled when I reflected on the groans of 
unalleviated pain which must constantly rise from the 



3i2 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

poverty-stricken millions who swarm over the plains of 
China. Here, in this small sanctuary, it is but the 
faint echo of the great unheeded wail which we hear 
rising from the breasts of sufferers that find relief at 
last. Much of the sickness common in this quarter is 
due, directly or indirectly, to poverty, insufficient or 
unwholesome food, and to neglect. The medical 
missionary thus enjoys many opportunities for spreading 
a knowledge of Christianity, for gaining converts, and 
for doing good in a variety of ways which, let me 
assure my reader, are seldom left untried. In a place 
like this the life of such a man is no enviable one, and 
the only pleasure he can enjoy must come of the con 
sciousness of doing good work. His is a lifetime 
devoted to self-sacrifice and systematic toil. Day after 
day crowds of fresh patients flock to the hospital, 
and their cases are treated in rotation, leaving little 
leisure to the missionary save what is stolen from meal 
times, or from the hours of rest by night. 

Dr. Maxwell and L determined to make an excur 
sion into the interior, and to visit the outlying mission- 
stations, where my friend hoped, if possible, to open 
new ground among the mountain savages. Accordingly 
on Monday, April 1 1, we left Tai-wan-fu for the village 
of Poah-be, and were carried in native sedans ten miles 
across the plain. I hired a number of coolies to convey 
my instruments, as I had determined to photograph 
the objects of interest \vhich we might fall in with en 
route. The plain, a highly cultivated one, was dotted 
with Chinese farms, and with hamlets overshadowed 
by groves of bamboo. The chief products here were 
rice, sweet potatoes, earth-nuts, and sugar-cane. Many 
of the women were out at work in the fields ; most of 



CROSSING THE PLAIN. 313 

them had the compressed feet so much in vogue among 
the females of the Fukien province, and hence they 
seemed to limp about uneasily over the furrows. They 
generally wore pretty dresses of white calico, edged 
with pale blue. As for the men, they were bronzed 
and fat ; and they wore a lazy, loutish appearance, 
seemingly leaving the women to do the bulk of the 
field-work. There were children to be seen too, but 
their attire consisted simply of a small charm hung on 
a string around the neck. As at Tai-wan-fu, we passed 
along some beautiful sylvan lanes, shaded by areca- 
palms and bamboos, and leading to settlements which 
were truly enchanting when viewed from a distance, 
but less attractive, and thoroughly Chinese, on a closer 
inspection. The near approach to one of these hamlets 
was always known by the conflicting odours of garlic 
and manure, mingled with the fragrance of some sweet- 
smelling flowers, of which the Chinese are very fond, 
and which quite overpower the soft perfume of the 
white wild-rose that grows in profusion in the hedges. 
In the wild flowers which bloom hereabouts we 
discover the delicate hues of our more temperate climes 
blending charmingly with the vivid primary colours of 
the tropical flora. It was pleasant, too, to listen to the 
songs of the field-lark, a bird common to certain dis 
tricts of the mainland both in the north and south of 
China ; and, so far as I can recollect, to some parts of 
Siam. 

Halting at the first range of hills, we send back the 
chairs, and await the arrival of my boy Ahong and the 
coolies, who were far in the rear. Ahong, unaccus 
tomed to walking, was already foot-sore. Against my 
advice he had put on straw sandals, and so blistered 



314 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

the soles of his feet that the remaining eight miles of 
our journey tried him severely. The heat was intense. 
Even now I feel hot, uncomfortable, and inclined to 
cast off my coat, when I think of it. The road, if our 
route could be dignified by such a name, was a broken 
track, over dry hills, constantly interrupted by blocks 
of hard clay, and by pitfalls six or eight feet deep. But 
these were trifles to what lay before us. Slowly we 
progressed, now wending our tortuous way along the 
verge of a clay chasm more than 200 feet deep, now 
diving down into the recesses of a huge clay-pit, where 
the flat surface was so heated with the sun that it 
almost blistered the hands when we touched its bare 
walls. The soil became the more broken the further 
we progressed inland ; the pits, too, grew wader and 
deeper. At the bottom of some of these we actually 
found cultivated fields, and traces of the mountain 
torrents that force a subterraneous passage, during the 
wet season, through the soft clay formation beneath, 
and thus effect the drainage of the central range of 
mountains, while at the same time they render farming 
in this hill region an enterprise full of peril. For the 
squatter tills treacherous ground, and is liable to find 
his fields and his dwelling swept away by the sudden 
subsidence of the soil. But the Hak-kas, who cultivate 
this shifting clay, are prepared for such emergencies, 
and are quite accustomed to a hasty change of abode, 
cheerfully resuming their agricultural labours wherever 
they may happen to settle. At times, indeed, the 
sudden disappearance of their whole property may lead 
to very desirable results. They emigrate, perhaps, to 
a healthier or more settled neighbourhood, or else to 
one where the trees and debris brought clown by the 



A PEPOHOAN SETTLEMENT. 315 

torrents will furnish them with fuel during the winter 
months. All this will, no doubt, seem strange to those 
who have only heard of houses being removed from 
one quarter of a town to another by means of powerful 
hydraulic engines. But I venture to suggest that what 
happens in Formosa is an illustration of hydraulic 
power on a much more extended scale. I need hardly 
say that the Imperial Government has not seen fit to 
send a geographer to lay down a map of this ever- 
changing region ; and it will be a matter of difficulty, I 
should think, for the farmer, at the end of each wet 
season, to find out exactly where he and his neighbours 
have settled. Poah-be was reached by about 4 P.M. 
This place is the first settlement of a tribe of aborigines 
whom the Chinese call Pepohoan, or foreigners of the 
plain. These people have a lively and warm recollec 
tion of their Dutch masters. They still cherish traditions 
of their kind-hearted red-haired brothers, and for this 
reason they receive foreigners with a cordial welcome. 
Once, in the times of the Dutch, they lived down in 
those fertile plains which we had just been crossing ; 
but they have long ago been driven back out of the 
richer land of their forefathers, by the advance of the 
ruthless Chinese. Higher up, in the mountain fast 
nesses, their hardy kinsmen have held their own, de 
fying all the forces of the Imperial conqueror. 

Let the Japanese make friends of those wild 
mountaineers, and the Chinese will find it a hard task 
to drive the intruders from the island. The natives 
came out in great numbers to meet and welcome Dr. 
Maxwell, whom they had not seen for a considerable 
time. They were a fine, simple-looking race, and had 
a frank sincerity of manner which was refreshing after 



3i6 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

a long experience of the cunning Chinese. These 
Pepohoans had acquired the Chinese arts of husbandry 
and house-building. Their buildings were even supe 
rior to those of the Chinese squatters, and the people 
themselves were better dressed. It struck me, as I 
have noticed elsewhere, that they resembled the 
Laotians of Siam both in features and costume, while 
their old language bore undoubted traces of Malayan 
origin. (See Appendix.) 

There was a small Christian chapel at Poah-be, 1 
built and supported by the natives themselves, the 
mission having only to pay the salary of a native 
helper. I visited several of the houses, and found 
them clean, well arranged, and comfortable. Their 
mode of construction is as follows : A bamboo frame 
work is first set up ; this is then covered with a lathing, 
or rather wattle-work, of reeds or split bamboo, and 
the whole is afterwards plastered over with the clay 
that abounds in the neighbourhood, and finished when 
dry with an outer coating of the white lime made out 
of the limestone rock which is plentiful in these hills. 
The dwellings usually form three sides of a square ; 
but I will describe the interior accommodation in more 
detail further on in my narrative. Only two articles 
in any of the Pepohoan settlements bore tokens of 
ingenuity and mechanical skill ; these were the butts 
of their matchlocks and a native rat-trap, which was 
very curious indeed. The rat is esteemed a great 
luxury among the mountaineers so great that the 
invention of this trap must have been a most important 

1 One of over a dozen mission-stations established by the Missionaries 
connected with the Presbyterian Church of England. There are about 
3,000 natives constant attendants at the chapels . 



BAKSA. 317 

event in the history of their race ; but the mechanical 
genius who discovered it seems to have accomplished 
nothing greater for the civilisation of his countrymen ; 
resting for ever, after this crowning achievement of 
his skill, a contented rat-eating Pepohoan. 

Friday, April n. We left Poah-be at 7 A.M. to 
day to walk to Baksa, twelve miles off. It was a 
beautiful morning, and the scenery became gradually 
so interesting as to warrant the belief that we had now 
got clear of the broken shifting lands through which 
our yesterday s journey had extended. By about ten 
o clock the heat became intense, and Ahong was fairly 
knocked up. We had to reduce our pace, too, on 
account of his sorely blistered feet, so that it was twelve 
o clock before we reached Baksa valley. Here, again, 
the people rushed out to welcome us. Troops of 
pretty little children came trotting along the road, 
shouting Peng-gan, Peace be with you, while many a 
horny hand was stretched out from its toil to grasp the 
doctor s as we entered the village, or rather as we 
passed through the lanes, and beneath the palms that 
shaded the scattered dwellings in this Pepohoan para 
dise. I could now understand what the Portuguese 
meant when they named the island Formosa ; and yet 
what we saw here was but the first foreshadowing of 
the wilder grandeur of the mountain scenery inland. 
A crescent of limestone hills sweeps round Baksa 
valley, presenting in many places a bare rocky front in 
striking contrast to the foliage which luxuriates else 
where. Perhaps the bamboos were the most remark 
able feature in the scene, for these plants here attain 
exceptional proportions, and are some of them more 
than 100 feet high. In the history of Tai-wan it is 



3 icS INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

stated that there are thirteen varieties of Bamboos 1 
(a species of grass) known in Formosa, one being 
reported to attain to the enormous girth of two feet. 
I will here give a brief account of the many uses to 
which the bamboo is applied a plant which figures ex 
tensively in the social economy of the people throughout 
the length and breadth of China. Were every other 
means of support withdrawn, except rice and bamboo, 
these two plants would, I believe, supply the neces 
saries for clothing, habitation, and food ; indeed, the 
bamboo alone, as I propose to show, would bear the 
lion s share of the burden. No tending is needed for 
this hardy-natured plant, nor is it dainty in the choice 
of its locality ; and, although it probably reaches its 
highest state of perfection in the rich valleys of Formosa, 
yet it grows with nearly equal vigour on the thin soil 
of rocky hill-sides. It is first used to hedge the 
dwelling around with an almost impenetrable barrier 
of prickly stems, and to cast a cool shade over the 
abodes with its lofty pale-green plumes. The houses 
themselves may be constructed entirely of its stems, and 
thatched with its dried leaves. Within, the couches and 
chairs are made of bamboo, and so is the table, except its 
deal top ; so, too, are the water-cans, the drink ing-jugs, 
and the rice-measures. Hanging from the roof are a 
number of prickly bamboo stems supporting dried pork, 
and such like provisions, and warding off rats with 
their chevaux de frise. In one corner we may see the 
proprietor s waterproof coat and hat, each made out of 
leaves of the plant, which overlap like the plumage of 
a bird. The agricultural implements are many of them 
made of hard bamboo stems ; and, indeed, the fishing- 

1 Chinese Notes and Queries, ii. 135. 



HAM110O. 319 

net, the baskets of clivers shapes, the paper and the 
pens (never absent from the humblest Chinese abodes), 
the wine-cups, the water-ladles, the chop-sticks, and, 
finally, the tobacco-pipes, are all of bamboo. The man 
who dwells there is feasting on the tender shoots of 
the plant ; and if you ask him he will tell you that his 
earliest impressions came to him through the basket- 
work of his bamboo cradle, and that his latest hope 
will be to lie beneath some bamboo brake, on a cool 
hill-side. The plant is also extensively used in the 
sacred offices of the Buddhist temples. The most 
ancient Buddhist classics were cut on strips of bamboo ; 
the divination-sticks, and the case which contains them, 
are manufactured out of its stem; while the courts out 
side the temple are fanned and sheltered by its nod 
ding plumes. There are a variety of different sorts of 
paper made from the bamboo, but the kind which 
struck me as showing a new property in the fibre of 
the plant was that commonly used by the Fukien gold 
beaters in the production of gold-leaf, and thus occupy 
ing the place of the parchment employed for the same 
purpose in Europe. Fans and flutes are also made 
of bamboo ; and even the looms on which the Chinese 
w^eave their silken fabrics are chiefly made out of the 
plant. Indeed, it is impossible to estimate its value to 
the Chinese. This much, however, I may unhesita 
tingly affirm, that so multifarious are the duties which 
the bamboo is made to discharge, and so wide-spread 
are the benefits which it confers upon the Chinese, as 
to render it above all others the most useful plant in 
the Empire. 

We spent the night at the Baksa mission-station, 
and left early next morning to walk to Ka-san-po, a 



320 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

distance of twenty-six miles. The first hill we got to 
after quitting Baksa gave us some faint notion of the 
journey now before us. We had to climb a steep 
ridge, where the soil had been completely broken away 
on either side ; and thus, along the sharp edge of a 
wedge, we made our way upwards to the summit of 
the hill. It was with no feelings of ease that I kept 
looking back upon our baggage-bearers (six strong 
Pepohoans from Baksa), who, had they slipped their 
footing, would have been precipitated several hundred 
feet on whatever side they chanced to fall. At last 
we reached the summit safely, and were rewarded with 
a view of a splendid valley surrounded by a circle of 
hills, while the central mountain ranges of the island 
could be descried towering heavenwards in the distance 
beyond. The little settlement of Kamana could just 
be made out at the eastern extremity of a long 
glen. Resting for a short time in a Pepohoan hut, 
where the people were glad to see us, and where we 
had a refreshing draught of spring-water, we then 
pushed on to Kamana, and were there met by a 
sturdy old native helper named Tong, a man of good 
Chinese education, who had formerly held a post in 
a yamen. He was a fine-looking fellow, and had suf 
fered a good deal of persecution for having embraced 
the Christian faith. At about one o clock, under the 
guidance of Tong, we left this station, and commenced 
another toilsome ascent beneath a blazing sun, and with 
out a breath of wind to temper the intense heat. At 
length, after surmounting the first range, we fell in with 
a buffalo herd, and found an old man living in a rude 
shed in the centre of a parched wilderness. He received 
us kindly, and gladly shared with us his supply of water, 



A HARD CLIMB. 321 

which he held in a bamboo tube. Our arrival evidently 
afforded him great pleasure, and he was anxious we 
should remain for a smoke and a chat. Off again to 
climb another hill, or rather to scramble up deep fissures 
in one, over a broken stratum of clay and slate, exhal 
ing a noxious smell, and reflecting the hot sun to such 
a degree that I felt extremely faint, and nearly gave in 
before we had scaled the height. The Doctor con 
fessed that he had never experienced any fatigue like 
this, in all his previous travels. Once on the top, we 
flung ourselves down beneath the scant shade of some 
shrubs in a rocky clift, at the same time dislodging 
from the roots and stones numerous tribes of centi 
pedes, each about as long as one s finger, and of a rich 
chocolate colour, with bright yellow feet. These centi 
pedes inflict a fearful sting, but we were too much ex 
hausted to get out of their way, and fortunately they 
got out of ours. More than once I thought I could 
feel these creatures making their way up my back, but 
it turned out to be nothing more than a cold stream of 
perspiration trickling down. A steep descent on the 
other side of this ridge brought us to our next halting- 
place, where a brook was reported to exist. A 
channel indeed was there, but the waters had dried up 
long ago. Here, while at breakfast, our crowning 
trouble overtook us. One of the bearers incautiously 
broke off the green stem of a plant, which, in return 
for the outrage, sent forth a perfectly putrid odour. It 
was some time before we discovered the cause of the 
nuisance, for the Pepohoan nose seemed to account it 
a luxury rather than otherwise. This plant was 
known to them as the foul dirt shrub, and is one 
which the Chinese ought clearly to prize, for its very 



322 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

breath might be sufficient to manure a whole region. 
As the reader may imagine, we made no long stay in 
this spot ; but resuming our journey, marched on up 
and down great pits similar to those encountered in 
our first day s travel, and containing some of them 
great boulders rounded, probably, and left in position, 
at the bottom of the pits, by the denudations of the 
mountain torrents. 

We were now on one of the spurs that lie at the 
foot of the central range, and could enjoy a splendid 
view of a valley that stretched out in front of us, half 
cultivated and half in its pristine grandeur, while the 
mountain sierras rose up pile behind pile, Mount 
Morisson lifting its deep blue peak on high above 
them all. A river flowed far down beneath our feet, 
and we could hear the distant boom of its waters, as 
they rushed onward through dark ravines and over a 
rocky mountain bed. This river was now at its 
smallest but was still a broad stream, and was spanned 
by a number of bamboo bridges, if such these rude 
structures might be called. Far away, at the northern 
end of the valley, the village of Pau-ah-liau could be 
descried peeping out amid a mass of foliage ; and high 
above this settlement rose mountains wrapped in the 
gloom of primeval forests, the haunts of wild beasts 
and savage men. These mountain tribes just referred 
to exact a heavy black mail from their more civilised 
kinsmen in the valleys below ; and not content with 
this, they will at times swoop down in troops of sixty 
or seventy to waylay travelling parties, whom they 
plunder and put to death, or else to make a raid on 
some village in thejr vicinity. 

We had now reached the banks of the stream, and 



BAMBOO BRIDGES. 323 

had to cross it to gain the village ; but the bridge here, 
which possessed the great merit from an engineering 
point of view of extreme simplicity, was about the 
most crazy, break-neck contrivance it has ever been 
my lot to see. The whole structure consisted of one 
or two poles of bamboo, stretched from bank to bank 
some twelve feet above the river, which was here quite 
deep enough to drown even the giant Chang. These 
poles rested on stone piers, jutting out beyond the 
banks, and made out of the boulders near at hand. 
To me this bridge seemed the very thing for a reckless 
man who might wish to tempt Providence, and yet 
just escape a watery grave. But the natives walked 
easily over it Blondin fashion, using their burdens to 
sustain their equilibrium ; and so there was nothing 
for it but to cross, if we would reach our journey s end. 
The Doctor, who had seen these pieces of architecture 
before, managed with comparative ease : as for me, we 
had been walking in straw sandals, so I damped mine 
to make them more elastic, and then, throwing out my 
arms and squaring my feet, crossed like an acrobat, 
looking back with no small satisfaction when I had 
overcome the difficulty, and was safely landed on the 
other side. These elegant structures are the common 
property of the natives, and suffice for the purposes of 
trade and intercommunication in this benighted region. 

o o 

They are understood to be rebuilt, or kept in repair, by 
the man who happens to break them, should he survive 
the accident, or by the next comer should he not. 
Providence has supplied a bountiful stock of raw 
material for their construction in the surrounding vale, 
and along the river s bank. There we may see the 
boulders for new piers, and ratans growing in the 



Y 2 



324 TN.DO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

thickets, wherewith, if need be, to bind the cross-poles 
to the piers ; and there are bamboos everywhere. 

About half a mile from Pau-ah-liau we passed 
beneath the spreading branches of the Png-chieu 
tree, as the natives term it, whose roots spread along 
the ground in curious wri things and contortions, now 
forming an inviting chair, now a couch on which one 
might pass the hot nights with comfort ; or elsewhere 
a small shrine connected with the fetishism of the 
village. These spirit-shrines were encountered at the 
roots of many of the finest trees, and consisted com 
monly of one basement stone, and four other slabs 
together forming three sides, and a roof. Within, in 
the centre, was a tiny stone altar, on which the offer 
ings reposed. The trunk of this Png-chieu tree was 
six feet in diameter, and the spread of its branches was 
ample enough to shade the inhabitants of the adjoin 
ing village. The news of our arrival had somehow 
preceded us, as it invariably did, but how we could 
never tell ; and mysterious figures were seen darting 
out from the hedgerows and thickets to have a look at 
the red haired men, as foreigners are politely termed. 

Our path was along a pleasant shady road, on the 
margin of a stream that had been made use of for irri 
gation. On our left hand was a hedge adorned with 
numerous wild flowers fuschias, roses, guavas, wild 
mint and convolvulus besides a profusion of wild rasp 
berry-bushes that had lately been laden with fruit as 
sweet as our own English raspberries, if we may judge 
from what little still remained. Again we had to cross 
a bamboo bridge, and thence to follow a foot- road by 
the edge of the rice-fields, where the young blades rose 
in vivid green above the water, just high enough to 



PEPOHOANS. 325 

obscure the reflection of the mountains on its glassy 
surface. We now entered the village of Pau-ah-liau, 
and made straight for the house of an aged blind 
Pepohoan named Sin-chun. We were followed into 
his enclosure by troops of savage-looking women and 
children ; the latter some of them ten years old, arid 
without a rag to hide their youthful proportions. A 
number of the villagers had a warm recollection of a 
visit from the Doctor eighteen months before, and of 
how he had kindly ministered to their wants. Care 
fully did they examine our baggage and clothes, and 
finally awarded the palm of beauty to my checked 
flannel shirt. Here the men, women, and children 
were all provided with bamboo tobacco-pipes, of which 
they made a vigorous and unceasing use. I had not 
long to wait before a haggard old dame came up to 
where I stood, and offered me her pipe for a smoke. 
When I accepted the courtesy, she went on to ask for 
my cigar, from which she took one or two hearty pulls, 
and then her face disappeared in a compound series of 
wrinkles, denoting delight at the unusual piquancy 
of the weed. After this the cigar was passed from 
mouth to mouth through the crowd, and carefully 
returned to me when they had all had a pull. The 
villagers were most of them tall and well formed, with 
large brown eyes kindling at times with a savage lustre 
that told of a free untamed spirit, born amid the wild 
grandeur and solitude of these mountain lands. And 
yet the race, from all accounts, is a gentle and in 
offensive one, in spite of a sort of haughty savage 
swagger not wanting in dignity and grace. 

The women wear a profusion of dark brown or 
black hair, combed straight back from the forehead, 



326 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

and caught up and folded in behind the head. Then 
the long tresses are twisted into a sort of cable, into 
which a strip of red cloth is entwined, and the whole 
is then brought over the left ear, passed like a diadem 
across the brows, and firmly fixed up at the back of the 
head. The effect of this simple head-dress is very 
striking, and contrasts well with the rich olive skin of 
its wearer. 

The Chinese say the women are extremely bar 
barous, because even the finest of them never paint. 
Time appears to deal hardly with them as they advance 
in years ; toil and exposure rob them quickly of the 
attractions of their youth ; but yet their hair is dressed 
neatly and carefully to the last, and they fight a stub 
born battle against the encroaching hands of fate. 
The oldest crone in the lot would scorn to shield her 
weakness and infirmities from the enemy behind the 
earthworks of paint and powder, false fronts, or dye. 
The bronzed and furrowed cheek, and the grey locks 
of age, meet everywhere with respect, and would even 
command a safe passport through the territory of a 
hostile tribe. 

The men now came trooping home in greater num 
bers from the fields ; tall, erect fellows, wearing an air 
of perfect good-will, frankness, and honesty. In spite 
of their horny hands and poor clothing, there was a 
manly nobility in their demeanour, and a perfect 
gentleness, a heartiness, and a simple hospitality, which 
it was truly touching to observe. 

In these respects there was a marked difference 
between the different villages. Thus where the Pepo- 
hoans had come into closer contact with the Chinese, 
they were better dressed but less friendly than in those 



DINNER UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 327 

villages where we encountered the aborigines alone. 
Sin-chun invited us into his cabin, and there I lay down 
on a mat to rest, and soon fell fast asleep. I awoke 
again with a start, as a gust of fetid air passed across 
the apartment. These natives, I must tell you, have a 
way of salting their turnips, and placing them in a jar 
of water, where they are kept till they decompose, 
after which they eat them as a relish to their rice. 
The truth was dinner was ready, and young Sin opened 
this domestic treasure, so that I got a full blast of the 
imprisoned gas as it escaped from the jar a blast which 
sent me flying to my feet, and out to the open air to 
make my dinner there. As for the Doctor, he finished 
his repast within, while I enjoyed a hearty meal off a 
bowl of rice, two hard-boiled eggs, and a piece of fowl. 
While travelling I made it my rule, as far as possible, 
to live on the food that could be purchased most readily 
on the spot. When dinner was concluded Dr. Max 
well as usual commenced to attend to his patients ; and 
a very numerous, though pretty healthy-looking, train 
they were. Some had fever ; other cases were more 
or less grave ; while not a few discovered pains and 
aches in different parts of the body which required to 
be treated with iodine. A feather was needed therefore 
to make a brush, and a fowl had accordingly to be 
secured. But fowls are more difficult to lay hold of 
than one would have supposed, and half the village 
was engaged in chasing first one fowl and then another 
before one could be caught and robbed of a plume. 
A few minutes afterwards a dozen bare legs, arms, and 
backs, had been painted and exposed to dry. Quinine 
also was eagerly sought for and distributed. 

It was now 3 P.M., and we were still six miles from 



328 2NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Kasanpo. Pursuing our way by the river-side, we 
arrived at that village by five o clock, and proceeded to 
the house of one Ah-toan, an old man with whom the 
doctor was acquainted. Ah-toan was not at home ; 
but he soon appeared, driving his cattle before him into 
the pen. He, too, was very pleased to see us, and 
quickly made an apartment ready, in which we de 
posited our things. On the verandah behind his 
dwelling a narrow space had been screened off for 
bathing, and of this convenience we at once took 
advantage. Our arrival was the signal for the villagers 
to crowd in and have a look at us ; but I could not 
make out why the male portion of the community 
appeared to treat our visit as a highly humorous inci 
dent, and why they had lost the erect and dignified 
bearing peculiar to their race. One old savage, more 
than six feet high, got hold of my pith hat, turned it 
round, looked into it and over it, and finally burst into 
a broad grin, I noticed, too, that he had abandoned 
all control over his facial muscles ; and though he 
evidently meant to be civil, that he could not bring 
back the normal expression of sober gravity to his 
countenance ; his features, in spite of him, would 
dissolve into a grin. At last I smelt sam-shu, and it 
transpired that the villagers had been thatching a 
neighbour s house, and, as is customary, had been 
entertained at a wine-feast. The Pepohoans, you must 
know, distil a very strong spirit from the sweet 
potatoe, which they cultivate as a staple food, like rice. 
Tong after a time addressed the people on the 
foolishness of idolatry, and on the advantage of wor 
shipping the one true God ; he gained a few attentive 
hearers ; but as for the drunken part of the community, 



OUR BEDROOM AT KASANPO. 329 

they could make nothing of his sermon. I will now 
endeavour to describe our bedroom ; but in the first 
place I must tell you that the Pepohoan huts are 
infested with rats, and the chamber we occupied did 
not escape their forays. This apartment measured 
about eight feet each way, one half of which area was 
taken up by a platform of bamboo raised about eighteen 
inches above the hard clay floor. This platform formed 
our bed ; and the only other articles of furniture to be 
seen within were two billets of wood, which served the 
purpose of pillows. On this unyielding couch, then, I 
stretched myself till supper was ready. Our repast 
consisted of a fowl, which cost us half-a-crown, and 
which Ahong was now making ready in the next apart 
ment. He was very tired, poor fellow ; but he liked 
cooking, more especially when hog s lard was abundant. 
Nothing marks the savage more conspicuously than his 
utter unconcern about those minor social arrangements, 
without which civilised races would hardly find life 
endurable. Thus these Pepohoans, with the most 
eager anxiety to make us comfortable, yet managed to 
kindle a great fire of reeds, to boil our servants rice, 
in such a position that the thick smoke poured in upon 
us in volumes as we lay at rest. No doubt it never 
occurred to them that smoke could be a nuisance at all. 
By way of a lamp we had a small cup of oil, in which 
floated a few shreds of burning pith ; and by this 
flickering light I could see that the clay walls were 
blackened, and the rafters glazed, with sooty smoke. 
In a corner above my head were a bundle of green 
tobacco, one or two spears, a bow, a heap of arrows, 
a primitive matchlock, and lastly an object which I 
had not hitherto noticed a huge bin of unhusked rice 



330 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA, 

at the side of the bed. I fain hoped that there the 
rats might find occupation during the night more pro 
fitable than worrying our slumbers. 

Ahong informed me, in strict confidence, that the 
dexterity of the savages hereabouts in the use of the 
bow and poisoned arrows was no less wonderful than 
the cool way in which they boiled and ate their tender 
hearted but tough-limbed Chinese foes. He besought 
me not to venture much further into the mountains, as 
the hill men never show themselves when they attack, 
but discharge their arrows high into the air, with such 
unerring precision that as they fall they pierce the 
skulls of their victims and cause instant death. I strongly 
advised Ahong to keep his head well protected. 
When he served up the fowl we found it as tough as 
any Chinaman could well be, even when boiled down 
for a cannibal s repast ; and as for our tea-pot, it had 
contained sam-shu. 

These Pepohoan dwellings, almost all of them, 
form three sides of a square, and enclose a yard in 
front, wherein produce is dried, and where the family 
conduct their at homes. In the evening, at about 
nine o clock, the natives assembled in force around a 
blazing log fire, which they kindled on this open space 
in front. The aged men and women, and the children, 
squatted round, smoking their pipes and talking, while 
a herd of long prick-eared curs sat intently watching 
the crackling embers. As the fire blazed up the flare 
edged the dark forms of the adjacent palms, and 
sported fitfully among the quivering leaves of the 
overhanging bamboo, while the strange figures gathered 
around the fire, now burst into strong relief against the 
dark background of the night, now vanished into im- 



A NATIVE DANCE. 331 

palpable shadows as the flames flashed up or sank 
before the varying breeze. Wood and reeds were 
piled on ; the fire grew brighter and brighter, and the 
spirits of the party seemed to rise as the heat increased. 
At last the young men and women cleared a space, 
crossing arms and joining hands, till they formed a 
crescent, and commenced a plaintive native song, 
marking the rhythm the while in exquisite time, with a 
graceful tripping dance. First one man led off with a 
solo, and was followed by the band with a chorus of 
interrogation always ending with the exclamation Hai ! 
To this the women responded with another chorus, and 
the time and words changed to a strophe in which each 
stanza ended with Sakieo ! The movement became 
gradually faster, and the nimble feet of the dancers 
quickened as the measure increased, but still the time 
was marked with perfect precision. The graceful and 
intricate step set off the fine forms of the dancers to 
good effect in the weird light. Quicker and quicker 
grew the time, until at last it became furious ; in place 
of Sakieo the air was now rent with fierce savage 
yells, and the flitting forms could only be dimly seen 
amid a cloud of luminous dust, like wild phantoms 
hovering in space. The dance was kept up until a 
late hour, the hostess wisely supplying her guests 
with nothing more intoxicating than tea a discretion 
clue most probably to the presence of Europeans. Had 
the beverage been sam-shu, there is no knowing how 
the scene might have ended. As it was, I had never 
before, not even among Scotch Highlanders, witnessed 
such a wild display of animal spirits. We did not 
sleep much, as we found that rats were by no means 
the only vermin we had to entertain, and once or twice 



332 INDOCHINA AND CHINA. 

I woke up to find the rats making short tracks across 
my body for the rice-bin. 

Next morning we started for Lalung, about eleven 
miles distant, through some of the grandest scenery I 
have ever beheld. Old Atuan furnished us with an 
armed guide a good-looking young fellow named 
Teng-Tsai. The path was an unsafe one, leading as 
it did through the lower hunting-grounds belonging to 
tribes of savages higher up in the hills. Teng-Tsai 
called a friend, who joined our party with his match 
lock, and both carried small priming-flasks of stag-horn 
suspended round their necks with strings of glass beads. 
They had also cord fusees coiled on bamboo rollers or 
bracelets round their left arms. These cords will keep 
alight for twenty-four hours, and when kindled the 
burning end is attached to forceps, which bring the 
light down into the powder-pan when the trigger is 
pulled. All the savages hereabouts use English 
powder for priming, when they can get it supplied 
them by the Chinese. As soon as our guides lost 
sight of the village, they lighted their fusees and 
enjoined us to keep together and make our way in 
silence. For the first half of our journey we were 
marching along the bed of a stream, but at length we 
ascended a narrow defile, where mighty rocks towered 
high above our heads, arched over in places by great 
forest-trees or giant ferns. A clear rill leapt from 
ledge to ledge, or rested now and again in some great 
stone bason, where with its glassy surface it mirrored 
the bright reflection of the ferns as they flung their 
fronds from the mossy rock to form a frame around 
the pool. Here we halted awhile to admire the intense 
loveliness of the mountain gorge, and to obtain a 



MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 333 

photograph of the scene, regretting all the time that 
the picture on glass would, after all, give us but the 
bare light and shade, with none of the varied tints of 
the hoary bearded rocks, their mossy nooks and 
crannies, the colours of the pendant climbing plants, or 
the play of the bright sunshine through the canopy 
of leaves, and among the dark rocky masses beneath. 
Apart from the natural beauty of this spot, its rocks 
and plants would afford a rich field for any geologist 
or botanist who might find his way so far from the 
haunts of civilised man. An armed party of six 
friendly Pepohoans came upon us as we were enjoying 
a bath and a swim in a clear deep pool. They were 
out on a fishing excursion ; and one old fellow was 
cleverly shooting his fish with an arrow, while the 
others were hunting for crabs among the rocks, twist 
ing off their legs, and devouring them shell and all 
alive. The younger members of the party caught fish 
by beating the water with a bamboo rod, and thus 
stupifying their prey. A tedious climb over a mountain 
path, that wound its way through the forest, brought 
us at last to a change of scene. 

Here the trees, many of them, were of gigantic 
proportions ; their great lateral branches striking out 
at a considerable altitude like the yards of a ship, from 
which hung a multitude of the bare stems of parasite 
plants, like cables and rigging flying adrift before the 
breeze. We noted a number of fine specimens of the 
camphor-tree, the largest about four feet in diameter, 
and rising to a great height straight as an arrow, with 
a slight taper and devoid of branches, till it reached 
the free air above. 

Besides there were interminable ratan plants, 



334 JNDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

passing in and out of the dense undergrowth ; and 
in a comparatively open space we fell in with a 
splendid lily, of great size and in full flower, the entire 
plant standing about twelve feet from the root. 
Orchids, too, were there in abundance, filling the air 
with their perfume on every side. From the summit 
of this hill we got a view of the central mountain chain. 
In the foreground, like huge billows rolling in upon 
the shore, were a series of parallel ranges of forest-clad 
hills, like the one on which we stood. Lalung was 
still hidden from sight, in a valley six miles off. A 
vapoury haze obscured the distant landscape, trans 
forming the mountains into broad masses of a deep 
blue, whose soft outlines gleamed beneath the rays of 
the now declining sun. A Pepohoan here joined our 
party ; he had travelled over the mountains from the 
other side of the island, and was now homeward 
bound. From him we learnt the existence of a fine 
harbour on the eastern shore, and he added that the 
tribes granted him a free pass over their territory on 
the payment of three bullocks. It was about four o clock 
when we entered Lalung ; this village stands on the 
bank of a broad river, now reduced to narrow dimen 
sions, and to be seen winding along some half a mile 
from its proper bank, which rose about sixty feet above 
the dry channel of the stream. But during the rains 
we were assured that the river swells to such a volume 
that it fills up this entire bed, and, as we have already 
seen, it is constantly forcing new passages for its over 
flowing waters through the lower hill lands near the 
western plain. This is evidently one of the great 
arteries of the drainage of the central mountains : and, 
if we take into account the vast altitude of those 



LAL UNG. 



335 



mountains, and the force of the torrents which make 
their way over the narrow plain, carrying with them, 
annually, immense quantities of ddbris that the sea 
continually throws back and deposits along the western 
shore, we shall probably get some insight into the way 
in which land is gradually being built up and re- 




LALUNG VILLAGE, INTERIOR OF FORMOSA. 

deemed from the ocean on the west, independently of 
the volcanic action still at work in certain quarters of 
the island. Thus probably we may account for the 
disappearance of the Taiwan harbour within the 
brief period of 200 years, as well as for the forma 
tion of Takow harbour further south. Perhaps no 



336 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

example can be found anywhere better than in 
Formosa of the power of water to transform the 
physical aspect of a country. In many places on that 
island no settled water-courses exist ; and thus the 
torrents, in the fearful impetus of their headlong rush 
down the mountain steeps, attack weak positions in the 
rocks and soils, and form new passages for themselves. 
On leaving the mountain top our course lay for an 
hour through the dry bed of a stream, cut through 
a black rock stratum, where we discovered traces of 
shale and coal. On reaching a small stream we found 
Mrs. Hong, who told us that her husband would put 
us up at the village. This lady was accompanied 
by a party of young savages, who carried tackle for 
fishing. Lalung village is only separated from the 
territory of the most purely savage aborigines by the 
stream which I have just described, and its inhabitants 
number about 1,000 souls. Hong we found from 
home ; but he soon returned, and informed us that 
Boon, his eldest son, had lately lost his wife, and was 
off to his savage kinsmen in the mountains to secure 
another bride. He was expected to return that night, 
and would be accompanied by an escort from his 
partner s tribe. Here, in these Pepohoan villages, I 
found the only instance I encountered of China 
men employing middle-men or brokers to deal with 
natives of the country. It seems that Pepohoans are 
very often used as go-betweens in the barter trade 
between the mountaineers and the Chinese ; for the 
latter, though they are great and patient traders, yet as 
a rule possess but little of the bold spirit of adventure, 
aud entertain a wholesome dread of these Highlanders. 
They are not without good grounds for their fears ; for 



PEPOHOAN HOSPITALITY. 337 

in one village at least, a missionary, who lately repaired 
thither, found the men adorning- their huts with skulls 
of their Chinese foes ; and the report goes that they 
are cannibals too. Strangely enough the weapons and 
ammunition used by the hill tribes to destroy wild 
animals, and Chinamen, are supplied by the Chinese 
themselves. 

Family ties, between the wild hill tribes and the 
Pepohoans, are kept up by constant intermarriage. 
The wedding ceremony is a simple one. The father 
of the lady merely takes his daughter by the hand and 
passes her over to her lord, and then there is a drink- 
in^-revel to conclude the rites. 1 In the old Dutch 

o 

accounts of the people it is said that the offer of a 
present by a suitor, and its acceptance by the lady, 
entitles the giver to be esteemed the legal husband, 
according to the rule Nuptias non conciibitus sed con 
sensus facit : and the marriage tie is with equal 
facility dissolved. Indeed it would almost seem as if 
the Free Lovers of America had borrowed their 
creed of inconstancy, and their fickle practices, from 
the unchivalrous Formosan tribes. 

Hong, having at length appeared, gave us a cordial 
welcome to his house, insisting on the sacrifice of a pig 
for the more perfect accomplishment of hospitable 
rites. The porker was therefore slaughtered before the 
door, and in the presence of a pack of half-starved 
hunting-clogs, that fought savagely over the drops of 
blood. 

My boy A hong set it down as his solemn belief 
that these people could not after all be classed as utter 

1 Sec for further information Natives of the \\~cst Coast of Formosa^ 
translated from an old Dutch work by Rev. Vv. Lobschcid. 



338 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

barbarians, for they clearly understood the use of roast 
hog. At this place I collected a number of old Pepo- 
hoan words, which appear in the vocabularies in the 
Appendix. 

Next morning- we resumed our journey under the 
guidance of Goona, the youngest son of our host. 
Goona was a pure young savage, full of laughter and 
frolic, wearing a crown of ferns on his head, and little 
else by way of clothing, so he could hardly have felt 
very hot. We were now descending a narrow path to 
the dry bed of the river, when our progress w r as 
arrested by a yellowish snake about seven feet long 
which shot out his head across our track. I struck 
him over the neck with a heavy bamboo staff which I 
had in my hand. On this the reptile rolled down the 
bank, and when we had completed the descent we 
found him again lodged beneath a boulder. Aided by 
one or two natives I managed to topple the mass over, 
and then our enemy made another dart forward, hissing, 
glaring with his fiery eyes, and quivering his forky 
tongue. I dealt another blow and dispatched him. I 
should have carried him off, but he was too big to be 
easily disposed of, so I left him to be devoured by the 
Pepohoans, who are said to be fond of snakes. I was 
anxious to cross the river, but was urged not to do so, 
as two men had been killed by a hostile tribe about a 
month before, just opposite where we stood. 

I obtained some good types of the aboriginal tribes 
in this quarter, and managed also to photograph the 
scenery. About tv r o o clock we set out again to walk to 
Lakoli, which lay some twelve miles off. At one 
place we crossed a small stream of strongly alkaline 
water, and here on the banks some alkali, soda or 



LAKOLT. 



339 



potash, had crystallised in such quantities as to re 
semble a recent fall of snow. The banks of the main 
stream now towered more than 200 feet above the dry 
bed, and alternating strata of clay and boulders could 
be distinctly seen. Before us we had a panorama of 
surpassing grandeur. The mountains rose up range 
above range covered with dense forest, and bathed in 
the purple light of sunset, their gigantic forms softened, 
and beautified by the foliage of the ancient forests. 
The attractions of this spot were as varied as they 
were beautiful. At one place a mountain stream, leap 
ing out of some dark chasm, tumbled in foam over the 
rocks, and was lost again in the forest ; and every 
where around us we could see that the same Power 
who clothed the stupendous mountains with a mantle 
of evergreen verdure, embroidered by the sunset with 
purple and gold, had not left the minutest fissure in the 
rocks without some special grace of its own : there, 
too, in flowers, ferns, and mosses, we found a modest 
world of microscopic beauty. 

The grandeur of this region during the wet season 
must baffle description. Then a thousand cataracts, 
veiled in vapour, and illumined with rainbow hues, 
leap from the mountain sides, roaring and tumbling in 
their downward course to the broad river. 

Before us, as in a peaceful vale, we could see the 
settlement of Lakoli a few rude dwellings, and a 
patch of tilled land, amid a jungle wilderness. In the 
fast-failing light we could just make out its hedges and 
areca-palms, its mango and langan-trees ; but ere long 
the darkness closed in around, and left us groping our 
way forwards at the outskirt of the hamlet. We could 
hear the sounds of wild music, laughter, and dancing ; 

z 2 



340 



INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



but there was no one to be seen until we fell in with 
the hut of one Kim-Siang, an old acquaintance of Dr. 
Maxwell. 

Here we met but a cool reception. The old man 
was laid up with the effects of rheumatism and opium- 
smoking, and we found a slave girl fanning him in an 
adjoining hut. His son, a fellow over six feet high, 
stood in front of the doorway of the cabin, and beside 
him was his wife, a woman from a friendly mountain 
tribe. Outside this abode hung festoons of deer-skulls 
and boar-heads that had been taken in the chase. When 
the father had finished his opium-pipe, he consented to 
allow us to occupy an outer shed for the night. 

Anxious to procure food, and a vessel in which to 
boil down my nitrate of silver bath to dryncss (pho 
tographers will know what is meant by the bath having 
struck work, and obstinately refusing to produce a 
picture), I made my way by torchlight to the hut of 
one La-liat/ an Amoy man, engaged here in barter 
traffic with the hill-tribes. We found little or no 
evidence of any goods in La-liat s abode. There was 
a table on the clay floor, and a taper flickering feebly 
in a cup of oil above it ; and here, in this cheerless 
dwelling, a boisterous party had gathered themselves 
together, and were engaged in smoking and drinking. 
Our entrance was but little noticed, and less appre 
ciated. They had nothing we wanted, not even a 
civil word. A drunken old woman staggered up with 
a teapot containing sam-shu, and offered to sell us the 
vessel, when she had first carefully exhausted its 
contents. Meanwhile La-liat, who had been sleeping 
on a sort of counter, woke up, recognised my friend, 
and agreed to trade. Strange to relate, in grateful 



AN APPARITION. 341 

remembrance of his former acquaintance with the 
Doctor, he supplied us with a dozen egg s and a brown 
jar, and then positively refused to accept payment, so 
that finally we had to force our money upon him. He 
also showed us raw camphor, skins, horns, boars tusks, 
ratan, and other wares, which he had obtained from a 
party of savages who had come down from their hunt 
ing-grounds to Lakoli the day before. In return for 
these goods he had supplied them with beads, turkey- 
red cloth, knives, and gunpowder. 

Our armed guide slept on a mat in the hut beside 
us, while A hong and I were engaged till about 2 A.M. 
boiling down my bath in the Chinese pot. It was a 
tedious job. First A hong slept as we sat before the 
fire ; then I slept ; then we both slept, and the fire 
went low, and had to be tended. I complained of my 
boy s sleeping, and immediately dozed off myself, and 
so on, until the whole liquid was evaporated. Once 
the alcoholic fumes, in passing off, caught fire ; then I 
heard a terrible shriek, and started up to find the 
scared face of a savage old woman glaring close to 
mine. She must have been placed there to watch us, 
and she vanished instantly into the darkness whence 
she had appeared. Ahong, disturbed in his sleep, 
caught sight of the apparition, and declared that it was 
the well, never mind what! But he did not rest 
quite so comfortably after that incident. I am not 
myself prepared to say what the old witch could have 
been, or how she vanished. She certainly looked 
haggard, hideous, and unearthly; and her (light, too, 
was as sudden and as noiseless as the puff of smoke 
which she jerked fiercely out from her short bamboo 
pipe. 



342 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Four hours rest, and we were up again by clay- 
light, and ready for the road. After the night s 
doctoring, my nitrate-of-silver bath gave every satisfac 
tion ; only the water which I used to dilute it was so 
extremely alkaline that I had to employ a goodly supply 
of Chinese vinegar to turn it slightly, to the acid side. 

As I must needs quit Formosa with this chapter, it 
will be necessary to summarise rny experiences from 
this point, and to condense my narrative within 
narrower limits. 

On the summit of the first range, on our homeward 
route, above Lakoli, in place of setting up my instru 
ments to photograph, I felt I would much rather have 
lain clown and slept ; but there was no time for that, 
as we had by the route we followed between twenty and 
thirty miles to walk before night, and a day s work of 
photographing to overtake besides. 

Dr. Maxwell was not feeling well ; he had, how 
ever, promised to be at Baksa next day to conduct the 
service in the chapel there, so we pushed on. At the 
foot of another range, on the brink of a clear cool 
stream, I secured two more photographs, and waited 
for a short time to admire a sedgy pool and to bathe 
our feet in its clear cool water. At our approach a 
myriad oi tiny fish dived for shelter beneath the 
pebbles. The surface was alive with strange insects, 
that shot like comets into the reeds ; while, perched on 
a broad leaf, sat a lusty toad, watching our movements 
with gentlemanly self-possession and gravity, and look 
ing as if he fully expected an apology for being thus 
interrupted at his morning toilet. The remainder of 
the clay s journey was almost an uninterrupted toil over 
hill and dale. 



ON THE ROAD. 343 

At noon we halted at a small village in front of a 
hut, where an old woman was selling fruit. Here a 
large party of Pepohoans in clothing that might have 
been decent, had it covered their nakedness assembled 
to see us eat ; and it must have been a very barbarous 
spectacle to them, for they groaned audibly and uttered 
strange ejaculations when they beheld us furiously 
devouring hard-boiled eggs and tea ; but the prevail 
ing expression on the faces of this cheaply-dressed 
crowd was that of low-bred animal curiosity. The 
satisfaction, however, of the bystanders could hardly 
have been excelled by that which we ourselves derived 
from the repast. The Doctor, as was his custom, 
conversed with the people, and prescribed for some 
who were sick. 

We came upon a large sheet of water at the place 
where we next halted, and there we swam about for 
some time. It was probably an imprudent thing, but 
it refreshed us for the moment. A few hours after this 
my friend became very ill, and had to lie down beneath 
the shade of some shrubs, in a place where there was 
not a drop of clear water to be procured for miles 
around. At his request, I gave him a dose of quinine 
and iron, and after an hour s rest we resumed our 
march. I took a picture of one of the deep dry clay- 
pits of this region, and had to proceed ten miles farther 
on before I could get a drop of water to wash the plate 
and finish the negative. It turned out one of my finest 
pictures nevertheless. 

On the hill above Baksa we halted at a hut, and 
were there regaled with a cup of pure honey. Descend 
ing the ridge which I described at starting my foot 
slipped, but fortunately I saved myself from the fearful 



344 INDO-CIlfNA AND CHINA. 

fall by clinging to the sharp edges of the rock, cutting 
my hands, however, badly in the accident. Need I 
say that when we reached the chapel at Baksa our rest 
that night was profound and refreshing. My friend, 
although feverish and ill, was still well enough to con 
duct the service next morning. All business at Baksa 
was suspended throughout that day, and there were 
more than three hundred apparently devout wor 
shippers at the little mission chapel. There is a 
school attached to this edifice, and there children and 
even adults are taught to read and write in the Amoy 
dialect of the Chinese language. 

One or two local airs had been adapted to our 
hymns, and there was something wild yet plaintive 
about them, like the sighing of the winds through 
their grand old forests, or the noise of the storms 
along their rocky coast. Apart from one or two 
such airs simple ballads handed clown from father 
to son the Pepohoans have no music and no musical 
instruments, so far as I know. They are extremely 
primitive in their habits too, practising no art save the 
tilling of the soil, and that in its rudest form. But 
there is one great charm about these untutored tribes, 
and this consists in their artless good faith and honesty. 
During the entire journey my boxes were frequently 
left open and unprotected, and yet I never lost the 
value of a pin. 

But I must now quit this island, remarkable no less 
for its beauty than for the hospitality of its simple in 
habitants. I afterwards travelled overland to Takow, 
for the purpose of visiting the haunts of the savages 
farther south ; but they were at war with the Chinese, 
and their territory could not be entered with safety. 



To face page 344. 



- 54 ip, 

OT 



H A K 



, ,, 

^^- 

- ^ 






AUTHORS 



aM * 




LAMBRAr /. . 



-. ^" ;.* <*<w 

A 



SOUTH-WESTERN FORMOSA. 



JAPANESE PROGRESS. 345 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Japanese in Formosa Cause of the Invasion The River Min 
Foochow Arsenal Chinese Gun-boats Foochow City and great 
Bridge A City of the Dead Its Inhabitants Beggars Thieves 
Lepers Ku-shan Monastery The Praying Bull The Hermit Tea 
Plantation on Paeling Hills Voyage up the Min Shui-kow An Up- 
country Farm Captain Cheng and his Spouse Yen-ping City 
Sacrificing to the Dead Shooting the Yen-ping Rapids A Native 
Passenger-boat. 

THE island kingdom of Japan is to all appearance 
destined to afford an unparalleled example of progress. 
She has indeed preferred, to quote Professor Tyndall s 
words, Commotion before stagnation, the leap of the 
torrent before the stillness of the swamp ; and we have 
just seen, in Formosa, how such leaping torrents in 
their impetuous courses cut out new channels in the 
mountain sides, spread fertility over the plains below, 
and even reclaim the land from the barren domain of 
the ocean with the ddbris which they sweep down. 

There is vigorous life, and hope, and high promise 
for the future, in the busy movement that is carrying 
Japan from darkness and semi-barbarism into the 
realms of civilisation and light ; and the impetus, if we 
mistake not, which she is gathering in her onward 
course, will clear away mighty obstacles, and check 
stagnation and decay in other quarters as well as her 
own. 



346 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

The invasion of Formosa by Japanese troops is a 
fact full of deep significance ; and more righteous 
grounds for such aggressive action it would be impos 
sible for any government to possess. Scores of Japa 
nese sailors, wrecked from time to time upon the For- 
mosan coasts, have there been plundered and murdered 
by the savage tribes ; and as these barbarities were 
perpetrated on Chinese soil, redress was applied for at 
Peking. The members of the Imperial Cabinet, in a 
moment of weakness moments of not unfrequent 
occurrence in Chinese state history appear to have 
conceded the right for the Japanese to proceed to 
Formosa and seek redress for themselves. 

It would be extremely interesting to know what 
share the aborigines of Formosa have really taken in the 
cold blooded massacres of castaways that have recently 
been reported from that island. It seems pretty clear 
that it was the Kalee tribes who put the crew 
of the Rover to death : at the same time it is equally 
certain that the murder of the captain and sailors 
of the Macto was perpetrated by Chinese villagers 
at Takow. 

If we are thus to believe that pure motives of 
humanity gave rise to this invasion of Formosa by the 
Japanese, it would be only just to award to the. Mikado 
and his ministers the highest meed of praise ; but, per 
haps, it ought to be borne in mind that the Japanese 
have not yet forgotten their ancient feuds against 
China, and still fall somewhat short of that almost un 
attainable pitch of national virtue, which would induce 
them to enter upon costly expeditions to redress out 
rages committed upon native crews. However the 
matter end, its results will, as I should anticipate, be 



THE RIVER MIN. 347 

advantageous. China may get off by paying the cost 
of the expedition a proceeding which, while it humbled 
her national vanity, would stir her up to imitate and 
rival Japan, so as, if possible, to outstrip her in the 
march of progress, from the sheer necessity of self- 
preservation ; and I have no hesitation in saying that 
China, petrified and stagnant as she is, and has been, 
for so many centuries, yet contains within herself all 
the material elements that will, one clay, win her a proud 
pre-eminence among the nations of the earth. 

Truth even now is busily at work loosening the 
earth about the ancient foundations of classical lore 
and superstition on which her venerable wall of fossil 
institutions is reared ; and that wall, ere long, will be 
lowered stone by stone, or overthrown with some vio 
lent shock, till a way has been opened across it for the 
purer institutions of progressive government. Should 
war be the alternative, it will probably only hasten the 
work of regeneration. 

I will now take leave of the island of Formosa, 
and cross again to the mainland of China, where, in the 
province of Fu-kien, I gathered some information re 
lating to the progress made by the Chinese in the arts 
of natural defence, and the construction of implements 
of war. 

The river Min, flowing through the heart of the 
Fu-kien province, is one of the main outlets for the 
drainage of the mountainous region where the cele 
brated Bohea hills stand, and is also the channel down 
which the produce of one of the richest tea districts in 
China is conveyed for exportation. The stream, how 
ever, although a broad one, is not navigable for large 
vessels beyond the town of Shui-Kow, which stands on 



343 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

its left bank at the foot of dangerous rapids one hun 
dred miles from the coast. 

The entrance to the Min by the south channel is 
nearly opposite to a group of islands known as the 
White Dogs. There are, however, two other channels 
now in use ; the most northerly between Sharp Peak 
Island and the mainland, and only available for vessels 
of light draught, while the middle channel, discovered 
quite recently, and to the south of Sharp Peak, has a 
breadth of about three-quarters of a mile, and is nearly 
three fathoms deep at low tide. The south channel is 
not quite so roomy, nor yet so direct, except for vessels 
trading south. 

A lighthouse now being built on the White Dogs 
will prove of great advantage to the port. The Kin- 
pai and Min-Ngan passes, through which the anchor 
age is gained, recalled the approaches to the Pearl 
River. 

The harbour is about thirty miles from the mouth 
of the river, and is wide enough to contain the entire 
merchant fleet of China. This spot is called Pagoda 
Anchorage, and takes that name from a small island 
crowned with an old pagoda, which forms a conspicuous 
object in the landscape. But for this purely Chinese 
edifice, one might readily suppose oneself transported 
suddenly to a scene on the river Clyde. There stand 
the houses of a small foreign settlement, and yonder are 
a dock, tall chimnies, and rows of workshops, whence 
the clang of steam-hammers and the hum of engines 
may be distinctly heard. Here, in fact, is the Foochow 
Arsenal, on a piece of level ground redeemed from an 
old swamp, and looking in the distance like an English 
manufacturing village. 



FOOCHOIV ARSENAL. 349 

But side by side with the residences on the hill, 
there is a crescent-shaped stone shrine of imposing 
proportions, designed to correct the Feng-shui, which 
has been seriously disturbed by the construction of an 
arsenal after a foreign type. 

This arsenal, like all the others on Chinese soil, 
was raised simply because the native authorities deemed 
it expedient to remodel their military equipments with 
all possible speed, and then Feng-shui, or the Geomantic 
luck of the locality, was treated with but scant con 
sideration. Feng-shui, indeed, had to yield to the stern 
necessity of the times, and was relegated to this very 
humble station on the hill-side, where the outraged 
terrestial dragon, and the no longer venerated tiger, 
may weep sympathetically over the evidences of a 
degenerate age. Thus we find that the most cherished 
superstitions of China are compelled to give way, so 
often as expediency may necessitate change. 

The latest news from this quarter brings the start 
ling announcement that since the landing of the 
Japanese troops telegraphic communication has actually 
been established between Foochow city and the coast : 
(the authorities also propose to lay a submarine cable, 
to connect Formosa with the mainland) ; and that 
the local authorities have inscribed notices on the 
telegraph posts that anyone who is caught doing 
damage to them will be severely punished. By steps 
like this the fanatic dread of the common people will 
readily be overcome ; for they account their scholarly 
mandarins much better judges of Feng-shui and its 
influences than they themselves can pretend to be. 
But let us visit the Chinese foreign arsenal. 

o 

The first building we enter, when we land, reminds 



35o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

us, by its lofty roof and general appearance, of a plain 
English railway-station. It is constructed of brick on 
a solid granite foundation, and is enclosed by a wall, 
which is also of granite, and which rises about five 
feet above the floor. Passing in through a spacious 
doorway we make our way along an iron avenue, lined 
on both sides with smith s forges, whose blast is supplied 
by steam. The engine which ministers to these forges 
has a driving-wheel of colossal proportions, and may 
also be seen quickening a row of steam-hammers, with 
forces mighty enough to forge a shaft for the biggest 
steamer afloat, or so delicate as to straighten a pin. 
Strange as it may appear, these giant tools, when first 
seen working, produced but little impression on their 
Chinese spectators. Whether it be that the celestials 
when brought face to face with any new wonder do not 
care to display vulgar emotion, or whether rather stolid 
apathy and indifference are national characteristics, it is 
difficult to decide ; but I well remember a lady expres 
sing her surprise to me, when she had landed in 
England with a Chinese nurse, who had never been in 
Europe before, to find the woman passing through 
London quite unmoved by all the marvels of that city, 
and stepping into a railway-carriage as if she had been 
accustomed to express trains all her life. She did, 
however, volunteer one remark, to the effect that it was 
too muchee fast pidjin, very good for Englishman, 
but too muchee bobbery for a Chinese gentleman. 

The next workshop we visit is as spacious as 
the preceding one, and contains the half formed 
skeleton of a mammoth engine for rolling out sheet 
iron and steel armour-plating for iron-clad ships. An 
iron driving-wheel, eighteen feet in diameter, is to be 



NATIVE MECHANICS. 351 

seen there propped up in position. We next cross a 
broad paved court, having a line of railway along one 
of its sides, used in conveying materials to the different 
workshops which run parallel to the rails and face the 
river. In these shops practical engineering and ship 
building in its various branches are being carried on ; 
and in one there is a sort of school, where mechanical 
drawing and modelling are taught by French masters. 
These instructors, all of them, remarked to me on the 
wonderful aptitude displayed by the Chinese in picking 
up a knowledge of the various mechanical appliances 
employed in the arsenal. Many of the men who are 
there working at the steam-lathes, and guiding the 
planing-machines, had two or three months before been 
ordinary field labourers ; and yet there they are now 
turning shafts, and planing iron plates to specified 
dimensions, as accurately as if they had been trained 
for years to the trade. 

In one apartment a powerful machine is punching 
rivet-holes in boiler-plates holes which, any one of 
them, would keep a native blacksmith drilling for half 
a clay, but which are here pierced in less than a second. 
In another department we found men at work making 
wooden patterns for iron castings, and others construct 
ing models of steam-engines, to be used in educating 
the pupils of this great training-school. 

There are indeed many admirable specimens of 
complicated work carried out solely from drawings ; the 
whole betokening a very advanced degree of skill and 
knowledge on the part of the workmen. All these 
results have been achieved under the guidance of 
European foremen. For my own part, from what I 
have seen in these arsenals, I firmly believe that when 



352 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

the Chinese find it convenient to throw off their grossly 
superstitious notions regarding foreign inventions and 
appliances, they will excel in all that pertains to the 
exact sciences, and in their practical application to the 
construction of machinery. Chinamen, as a rule, are 
careful, painstaking, and exact in their own occupations. 
Hence the facility with which the mere tiller of the 
soil can be trained, in such an establishment as this 
arsenal, till he becomes competent to take charge of an 
engine, where a single error in the handling of a lever, 
or turn of a screw, might at any moment cost him his 
life. Pupils in the arsenal or training-school are 
boarded and placed under efficient foreign masters. 
They are there taught to read and understand foreign 
books, and thus to ascertain for themselves that science 
is the true Feng-shui of foreign progress. No expense 
is spared to render the institution efficient. The man 
darins connected with the arsenal look with pardonable 
vanity at the steam gun-boats that have been built 
under their own eyes, and sent into commission from 
their own naval and ship-building yards. A gunboat 
had been launched from the patent slip a few days 
previous to our visit, and the sister vessel was already 
on the stocks. 

Proceeding on board the former, we are received by 
the Chinese captain and his lieutenant with great 
courtesy, and conducted all over the ship. This a 
nautical friend present pronounced to be an honest, 
solid, masterly piece of work throughout. The wood 
work of the cabin is simply varnished, and relieved 
with narrow gold mouldings. The officers cabin and 
mess-room are finished in the same unpretending, and 
yet not inelegant style ; and in the sailors quarter we 



CHINESE MARINES. 353 

notice that each seaman is supplied with a strong teak 
bunker, to hold his effects, and to serve him also instead 
of a couch or chair. 

This gun-vessel carries one huge Armstrong gun 
on her upper deck, and is to be fitted with the same 
weapons throughout. Her armament, therefore, will 
render her a formidable enemy to pirates, though not 
perhaps of much service in a combat with any Euro 
pean Power. 

Our next visit is to a vessel in commission lying off 
the arsenal, and manned throughout, from captain to 
cabin-boy, by an entirely Chinese crew. Stepping on 
deck from the gangway, we are saluted in military 
style by a Ningpo marine, who informs us, in tolerable 
English, that we shall find the captain in his cabin. 
The dress of this marine is admirable, consisting of a 
black turban, blue blouse, pantaloons with red stripe, 
and a pair of neat and strongly made native shoes. A 
well-kept belt fastens in the blouse at the waist, and 
supports also a cartouche-box and side-arms. 

An officer of marines next welcomes us on board, 
and says : 

S pose you likee, my can show you my drill 
pidjin, an offer which we gladly accept. My hab 
got two squab, one too muchee new, other olo, can 
saby drill pidjin/ He means to say that he has two 
squad, one well trained, and the other raw recruits. 
It wants still fifteen minutes to drill time, so, at the 
captain s request, we will take a peep into his cabin. 

In most respects this resembles that of some English 
gunboats ; but on a small table, supported by graceful 
brackets, we note a strange assortment of foreign 
nautical instruments spread around a small idol. This 

A A 



354 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

idol was the only visible token of native superstition, 
and was used in conjunction with the barometer and 
thermometer to avoid coming storms, or to find out 
lucky days for sailing. Nevertheless, everything 
around us bears unmistakable evidence of progress. 
Having partaken of wine with our hospitable enter 
tainer, we next return to the upper deck to see the 
marines at drill. The bugleman sounds to quarters, 
and the men, with Enfield rifles in their hands, fall, or 
rather tumble, into position, six or eight at a time. 
Then one, more dilatory than his fellows, pops his 
head out of a hatchway, in order to satisfy himself that 
his company could not be dispensed with, scrambles on 
deck as he drags himself into his blouse and pantaloons, 
and fixes his belt as he falls in. Some, too, have mis 
placed their rifles, but all have now fairly got into line, 
and all appear orderly enough until one unlucky fellow, 
feeling perhaps a sudden twinge of itch, drops his 
weapon to have a scratch. A comrade politely leaves 
the ranks to clear his throat over the side ; and so the 
drill proceeds, its forms seemingly well understood by 
most of the men, but its object, so far as we could 
judge, almost entirely ignored. Thus there is a 
marked absence of the discipline we always associate 
with naval or military training. Possibly they may 
have learned something of this stricter discipline within 
the past two years, for they have lately had an able 
European instructor resident at the arsenal, though in 
charge, more particularly, of the rising generation of 
naval cadets attached to the school. 

It had been reported that native workmen were 
making the chronometers and telescopes in use on 
board the gunboats ; so, to ascertain for ourselves how 



FOREIGN EMPLOYES AT THE ARSENAL. 355 

much the Chinese can accomplish in this way, let us 
visit their optical and horological departments. There 
we certainly see the native mechanics grinding and 
polishing lenses ; but they are lenses of the simplest 
character plano-convex, for the eye-pieces of teles 
copes and we could not learn that they have any 
notion how to produce the achromatised object-glasses, 
which are by far the most important part of the instru 
ment. In the same way, while they are capable of 
making some parts of the chronometer works, they do 
not yet understand its mechanism, nor have they 
appliances or knowledge to fit them to construct the 
chronometer throughout. 

The opticians make ships compasses, portions of 
sextants, and the brass work of other nautical instru 
ments. How they acquired these arts it is difficult to 
make out, as their foreign teacher confessed to his 
complete ignorance of their language. 

P. Gi^uel was the chief director of this establish- 

o 

ment, and to him the Chinese are mainly indebted for 
its success. It was no small achievement to have 
trained, within a limited time, the little colony of 
Chinese labourers to such a degree of perfection as to 
enable them to produce, with their own toil, a small 
fleet of well-built gunboats that would not dishonour 
our own ship-building yards at home. 

The Viceroy Tso, under whose auspices the arsenal 
was built, is also deserving of some credit, although he 
was not the first to see the need for a change in the 
construction of the warlike implements of his nation. 

The monthly expenditure of the whole establish 
ment is reported at about i7,ooo/. It appears that 
the authorities have recently discharged the foreign 



A A 2 



INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



employes, though what may have been their reason 
for this step, which happened just before the Japanese 
invaded Formosa, it is impossible for me to say. 

Foochow city, one of the great tea marts of China, 
stands about seven miles above the arsenal and the 
harbour where the vessels load tea. Of all the open 




UPPER T5RIDGR, FOOCilOW. 



ports this is perhaps the most picturesque, and its 
stone bridge of ten thousand ages proves that the 
ancient Chinese, had they so chosen, might have left 
monuments behind them more worthy of their civilisa 
tion and prowess than their great unwieldy wall 
monuments which would have shed a gleam of truth 
across the obscure pages of their bygone history. This 



FOG CHOW FOREIGN SETTLEAfENT. 357 

bridge was erected, it is said, about 900 years ago, and 
displays no pretensions to ornamentation except in its 
stone balustrade. It is indeed evident that its builders 
had convenience and durability alone in view ; and 
the masses of solid granite then employed, still but 
little injured by the lapse of time, bear high testimony, 
in their colossal proportions, to the skill of the ancient 
engineers who raised them up out of the water, and. 
placed them in position on the stone piers above. 
The bridge is fully a quarter of a mile in length, and 
the granite blocks which stretch from pier to pier are 
some of them forty feet long. 

The foreign settlement is separated from Foochow 
city by the great bridge, and by a small island which 
here rises in the middle of the stream, The site was 
formerly that of an old Chinese burial-ground, and 
abundant disputes arose in consequence when plots 
had to be purchased for the erection of houses, the 
natives being loath to see the dwellings of living * foreign 
devils erected over the resting-places of their own 
hallowed dead. But money, which exercises as potent 
an influence here as elsewhere, procured a solution of 
the difficulties : even the spirits of the departed were 
to be consoled by timely offerings at their shrines ; 
and so now, on these hills, the dust of the long-forgotten 
dead is trodden under foot by the hated foreign in 
truder, and mingles with the roses with which his 
garden is adorned. Even the tombs have, some of 
them, been turned to account. Living occupants have 
entered into joint tenancy with the silent inhabitants 
who repose beneath, and pigs or poultry may be seen 
enjoying the cool shade and shelter which the ample 



358 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

granite gravestone supplies. But I need not give any 
detailed description of the foreign residences at Foo- 
chow. The reader knows nearly all about them 
already, if he has ever chanced to dwell in a house of 
not quite modern date, such as is to be seen not un- 
frequently in Surrey, surrounded by an acre or two 
of garden ground. The furniture and accessories are 
as nearly European as they can be beneath an almost 
tropical sun. But as for the crowd of spacious offices 
away down near the river, I have no doubt that a 
whole volume might be written about them, and about 
the mysteries of the tea-trade carried on beneath their 
roofs. The residents form a very agreeable commu 
nity. Petty feuds, of course, occur among them, as 
they have abundance of leisure on their hands when 
the tea season is over ; but, as a rule, they employ 
their spare time much more wisely than in idle local 
squabbles, and seek healthful recreation among the 
mountains and glens of the province. The only regret 
I experienced, when I quitted Foochow, was that I 
could not prolong my stay there. 

This notice of the graves in the foreigners quarter 
may be supplemented by some account of the living 
tenants to be met with in a city of the dead close by ; 
but before proceeding to describe the condition of these 
wretched beings, it may be as well to give the reader a 
notion of the condition of the poor in Foochow. 

In China the beggar pursues his calling unmolested, 
and has even won for himself a protection and quasi- 
recognition at the hands of the civic authorities. The 
fact is, that the charitable institutions of the country 
cannot cope with a tenth part of the misery and desti 
tution that prevails in popular localities. No poor 



BEGGARS. 



359 



law is known, and the only plan adopted to palliate 
the evil is to tolerate begging in public, and to place 
the lazaroni under the local jurisdiction of a responsible 
chief. In Foochow the city is divided into wards, and 
within the limits of each ward a head-man is appointed, 
able to trace his descent from a line of illustrious 




THE KING OF TtK BEGGARS. 



beggar-chiefs who, like himself, exercised the right to 
keep the members of their order under their own 
management and control. 

During my stay in Foochow I was introduced to 
one of these beggar kings ; he was an inveterate opium- 
smoker, and consequently in reduced circumstances. 
I afterwards visited the house of another head-man, 



360 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

and was much struck with the many evidences of 
comfort and affluence with which he was surrounded. 
His eldest son received me at the entrance, and con 
ducted me into a guest s chamber ; and while I was 
seated there two ladies, dressed in silks and with a 
certain degree of refinement in their air, passed the 
door of the apartment in order to steal a glimpse at its 
inmate. These were the chief and the second wives 
of this Lord of the Lazaroni, who was himself unfor 
tunately absent on business. 

Beggar chieftains of this kind have it in their power 
to make an agreement with the business men of the 
streets in their respective wards, under which they levy 
a kind of poor-rate for the maintenance of themselves 
and their subjects. A composition thus entered into 
exempts the streets or shops whereon the chief has 
placed his mark from the harassing raids of his tattered 
troops. Woe betide the shopman who has the courage 
to refuse his dole to these beggars ! The most loath 
some and pertinacious specimens of the naked tribe 
will be dispatched to beset his shop. Thus, while 
walking along one of the best streets in the city, I 
myself saw a revolting, diseased, and filthy object 
carried on the shoulders of another member of the 
fraternity, who marched into a shop and deposited his 
burden on the polished counter, where the tradesman 
was serving customers with ornaments for shrines and 
food for the gods. The bearer, with cool audacity, 
proceeded to light his pipe and smoke, until he had 
been paid to remove the cripple. A still worse case 
was narrated to me by an eye-witness. A silk-mercer 
had refused to contribute his beggar s-rate, and accord 
ingly received a domiciliary visit from a representative 



A CITY OF THE DEAD. 361 

of the chief. This intruder had smeared his bare body 
with mud, and carried a bowl slung with cords, and 
filled with foul water to the very brim. Having taken 
up his stand in the shop he commenced to swing this 
bowl round his head without, indeed, spilling a drop of 
its contents, yet so that, had anyone attempted to 
arrest his arm, the water would have been distributed 
in a filthy shower over the silks piled upon the counter 
and shelves. 

But there is still another and a worse class of 
beggars outlaws who own allegiance to no prince or 
power on earth and these were the men whom I visited 
and found dwelling in the charnel-houses in a city of 
the dead. Many of the little huts in this dismal spot 
were built with brick and roofed with tiles. They 
contained coffins and bodies placed there to await the 
favourable hour for interment, when the rites of Feng- 
shui might be duly performed, and the remains laid to 
rest in some well-situated site, where neither wind nor 
wave would disturb their sacred dust. But poverty, 
death, distress, or indeed a variety of causes, not un- 
frequently intervene to prevent the surviving relatives 
from ever choosing this happy site and bringing the 
final ceremonies to a consummation; and thus it comes 
to pass that the coffins lie forgotten and moulder into 
dust, and the tombs are invaded by the poor out 
casts, who there seek shelter from the cold and rain, 
creeping gladly to slumber into the dark corners of a 
sepulchre, and then most happy when they most imitate 
the dead. 

On my first visit to this place I recollect being 
attracted to an ominous-looking tomb by hearing some 
one moan there. It was growing dark, and I may 



362 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

have, perhaps, felt a little superstitious as I peeped in 
and beheld what seemed to be an old man clad in rags 
too scant to cover his bony frame. He was fanning a 
fire made up of withered branches, but he was not the 
only tenant ; there was a coffin there, too, looming out 
from the darkness within, and I almost fancied he was 
the ghost of its owner. But no ! there was no mistaking 
the moan of suffering humanity. The cold wind was 
chilling his thin blood, and racking his joints with pain. 
Administering some temporary relief, which made the 
old man smile like a grinning figure of Death, and 
passing on to a tomb where I could hear sounds of 
mirth, I found four inmates inside, the members of a 
firm of beggars. I visited them again next morning, 
and came upon the group at breakfast. The head 
man a lusty, lazy, half-naked lout was standing in 
front of the entrance enjoying a post-prandial pipe, 
and he offered me a smoke with the air of a Chinese 
gentleman. After this he invited me in to inspect the 
interior, where his partners were busily engrossed with 
chopsticks and bowls of reeking scraps collected on 
the previous day. They were chatting noisily, too, 
forgetful of their cares, and of the coffins that sur 
rounded them. One, the jester of the party, was 
seated astride a coffin, cracking his jokes over the skull 
of its occupant. The repast concluded, they had to 
adjust their counterfeits of disease and deformity, and 
to map out their pilgrimage for the day. One of the 
fellows made a good thing of it by acting the religious 
devotee, and driving an axe into his skull ; another 
carried on a brisk trade in a loathsome skin disease ; 
while a third was daily lame from birth ; thus, with 
ingenuity that might have earned them more honest 



THE MA-QUI. 363 

livelihoods, even in a land where it is difficult for the 
poor, however industrious, to subsist at all, they sup 
ported a miserable existence by artful dodges and im 
posture. The coffins, sprinkled with a little straw and 
rubbish, formed their seats and beds. 

While at Foochow, after visiting the beggars, I 
thought I might as well see what the detectives are 
like. These men are commonly known as the * Ma- 
qui or * Swift as horses, and are attached to the 
yamens of the local authorities, receiving a small 
stipend out of the Government supplies, but obtaining 
the bulk of their earnings from persons who seek to 
recover stolen goods, or even from the thieves them 
selves. 

The Ma-qui is supposed to know personally all the 
professional robbers of his district ; and one wishing to 
recover his property from the thieves must make a 
liberal offer to the Ma-qui, at least one half the value of 
the articles lost : failing this, it is probable that he will 
never hear of his goods again, unless indeed direct 
and secret communication can be opened with the 
thief himself, who, as he will not in that case have to 
share his gains with the detective, can afford to take a 
smaller profit on his labour. But transactions of this 
kind are generally effected through the Ma-qui, who 
simply acts as a broker, and takes his percentage from 
both sides. Should the thieves refuse to yield up the 
property at the price he offers, they run the risk of 
being imprisoned and tortured. I photographed a 
thief who had just escaped from gaol ; he had been an 
unprofitable burglar, a bad constituent of the Ma-qui, 
and was accordingly triced up by the thumbs until the 
cords had worn the flesh away and left nothing but the 



364 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

bare bones exposed. It was tolcl ot this detective, 
who might more appropriately be called the chief of 
the thieves, that he, one clay, fell in with an old thief 
whom he had known and profited by in former times, 
but who was now respectably clad, and striving to lead 
an honest life. He at once had the man conveyed to 
prison, and there, in order to impress upon him the 
danger to which he exposed himself in falling into 




AN UNFORTUNATE THIEF. PUNISHMENT OF THE CANGUE. 

honest ways, suspended him by the thumbs, stripped 
off his clothes, and discharged him with one arm put 
out of joint. When a thief is not in the profession, 
and cannot be discovered, the Ma-qui is liable to be 
whipped. He then whips his subordinates, and they in 
turn whip the thieves. Should this^ plan fail, it is 
reported that the police have been whipped, and that 
the stolen property cannot be found. 



A LRPRR VILLAGE. 365 

A word about leprosy, and the leper villages of 
the Chinese. This disease not an uncommon one in 
China may be seen in a variety of its loathsome forms 
in the public streets of almost every city, including 
our own colony at Hongkong ; and at the latter 




FOOCIIOW LEPERS. 



place, in the early morning, I have passed a dozen 
lepers together, begging in the open thoroughfares for 
bread. It is to be hoped that, by this time, such poor 
outcasts from society have been provided with some 
asylum wherein to hide the visible death that is rapidly 



366 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

eating up their frames. In Penang, too, there was 
formerly a spot where the lepers loved to congregate, 
on a patch of green turf beneath a wide-spreading 
green tree ; and in the very same place, when the lepers 
were absent, I have seen native nurses and European 
children at play. This disease however is held not to 
be infectious by many Asiatics, as well as by a number 
of European physicians who have had to prescribe for 
sufferers ; and, for my own part, I am inclined to adopt 
their view. It has also been proved that the malady, 
although to a certain extent hereditary, will at last die 
out of a family. Thus in the Canton leper village 
there are direct descendants of lepers, now alive, who 
are entirely free from the disease ; and in the leper 
settlement at Foochow I was informed that the inhabi 
tants were permitted to marry, and rear families ; and 
the statement was evidently true, for we found there 
many parents surrounded by healthy children, some of 
whom, though they had reached maturity, were still 
free from the fearful blight that had fallen on the 
wretched community around. 

The village to which I allude is a walled enclosure, 
standing about a mile beyond the east gate of the city ; 
and on February 25, 1871, I set out with the Rev. Mr. 
Mahood, to pay a visit to this asylum. It was now 
about four in the afternoon ; a drizzling rain had 
already set in, and a sudden darkness overcast the 
heavens as we entered the gate of the village. The 
dreariness of the weather, and the gloominess of the 
gathering clouds overhead, intensified the wretchedness 
of the scene ; and we were soon surrounded by a crowd 
of men, women, and children, some too loathsome to 
bear description, and all clamouring for alms to buy 



FOOCHOW CITY. 367 

food to sustain their miserable lives ; nor did their im 
portunity cease until the governor of the place, himself 
a leper, came out to keep his subjects in order. 

It would appear that the original idea of the institu 
tion had been lost sight of, and that it is now made as 
much the means of extorting money from wealthy 
lepers as of conferring a boon upon the community by 
keeping the leprous shut up, and cut off from contact 
with the outer world. The poor among them, who are 
unable to pay for their own maintenance, are allowed a 
nominal annual sum by government, sufficient to sup 
port them probably one month .out of twelve, and for 
the rest they are daily sent adrift into the public high 
ways, and I believe, as in the case of ordinary beggars, 
certain shops and streets may unite together and pur 
chase freedom from their most objectionable visits. 
This little settlement numbered something over 300 
souls, and had once contained a theatre for the amuse 
ment of its inhabitants, but that edifice had long fallen 
into decay. The streets, however, looked wonderfully 
clean, and the houses, many of them, partook of the 
same charm. The inmates not unfrequently were 
engaged in occupations of divers kinds, but the bulk of 
the population were quite unable to work, as their 
fingers were either partly or entirely gone. The most 
surprising feature in the whole village was the wonder 
fully cheerful aspect of a considerable portion of its 
occupants ; who, though cut off in a great measure 
from social intercourse with the outside world, yet 
manifested a tender and grateful attachment to the 
flowers which they reared with constant care round the 
doors and windows of their cabins flowers which 
blossomed in return with ungrudged beauty and sweet- 



368 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

ness, breathing their simple perfume as lavishly in 
these sepulchres of the living, as in the proud gardens of 
the rich. 

The streets of Foochow are so similar to the streets 
of all the other cities of Southern China as to require 
no description here. Foochow, too, has its parade- 
grounds, its yamens, its temples, and its pagodas ; all 
of great importance to the citizens themselves, and of 
comparatively little interest to the stranger from out 
side ; unless to one who wishes to make himself 
acquainted with an endless variety of dry details as to 
religion, Feng-shui, or local jurisdiction ; none of which 
subjects could possibly be digested into a volume of 
such dimensions as mine. I will therefore only remark, 
as I quit the town, that the visitor must not fail to 
observe the oysters oysters which are not only very 
good, but very remarkable, too, in their way. It may 
be said that a bamboo rod is not the native climb of 
that highly-prized shell-fish ; and yet, in the main 
thoroughfares at Foochow, one finds an endless array 
of fish-stalls, where oysters are served out to passing 
customers ; and these oysters are grown in clusters on 
bamboo rods, stuck into the beds at the proper season, 
pulled up again when mature, and brought in this 
fashion to market. The Foochow oyster-shells, unlike 
our own, which are of nearly uniform mould, follow no 
law in this respect ; but each oyster shapes its dwelling 
to suit its own tastes or requirements : thus the jagged 
and irregular bamboo clusters have no two shells alike. 

o 

There are a number of trades which are peculiar to 
this city, and among the most interesting is that , of 
the lamp-maker. One lamp, of a very pretty though 
rather fragile kind, is made up of thin rods of glass set 
so closely together as almost to imitate basket-work. 



YUAN-FU MONASTERY. 369 

The light shines through these rods with a very effec 
tive lustre ; and though no lamps of the sort, so far as 
I know, have yet been introduced into this country, 
they would form very attractive novelties at a garden 
fete. 

There are many charming resorts in the vicinity of 
Foochow, but to my mind Fang-Kuang-Yen-tien- 
chiian, better known as the Yuan-fu monastery, is 
the most fascinating of them all. It was my good 
fortune to visit that retreat as the guest of a foreign 
merchant who made up a party for a cruise on the 
Yuan-fu branch of the river Min. Two private yachts 
were manned and fitted for the trip ; and in these, at 
midnight, we started from Foochow. The tide was on 
the ebb, and when we awoke next morning we found 
ourselves at anchor, with Pagoda Island still in 
view. 

Intense cold, with drifting sleet, made the prospect 
ahead unpromising. The bold mountains, known to 
the natives as the Wu-hu or five tiger range, were 
wrapped in a thin veil of now gradually-lifting mist ; 
but it was nearly mid-day before the last shred of 
vapour had withdrawn from the rugged overhanging 
crag which has been called the * Lover s Leap. 
Those five tigers are supposed to exercise some geo- 
mantic influences on Foochow city, which lies to the 
north of the range ; and, in order to counteract this 
effect, a corresponding number of stone lions have been 
erected, and may yet be encountered, in one of the main 
streets of the town. 

The mountains rise to a considerable altitude about 
this part of the river, and terminate in bold rocky cliffs ; 
but beneath, wherever an available patch of soil is to 

i* B 



370 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

be found, it has been terraced and cultivated up to the 
very face of the rocks. A walk along the bank, or a 
climb among the crags, is amply repaid by a thousand 
charming details of form and colour. There are ferns 
and flowers in multitudes ; stately pines, and beetling 
precipices over which clustering bamboos wave their 
graceful plumes. Here a quaint rock, gray-headed 
with lichen, and bearded with ferns, looks like some 
giant reclining on the mossy bank ; and there is a bank 
of turf, more rich than any cloak of velvet that I ever 
saw, and embroidered with a thousand gay wild flowers. 
In that clell yonder a slight effort of fancy, and a few 
glancing fire-flies, might introduce us to some fairy 
revel. It is a dim retreat, shaded by an archway of 
ferns. An old branch spans a fissure in the rock, and 
there imagination plants some grim-faced goblin, blowing 
music from his elfin horn on a summer s eve for a 
thousand dainty figures that dance upon the floor 
below. But the place felt damp and disagreeable, 
although it presented a pleasant scene. 

Two days were thus spent amid a ceaseless diver 
sity of grand river and mountain scenery ; and on the 
third morning, at a short distance above the first rapid, 
we landed to make the journey to Yuan-fu monastery. 
My friends had brought their sedans and bearers with 
them ; as for me, I hired one at the nearest village ; 
my clog, as was his custom, at once scrambling inside, 
and stowing himself comfortably beneath the seat. The 
chair, being intended for mountain use, was small, so 
that I had to sit in a cramped and awkward posture. 
When ascending steep parts of the path the bearers 
purposely made the swinging motion so irksome that I 
had to o et out and threaten to send them back, inform- 



THE ASCENT. 371 

ing them further that, as I had no intention of staying 
outside and walking, they might as well stop their 
jolting and earn their hire. 

This is an old dodge of the chair coolies. In all 
mountainous regions they pretend, as they climb some 
steep place, that the jolting cannot be avoided ; but my 
threat had the desired effect of rendering the ascent 
easy as far as the chair could be used. At one spot 
there is a flight of 400 steps (I had the curiosity to 
count them as our progress was slow), and this brought 
us to the entrance of the ravine overlooked by 
the monastery, which was also perhaps the most 
romantic bit of scenery t3 be encountered there. Above 
these steps the path winds beneath a forest, and around 
a rich undergrowth of ferns and flowering shrubs, and 
finally seems suddenly to terminate in a cave. This 
cave in reality forms the passage through which the 
dell is approached. A small idol stood at the foot of 
the rocks, on the right of the entrance, and there was 
incense burning before its shrine. 

On the stone walls of the natural tunnel, and on 
every striking rock, there were also a number of ancient 
incised inscriptions, out of which the following may be 
selected as a fair specimen of the whole : The scenery at 
this place is equal to that where the genii dwell. Other 
inscriptions are nothing more than the names of pious 
visitors to the temple above. Passing through beneath 
the rock, which here rises in a gigantic precipice on 
the hill-side, we emerged from the darkness of the 
tortuous passage into, what looked like, a tropical dell 
of palms, and seemed, in a few steps, to have passed 
from a temperate latitude into some southern clime. 
But the broad leaves that spanned the ravine were 



372 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

nothing more than huge ferns. Bending back, and 
looking upwards through the foliage to catch a glimpse 
of the sky, I could see nothing save the bright colours 
of a curious building standing out against a dark cavern 
which overhung the ravine. As we ascended a narrow 

o 

path cut in the face of the rocks, we obtained a full 
view of the monastery, perched upon a huge boulder 
above our heads, and overshadowed by a grove of 
stalactites which hung down like pointed ornaments 
from the vaults of some cathedral roof. Never had I 
seen, nor ever dreamt of seeing, any edifice so strange 
as this. There it stood, with its broad eaves, carved 
roofs, and ornamental balustrades, propped up on the 
face of a precipice 200 feet in height, and resting above 
this awful abyss, on nothing more durable than a slender- 
looking framework of wooden beams. 

The outer edge of the limestone dome was fringed 
with drooping plants that stood out in bright patches 
of sunlight against the gloom of the cavern beneath. 
I remained in this monastery for some days, while my 
friends returned at once to Foochow. There were 
only three monks in residence here ; one a mere boy 
full of fun, the second an able-bodied youth, and lastly, 
the abbot, who was old, infirm, and blind. I was ac 
commodated with an apartment commanding a good 
view of the valley far beneath, and built out of thin 
pine planks, plastered over with lime. Inside this 
chamber were a pine table, a pine chair, and a pine bed, 
and on the latter the same unyielding wooden pillow 
which forms its usual cheap, and durable, appurtenance. 
As for the bedstead itself, it was a kind of square cho 
colate-coloured well of wood; and in this unluxurious con 
trivance I had to pass the nights, which here were ex- 



BUDDHIST RITES. 373 

tremely cold. My coolies slept in the apartment 
beneath, packed together like sardines, to keep them 
selves warm. Every evening-, at about sunset, my 
friends, dressed in their yellow canonicals, went up into 
the temple to pray. One knelt to the right, the other 
to the left, of a small altar, and the third took up his 
place between the two ; and then they serenaded their 
gods, to the monotonous accompaniment of the usual 
Buddhist instruments. The fervour of a long-winded 
prayer was much impaired in my eyes when I found 
that it was meaningless mummery to the young devotee 
who chanted it. After a time the latter got up and 
exercised himself, by striking a huge bell with a wooden 
mallet. Not content with this, he next attacked a 
monstrous but unoffending drum with equal vigour, 
saying some hard things about it under his breath the 
while ; and thus ended this worship, the old monk 
striding out again into the court, and looking to me 
blinder than he could ever have known himself to be. 

At dawn I was awoke by the repetition of the same 
noisy rites. The mornings were dark and chilly, and 
the opposite mountains looked like a mammoth figure, 
asleep in a very damp place, the heavy fleecy clouds 
resembling a covering that left half the recumbent 
body exposed. The black pines nodded and creaked 
dismally, and the bamboos bent till I thought they 
would break, in the blast that swept the valley. 

On one of the altars I saw an image known as 
the Laughing Buddha, the god of longevity ; and 
before this jovial-looking idol, a sort of joss-stick time 
piece had been set up. This time-piece consists of a 
series of thin fire-sticks, placed parallel to each other, 
over a flat clay bed contained in a box of bronze. 



374 JNDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Each stick will burn for twelve hours, and a fresh one 
is ignited when the one already burning is about to 
expire. Thus the time of day, or night, might be as 
certained at a glance. This fire, like the vestal fires 
of Rome, so the old monk assured me, had been 
smouldering uninterruptedly for untold years before he 
came to the place. 

Ku-Shan, or Drum Mountain, stands about seven 
miles below Foochow, and forms part of a range that 
there rises abruptly out of the level cultivated plain. 
The mountain enjoys a wide celebrity, as the great 
* Ku-Shan monastery is built in a valley near its 
summit, on a site said in ancient times to have been 
the haunt of poisonous snakes or dragons, able to dif 
fuse pestilence, raise up storms, or blight the harvest 
crops. 

One Ling-chiau, a sage, was entreated to put a stop 
to these ravages ; so the good man, repairing to the 
pool in which the evil serpents dwelt, recited a ritual 
called the Hua-yen treatise, before which, like wise 
serpents, they took instant flight. It must indeed have 
been a powerful composition, for not even deadly snakes 
would risk a second recital ; and the Emperor, hearing 
of the miracle, erected the Hua-yen monastery on the 
spot in the year 784. 

The establishment, though repeatedly destroyed, 
has been constantly rebuilt on its original foundations, 
receiving considerable additions from time to time, 
until at the present day it accommodates 200 monks. 

The ascent from the plain is a steep and tedious 
one, but many picturesque views of the surrounding 
country are to be obtained en route, and we reach the 
monastery itself at length, through a grove of ancient 
pine-trees, 2,500 feet above the level of the sea. 



KU-SHAN. 



375 



The entire establishment covers a large area, re 
sembling 1 , in this respect, the great Lamasary at Peking, 
and forming indeed by far the most prosperous and 
extensive Buddhist monastery I have seen in the 
south of China. Inside the main entrance sit four 
colossal images of the protectors of the Buddhist faith, 




TWO OF THE GUARDIAN S OF 1UIDDIIA, KU-SHAX MOXASTKRY. 

and two of these the reader may see reproduced in the 
accompanying illustration. Ku-Shan monastery, like al 
most all such edifices in China, is made up of three 
great detached buildings, set one behind the other, in a 
spacious paved courtyard ; and, opening inwards from 



376 INDOCHINA AND CHINA. 

the walls which surround this enclosure, we may 
see the apartments of the monks. At this shrine a 
number of relics of Buddha are shown, and it is said 
that they annually draw crowds of weary pilgrims from 
afar. Sacred animals, too, are maintained in the 
grounds ; and if there be any member of the brute 
creation that has shown more than usual instinct, it 
will find a welcome reception here. At the time of my 
visit to the place the most interesting of the sacred 
creatures was a praying bull. This bull, so the story 
goes, was being one day conveyed by its owner to the 
slaughter-house, when, bursting its bonds, it rushed off 
down the streets of the city, and never drew breath 
till it reached the Governor- General s yamen, at the 
moment when his Excellency was stepping into his 
sedan. Then, falling on its knees before the represen 
tative of the Imperial throne, this long-horned suppliant 
was heard to utter a short prayer for mercy. The 
governor, mute with amazement, could only motion to 
his retainers to remove the animal, and they forthwith 
conveyed it to the monastery, where it has ever since 
luxuriated in a sort of bovine paradise, with no Damo- 
clean pole-axe to dread. A story afterwards got abroad 
that this venerated bull, when it charged the Governor s 
yamen, had really been tripped up by the steps there, 
but this can be nothing more than a scandalous inven 
tion got up by the impious, and we only notice the 
report to condemn it. 

The Three Holy Ones, the chief images of every 
Buddhist temple, were here as conspicuous as usual in 
the central shrine ; each figure being in this instance 
more than thirty feet in height, and rising up behind 



THE HERMIT. 



377 



the customary altar bespread with candelabra and 
votive offerings of various sorts. 

I remained three days in this place, and occupied 
some of my leisure in visiting the rooms of the priests, 
one among them more frequently than the rest. 




THE KU-SHAN HERMIT. 



Having mounted the ladder by which access to this 
chamber was to be gained, we entered a bare apartment, 
lit by a small window above, and furnished with a deal 
table and a chair. Within I was always- certain to 
discover some member of the order, improving himself 



378 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

by sitting-, like an image, meditating on the precepts of 
his sect, and at long intervals tolling a bell suspended 
in a tower above. 

Then again, away some distance from the central 
temple, in one of the many beautiful avenues on the 
mountain-side, was a water-bell, that could be heard 
tolling there, night and clay; and just below the little 
shrine to which this bell was consecrated, a deep dark 
glen wound its way beneath the thick shade of a wood, 
and between rocky precipices that walled it in on either 
side. Against the foot of one of these rocks a small 
hut had been constructed. One day I ventured within 
it, and found a Buddhist image set up on a stony ledge 
inside. I was thinking it was about the finest thing 
of the sort I had seen for some time, when the head 
moved forward, the limbs unbent, and the idol de 
scended from its perch Verus incessu patnit Deus ?. 
No, I can hardly venture to affirm so much of this 
bald-headed, yellow-robed god. 

Tsing, tsing, sir, good morning ; what side you 
come ? was his greeting as he lighted on the ground. 
Less awe-stricken than might perhaps have been ex 
pected, I returned the enquiry, and asked : What side 
you come ? to which his response was quickly vouch 
safed : Long time my got this side. This, then, was 
the hermit, of whom report had said so much. It 
turned out that he had been an Amoy trader, and after 
years of strife with the world, had come to end his 
days, and repent of his sins, within this mossy dell. 
At the water-bell shrine there was a most unholy and 
very tall raw-boned priest, who, after we had inspected 
the miraculous water-wheel, and listened to the dreary 
tones of the bell, followed us everywhere up and down, 



THE ISLAND TEMPLE. 379 

demanding a present which his displeasing pertinacity 
determined us to withhold. Buddhists do not take life, 
otherwise this cadaverous-looking fellow who pestered 
us for money would gladly have sacrificed mine. 

Among the other temples in the neighbourhood of 
Foochow one of the most striking is The Island 
Temple, which covers the entire surface of a small 
islet about eight miles from the city. This shrine is 
dedicated to the Queen of Heaven/ a deity worshipped 




THE ISLAND TEMPLE, RIVER MIN. 

by the boating population on the river Min. A ban 
yan-tree grows upon the islet, so as partly to shade the 
shrine ; and it is supposed that the shrub depends 
solely for its nourishment upon the bounty of the god 
dess, for its roots are rivetted to all appearance in the 
solid stone. 

The nearest tea-plantations, in this province, are in 
the Paeling Hills, about fifteen miles north of Foochow. 
These I visited in company as the guest of two of my 



380 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Foochow friends. We put up at a small temple on 
one of the farms, and made a three days stay in the 
locality. Here some foreigners, who had visited the 
district before us, had imparted a very limited and con 
fused acquaintance with the English tongue to the 
priest who presided at the shrine. It therefore startled 
us, when we approached the edifice, to be met by this 
ragged follower of Buddha, evidently proud to parade 
his knowledge of our language, with the salutation : 
* Good morning, can do ! you bet ! Can do what, we 
enquired ; but alas ! our friend s vocabulary was limited 
to this single phrase. He said he had forgotten all 
the rest, and perhaps he had no great need to bemoan 
his loss. 

The clouds lay like a wet blanket on the hills 
throughout the whole of our stay. It was in vain each 
morning that we looked for a gleam of sunshine, as we 
watched the vapour lifting before the wind, and then 
falling into its old position once more. Nevertheless, 
we inspected the farms as well as the fog and rain 
would allow, and noticed the curious effects of the mist 
as it lay in pools in the valleys, or parted in fleecy 
windows, through which glimpses of the bright sunny 
plain and the villages far below might be descried. 
And yet at other times, as we looked back along 
the steep path, we could but just make out the 
heads and shoulders of our coolies, toiling through a 
wreath of cloud that wrapped their feet in mist, and 
struggling onward with their burdens up hill. 

One of the plantations in these Paeling Hills was 
said to belong to a Cantonese comprador, employed 
in a foreign Hong. It was of considerable extent a 
rare feature in these tea-growing regions, where the 



PA RUNG HILLS. 381 

cultivation of the shrub is carried on piecemeal, after 
some such method as follows. The farms are usually 
small, seldom exceeding" a few acres in size, and are 
rented by the poor from the landowners of the district. 
To these landowners the tenants undertake to dispose 
of their crops at a certain stipulated price. Thus the 
men who grow that tea which is a source of so much 
wealth to China very rarely possess any capital at all 
themselves ; and, like millions of their labouring fellow- 
countrymen, they can earn but a hard-won sustenance 
out of the luxury which they thus produce. Those 
farmers who are so fortunate as to be able to rent their 
land without first mortgaging the crops are esteemed 
men of affluence. At the proper season that is, 
usually in the beginning of April the first picking of 
the leaves takes place. These leaves, when gathered, 
are dried partially in the sun, and then offered for sale 
in baskets, at a kind of fair, at which all the neighbour 
hood attends. The native buyers from the foreign 
ports usually Cantonese here enter upon a keen 
competition, and buy up as much as they can of the 
leaf. In the end the lots bought, from a variety of 
these small farms, are mixed together by the purchaser, 
and then subjected to the firing already described, up- 
country, in houses hired specially for that purpose. 

Thousands of poor women and children are next 
employed in picking out stems and stalks ; after which 
the leaves are winnowed, the cured portion is carried 
away, and the uncured left behind to be subjected 
again to the fire. When the firing process is com 
pleted, the tea is sifted, and separated into two or three 
different parcels, or chops as they are called, the 
quality of each parcel varying with the quantity pre- 



382 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

pared at a time. Thus the first and highest * chops 
consist of the smallest and best-twisted leaves ; the 
second is somewhat inferior ; while the third is made 
of the stalks, dust, and sittings. This last, which is 
perfectly innocuous and wholesome, is used in this 
country to mix with the better sorts of teas, and thus 
to produce the cheap good teas of commerce. 

These parcels or chops are next packed into chests 
of about 90 Ibs., half-chests of 40 or 45 Ibs., and boxes 
of 2 1 Ibs., lined each of them with lead, and thus for 
warded to the open ports for sale. Most of the Bohea 
teas are brought down to Foochow by the river Min 
a voyage, as we shall presently see, requiring no 
ordinary nerve and skill. The cargoes, as a rule, begin 
to arrive at about the end of April ; but at the time I 
speak of (1871) the market, for two or three seasons 
past, had not been opened till some time in June. The 
year before, the mandarins gave native dealers credit 
for the duties on the leaf, and thus aided them to hold 
back their teas until scarcity should force the market 
into rates highly favourable to China. The Europeans 
do not seem to succeed in banding together like the 
Chinese to secure the tea crop on profitable terms. 
The probable advantage to be gained by being first in 
the field presents a temptation too great for the im 
petuous foreign merchant to resist. But although the 
Chinese sellers enjoy many facilities, such as borrowing 
money from the banks in Foochow against the chops 
which they hold, they have to pay high rates of in 
terest, and the up-country competition among them 
selves, too, is strong ; so that they are not unfamiliar 
with losses and heavy ones, too, sometimes. On the 
whole, however, by dint of caution and commercial 



ASCENDING THE MIN. 383 

combination, they have made their trade steadily remu 
nerative and sure a fact which may readily be 
gathered from the great wealth of the Chinese tea 
merchants, both at Foochow and elsewhere 

But let us now proceed up-country, and gather some 
notion of the difficulties which beset the transit of this 
precious herb. I made an excursion for 200 miles up 
the Min, as far as Yin-ping city, in the company of Mr. 
Justice Doolittle, whose valuable book on the Social 
Life of the Chinese is the result of years of painstaking 
labour and careful observation among the people of 
this district. Armed with the requisite passports, we 
started for Shui-kow, at mid-day on December 2, in a 
yacht kindly placed at my disposal by one of the 
English merchants at Foochow. 

> 

Boating on a Chinese river, and with a Chinese 
crew, is always a trying experience to the temper of a 
European, except where the men have been bound by 
contract to perform their work for a fixed price and 
within a given period of time. If this precaution has 
been neglected, the notion takes possession of the boat 
men that foreigners are by nature wealthy, and that as 
a duty to themselves who are always, both by birth 
and by necessity, extremely poor they must make the 
most of the rare opportunity which good fortune has 
cast in their way. Inspired by considerations such as 
these, the men set themselves to enjoy a good deal 
more than their usual scanty leisure, a good deal more 
food, a longer spell of the opium-pipe, and deeper 
drains out of the samshu-flask. Hence, in one s diary, 
such jottings as the following by no means unfrequently 
recur : The men have been amusing themselves all 
day long running the boat on to sandbanks, and eating 



384 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA, 

rice/ Tracking-line entangled again with that of 
another boat ; two crews quarrelling for half an hour, 
another half hour spent in apologies, and a third in 
disentangling the lines. 

I halted to take a view at a place called Pak-taou 
(white-head). Here a poor pedlar, marching along the 
bank, his wares slung over his shoulder, became so 
engrossed in watching my operations that he failed to 
observe two buffaloes coming up from the opposite 
direction. These buffaloes took fright at my camera, 
charged along the path, and sent the pedlar spinning 
heels over head down the bank. But he was a pedlar 
of no ordinary mould ; he gathered up his bundle, 
shouldered it once more, and came back to finish his 
observations on the spot from which he had been so 
suddenly dislodged. 

Sunday we spent quietly at a place called Teuk- 
kai, or Bamboo Crags. Here I had a walk ashore 
with my boy A hong, and stopped for awhile to rest on 
a green mossy bank, whence our boat could dimly be 
made out through a sheet of mist, that rose above the 
river, like the steam from a cauldron s mouth. This 
vapour crept onwards up the mountain in a number of 
grotesque shapes, here and there forming beautiful 
vignettes out of the clumps of giant pines, and in a 
moment blotting out the picture again as it rolled way- 
wardly along the woody steeps. These mists were a 
phenomena of daily occurrence, caused, I suppose, by 
the difference of temperature between the water and 
the air. We next passed over a lovely bit of country, 
through olive and orange plantations, where the trees 
bent clown beneath their fruit, and the air seemed 
laden with perpetual fragrance. In one orchard we 



;AN Ur-COi NTR\ FARM. 385 

fell in with a watchman ensconced in a snug little 
straw hut containing a bamboo table, a tea-pot, two 
chairs, and a fine cat and kittens. The old man he 
was very old, he could not tell us how old, but he had 
been watching the place, he said, for more than half a 
century showed us the way to the farm, conducting us 




A TKAVKI.I.INc; 1!I..\( KSMTI I! AT A FARM-HOUSE. 

through fields of sugar-cane to the group of picturesque 
well-built brick houses of which the settlement was 
composed. That portion of this homestead allotted to 
the proprietor s family we found to be very strongly 
walled round, and near at hand, in a small out-house, 
the family physician had his home. This gentleman, 

c c 



386 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Akum by name (who was watching a travelling black 
smith at work), received us with what I took to be a 
friendly spirit ; but the expression of his face was a 
difficult thing to interpret, for his eyes were defective, 
and his otherwise passable nose had lost both bridge 
and point ; hence, while one eye beamed with a kindly 
warmth, the other kept strict guard over the broken 
bridge. We entered his shop, and the people came 
out to have a look at me. Many of them had never 
set eyes on a foreigner before, and I was evidently an 
object of curious interest to a group of really pretty 
women and chubby children. The instant I moved 
they all rushed into the stronghold, and could there be 
seen peering out from all sorts of holes and corners. 
I made the old man a small present, and he gave me 
some fine oranges in return. 

When we had left this place, and had sat down on 
a hill-side to talk over old times and former scenes of 
travel, Ahong confessed to me, among other matters, 
that he had no particular religious views at all. He 
had, at one time, been a Christian in Singapore, but 
had got bullied out of his change of faith by his friends. 
In a general way he thought it a good thing to have 
plenty of pork while alive ; then to be laid in a com 
fortable coffin, and buried in a dry place ; and hereafter 
to have one s spirit fed and clothed continuously by 
surviving sons. I spoke to him about Christianity, 
and about the folly of worshipping idols, when every 
flower and insect around told so plainly of the great 
unseen God, but I doubt whether I produced much 
impression upon his tough Chinese heart. 

Next day we reached Shui-kow, and found it built 
on the slopes of the hills, on the left bank of the river. 



SHU I- ROW WATER SUPPLY. 



387 



This town was unlike any which I had seen on the 
plains. There was something new in its piles of 
building s, towering story above story, and in its pic 
turesque situations ; and here, too, I found that a 
water system had been elaborated out of a complex 




CHINESE PLOUGH, FUKIEN PROVINCE. 

series of bamboo pipes and gutters, which passed from 
house to house, and brought constant supplies of 
water from a spring more than a mile away, in the 
hills. 

At Shui-kow I hired a rapid-boat 1 to take us 



388 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

on to Yen-ping-fu. Our captain was Cheng-Show, 
or rather his wife, a lady who had a great deal 
to say both for him and herself too ; who stood no 
more than four feet high, and yet talked about half as 
much again as any other woman twice her size. Of a 
truth she was the wonder of her sex, the great female 
phenomenon of the modern Chinese age ! Thus, when 
we ascended the first rapid, there was Mrs. Cheng to 
be seen well to the fore, at one moment nursing her 
baby ; at another, the child had been tossed into a 
basket, and the mother was fending her boat with a 
long pole from destruction on the rocks. Then to her 
brat again, or to cooking, cleaning or husband-baiting ; 
to each and every pursuit she was found equal, as fancy 
prompted or necessity compelled. Ours was a small 
boat, like all the others, carrying a high bridge, and a 
rudder in the shape of a long oar which swung on a 
pivot aft. This oar was nearly as long as the boat 
itself, and its effect when used was to make the vessel 
turn at once in its own length. The craft is built 

o 

entirely of pine ; is as strong as it is light ; and admir 
ably adapted in every respect for the navigation of the 
perilous rapids which begin to show themselves about 
half a mile above Shui-kow. All these rapids are full 
of rugged rocks, rising some of them above the stream, 
and some lurking more dangerously below. We anchored 
for the night close to a military station, if two or three 
shanties, and the half-dozen miserable looking soldiers 
armed with matchlocks who occupied them, could be 
honoured with so dignified a name. 

Next morning, as usual, there was a thick fog upon 
the river. This prevented our seeing more than two or 
three feet around the boat, and put a stop to all traffic 



A SNAKE TEMPLE. 389 

till within an hour of noon. Our halting-place that 
evening- was the village of Ching-ku-kwan ; and there 
Mr. Doolittle and myself went ashore to inspect a 
Snake Temple. There was no image of the snake to 
be seen in this shrine ; but the tablet of the snake king 
was there, set up for worship in a holy place ; and we 
learned that, during the seventh month, a living snake 
becomes the object of adoration. Next day Mrs. 
Cheng and her husband had a little conjugal disagree 
ment. The lady stamped her tiny feet on the re-echo 
ing deck, and ramped, and raged like a fury, threatening 
to cut her throat rather than touch an oar of that boat 
again. As for Captain Cheng, he sat meekly smoking 
his pipe, a true example of marital equanimity, waiting 
till the storm should be over-past. Half an hour 
later his wife was working away as busily as ever. 
Each night the boat is arched over, waggon- fashion, with 
a telescopic arrangement of bamboo matting, forty feet 
long, ten feet wide, and four feet high, which covers 
the entire deck. My friend and I occupied a small 
space at the bow. Ahong, the cook, and fourteen boat 
men, were stretched out amidships, a small space at the 
stern being curtained off for the captain and his spouse. 
The representatives of three generations of the Cheng 
family are to be found living on board the craft. First 
the grandfather. He does almost nothing except smoke ; 
and his pipe, a bamboo-cane with a knob at the end of 
it, he cherishes with wonderful affection. On his head 
is a relic of antiquity as venerable as himself the 
tattered framework of a greasy-looking felt hat ; while 
as for his thickly-padded jacket, it is reported that he 
removes that garment from his person about once a 
week, in order to destroy the small colonists that 



390 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

disturb his repose. For upwards of half a century he 
had been learning to swallow the smoke of his pipe, 
but with only partial success. Once or twice I fancied 
that he had fairly choked himself, and was about to 
expire ; but he came to himself again by-and-bye, and 
was seen puffing more vigorously than before. 

As soon as the roofs were drawn over for the night, 
smoking commenced ; the entire crew, Mrs. Cheng and 
all, setting to work in business-like fashion ; and, as 
there was no outlet for the fumes, the atmosphere can 
be imagined much more easily than it could be endured. 
On the following day we passed a newly-wrecked boat, 
which had struck a sunken rock and then gone down. 
We also encountered a second boat dashing down the 
same rapid with a fatal way on her. She was bearing 
straight for the breakers away from the main channel ; 
the helmsman could not alter her course, and so she, 
too, struck and settled down, but not before the crew 
had had time to scramble out on the rocks, and make 
the wreck fast with a cable. 

At one little village, where we went ashore, a number 
of small-footed women were washing clothes in the 
stream. At our approach they fled with startling celerity, 
scaling the rocks, and finding foothold where only 
cloven-hoofed goats might have been supposed to make 
their way. 

The river at this point presents a variety of most 
attractive scenes. Between the many rapids great 
masses of rock rose up in bold headlands, covered 
above with waving plumes of tall flowering grasses, 
and draped with a profusion of foliage that reached 
right down to the shore, and was there reflected in the 
placid pools. Beyond the banks we see hills, dales, 



RAPIDS. 391 

and giant rocks mingled together in grand disorder, 
clothed with dark pines and other trees, and wearing 
rich autumnal tints. 

As for the rapids, their tumultuous cataracts alter 
nate with great basins of smooth water slipping glassily 
onward from shoal to shoal. In some rapids the 
channel was so thickly bestrewn with rocks as to be 
concealed from view at but a very short distance off; 
while in the great Yen-ping rapid my ears were 
deafened by the roar of the boiling torrent, and my 
sight bewildered by the wide expanse of leaping and 
foaming water. Here, as we ascended, the ancient 
mariner Cheng flung his pipe down in a moment of 
peril ; shouted out to the trackers on shore ; and, snatch 
ing up a pole, planted it on a sunken rock to ease the 
strain that threatened to snap the cable by which we 
were being tracked from the bank, and send us to 
destruction on the rocks. It was an instant of intense 
excitement and clanger ; the power of the rushing 
water seemed to baffle the efforts of the crew, till all 
hands were at the poles, and with one combined effort 
we moved slowly up the current ; the old man prostrat 
ing himself, and preparing a burnt offering of paper in 
honour of the sailors protecting goddess. 

On Sunday we reached Yen-ping, in time for service 
at the Methodist Mission Chapel in that place. Yen- 
ping-fu stands on a hill, and faces the main stream at a 
point where it is fed by two nearly equal tributaries, 
the one flowing from the Bohea Hills, and the other 
from a source further to the south-east. The town 
contains a population of about thirty thousand souls, 
and does a considerable trade in paper, lackered ware, 
baskets, and tea. The foot of the hill \v-is encircled by 



392 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

a high wall, from within which rose an inclined plane 
of roofs, broken here and there by groves of trees 
and temples, but still almost appearing one solid slope 
of tiled steps, over which an Alpine tourist might 
scramble to the outermost wall above, whose top could 
be seen in a faint line sweeping round the heights that 
closed in the city from behind. Beyond this hill, which 
looked as if it had been made for the town that covers 
it, a high range of mountains rose up in a deep purple 
belt, like a great protecting barrier. 

The Mission-house, in the main thoroughfare, was 
a miserable place enough, and we learnt that no one 
would let a decent house to Christians. The native 
missionary, when we entered the chapel, was conduct 
ing the morning service in the midst of an attentive 
congregation. He resided here with his family, and 
looked happy and contented : although, as I have said, 
his abode was a poor one, built and partitioned off with 
bamboo-laths and plaster, so thin that one could have 
pushed one s finger through the walls ; while the roof 
was festooned with cobwebs, and admitted more day 
light and air than was either necessary or agreeable. 
The interior beneath, however, wore a clean and even 
cheerful look. The back of this dwelling, like many 
others, was perched upon the city wall ; and there was 
a path running beneath the fortifications, along which 
I picked my way with caution, and yet narrowly 
escaped being tripped up by a herd of pigs, as they 
rushed to banquet upon some filthy refuse dropping 
clown from a house above. 

Yen-ping was a Chinese city, very much so, indeed, 
and yet one could breathe pure mountain air on its 
upper wall, and encounter some very pretty sights. 



BURNT OFFERINGS. 393 

On one occasion, when taking- a view from a steep hill 
on the other side of the river, and while making my 
way up to a level space, I slipped my footing and 
caught hold of some grass that stood twelve or fifteen 
feet high there. The blades of this grass are furnished 
with an array of sharp teeth, that ripped my hands up 
like a saw ; but at the same time it saved me a rapid 
descent of about two hundred feet, and a final plunge 
of a clear hundred more into the river below. Near 
this place, in a small village, we found the two widows 
and family of a deceased mandarin sending a complete 
retinue to the spirit of their departed lord. A pile of 
huge paper-models of houses and furniture, boats and 
sedans, ladies-in-waiting and gentlemen-pages, were 
brought down to the banks of the river and there 
burned before the wailing widows. One of these ladies 
seemed to me to weep much more bitterly than the 
other, but this might only be a fancy of mine. These 
effigies are supposed to be transformed by fire into the 
spiritual reality of the things which they represent. 
Many of the articles were covered with tin-foil, and 
when the sacrifice was over a seedy-looking trader 
bought the ashes, that he might sift them and secure 
the tin that had refused to put on an ethereal shape. 

Many of the men hereabouts appeared deformed, 
but the deformity was due to the small charcoal furnaces 
which they carried concealed beneath the dress, and 
used to keep their bodies warm. As there are no fire 
places in the houses, these portable furnaces prove 
very convenient substitutes. At first, when I saw so 
many humps about, I supposed that some special 
disease must be common in the place, or else that the 
sufferers had gathered themselves toeether from dif- 



394 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

ferent parts of the empire to test the efficacy of some 
curative spring, like those hot wells near Foochow, 
where I have seen crowds of feeble and infirm folk 
bathing in the healing vapours. But the little copper 
furnaces encased in basket-work supplied a less melan 
choly explanation of the mystery. 

When I watched the coolness, pluck, and daring, 
with which these poor river navigators will shoot the 
rapids of the river Min, risking their lives in every 
voyage in a country where there are no insurances, 
except such as the guilds may chance to afford, and 
where no higher reward is to be gained than a hand- 
to-mouth subsistence on the most wretched fare I 
began to get a truer insight into the manly and hardy 
qualities latent in this mis-governed Chinese race. 

In some of these watery steeps the channel winds 
and writhes from right to left, and forms acute angles 
among the rocks at every two or three boats lengths. 
Once, when we descended, our frail craft tearing down 
these bends at a fearful speed, I thought for a 
moment that our fate was sealed, for it seemed impos 
sible that the helmsman could ever bring the vessel 
round in time to clear a huge rock which rose up right 
ahead. There he stood on the bridge, calm and erect, 
with an iron grasp on the long rudder, impassive until 
we were just plunging on to the rock ; and then, as I 
prepared to leap for life, he threw his whole weight on 
to the oar, and brought the boat round with a sweep 
that cleared the danger by the breadth of a hair. 
Thus we shot onwards, down ! clown ! down ! like a 
feather tossed to and fro by the caprice of the irre 
sistible waves. 

As we passed down stream we saw a great number 



A NATIVE PASSENGER-BOAT. 395 

of men fishing- with cormorants. These fishermen 
polecl themselves about on bamboo-rafts, and on each 
raft was a basket, and two or three cormorants trained 
to dive and bring up fish for their owners. As I 
intended to take some pictures on the way down to 
Foochow, my friend, who was pressed for time, deter 
mined to find his way home in a native passenger- 
boat that was about to leave Shui-kow. So after 
dinner I accompanied him on board, not without a 
last vain effort, as he was but in feeble health, to per 
suade him to complete the voyage in the yacht or 
house-boat in which we had come. A Chinese pas 
senger-boat makes a pretty swift trip, and may be very 
suitable for natives, but it does not quite come up to 
our European notions of comfort. Thus the steerage 
accommodation consists of a long low cabin, in which 
one can scarcely kneel upright ; and within this narrow 
space we found about fifty persons stowed away. 
Many were pedlars carrying their wares along with 
them for sale ; and the air of this packing-box was 
strongly tainted with garlic, tobacco, samshu, opium, 
and a variety of other Chinese perfumes, which issued 
from the mass of humanity that writhed and tumbled 
about, in fruitless efforts to discover places for repose. 
When they were a little settled, we had literally to 
grope our way over a reeking platform of half-naked 
limbs and bodies, and amid a torrent of cursing- and 
vile abuse, in order to reach the state cabin, where my 
stout friend, after sundry efforts, succeeded in deposit 
ing himself at last. This cabin measured about four 
feet by three. The door was shut, and there he was, 
in a sort of locker with one or two openings to admit 
the air, or rather the stench and din, of the unwashed 



396 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

noisy crowd in the steerage. So we parted, to meet 
again and recount our adventures in Foochow. 

As I walked through the streets of Shui-kow on 
my way back to the boat, I lost my dog Spot, who 
had been my constant companion ; but recollecting a 
door in a wall that had been suddenly opened and shut, 
I felt certain my pet had been there caught up and 
taken in, as his white silken hair was much admired by 
the Chinese. Back I trudged to the door ; and as, 
when I whistled, I seemed to hear a whining response, 
I commenced a vigorous assault on the entrance. My 
knocking soon collected a crowd, to whom my diffi 
culties were explained ; when, after a knock and a push 
more dangerous than the rest, my dog was quietly 
handed over the wall to me, and we turned our backs 
upon the place to descend to Foochow, and to photo 
graph the points of interest on the route. 



STEAM TRAFFIC. 397 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Steam Traffic in the China Sea In the Wake of a Typhoon Shanghai 
Notes of its Early History Japanese Raids Shanghai Foreign 
Settlement Paul Sii, or Sii-kwang-ki Shanghai City Ningpo 
Native Soldiers Snowy Valley The Mountains Azaleas The Mo 
nastery of the Snowy Crevice The Thousand Fathom Precipice 
Buddhist Monks The Yangtsze Kiang Hankow The Upper Yang- 
tsze Ichang The Gorges The Great Tsing-tan Rapid Mystic 
Mountain Lights A ""Dangerous Disaster Kwei-fu Our Return 
Kiukiang Nanking ; its Arsenal The Death of Tsing-kwo-fan 
Chinese Superstition. 

THE opening of the Suez Canal has probably wrought 
as great a change in the China trade as in the com 
merce of the Malayan Archipelago ; and nowhere is 
this change more marked than in the carrying traffic 
from port to port along the coasts of China. Old 
lumbering junks, lorchas, and even square-rigged sail 
ing ships, are gradually disappearing before the splen 
didly-equipped steamers of the local companies that 
ply regularly between the different stations from Hong 
kong to Newchwang ; and then innumerable vessels, 
owned, not a few of them, by private firms, as well as 
by public companies, frequently find lucrative employ 
ment, when the tea and silk seasons have not yet 
begun, either in running between the treaty ports, or 
in making short voyages to the rice-markets of Inclo- 
China. 

It was my good fortune to make a coasting trip to 



398 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Shanghai in a fine steamer belonging to a private line, 
engaged in the tea trade during the greater portion of 
the year, but at that time making a cruise northward 
till the Hankow tea-market should open, and hence 
touching en route at one or two of the places to which 
the reader has already been introduced. Our captain 
was a quiet, homely man, who prided himself on his 
ship, his officers, and crew, and on the sumptuous fare 
of his table. He had traded on the coast of China for 
many years, had been wrecked several times, had fought 
for his life with pirates, and battled with typhoons as 
pitiless as they. He was a genius, too, in his way. 
Thus he had invented several new nautical instruments, 
too advanced for the present age, and had even de 
signed a safety-ship, that would ride out the fiercest 
storm. But this vessel, like the instruments, had not 
yet been constructed and put to the test. He had 
also a new theory of storms, based on personal ex 
perience and actual observation. It would be necessary, 
however, for the man who would verify those important 
conclusions, not only to trust himself to the mighty 
deep during the worst of weather, but to sail boldly 
into the heart of the tempest, that he might there, with 
his anemometer, measure the force of the wind, and try 
his barometer upon the rarity of the air. As we neared 
Shanghai the glass indicated either that a typhoon was 
approaching, or else that we were just upon its verge. 
The latter conclusion was the true one. It turned out 
that we had followed in the wake of a hurricane, and 
thus our experience afforded a good example of the 
limited area to which the circle of these typhoons are 
frequently confined. We had encountered nothing 
save calms and light wincU throughout our passage ; 



A COLLISION ON THE WONG- POO. 399 

and yet, when we entered Shanghai river, we found 
many ships disabled, some of them swept clear to the 
deck masts, spars, and rigging, having all gone over 
the side. Here we had to wait twelve hours till a 
licensed pilot came on board ; and when that individual 
did at last make his appearance, he gravely remarked 
that he was only a fifteen-foot man, but that he could 
make it all right with another pilot of superior depth, 
to take us up. What he meant to convey to us was 
that his license only allowed him to pilot vessels draw 
ing fifteen feet. An unfortunate accident occurred as 
we were steaming up the Wong-poo to the wharf at 
Shanghai. The Chinese have a superstitious belief 
that bad luck will attend their voyage, if they fail, at 
starting, to cross the bows of a vessel as she sails across 
their track ; and so, as we steamed on with a full head 
of steam, we perceived a native trading-boat making 
frantic efforts with sails and sculls to pass under our 
bows. The whistle was plied, but in vain. On they 
pulled to their own certain destruction ; and the ear- 
piercing shriek of the engine must have sounded to 
some of the victims like a wail that foretold their death. 
The engines could not be backed amid such a crowd 
of shipping, and I was gazing helplessly over our 
bulwarks when we came crashing through the dry 
timbers of the fated craft. There was a yell of despair, 
and the wreck was next seen drifting clown the stream. 
A number of the crew had been projected by the shock 
some distance into the water ; others clung to their 
property until it was submerged ; but very fortunately 
none of them perished, as a number of boats had seen 
the incident, and had put off to their assistance at 
once. 



4oo INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Shanghai has always been able to hold its own as 
the great Chinese emporium of foreign trade. It was 
therefore with feelings of profound interest, that I, for 
the first time, beheld the splendid foreign settlement 
that now stands there on the banks of the Wong-poo, at 
a spot which about thirty years ago was a mere swamp, 
clotted with a few fisher huts, and inhabited by a 
miserable semi-aquatic sort of Chinese population. In 
1831 Dr. Gutzlaff, who visited the place for the first 
time in a junk, describes it as the centre of a great 
native trade, and tells us that from this port, more 
than a thousand small vessels go up to the north 
several times annually, exporting silk and other 
Kiangnan manufactures, and besides, that an extensive 
traffic was carried on by Fukien men with the Indian 
Archipelago. But we may venture much further back 
in the history of the town. Several centuries ago, 
even before the Wong-poo river became a navigable 
stream at all, there was a great mart established in this 
locality on the banks of the present Soo-chow Creek, 
twenty-five miles distant from the harbour in which we 
have just anchored. 1 The topographical history of the 
district is full of records telling of the physical changes 
to which the vast alluvial plain where Shanghai stands 
has from time to time been subjected. Streams have 
been silted up, new channels have spontaneously 
opened ; and yet, amid constant difficulties and never- 
ceasing alterations, the ever- important trade of the 
place has been maintained within the same narrow 
area, where the annual floods of the Yang-tsze-kiang 
deposit their alluvium on the margin of the ocean, and 
raise new land up out of its bed. 

1 See the Shangliai Ifcin CJii. 



ANCIENT JAPANESE RAIDS. 401 

The political, as well as the commercial and 
physical history of this region, is no less full of interest. 
In process of time the old Wu-sung-kiang became in 
navigable ; and during the thirteenth century, a settle 
ment was founded on the present site of Shanghai, to 
which trade was rapidly transferred by the closing of the 
old waterway : finally, in A.D. 1544, the settlement was 
converted into a walled city, as a defence against the 
repeated attacks of the Japanese. These Japanese 
raids, which elate from A.D. 1361, when the Ming 
dynasty had just come to the throne, were not confined 
solely to this quarter, but distributed generally over 
the maritime provinces in the north. The Japanese, 
time after time, proved more than a match for their 
less warlike foes ; but the latter always managed, in 
the long run, to prevent the daring invaders from ob 
taining a permanent foothold upon their coveted 
shores. These Chinese successes were sometimes 
secured by intrigue and diplomacy, or by fair promises 
and bribes ; the slow-moving, crushing ponderosities of 
Chinese warfare, being only resorted to when all else 
had failed. 

To illustrate these two methods of repelling an in 
vading force, I will relate the following story. In 1543 
when the Japanese had spoiled, and laid waste, no 
small extent of the country around Shanghai, the latter, 
seeing that she was too feeble to fight against her 
enemies with success, had recourse to intrigue. Ac 
cordingly, the Governor-General of the province invited 
the Japanese leaders, Thsu-hai, Chen tung, Ma- 
yeh, and Wang-chen to come over to the side of the 
Chinese; promising them the rewards of high rank, and 
untold treasure, if such valiant leaders would but join 

i) i) 



402 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

the Imperial standard. Tempted by the offer, they 
presented themselves to arrange conditions, and were 
forthwith seized, dispatched to Peking, and there put 
to an ignominious death. On another occasion it is 
reported that the Japanese came clown upon their 
enemy with a fleet of 300 vessels ; and after carrying 
all before them, and plundering to their hearts content, 
they departed laden with their spoil ; the Chinese 
troops pursuing them valiantly out of the country, and 
making an imposing hostile demonstration on the 
shore, as they unfurled the sails of their ships. It will 
be gathered from such facts as these, which are taken 
from the native topographical history of Shanghai, that 
if the Formosa difficulty be not settled peacefully, it 
will by no means be the first occasion on which Japan 
has crossed swords with China. In ancient times the 
Japanese had the best of it ; but ere long the wealth, 
and superior resources of the Chinese drove their foes 
back, and taught them to confine their warlike spirits 
within the narrow limits of their own islands. Pro 
bably a similar result, arising from a similar cause, may 
be expected of these two old enemies should they now, 
once again, go to war ; the civilised world looking on 
the while, and watching the varying issues of the 
conflict to its uncertain close. But Japanese raids on 
Shanghai would be less likely to succeed now-a-days, 
when we consider the world-wide interests that centre 
in the small foreign settlement there, protected by the 
flags of the most powerful and civilised nations in the 
world. It is a place where there are close on a score 
of different nationalities, ruled over by a municipal 
body, whose members are chosen from among the resi 
dent community, irrespective of nation, caste, or creed. 



SHANGHAI FOREIGN SETTLEMENT. 403 

As to the settlement itself, those of my readers 
who have not visited China will feel interested in a 
brief description of its present appearance. The 
approach by the river almost looks like that of any 
busy prosperous European seaport. There one finds 
ships of all nations ; and, anchored in mid-channel, or 
making their way to their moorings, a long line of 
ocean steamers ; while steam-launches, bearing mails 
and despatches, dart in and out among the crowd of 
native craft that are seen around, with their brown sails 
spread out to the breeze, like winged insects skimming 
the glassy surface of the stream. Everywhere around 
there are signs of ceaseless activity and busy life. Far 
away as the eye can reach into the dim distance, not 
an inch of vacant space on the broad river can be dis 
covered ; and yet, looming out from a forest of masts 
and spars, and from a dark cloud of smoke, we see the 
hull of a great steamer crowding up to join the throng 
that wait to bear their precious burdens down the 
tortuous channels to the sea. At the wharves, there 
are ships loading or discharging cargo ; and amid the 
din of voices and the throbbing of engines we can hear 
the songs of the sailors, the rattle of chains, and the 
dull splash of anchors as they drop into the turbid 
water. Advancing further up the river, we pass rows 
of storehouses, foundries, dockyards and sheds. Next 
to these, the substantial buildings on the American 
concession ; and then a full view opens before us of the 
public garden, and the imposing array of European 
offices, which front the river, on the English concession 
ground. What surprised me most about this settle 
ment was the absence of anything temporary or un 
finished in the style of its buildings, such as might 



404 INDO-CH2NA AND CHINA. 

remind one that the place was, after all, nothing more 
than a trading depot, planted on hostile and inhos 
pitable shores, and sustained in its position in spite of 
the envy which its appearance excited among the 
rulers of the land. What pangs of regret and remorse 
must be awakened among these proud unenlightened 
men when, in their moments of honest reflection, they 
cast their eyes upon this Model Settlement/ and per 
ceive that a handful of outer barbarians have, within 
the space of thirty years, done more with the little 
quagmire that was grudgingly allotted to them, than 
they themselves, with their highest efforts, have 
achieved anywhere in their own wide Empire, during 
all the untold centuries of its fame. 

As I have said already, there is a finish about the 
whole settlement, a splendour and sumptuousness 
about its buildings, its wide roads, and breathing 
spaces, its spacious wharves, and elegant warehouses, 
that stand as a solemn rebuke to the niggardliness and 
grinding despotism which, within the narrow limits of 
the greatest walled cities of China, have penned hun 
dreds of thousands of struggling beings in the most 
temporary abodes ; there to carry on a ceaseless strife 
for existence, breathing the fetid air of narrow polluted 
alleys, exposed to the constant risk of fearful conflagra 
tion, and the grim horrors of pestilence or famine. 
Good men and true I know to exist among the officials 
of China ; and they, seeing all this, and feeling con 
scious of the freedom and higher life which European 
communities enjoy, would gladly strike off the fetters 
that have broken the spirit of their countrymen, and 
would lift them up, if they but knew how, from their 
low estate, to taste the purer air of that freedom, for 



PAUL SU. 405 

which the waves of rebellion that have swept across the 
pages of their history tell us that they have never 
ceased to pine. 

Perhaps the Tien-wang, better known as the 
Taiping chief, or Heavenly King, had some such 
vision, when he first started on his career ; ere his mind 
gave way before the intoxication of easily-achieved 
success, and he became the drivelling fanatic that at 
length sank unwept to his doom within his gory palace 
at Nanking. 

Sii-kwang-ki, or Paul Su, celebrated as the pupil 
of Mathew Ricci, the great Jesuit missionary of the six 
teenth century, appears to have been a man who 
mourned over the condition of his country. He was 
a native of Shanghai, a scholar of great renown ; and he 
not only aided Ricci in his translation of a number of 
the books of Euclid, but left behind him many valuable 
original works ; notably one on agriculture, which is still 
highly prized. But although admitted by the Emperor 
Kia-tsing and his successor to be a man of singular 
ability and foresight, his wise councils were disregarded, 
and he himself was repeatedly treated with suspicion, 
clue to the intrigues of jealous rivals. Accordingly his 
counsel was set aside, and his measures for the preser 
vation and defence of the last Chinese dynasty were 
systematically neglected. But to this day he occupies 
a shrine in one of the temples of Shanghai ; and there 
his fellow-townsmen pay him reverent worship as a 
sort of divinely-inspired sage. 

I can only say a word in passing about the present 
trade of Shanghai. Most of my readers are aware that 
in spite of a host of troubles (not the least of which was 
the Taiping rebellion, or rather I believe the attack 



406 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

upon the city by the short-sword or dagger rebels) it 
has continued to advance steadily, and has always 
maintained its position as the greatest emporium of 
China. It must be, at the same time, borne in mind 
that this commercial success is, in some measure at 
least, attributable to the semi-European customs ad 
ministration which was inaugurated at this city in 
1843, and which now extends its ramifications to all the 
open ports of the Empire. 

There are doubtless certain commercial grievances 
(such as the Lekin tax, and the inland transit clues) 
which still demand redress, or adjustment, at the hands 
of the central government ; but it cannot be denied that 
the remodelling of the customs administration was the 
commencement of a new mercantile era, and has 
proved a great boon, not to the nations of Europe only, 
but also to the Chinese themselves. 

Some of my readers will naturally enquire whence 
the labour came which transformed this dismal swamp 
into what I have just described; and built houses there fit 
for any capital of Europe, and infinitely superior to some 
of the edifices that adorn our own greatest ports. One 
might think that structures such as these must have been 
reared by skilled workmen from Europe ; but a very 
short residence in Shanghai suffices to undeceive us. 

<> 

Then we mark the avidity with which the native build 
ers, carpenters, and mechanics of every sort, compete 
with each other to win the remunerative employment 
which those buildings afford ; and the facility with 
which they pick up the extended knowledge needful to 
enable them to carry out their contracts, and to impart 
to their .work that elegance and perfection which the 
cultivated tastes of the foreign architect demand. But 



SJIANGAI NATIVE CITY. 407 

it is not to these buildings alone that we must look to 
discover the hidden resources of Chinese toil. Visit 
the dockyards and foundries, and there, too, watch the 
Chinese craftsmen, the shipwrights, engineers, carpen 
ters, painters, and decorators, busily at work under 
European foremen, who bear the highest testimony to 
the capabilities of their men. Pass on next to the 
Kiang-nan arsenal, outside the city walls, and there 
you will find perhaps the highest development of 
Chinese technical industry, in the manufacture of rifles 
and field-guns, and the construction of ships of war. 

The native walled city of Shanghai stands to the 
south of the foreign settlement, and is separated from 
it by the French concession ground, and by a canal 
which here sweeps round, and forms, with Soo-chow 
Creek and the river, a water boundary for the entire 
English ground. The latter, on its western side, sup 
ports a Chinese population of over 50,000 souls ; but 
inside the walls of the Chinese city, in an area mea 
suring little over a mile long by three-fourths of a mile 
in breadth, and in a densely crowded suburb on the 
water s edge close by, about 130,000 inhabitants 
reside. 

Like all other Chinese towns, Shanghai has its 
tutelary deity, upon whom the Emperor, as brother of 
the Sun, has conferred an honorary title. This guardian 
of the fortunes of Shanghai stands in the Cheng- 
hwang-Miau or Temple of the City God, in the 
northern quarter of the town ; and though he, and his 
shrine, have from time to time been rudely overthrown, 
both, after each disaster, have been reverently restored ; 
and now he may be seen looking out upon wide plea 
sure-grounds in a more or less dilapidated state, it is 



408 JNDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

true but still now and again regaled with theatrical 
performances, and leading, for an idol, a not altogether 
unenjoyable life. In the same spot are two drum- 
towers, superintended by a number of inferior deities, 
and used more especially to spread the alarm of fire, 
or to notify the approach of a foe. Then there is the 
Confucian temple ; besides a host of other Buddhist 
and Taoist sacred edifices, occupying the best spaces 
of ground within a city where the miserable population 
have too often scarcely breathing space. The foreign 
settlement supports three hospitals for the benefit of 
the natives ; but, as I have already noticed, many more 
such benevolent institutions are needed to relieve the 
be-drugged, be-sotted, and unfortunate sick among the 
vast population of the land. 

Our route now lies away among the azalea-clacl 
mountains in the province of Che-Kiang. But before 
re-embarking we must have a parting glance at the 
streets of the Model Settlement. 

There are no cabs ; but the residents, many of them, 
possess private carriages. The substitute for the cab 
here is the wheelbarrow a very undignified sort of 
conveyance, but nevertheless comfortable enough when 
one has once grown accustomed to its use. It is 
pleasant to see the Chinese domestics and their families ; 
or native ladies dressed in silks, their glossy hair held 
in by a broad black velvet band with a spray of pearls 
in front, being propelled along the bund in their hand 
carts : but they are not used among Europeans, excepting 
after dark. A hong procured me two of these wheel 
barrows from the nearest stand, and thus, with my two 
boys, my baggage, and Spot/ I set out for the Ning- 
po steamer. There is not much risk of accidents in a 



THE SHANGHAI WHEELBARROW. 409 

steady-going vehicle such as this. The coolie who 
propels it is neither skittish nor given to shying, and 
the pace he puts on is never dangerous. 

The main roads, and the streets which branch in 
all directions from them, are wide ; and ample provision 
has thus been made for a traffic which tends constantly 
to increase ; they are level too, and smooth as a billiard- 
table, so that there at least one escapes the risk of 




THE SHANGHAI WHEELBARROW. 



broken limbs, or a slush-and-water grave in the pitfalls 
and mud-pools which disfigure the imperial highways 
of China. 

The steamer sheers off from the wharf, and cau 
tiously drops down through the shipping and out of the 
river, where she plunges merrily on the waves. A 
passenger on board gave us a strange account of the 
ancient port of Ningpo. 



410 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

He said he had not been there for some years ; 
but that the last time he was there he experienced 
difficulty in finding anybody about. Trade had deserted 
the place, and it seemed to be running to dry rot. I 
anchored below the settlement, and rowed up in a small 
boat, to see if I could find my consignee ; at length, 
coming upon two semi- European, antiquated houses, 
with a few feet of clear ground in front of them, I went 
ashore ; but still there was not a soul to be seen, until 
at last a miserable European emerged out of one of 
the houses, dressed in the garb of a bygone age. As 
soon as this strange being set eyes on me he gave a 
frantic shout of joy, and said, " My dear fellow, who 
ever you are, I am delighted to see you. You are the 
only European who has been here for many a day. I 
had almost forgotten my mother tongue ; have you such 
a thing as a dollar ? " " Yes," I said, " I am so fortunate 
as to possess one or two." " Let me see one, then, 
friend. Oh! let me see one!" He gazed upon it 
ardently for some time, and then said, " Ha ! I have 
not seen one of these coins for a very long period." 
" Can you," I said, " direct me to Mr. Moulds , my con 
signee ? " " That s my name, and I have been here 
for half a century ; but come to the office." The 
approach to the office presented the vegetable kingdom 
in full swing ; a grassy path and trees invading the 
quiet domain of business. The doors had been taken 
down, or had fallen off their hinges, and were now 
standing against the wall, gracefully festooned with 
creepers. What looked a mossy carpet was moss or 
fungus on the floor ; and the chairs had velvet covers 
of green mould. A silken drapery of spiders webs 
huner in the corners of the room, and in one there was 



N1NGPO. 

. . . . " Well," I said to my ancient friend, " you are 
fond of nature, a botanist perhaps ? What a splendid 
herbarium you have in the corner there, what beautiful 
ferns !" " Do not jest, dear sir," said my consignee; 
" that you must know is my iron safe. It has not been 
used for some time, and really the growth of fungus 
and vegetable matter in this region is troublesome ; 
but when business revives we won t let grass grow at 
our heels, no we won t ! " 

I thought it probable that the picture was slightly 
overdrawn, and that the ancient merchant described 
might possibly be a miserable survivor of the early 
Portuguese who were established on the river Yan^ at 

o o 

the beginning of the sixteenth century, and were finally 
massacred by the natives in revenge for their barbarous 
conduct, according to the Chinese account. 

These Portuguese were said about that time to have 
joined with the Japanese in several of their raids on 
the maritime provinces of China ; and it will be re 
membered that, some sixteen years ago, there was 
another massacre of Portuguese and Manilla men at 
this very same town. They were then in some way 
implicated in the piracies of daily occurrence in the 
China Sea at that time, and the general feeling was 
that the retribution was not altogether undeserved. 
Another disaster befel Ningpo in 1861, when it fell 
into the hands of the Taipings ; remaining in their pos 
session for about six months, when it was retaken for 
the Imperialists by the English and French war vessels, 
and since that time, like many other Chinese cities, has 
been labouring on peacefully in a languid effort to 
regain what it lost at the hands of the rebels and the 
Imperial troops. 



412 INDOCHINA AND CHINA. 

It was daylight when we steamed up the Yang 
river ; and the harsh outlines of the islands, and of 
Chin-hai promontory close by, were mellowed in the 
morning light. A great fleet of fishing-boats bound 
seaward contributed to enliven the scene ; and there 
were Fukien timber-junks, too, laden till they looked 
like floating wood-yards, and labouring on their way up 
stream. 

One feature full of novelty was the endless array 
of ice-houses lining the banks of the river for miles, 
and presenting the appearance of an encampment of 
troops. These ice-houses, or ice-pits, are thatched 
over with straw ; and the ice is used to preserve fresh 
fish during the summer months. 

There is a small foreign community on the banks 
of the Yang, making up in all about eighty residents 
of different nationalities, including the missionary body. 
The native city is a walled enclosure, somewhat larger 
than that at Shanghai, and with nearly double its popu 
lation ; but as for the foreign trade of the place, it has 
never been very important, in spite of the proximity 
of Hang-chow-fu, the capital of the province, which the 
great Venetian, when he passed through it, described 
as an Eastern Paradise. 

Among the chief attractions of Ningpo are the 
Fukien guild-hall, the Tien-how-kung/ as it is called, 
or Temple of the Queen of Heaven ; one of the finest 
buildings of the kind in China. Indeed it is only the 
temples, the yamens, and the houses of the rich --the 
latter, outside the official ranks, few and far between 
when one considers the vastness of the population that 
possess any noteworthy architectural features in the 
country. The comfortable, elegant, and tasteful abodes 



NINGPO CITY GUARD. 413 

of the middle classes, which adorn the suburbs round 
our cities at home, are conspicuous by their absence in 
the Flowery Land/ 

In the Fukien guild-hall we find a really splendid 
specimen of Chinese temple architecture. The principal 
building of this commercial shrine is supported by a 
series of exquisitely sculptured monolithic pillars, each 
representing the dragon of native mythology ; while 
the upper roof furnishes a very perfect example of the 
complex Chinese system of open ornamental bracketing, 
on which the heavy superincumbent weight is sus 
tained. 

In this town, too, I met the remnant of that ever- 
victorious army which achieved so many triumphs. 
Now, after much turmoil, these warriors rest from 
their labours, and form the Ning-po city guard ; a small 
compact body of disciplined native troops, under two 
English officers, well drilled, well cared for, and well 
paid. This, I fear, is more than can be said of all, or 
even a large portion, of the Chinese forces now under 
arms. At any rate they are not all well, and but few 
of them regularly, paid. Notwithstanding this the 
condition of the Chinese soldiers is better than it has 
been in former years ; and I believe that, were the 
Imperial Government obliged to make an effort, they 
could turn out an army infinitely better equipped, and 
far more formidable, than is generally supposed ; al 
though, at the same time, any force the Chinese might 
thus muster would be wofully deficient in the discipline, 
organisation and science, required in coping with the 
machine-like masses that are placed upon the modern 
battle-fields of Europe. 

These are the impressions I gathered from actual 



4 i4 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

observation of large bodies of men encamped and 
under review in China. I think that a Chinaman who 
has received an English education, of a not very high- 
class sort, might try to put a letter together in pure 
English with just about as much success as his govern 
ment, with the knowledge they at present possess of 
the science of modern warfare, to send a thoroughly 
efficient army to face our troops. I cannot, indeed, 
march a regiment of Chinese before my reader for 
review, but of their shortcomings in European literary 
composition I will give an actual sample. 

An Englishman had occasion to send a note to his 
doctor s native assistant, and here, in facsimile, is the 
reply : 

Dear Sir, I not know this things Dr. no 

came Thursday More better you ask he suposc you 
what Fashtion thing can tell me know I can send to 
you. 

Yours truly 

/ HANG SIN. 

Now in the foregoing we have a very fine specimen 
of the sort of results achieved by Chinamen who flatter 
themselves that they can write English perfectly. 
They have learnt the letters, and something of the 
syntax and grammar, but not enough to be of value to 
them ; and so it is with the Chinese soldier of to-day. 
He possesses the right weapons, but he lacks the full 
knowledge essential to make use of them effectively, 
and the perfect discipline which alone can unite him to 
his fellows on the field, as an important unit in a com 
pact and well-organised mass. 

On April 4th I left Ningpo for Snowy Valley, in a 



KONG-KAL 415 

native boat which I hired to take me up stream to 
Kong-kai. It was close on midnight when we started 

o o 

from Ningpo wharf, and we hoped to reach Kong-kai 
village by about 9 or 10 A.M. next day. But we had 
made no allowance for the leisure-loving character of 
the natives of Ningpo. There is, above the city, a 
floating bridge across the river ; and the first thing we 
had to do was to wait until men could be found to 
draw up the central pontoon, so as to permit our boat 
to pass through. When this business was settled, the 
boatmen suddenly discovered that the tide was against 
them, and were about to anchor and go to sleep. I 
thereupon ordered them to pull me back to the city, 
and after a good deal of trouble and delay they were 
got to push forward. Not long after I fell asleep, and 
when I next awoke I found myself plunging down an 
inclined plane. Starting up, I noticed that we had 
reached a weir, and that our boat had been hauled up 
by a windlass and was now being dropped over to the 
higher level on the other side. In the end we reached 
Kong-kai within the allotted time. My party con 
sisted of my two China boys and four Ningpo coolies 
engaged to transport my baggage to the hills. Our 
path lay across fields of bean and rape, now in full 
bloom, and exhaling a delightful fragrance, which con 
trasted strikingly with the morning whiffs from the 
manure-bestrewed fields, which commonly salute the 
wanderer in China. Everything hereabouts shone 
with freshness and beauty, and it was evident that we 
must have landed in a real paradise of cultivation. 

There lay the village in front of us, nestling cosily 
amid the trees ! and, as we marched along, I pictured 
to myself a quiet rustic hamlet, such as we encounter in 



4 i6 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

our English counties pretty cottages where rose and 
honeysuckle climb the rustic walls, or peep in at open 
doorways ; children, flushed with the bloom of health, 
prattling over their play ; and sturdy villagers pursuing 
their useful daily toil. 

But notwithstanding the natural beauty of the 
situation, Kong-kai was disappointing. No perfume 
of rose or honeysuckle greeted us as we approached ; 
no rustic cots, no healthy, blooming children ; not even 
the fondly-expected sturdy villager, were among what 
was here to be seen. The place looked as if it had 
been stricken with blight. The houses along its main 
alley were huddled together, jostling and elbowing each 
other for space and breathing room, and leaning forward 
upon the broken and muddy pavement in various 
stages of decay ; while, as for their occupants, they 
were little better. Not a few could be recognised as 
the pale shrivelled victims of the opium-pipe, and the 
majority seemed sickly and dirty. As I stood at this 
little hamlet, on its old bridge, a striking contrast pre 
sented itself to my gaze. Towards the hills, through 
a drapery of pale green foliage that shaded the old 
wall, you might discern the river, flowing between its 
reedy shallows, reflecting the waving plumes of bamboo 
that bent over its banks, and the purple of the distant 
mountains ; you might mark the water meandering 
through the far-off fields until it was lost in the dim 

o 

hot air of the plain ; and, nearer at hand, some 
heavy-laden raft of earthenware gliding lazily down 
stream, the owner resting on a jar, basking in the sun, 
and smoking the pipe of contentment and repose. To 
the left, again, in the direction of Kong-kai, a small 
temple rose up from beneath the shade of an ancient 



A WAYSIDE TEMPLE. 417 

tree, and hard by it were the squalid villagers trooping 
out to have a look at my strange apparatus. One 
group had scaled the treacherous height of a dung- 
heap, which, faint with its own odour, had sunk against 
the gateway of the shrine. The tutelary idol within 
could have been but a worthless and disreputable god, 
else how could he have allowed his mud-begrimed 
worshippers to fall into so unprosperous a condition ? 

At this place we procured mountain-chairs for an 
eighteen miles journey to the monastery of Tien-tang. 
The chair-bearers looked a worn and feeble set, but as 
I walked a good deal they were not over-fatigued. 
We were now fairly on our way across the plain, glad 
once more to be free of the foul atmosphere of the 
village. One or two of the hamlets which we passed 
on the road were much more attractive than Kong-kai ; 
and, indeed, the people seemed to improve in condition 
the further we advanced inland. Near the hills the 
women and children adorn their raven tresses with the 
bright flower of the azalea a plant found in great pro 
fusion in the highlands of the locality. The halting- 
places were little wayside temples ; and in one of these 
I met two old women, the priestesses of the shrine. 
Most haggard, ill-favoured crones, were they ; and it 
was with grave forebodings that I allowed them to pre 
pare my repast. As they leant over a fire of reeds 
in the dim light of an inner court, with hideous idols 
glaring around, I should not have been surprised to 
have seen them vanish in the smoke. I half sus 
pected that I was being made the victim of some spell 
or incantation, when I observed one of these bel 
dames stretch forth her withered hand and pluck a leaf 
from some strange plant which grew near the altar, 

E K 



4i 8 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

dropping the herb mysteriously inside the cup, as she 
handed me some tea. I certainly sipped the decoction 
eyeing the old priestess the while ; but nothing came 
of it. Probably she divined the drift of my thoughts, 
for her oaken face shrunk up into a weird grin. 

The bearers rested as often as they possibly could, 
and spent their money and their leisure in gambling 
among themselves, or with wayside hawkers. Some of 
the small temples hereabouts differed from any which I 
had seen in China, having their outer porches adorned 
with two or three well-modelled life-size figures in the 
costume which appeared to be that of the ancient 
lictors of the Ming dynasty. But the idols within 
v/ere invariably the same, the ordinary Triad of the 
Buddhist mythology. Each shady nook about these 
shrines was the resort, and at times the sleeping-place, 
of wayfarers ; and there, too, vendors of fruit and other 
provisions had set up their stalls, ready either to sell 
the traveller his daily food, or to gamble with him for 
it, if he preferred that plan. The wandering minstrel 
and the story-teller were not absent from the scene, 
beguiling the mid-day repast with quaint ballads or 
with some tale from the rich stores which the folklore 
of the country has to supply. At one of these halting- 
places, while the coolies were tossing dice with an aged 
hawker, a Chinese pedlar laid down his burden for a 
rest. He had been carrying two baskets slung on a 
pole, and from these there issued such an incessant 
pattering, and ceaseless chirping, that my curiosity in 
duced me to open one of them and have a look inside. 
There I found about a hundred fluffy little ducklings, 
all of an age, flapping their rudimentary wings, and 
opening their capacious mouths, clamorous for food. 



MY DOG SPOT: 



419 



They were of our friend s own hatching, and but one or 
two days old ; yet in that short space of time they had 
developed the instinct of self-preservation as strongly 
as their owner, who, poorly- clad and hungry-looking 
himself, was taking them to market for sale. 

Hatching poultry by artificial heat has reached 
great perfection in China. My clog Spot manifested 
a strong interest in these callow nestlings ; his eyes 
filled with tears, his tail dropped pensively, and he 
uttered a touching whine of regret, as I sternly com 
manded him to withdraw his scrutiny from the baskets 
and their contents. Spot was a singularly thought 
ful clog ; whenever I slept he used to awake me next 
morning, by jumping up and quietly poking me in the 
ribs, with his cold black nose ; and when I was fairly 
astir he would next rouse the boys to the preparation 
of breakfast. He was full of humour, too, and waggish- 
ness of tail, withal ; but to the presence of strange 
Chinamen he retained unconquerable objections. When 
I was eating he felt it his duty to be close at hand, 
carrying oh a sort of dumb conversation the while, one 
ear up, the other down, and responding to my 
enquiries with sundry blinkings of the eyes, and grave 
movements of an expressive tail. When all was over, 
and he, too, had had his share of food, he would wind 
himself up for the clay by pursuing his tail round and 
round, and then finally dart off in advance to take a 
survey of the road. He was a clog, too, endowed with 
a sort of national pride, and could never be brought to 
associate with, or even take notice of, Chinese curs. 

The plain which we were now crossing was clotted 
with little grave-mounds crowned with towering shrubs. 
And here and there a farm-house could be seen peeping 



420 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

out amid the groves, or a haystack clinging round the 
trunk of a tree, and propped six feet clear above the 
ground. 

The ascent to the monastery of the Snowy 
Crevice afforded a succession of the finest views to be 
met with in the province of Cheh-kiang. The azaleas, 
for which this place is celebrated, were now in full 
bloom, mantling the hills and valleys with rosy hues, 
and throwing out their blossoms, in clusters of sur 
prising brilliancy, against the deep green foliage which 
bound the edges of the path. The mountains them 
selves were tossed in wild disorder ; here swelling into 
richly-wooded knolls, or rising in giant cliffs and 
beetling crags ; there sweeping down into dark rocky 
ravines, or sylvan valleys, where we could hear the 
carolling of birds, or the faint murmuring of a mountain 
rill. But it was not till ive had almost reached the 
monastery, that we came upon the grandest scene. 
Here, as we looked back from an altitude of 1,500 feet, 
the eye wandered over an endless multitude of hills. 
A single cloud rested on a distant summit, as if to 
watch the windings of a stream which ran, wrapped in 
the glory of the waning sun, like a belt of gold, 
dividing the valleys, and girdling the far-off mountain 
sides. 

As the day declined the hills seemed to melt and 
merge into the fiery clouds ; deep shadows shot across 
the path, swallowing up the woody chasms, and 
warning us that night was near at hand. Darkness 
had already set in before we arrived at our destination. 
* Spot had proceeded on, and his appearance had 
brought out a venerable bonze, who almost without 
question, suspended the evening reckoning of his sins 



MONASTERY OF THE SNOWY CREVICE: 421 

on his rosary, and lit us to our quarters in a large block 
of buildings behind. The apartment assigned to us 
was a plastered, white-washed chamber, built out of 
pine wood, and containing a magnificent hardwood bed, 
one of the finest, and certainly the hardest (excepting 
one or two made of downright brick), that I came 
across in my travels. After intimating that foreign 
wine was much better than any of his country s liquors, 
our old guide took his leave. We were not long, how 
ever, in finding our way to the kitchen for ourselves, 
and there the boys kindled a fire, while I had a smoke 
with the monks. Among these recluses was a fine- 
looking jovial fellow, like a friar of the olden time, one 
of those who understood, not the culture of the grape 
only, but the use of its wine as well ; less remarkable, 
perhaps, than he ought to have been, for the rigid 
austerities of his order, and rather an affecter of that 
milder discipline which tolerates occasional excesses, 
such as are not altogether unfamiliar to some members 
of the Buddhist fraternity in Cathay. 

The monastery of the * Snowy Crevice reposes, far 
from the haunts of men and the tumult of cities, in a 
broad, fertile valley, part of the imperial patrimony 
upon which its members subsist. It has, of course, a 
miraculous history ; and, like many similar establish 
ments, is popularly supposed to be extremely ancient. 
Probably it was erected in pre-historic times. One of 
the stories connected with the place is, that in 1264 A.D. 
the Emperor Li-tang dreamed a dream about the 
temple, and named it accordingly The famous Hall 
of Dreams. This formed one of the most important 
events in its annals, for the dream was followed by 
substantial gifts. There is another legend which tells 



422 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

us of an anchorite, and of an Emperor who essayed in 
vain to slay the Holy Man. At last the monarch fell 
clown and worshipped the priest, for he had never 
before come across a being whom he could not slay. 
This Emperor was distinguished for his wise rule, and 
had just put a million of the common sort of his sub 
jects to death ; but he was, at that time, athirst for some 
victim of rarer eminence, and sanctity, than any of those 
whom he had already brought to their end. He 
died at last a pious priest, and left some suitable gifts 
behind him, too. 

Something like this is not unknown even at the 
present time. There are monks, I am told, in those 
places, who have passed their lives in crime, and who 
find it expedient to retire to these choice retreats 
(making them places of refuge like the temples of the 
ancient Jews and Greeks) to die pleasantly chanting 
<Omita-Foh! 

Such holy ones, rescued from the grasp of justice 
and the jaws of the pit, take good care, nevertheless, 
to live as long as they can. Many of the Buddhists 
are doubtless good and true men, if judged by the laws 
of their own faith ; and the majority of them, whom I 
came across, I found hospitable and kind to strangers. 
They seldom failed, however, to let me know if the 
presents I chanced to give them were not quite equal 
to those which other visitors had bestowed. 

Early next morning a mute and aged monk con 
ducted me to view the Thousand-fathom Precipice. 
A heavy cloucl was hanging like a pall over the scene 
as I followed the guide along a mountain path ; and the 
trees above and in front of us loomed out like dark 
spectres, groping with their long arms through the 




THE DRKAM. (Chinese Drawing 



1 THOUSAND-FATHOM PRECIPICE? 423 

mist. My companion was apparently in haste, and as 
he flitted in his flowing robes along- the road in front, 
he seemed like a phantom figure projected on the 
cloud. 

At length we reached a summit that stood out bold 
and clear, though still wet with the vapoury rain ; and 
there, in a small rest-house perched upon one of the 
rocks, we sat down to listen to the roar of the fall and 
the foaming torrent beneath. 

The monk next led me to where, clinging to a tree, 
I could lean over the edge of the precipice and get a 
look right down into the abyss ; but there was nothing 
to be made out save a sea of mist, through which the 
deafening roar of the waters could be heard as they 
leapt from rock to rock in their descent to the valley 
more than 1,000 feet below. While giving way to the 
reverie which the moving scene evoked, I was suddenly 
recalled to myself by a vulture that shot out from the 
face of the rock, and caught a tiny bird as it hovered 
above the cloud. Impressed with what I had just seen, 
and with the anticipations of that which I had still to 
see, I found my way back to the monastery, where 
breakfast was already prepared. 

The sun then gradually shone out, and by its aid 
we descended to the foot of the fall through a steep 
shady path, and secured some pictures of the scenery. 
The cataract takes a leap of about 500 feet, and then 
gushes downwards over the clefts and edges like the 
graceful folds of a bridal veil ; while the variously 
coloured rocks are covered with ferns and flowering 
shrubs. By climbing over huge boulders and beneath 
bamboo groves, I managed to reach the stone basin 
below. Here the spray was lit up with countless rain- 



424 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

bow hues ; and the ferns that leant their broad leaves, as 
it were, to catch the burden of the fall, had their never- 
ceasing toil rewarded by showers of sparkling gems. 

It was interesting to watch the monks at their 
refections ; and this we contrived to do without being 
noticed ourselves. We found them always scrupu 
lously particular in observing those rules of Budd 
hism by which the duties of cleanliness are enforced. 
The following are some of the laws which regulate 
diet : : 

The dinner of a priest consists of seven measures 
of rice mixed with flour, the tenth of a cubit of pastry, 
and nearly the same weight of bread. To eat more is 
cupidity, to eat less is parsimony ; to eat vegetables of 
any kind besides these dishes is not permitted. 

The last injunction is by no means commonly 
followed in China : 

Then the priest shall offer to the good and bad 
spirits, and repeat five prayers. He must not speak 
about his dinner, nor steal food like a clog, nor scratch 
his head, nor breathe in his neighbour s face, nor speak 
with his mouth full, nor laugh, nor joke, nor smack in 
eating ; and if he should happen to find an insect in 
his food he must conceal it so as not to create doubt in 
the minds of others. 

There are a host of other very good rules laid 
down for his guidance ; but their general tendency is to 
make a monk s dinner the most solemn and most un 
social event of his in other respects too dreary day. 
When we look through the Buddhist laws and precepts, 
we find them so minute and so wide-reaching, that 

4 Laws and Regulations of the Priesthood of Buddha, in China. 
Trans, by C. F. Newmann. 




SUNG- ING-DAY FALL, SNOWY VALLEY 



BUDDHIST MONKS. 425 

they hedge the priest completely round, shutting him 
out from the gratification of his most natural desires, 
and rendering it indeed uncertain whether any per 
fectly devout and faithful Buddhists can possibly exist 
in China. 

It is an undoubted fact that some of the monks 
indulge in secret potations ; and there are others who 
smoke opium and gamble ; while their covetousness, 
their meanness, and as a rule the extreme dirtiness of 
their dress and habits, are patent to every observer. 
Even in the monastery of the Snowy Crevice/ amid 
the grandest and most ennobling scenery, we still 
discovered practices of the outer world which had not 
been wholly cast aside ; and some of the members of 
the order who, though honest enough, had still a 
greedy hankering after earthly pelf, and were dis 
figured with a few other weaknesses which they took 
no pains to conceal. 

Within three minutes walk from my quarters I dis 
covered a natural shower-bath, with a convenient stone 
basin in which I bathed every morning ; and if we 
followed the stream for about a mile further up we 
came upon a second great fall, known in the neigh 
bourhood as the Sung-ng-day, and approached by a 
bridge of a single arch concealed by a profusion of 
creeping plants. The water at this fall descends into 
a deep narrow chasm, while groups of dull dark pines 
look sombrely over the brink of the precipice into the 
dark abyss below. 

Far beneath, the river may still be seen winding 
along a rough and broken bed : the peaceful cultivated 
hills above, and the rugged foreground, together 
presenting a contrast as striking as it is rare. 



426 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

The return voyage, to Ning-po and Shanghai, I 
must pass by unrecorded, that I may hurry forward to 
describe my journey up the Yang-tsze river to Sze- 
chuan. 

Having dined with a literary friend in Shanghai, I 
returned to the hotel towards midnight January 13, 
1872, and there found my boys with everything in 
readiness, and a gang of coolies waiting to bear our 
baggage on board the Fusiyama, which was getting 
up steam for Hankow. It was a bitter night, and the 
scene was as dark and gloomy as the wind was cold. 
The lamps blinked and shivered as the blast swept by, 
and a thousand lanterns of ships and steamers, gleaming 
dimly in the distance, shot long shafts of broken light 
clown the chill black river beneath. The ships bells 
tinkled the midnight hour, and then the Chinese 
watchmen woke from their first slumbers to beat their 
bamboo clappers. The bund was deserted ; only 
some stray woman would now and again emerge from 
the darkness, and then be swallowed up once more, 
like a sinful victim in the jaws of night. 

We soon passed on to the Fusiyama across the 
floating landing- stage alongside of which she was 
moored. She was a fine steamer, although by no 
means the finest among the S. S. N. Go s, fleet. 
There were many passengers on board, bound for the 
open ports on the Yang-tsze. One, an American, 
seemed to be a man of great versatility of talent. He 
informed us that in his own country he had followed a 
number of different occupations. If a man fails in 
one calling, he remarked, that is the very best 
reason why he should try his hand at something else, 
until he discovers the drift of his genius. Accordingly 



HANKOW. 427 

he had himself started first of all with a friend and ran 
a saw-mill : but that concern ran down one morning. 

o 

He tried to wind it up, but it wouldn t go no how ! 
Left then without a red cent/ he took to railways ; 
got to be conductor of a train, and went through three 
smashes, and the best of it was it warn t no fault of 
mine/ The last was a big thing ; it mashed up 
twenty-five passengers, and the cars ran into each 
other like tubes ; so I hauled out of that, and took to 
mining, and made a pretty good thing ; then here I am, 
to try my fortune in trade/ 

Reserving what I may have to say about Nanking 
and the ports on the lower Yang-tsze, I will transport 
the reader at once, about 600 miles higher up to 
Hankow, the furthest point on the Yangtsze river to 
which steam navigation has been carried. Hankow 
holds an important position, at the confluence of the 
rivers Han and Yang-tsze. The ancient name of the 
Han river was the Mien, and its course, as well as the 
point at which it joins the Yang-tsze, have been sub 
jected to frequent change. It was only in the last 
decade of the fifteenth century that the river created its 
present channel, and at the same time the advan 
tageous site to which Hankow owes no little portion 
of her prosperity. The early trade of the district was 
confined to Hanyang, a place described as a flourishing 
port at the remote period treated of in the History of 
the Three States/ Hanyang is now taken up chiefly 
with official residences, though its suburbs are still the 
resort of a considerable native trade. 

Hankow flourished under the rule of the Mings, 
and does not seem to have suffered greatly during 
the disasters which attended their fall. It was then 



428 INDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

known as the great mart, in fact the commercial centre 
of the Empire ; and was the resort of traders from the 
furthest north, and from the southernmost provinces 
Kiang-su and Yunan. Most of the provinces indeed 
were represented there by guilds, whose halls are still 
famous for their size and decoration. During Kien- 

o 

loong s time the prosperity of Hankow continued to 
advance until the disastrous epoch of the Taiping 
rebellion. Then the decay was as rapid as the ruin 
was complete ; and finally, in 1855, the whole city was 
burned to the. ground. 

After the Taipingshad been expelled from Hupeh, 
Hankow rose once more out of its ashes, and in 1861 
the final arrangements for a concession of land to the 
British Crown were carried into effect. The hoisting 
of the English colours was followed at once by a 
splendid settlement, erected on a very unfortunate site. 
The land was bought up in small lots at 2,500 taels 
each, and enormous sums were squandered, to no pur 
pose, before it was discovered that the spot chosen for 
a foreign settlement was exposed to constant inunda 
tions of the most destructive kind. Thus, in the year 
before my arrival, the flood, which is always looked 
forward to as the event of the season, bestowed its fer 
tilising favours with no grudging hand ; and indeed 
there was no foretelling to what height the waters, 
which had already swept away entire suburbs from the 
cities higher up stream, might deluge the vicinity of 
Hankow. Well, first of all, it rose slowly until it 
had submerged its banks ; thence it made excursions 
along the outlying streets ; crept up like a silent 
foe till it had breasted the fortifications ; and finally 
made the captured settlement over to a sort of 



ANNUAL INUNDATIONS. 429 

watery sack. The inhabitants retreated to their garret 
fastnesses, while pigs, poultry, and even cattle, were 
sheltered in boats, or found refuge in the bedrooms, on 
the upper floors. At any rate, it was a convenience to 
* Paterfamilias to have his milch-cow next door to his 
nursery, and chanticleer perched upon a friendly bed 
post to screech the approach of day. But when the 
novelty of these domestic arrangements had worn off, 
and when the richly-papered walls began to weep 
through a lacework of fungus, and the limbs of the 
polished furniture to show symptoms of dissolution ; 
when the silken hangings grew mildewed and pale, and 
the boundary walls tottered and sunk with a dull 
splash into the red stream, the dire insecurity of the 
position, and the dread of impending disaster, pressed 
heavily upon the despondent inhabitants. But, with a 
truly philosophic spirit, they made the best of events. 
The halls and staircases became really admirable docks 
and landing-stages, where visitors might disembark, 
and a dining or drawing-room made a much better 
plunge-bath than one could have imagined. Bachelors, 
too, while they indulged in a morning swim, could call 
at the bank, to enquire the rate of exchange, or dive 
to their breakfast beneath the doorway of some hospi 
table friend. At length the water reached its height ; 
and then, to the relief of all, began slowly to recede. It 
is apprehended that but for aback wall (erected originally 
by the Chinese Government at a cost of 8o,ooo/. as a 
protection against organised raids from the banditti of 
the plain), which acted as a breakwater, the entire 
settlement might have been swept into the Yang-tsze by 
the strong reflux currents from the Han. 

The business at Hankow has never come near the 



430 IN DO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

anticipations of the Europeans who flocked thither 
when the place was opened ; but nevertheless, as the 
centre of the districts which produce the Congou teas, 
it must always secure a very important share of foreign 
commerce. The total value of the trade in foreign 
shipping was reported to be about 1 4,000, ooo/. in 1871, 
while in 1873 it appears to have fallen off; but this 
was owing to a sort of commercial stagnation which 
has been felt all over China. 

The Taotai of Hankow, Ti-ming-chih, who furnished 
me with a passport for the upper Yang-tsze, and whom I 
had twice the pleasure of meeting, had been born in the 
province of Kiangsu, and commenced his official career 
at the age of thirty by an appointment to a modest 
clerkship. From this his abilities advanced him step 
by step, until he attained his present position, where 
he has earned a high reputation by his just, mild, and 
intelligent rule. 

Woochang city, on the opposite bank of the river, 
presents a picturesque appearance, clue partly to the 
elevated ground on which it stands, and partly to its 
celebrated tower, which tradition reports to have been 
first set up there 1,300 years ago. This tower was 
overthrown by the followers of the Heavenly King 
during the Taiping rebellion, and has only been rebuilt 
and finished within the last four years. It is quite un 
like the ordinary Chinese pagoda, and from its peculiar 
design runs no risk of ever being mistaken for any other 
monument. 

During the journey to the upper Yang-tsze, which I 
now propose to describe, I had two American gentle 
men for my companions. Two native boats were 
secured, and we engaged them to carry us to Ichang. 



ON THE YANG-TSZK 431 

Into the smaller of these craft we stowed the cook and 
servants, reserving the larger one for our baggage and 
ourselves. Our boat was divided into three compart 
ments with well-carved bulkheads between. The fore- 
cabin was taken up by a boy to wait on us, and by our 
newly-appointed Chinese secretary Chang (who was 
in no way related to the giant of that name). This 
secretary was a small compact man, full of Chinese 
lore and self-satisfied complacency. The central state 
room was our own, while Captain Wang and his wife 
found shelter in the after-cabin. Besides this there 
was an ample hold, which contained our baggage, our 
provisions, and our crew. 

We left Hankow about mid-day on January 29, 
1872 ; but as there was no wind, we had to pole our 
way through thousands of native boats, and anchor for 
the night at Ta-tuen-shan, only ten miles above the 
town. A hard frost set in during the evening, and it 
seemed quite impossible to keep the intense cold out 
of our quarters. 

To make matters worse, the skipper and his spouse 
smoked stale tobacco half through the night, and the 
fumes came through the bulkhead and filled my sleeping- 
bunk. Next day we set to work with paper and paste 
to cure both evils by patching up every crevice, and by 
fixing up a stove which had been lent us by friends for 
the voyage. These preparations were a source of dis 
quietude to Mrs. Wang, who turned out to be a tartar 
more desperate even than the lady of the Min. 

The boatmen were a miserably poor lot. They 
neither changed their clothes nor washed their bodies 
during the entire trip ; and Why should they ? said 
Chang the secretary ; they could only change their 



432 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

garments with one another. They have but a single 
suit apiece, and that too, some of them, only on loan for 
the winter months. Their clothes were padded with 
cotton, and formed their habiliments by day and their 
bedding by night. Poor souls, how they crept together, 
and huddled into the hold ! and what an odour rose 
from their retreat in the morning, for they had smoked 
themselves to sleep with tobacco, or those of them 
who could afford it, with opium. It was always a 
difficult matter to get them up and out on deck to face 
the cold. I confess I never cared to be the first to lift 
the hatch. But the voice of Mrs. Wang is equal to 
the occasion. She shakes those sluggards from their 
rest with her strident tones ; she stamps in her cabin, 
and slings slang at them, like the foulest missiles. At 
last, at about seven o clock, they may be seen unwillingly 
turning to and hauling up the anchor not more slow- 
moving than themselves. As it happened, we had a 
fair wind ; the sails were set, and we bounded on 
briskly up the chocolate-coloured stream between banks 
that stood up high above us and were furrowed with 
the lines of age. 

We made a good day s run, but the iron stove 
seemed to be a failure, or at any rate our coal would 
not burn. It took us half a day of hard work to turn 
Farmer s Bend/ although one might easily walk across 
the neck of land which divides the two extremities of 
the curve in a single quarter of an hour. A canal cut 
across here would be a great saving in the river navi 
gation. We noticed many timber rafts from the Tung- 
Ting lake, looking like floating villages, and indeed 
they are neither more nor less than hamlets. Each on 
its floating substructure of timber supported two rows 



MRS. WANG. 433 

of huts, and in these dwelt the little colonies of China 
men who had invested their time, labour, and small 
capital in the trade. When the rafts reach Hankow, 
these huts are lifted off and placed on the river s bank ; 
the owners residing inside them till all their wood has 
been disposed of. If ever steamers are seen even thus 
far up the Yangtsze river (46 miles above Hankow), 
experienced pilots would be required ; especially at this 
season, when the water is at its lowest ; and it might 
perhaps be necessary even, to survey the stream annu 
ally, for its channel tends constantly to shift. At 
Paitsow, where we anchored for the night, we found 
men manufacturing bamboo cables. They had no rope- 
walks, but only high temporary-looking scaffoldings, 
with some men above and others below, making and 
twisting the thick strands. 

Next morning the skipper s wife, and the crew, 
got through a good deal of bad language between them 
before we made a start. The conversation was a shrill- 
toned one, and alternated between Mrs. Wang in her 
cabin at one end of the boat, and the crew in the hold 
at the other. The latter objected to turn out until 
their captain was at his post. This difficulty the gentle 
wife settled ultimately, by kicking her husband out of 
bed on to the deck, hurling torrents of abuse at his 
unhappy head, and supplementing those delicate atten 
tions by a plentiful supply of cooking utensils. 

Let the reader imagine himself afloat in such a 
vessel as I have described, with such a crew, on a river 
red like the soil through which it flows, and from half a 
mile to a league in breadth ; let him conceive himself 
ascending the stream between low level monotonous 
clay walls ; he will then have a picture of our craft 

F F 



434 



INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



and our surroundings for many days as we pursued our 
voyage upward to the Gorges. 

We breakfasted and dined, anchored and slept, 
surveying the river as well as we could, and here and 
there marking out sundry sandbanks and other barriers 
to commerce, formed since the one and only chart of 
the river had been made. 

We had chosen our opportunity well. There can 





be no better time for examining the features of a river 
than when it is at its lowest, and the Yang-tsze was now 
running far below its banks, which in summer are com 
pletely submerged. But our careful soundings, our 
notes of bearings,- and our chart-projecting, need find 
no record here. Their very sameness grew wearisome 
at last ; but, as for our secretary, he would have been 



CHANG. 435 

quite willing to sail on until he had digested the whole 
of the ancient classics, drinking our wine, and smoking 
our cheroots as frequently as they were offered. He 
had marvellous raiment, Chang ! A padded robe of 
classic cut, with sleeves reaching down to his knees, 
and a collar that stood up like a fortress around his 
spare neck. When in a corner, seated at study, he 
looked like a huge bolster surmounted by a tiny cap. 
He would remain in this posture for hours, with his 
eyes closed, and audibly rehearsing whole books of 
classic lore ; but he had also a good deal of accurate 
information about the country, and was extremely 
polite in his manner, and willing to make himself 
useful. 

It was a mistake having two boats ; their unequal 
sailing powers caused grievous delays delays which 
the servants and cook readily turned to account in 
explaining all sorts of shortcomings, and which con 
tributed greatly to the leisure and enjoyment of the 
crews, who were paid, by the day. 

On the 23rd we passed the point where the Ta- 
Kiang or great river is joined by the stream from 
the Tung-Ting lake. At this place there were abun 
dant evidences of considerable trade in the fleets of 
boats we continually passed. The river, in some of the 
long reaches hereabouts, would be dangerous for steam 
navigation, at any rate during the months when the 
banks are submerged. Hence suitable landmarks would 
have to be erected, as not a single tree, shrub or knoll, 
can at such times be seen for many miles around. All the 
shoals at this (the winter) season are well defined, and, 
with the exception of two reefs of rocks which stand 
well clear of the water, consist of soft mud and sand, 



F F 2 



436 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

and occur just at the bends, where anyone accustomed 
to river navigation would expect to find them. Where - 
ever the current struck upon the clay, a good channel 
was almost invariably to be found. 

On the 24th we ascended a small rapid which ran 
about five knots, and were detained by a snow-storm 
for about six hours. The little hamlets we passed, or 
anchored at, day after day, were temporary miserable- 
looking settlements, conveying the idea of a thinly- 
peopled country ; and the inhabitants wore the poverty- 
stricken look only too common in other parts of China. 
We have walked over the country, and along the banks, 
for nearly half a day without encountering a single 
individual. 

At many places the river had undermined the banks, 
and these were falling in in great blocks eight or ten 
feet wide ; and there was one point where we noticed 
that the stream was cutting out the heart of an old 
settlement, for there were old foundations of houses 
exposed, and many coffins protruding from the bank. 

On the 27th we reached Shang-chai-wan, and re 
marked that the banks in front of an old pagoda there 
had been carefully faced up with stones. Thus a use 
ful sort of landmark was well protected from the 
inroads of the stream, while the houses were left to be 
swept away as the bank fell in. 

This village indicated some slight degree of pros 
perity, and presented a pretty winter s scene. A row 
of leafless trees stretched out their white arms against 
the leaden sky. The roofs of the houses and the 
sloping banks were covered with snow, while the red 
light of reed fires gleamed through the open doorways, 
and sparkled in the oyster-shell windows. There was 



FRIENDLY ADVICE. 437 

no one astir, not a footprint stained the pure white 
mantle in which the soil was wrapt ; only on one level 
patch the leaves of a winter crop shot up in rows, and 
formed a pale green pattern on a snowy ground. A 
little further on was the town of * Shang-chai-wan/ 
where our boys went ashore and spent half a clay in a 
vain search for coal. Then the crew had to be hunted, 
up all over the place, and one by one the men dropped 
in, each with as much samshu as he could hold inside 
him, or else stupified with opium. Capt. Wang we 
found in a filthy alley, enjoying the nectar of a grog 
shop, amid a group of natives and half-a-dozen enor 
mous pigs, that seemed to be listening with a lively 
interest to the conversation about foreigners and their 
ways. The natives were civil enough. Few of them 
had ever set eyes upon a genuine white man before, 
and all made numerous good-natured enquiries about 
our relations, and our clothes ; one old man even sug 
gested that our faces and hands had only acquired a 
pale colour through the use of some wonderful cosmetic, 
and that our bodies were black as sin. I bared my 
arm to refute this calumny, and its white skin was 
touched by many a rough finger, and awoke universal 
admiration. Not knowing exactly what our barbarous 
views of decency might be, we were kindly recom 
mended by an unwashed, but polished member of the 
community, not to gratify vulgar curiosity by stripping 
entirely, as we had already completely satisfied the 
more intelligent members of the crowd. 

The reader can easily gather, from such incidents as 
these, what depraved notions some of the Chinese 
must entertain about ourselves, and our customs. They 
always seem to feel that we have a great deal to learn ; 



43^ 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

the merest coolie, if he be a kindly-disposed person, 
will readily place his knowledge at our service, and put 
us in the way of picking up something of a purer 
Chinese civilisation. I have in my possession one of 
the valuable works upon which this popular belief is 
fed. It is a sort of ethnological treatise, written clown 
to the limited comprehension of facts, and to the in 
ordinate craving for fable, which characterise the lower 
classes among this highly superstitious nation. The 
author gravely describes races of men who, like our 
selves, live on the outer edges of the world, that is 
outside the benign influence of Chinese rule. Some 
are very hairy men, clothed with leaves ; others hop 
about on one leg ; while others again are adorned with 
the claws of birds. There is one very singular tribe 
indeed. These have only a single huge eye in the 
forehead, while the women carry a multitude of breasts. 
There are men, too, with big holes through their bodies 
above the region of the heart, so that they may be 
spitted like herrings, or carried about on poles ; and 
lastly, there is one community more gifted still, for they 
can fly through the air with wings. 

An old man at Shang-chai-wan came down the 
bank to our boats to sell sweets. His hands, feet, and 
head seemed to be sticking through an ancient bed- 
quilt, rendered waterproof by a glossy coating of dirt. 
We sent some of his wares to the natives as a parting 
gift. 

It was at this place, too, that our writer Chang, 
who said he was suffering from cold, dispatched one of 
the boatmen ashore to buy a bottle of samshu. The 
trust which he displayed in the integrity of the messen 
ger was no less marvellous than touching. I do not 



AN OFFICIAL VISIT. 439 

know how much there is here, said he, as he placed 
his purse in the boatman s hands ; k but take what you 
require, and put back the rest. Just before, however, 
I had noticed the crafty rogue carefully count the cash 
in this very purse, which, as it turned out, contained 
no more than exactly sufficient for the purchase. 

On the 2 Qth, when passing a customs station, we 
were pursued and overtaken by a fiery official, who 
came on board, received a cigar and a glass of wine, 
and went away greatly impressed with our respectability. 
We also sailed by a large cotton-junk lying wrecked 
on the bank, and a second one which had run aground 
where the water was deeper, and whose owners were 
now living in a mud hole, waiting till the river should 
rise high enough to float their craft. * Three blank 
uninteresting clays, with a few temporary huts at long 
intervals, is the next entry in my journal. 

At Shi-show-hien we bought a quantity of fish ; 
among them was one described by Captain Blakiston, 
which carries a sword above its wide toothless mouth. 
This sword it is said to use for boring into the soft 
mud to dislodge the tiny fish, which thereupon rush for 
shelter down its dark capacious throat. The stomach 
of the specimen we purchased contained one or two of 
these half-digested mud-fish. Its colour, from the 
spine half way clown to the belly, was dark blue or 
slate ; the belly was white ; the tail and fins were white 
and red. Length from point of sword to tip of tail 
4 feet 2 inches; length of sword 14 inches. 

Shi-show-hien was formerly held by the rebels. 
Here they built a fortress, whose ruins may still be 
seen. We were now within sight of the hill ranges in 
the province of Hunan, and on one hill, close at hand, 



440 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

stood a temple called the * Ti-tai-shan, which forms a 
striking land-mark for river navigation. Above this 
point many islands and shoals occurred, and the. 
channel, too, grew shallow and intricate, again showing 
the need for frequent surveys, as the condition of the 
bed at one season is no guide to what we might find 
it in the succeeding year. The changes which have 
taken place since our Admiralty chart was laid clown 
renders that map comparatively useless, both for this 
and other parts of the river, at any rate when the 
waters are low. 

At a large village where we made a halt, some ten 
miles below the town of Shasze, we fell in with a 
hawker, and purchased some of his wares. For these, 
when the payment was to be made, he demanded about 
three times their value. At first we declined to pay 
the amount, but the independent old impostor came on 
board and would not budge. A crowd collected, and 
the respectable members decided in our favour, advis 
ing us to drop Shylock overboard, or bear him in 
captivity away. With a determination worthy of some 
nobler cause, our feeble oppressor agreed to suffer 
death rather than forego his advantage. So we paid 
him the money, in order to keep the peace, whereat 
the old villain laughed heartily when he got ashore, 
and firmly expressed his opinion that, after all, we were 
nothing more than foolish foreign devils. This mani 
festation of ill-feeling was in itself sufficient to denote 
that we were drawing near a big town. 

Shasze stands on the left bank of the Yang-tsze 
river, which is here more than a mile and a half broad 
with a deep roomy channel, and we may gather from 
the crowd of native shipping that lie anchored off the 



COAL. 441 

town, or close to its fine stone embankment, that we 
have reached an important centre of trade. 

This embankment terminates,at its upper end, in a sort 
of bulwark, crowned with the finest pagoda to be found 
anywhere along this river. Immense labour has been 
bestowed in fortifying this site against the undermining 
influence of the current ; and the town is placed at such 
an angle on the stream, that the action of the water 
always keeps a clear channel, close to its strong stone- 
retaining wall. Stone is freely used in this part of the 
upper Yang-tsze, and is readily obtainable in unlimited 
supplies in the gorges above the town. At Shasze, 
landing-stages for steamers might be made at almost 
any part of the bank, while there are splendid sites for 
a foreign settlement on the hills across the stream. 

o 

Coal abounds in Hunan and Szechuan, and yet 
we found it difficult to procure. In the former province, 
it is worked at two places only, Tsang-yang-hien and 
Pa-tung-hien, and there to an extremely limited degree ; 
but in Szechuan there is a good deal more coal-mining 
going on. The coal is of good quality, in every way 
suitable for steam purposes at least, the samples 
which we collected were first-rate. 

After passing one or two small towns, where the 
people were better dressed and more prosperous-look 
ing than we had found them lower down stream, we 
arrived on February 3 at the town of Kiang-kow. 
Here the men struck work, as they wished to go 
ashore for what they called rice, but which Chang 
interpreted as wine. We offered to supply them with 
rice ; but that they would not accept, demanding an 
advance of money, and leave of absence to spend it. 
This we stedfastly refused to concede, and threat- 



442 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA, 

ened to cut off their captain s pay unless he brought 
his men to terms. The mutineers next hauled in the 
sails, and sat themselves down for a smoke ; but in 
about an hour, seeing no prospect of our yielding, the 
skipper consulted his sweet spouse, and then forthwith 
ordered the men to turn to, under penalty of letting 
the wife of his bosom loose on them. This prospect 
produced such a powerful effect on the men that they 
instantly resumed their work. 

We were now fairly entering the mountainous 
region, and quitting the great alluvial plain that 
stretches hundreds of miles southward to the sea. We 
could just see the * Mountains of the Seven Gates, 
towering in dark masses above the horizon, as the 
evening closed in upon us and we cast anchor for the 
night. Our skipper determined to serve us out for 
our obstinacy. He assured us that the place was 
infested with pirates, and that it would be necessary to 
keep an armed watch all night. Perhaps he feared 
his men, who were certainly a clare-devil looking set. 

I kept the first watch, and employed myself in 
writing letters, with my revolver close at hand. Once 
or twice, there appeared to be a noise about the cabin 
window, as of some one trying to open it ; but when I 
looked out into the night there were no signs of life 
on the river, nor any sounds to be heard save only the 
heavy breathing of the boatmen in the hold beneath. 
At lengch, shortly after midnight, voices were audible 
close to the boat, and seemingly coming nearer. I 
grasped my revolver, determined to sell my life dearly, 
and once more crept cautiously to the window, pre 
pared for the worst. I concealed the light, and looked 
abroad ; and then my companion, who had himself been 



FISHING WITH OTTERS. 443 

the author of the alarm, arrived to relieve me in the 
watch. 

We noticed men fishing with trained otters on this 
part of the river. There were a number of boats, and 
each boat was furnished with an otter tied to a cord. 
The animal was thrust into the water and remained 
there until it had secured a fish ; then it was hauled 
up and the fisherman, placing his foot upon its tail, 
stamped vigorously until it had dropped its finny prey. 
We passed two prosperous -looking little towns, Po-yang 
and Chi-kiang, and on the morning of February 5 were 
sailing beneath bold rocky bluffs, backed by a chaos of 
fantastic mountain peaks. Here, on the highest pin 
nacle, a Buddhist monastery was perched not far from 
the brink of the river, and nearer heaven than any 
other object in the landscape. It was fronted by a 
precipice of 600 feet, and looked quite inaccessible at 
its altitude of more than 1,200 feet above the stream. 
But after all, to scale this stony height, and to rear a 
shrine amid the clouds, although a wonderful achieve 
ment in its way, sinks into insignificance when compared 
with the task of self-subjection daily set before each 
inmate of the cloister, who, even in such a retreat as 
this, removed as far as it well can be from the haunts 
of men, finds the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life 
too strong to be effectually subdued. Many of the 
Buddhist monastic establishments in China, as we have 
already seen, are planted in most romantic and lovely 
spots ; and in the one now before us we found no 
exception to the rule. It was set in the midst of a 
region where Nature showed herself in her sublimest 
moods ; where, even when we passed, the dark clouds, 
tossed and riven by the winter s wind, were pierced by 



4H INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

fitful gleams of sunshine that gilded the sacred rock 
when all around was wrapped in gloom. But in 
summer the scene must be more impressive still. Then 
sometimes, the wild raging of the tempest echoes 
through the deep ravines, the vapoury heavens are 
rent upon the black crags, and a thousand cascades 
leap and flash in the lightning as they descend im 
petuously to swell the wild torrents of the Yang-tsze. 
Onward, ever onward, roll the waters of this mighty 
stream, now fertilising, now laying waste. Time after 
time have man s hands striven to limit and confine its 
course, but his efforts end abortively, his greatest works 
are silently levelled by the invading floods. Who, then, 
can wonder if the Buddhist recluse, perched upon this 
rocky pinnacle, and looking down upon the great river at 
one time smiling in the sunshine and dotted with many a 
sail, at another bearing on its turbid breast the wreck 
of cities, should be deeply impressed with the muta 
bility of human affairs, and stimulated to seek that 
absolute repose which can only come, as his sacred 
books teach him, by disencumbering himself of all 
human affections ? 

On the same day, at noon, or a little after, we 
anchored before Ichang. This city is one of con 
siderable commercial importance, and, as it stands at 
the entrance of the Gorges, it would be the highest 
point to which steam navigation could be carried until 
these rocky defiles, which extend for upwards of 100 
miles beyond it, shall have been thoroughly surveyed, 
and some obstacles removed, which render the navigation 
there by far the most dangerous on the rivers of China. 
That Ichang will ultimately be opened to foreign trade 
is tolerably certain. My only surprise is that this has 



ICHANG. 445 

not been done already ; but while the Chinese them 
selves are disinclined to open new ports, those foreign 
ers who have vested interests in Hankow probably 
look with anything but satisfaction, on the threatened 
rivalry of Ichang. However, if the opening of that 
mart is desirable, and this can hardly be doubted, 
Hankow interests can never stand in the way, nor will 
Chinese opposition succeed, unless some very good 
reason can be shown for excluding foreign commerce 
from the upper waters of the Yang-tsze. 

For information as to the trade of Ichang I must 
refer the reader to the * Report of the Delegates of the 
Shanghai Chamber of Commerce/ published in 1869. 
At present, foreign goods, in limited quantities, are dis 
tributed from this port through the surrounding pro 
vinces, while the rich plains of Hupeh, besides the 
usual cereal crops beans, millet, rice, and rape pro 
duce yellow silk, tung-oil, and opium ; the latter in 
small quantities, although it is raised more plentifully 
in Szechuan and Yunnan. 

The town of Ichang sweeps in a crescent-shape 
round a bend on the left bank of the river, and is 
divided into two halves by a canal. The one half 
occupies high land, while the other is on lower ground, 
and comprises a large suburb which suffered severely 
in the flood of 1870, but has since been rebuilt. There 
are two or three unoccupied sites well adapted for a 
foreign settlement. Building materials are also to be 
had in great variety and abundance ; while coal, which 
can hardly yet be said to be an article of trade, is very 
plentiful in the neighbourhood. As to the steam naviga 
tion of the river up to this point, I have no hesitation in 
saying that small boats of light draught could reach 



446 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Ichang without difficulty, even at this season, when the 
water is at its lowest ; while, during summer, the 
steamers which ply on the lower river would find no 
obstacles greater than those they already surmount 
between Shanghai and Hankow. 

In the afternoon we were the spectators of a naval 
review. Six small gun-boats, each mounting a six- 
pound gun at the bow, were drawn up in line and fired 
their cannon at irregular intervals. I say irregular, 
because some of the artillery refused to go off at all ; 
and when the sham fight was all over, we cculd hear 
them discharging themselves during the night. The 
boats were small, and had each about forty rowers on 
board. When the review was over, the admiral landed 
and rode off on a gaily-caparisoned pony, followed by 
his retainers. 

At Ichang we had to hire a large rapid boat to 
make the ascent of the Gorges, and we left our sailing 
vessels to await our return. Before we started a cock 
was sacrificed to the river goddess ; its blood and 
feathers were sprinkled on the bow, while a libation 
was poured upon the water. We had a crew of twenty- 
four men at the sweeps, who worked to the tune of a 
shrill piping song, or rather yell, and under their exer 
tions it was not long before Ichang had been passed 
and the mouth of the first gorge was before us. Here 
the river narrows from half a mile to a few hundred 
yards across, and pours through the rocky defile with a 
velocity that makes it difficult to enter. 

The hills rose on each side from 500 to 2,500 feet 
in height, presenting two irregular stone walls to the 
river, each worn and furrowed with the floods of ages, 
and showing some well-defined water-markings seventy 



CAVE DWELLINGS. 447 

feet above the winter stream, up which we we were 
now toiling" on our way. Thus, then, we had before 
us an unmistakable register of the height to which the 
Yang-tsze had risen in the seasons of former floods. 

The further we entered the gorges the more deso 
late and dark became the scene, the narrow barren 
defile presenting a striking contrast to the wide culti 
vated plains, through which we had been making our 
way from the sea, for more than 1,000 miles. 

The only inhabitants of this region appeared to be a 
few fishermen, who prosecuted their avocation among 
the rocks, while their rude huts could be seen perched 
hirfi in inaccessible-lookino; nooks and crannies amoncr 

O O c> 

the mountains above. Huts, indeed, they could hardly 
be called ; at least, those of them which we visited were 
either natural caves, or holes scooped out beneath the 
sheltering rocks, and closed in with what resembled the 
front of an ordinary straw-thatched cottage. 

These smoke-begrimed abodes called to my mind 
the ancient cave-dwellings which sheltered our fore 
fathers at Wemyss Bay, in Scotland. The interiors were 
dark and gloomy, the clay floors cold, and covered with 
fishbones and refuse, while a dull liofht, odimmerinof from 

o o o 

a taper in a recess in the rocks, revealed at once the 
grim features of a small idol and the few and simple 
articles of furniture that made up the property of the 
inmates. A residence of this sort, witn all it contains, 
might be fitted up at an original cost of probably one 
pound sterling, and yet it was in such places that we 
found the frugality and industry of the Chinese most 
conspicuously displayed ; for, outside the caves, wher 
ever there was a little soil on the face of the rocks, it 
had been scraped together and planted with vegetables, 



448 



INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



which were made to contribute to the domestic economy 
of the inhabitants. This was, indeed, taking bread out 
of a stone ! Further on we found a number of men 
engaged in quarrying the stone, and in forming river 
embankments. The stream in many places hereabouts 
had undermined the limestone formation of the rocks, 

i* 





SZECHLAN BOAT, UPPER YANG-TSZE, 



so that the softer portions had been washed away, and 
a series of grotesque flint pillars were left, supporting 
the upper strata which towered above our heads in 
precipices of a thousand feet. In other places the 
rocks looked like the high walls and ramparts of a 



THE CHINESE NEW YEAR. 449 

fortress, or the battlements and towers of a citadel. 
The inhabitants of this sterile region must have a hard 
struggle for existence, but they are a hardy and indepen 
dent race, scorning the mendicant tricks of their more ab 
ject fellow-countrymen in the plains. Thus I only fell in 
with a single beggar in these mountain passes, although 
many of the people were very poor and miserable. 
Our men slept on deck in the open air, and I was 
always afraid lest I should find some of them dead in 
the morning, for the cold was intense during the night. 
But they huddled themselves together beneath the 
awning of matting, and thus managed to keep the 
night air from freezing their blood. Near the upper 
end of the gorge the huts were of a better class, the 
soil improved, and small orchards came into sight, 
displaying a profusion of plum-blossoms even at this 
season of the year. 

On February 8 we were compelled to spend half a 
day at a place called Kwang-loong-Miau, that the crew 
might celebrate the Chinese New Year. The festival 
was conducted at the village shrine, which stood on a 
picturesque spot surrounded with pine and backed by 
a mountain 2,000 feet high. Chang had here a dispute 
with the boatmen, who, as he protested, had sullied 
his honourable name. He complained of their riotous, 
drunken conduct ; but I soon found that our venerated 
interpreter was himself not without sin, and was indeed 
unable to stand erect. Pie suggested that the chief 
offenders ought to be taken before the nearest magis 
trate, and, if need be, beheaded in order to sober 
them. 

In truth, they made a great uproar during the 
night, firing crackers, quarrelling, and gambling ; but 

G G 



450 1NDO-CH1NA AND CHINA. 

next morning they were once more ready for work, 
though some had sold a portion of what little they had 
in the shape of clothing, to give the new year a fair 
start, and looked all the more savage for the change. 
They soon got heated, as we had cleared the first 
gorge and were now ascending a rapid. It was the 
first, but by no means the least dangerous. The bulk 
of the men were on the bank, attached to a tracking- 
line. Off they sped, yelling like fiends above the roar of 
the water ; while the boy, to add to the din, lustily beat 
a gong, and the cook a small drum, for the purpose of 
stirring the men to put forth their full strength. At 
about the centre of the rapid there was a dead halt, 
just as if the boat had stuck fast on a -reef, though the 
trackers were straining to their utmost with hands and 
feet planted firmly on the rocks. The skipper stamped, 
danced, and bellowed to his crew ; and they, responding 
with a wild shout, a desperate tug, and a strain, at 
last launched our boat into the smooth water above. 
The danger of this rapid consists not so much in its 
force as in the narrowness of the channel, and in the 
multitude of rocks, sunken as well as above water, on 
which the boat, were the tracking line to part, would 
certainly drift, and there be dashed to pieces. 

In the second, or Lukan Gorge, the mountains rise 
to a greater altitude, projecting in some places over 
the chasm, as if they longed to join and exclude the 
light from the already darkened river. There were 
numerous strange perpendicular markings in these 
rocks, like borings for the purpose of mining. These 
had apparently been made by a sort of natural sand-drill. 
Small hard pebbles, imprisoned in the recesses of soft 
rock, with the aid of sand and water, have in time 



THE GREAT RAPID. 451 

pierced these deep vertical shafts ; and the attrition of 
the water on the face of the rocks has at last brought 

o 

the tunnelled apertures to light. 

At the next rapid, Shan-tow-pien, we noticed the 
wrecks of two Szechuan trading-boats, making in all 
nine which we had come across since we started 
from Ichang. It was snowing heavily, as we made 
our way over the rocks to the village which came 
down close to the water s edge ; and towards dark we 
found ourselves in front of a small cabin made out of 
the cidbris of a wrecked boat. The owner of the 
wreck, an aged man, resided within it, and had been 
residing there for some days past. He looked cold 
and wretched ; but he would have nothing to say to us, 
and haughtily rejected our proffered help. 

We had now -reached the great rapid of the Upper 
Yang-tsze, which occurs at the mouth of the Mitan 
Gorge. Here, while I was engaged in photographing 
the scene, I fell in with a mandarin, who asked many 
questions about my honourable name and title, my 
country, my kinsmen, and, as he had never set eyes on 
a photographic instrument before, he wanted to see 
the result of my work. When the picture was shown 
to him, he enquired by what possible means a drawing 
could be so perfectly completed in so short a space of 
time ; and then, without waiting for an answer, and 
casting an anxious glance at me to make sure I had 
neither horns, hoofs, nor tail visible, he hurried off to 
the village with the conviction perhaps that my art 
was an uncanny one, and that my diabolical insignia 
were only craftily concealed. Accordingly, on taking 
my next view at the same village, I was surrounded 
by a crowd of sullen spectators, who, though it was 



452 



IN DO-CHIN A AND CHINA. 



explained that I was only securing a picture, favoured 
me with sundry tokens of their dread in the shape of 
sods and stones. Chang tried his eloquence on the 
people, but with little effect. We packed up as quickly 
as we could, and marched down the bank to cross over 




THE GREAT RAPID, MIT AN GORGE. 

to the other side, where my companions were preparing 
for the ascent of the rapid. No doubt these villagers, 
some of them, had heard the popular fiction that 
pictures such as mine were made out of the eyes of 
Chinese babes. I narrowly escaped a stroke from an 



SHOOTING THE RAPID. 453 

oar as I took refuge in a boat ; but the blow was 
warded off with a force that nearly sent its author 
spinning headlong into the stream. 

This rapid is one of the grandest spectacles in the 
whole panorama of the river. The water presents a 
smooth surface as it emerges from the pass ; then sud 
denly seems to bend like a polished cylinder 9f glass ; 
falls eight or ten feet, and finally curves upwards in a 
glorious crest of foam as it surges away in wild tumult 
down the gorge. At this season sundry rocks enhance 
the peril of shooting this rapid. On our way down we 
persuaded Chang to come into the boat with us ; but 
as the vessel plunged and groaned in an agony of 
straining timbers, he became perfectly sick with panic 
fear. It was, indeed, hardly to be wondered at. The 
pilot we employed at this time was a tall bony man, 
with dark piercing eyes, a huge black moustache, and 
a mouth full of foxy fangs. He and his assistant 
guided the boat to what seemed to be the worst part of 
the rapid, and then launched her into the raging waters 
broadside on. After the first plunge she swept round 
bow foremost, tossing and writhing until I thought she 
would go to pieces and disappear. Meanwhile the 
pilot, flinging his arms on high, yelled and danced like 
a fiend about the deck, conveying the notion that the 
craft was doomed, although in reality he was only 
guiding his men at the helm. But the boat, regardless 
of oaths, oars, and rudder, sped forward with a fearful 
impetus, bearing right down for the rocks, dodged 
them at the last moment, when the pilot had been 
seized with a fit of frantic despair, and then with a 
groan of relief, darted into the comparatively smooth 
water far below. The pilot s buffoonery is probably 



454 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA, 

part of his game. It pays when at last he presents 
himself for his legitimate fee, and for the trifle extra 
which he expects for saving our lives at the risk of his 
own. That there is great danger in shooting this 
rapid may be gathered from a survey of the wrecks 
that strew the shore, from the life-boats in constant 
attendance, or from the fact that the Chinese unload 
their boats at the head of the rapid, and have their cargo 
and themselves transported overland to the smooth 
waters below. 

This * Tsing-tan rapid, then, is the greatest ob 
stacle to the steam navigation of the Upper Yang- tsze. 
We had to hire fifty trackers from the village to aid 
our men in hauling the boat up the stream, which here 
ran about eight knots an hour ; but I see no reason 
why the kind of steamer Captain Blakiston has sug 
gested should not navigate this, and indeed any of the 
other rapids on the river, the steam power to be capable 
of being detached and made available either for towing 
the vessel up, or for retarding her swift and hazardous 
descent. Were the river once opened to trade, daring 
and scientific skill would be forthcoming to accomplish 
the end in view. 

The mountains of this gorge are on the same 
stupendous scale as those of the Lukan passage below. 
On the nth we reached a small walled town called 
Kwei, with not a single craft nor a human being near 
it to betoken trade of any kind. Yes ! I forgot, there 
was one man, a beggar, on the bank ; but even he was 
about to leave the place. Here we halted for the 
night, and in the morning visited some coal mines at a 
place called Patung, where the limestone strata, in 
which the coal is formed, stand up in nearly perpen- 



CHINESE COAL-MINING 455 

dicular walls against the edge of the river. Adits had 
been carried into the face of the rock, but they were 
all of them on an exceedingly small scale, simple 
burrowings without any depth. No shafts were sunk, 
and no ventilation was attempted. Coal abounds, and, 
even with such rude appliances as the miners possess, 
is turned out in considerable quantities ; but the quality 
is not so good as some we got further up the gorge. 
The miner, when at work, carries a lamp stuck in his 
cap, much the same as those in use with us before 
Sir H. Davy s invention. The coal was shunted from 
the mouth of the pit down a groove cut in the face of 
the cliffs, and when conveyed any distance is trans 
ported in kreels on the backs of the women. 

There were several mining villages at this place, 
and there every household is employed entirely in the 
trade, the children making fuel by mixing the coal 
with water and clay, and then casting it in moulds into 
blocks which weigh one catty (i Ib. ^rcl) a-piece. The 
miners who are occupied in this work earn about seven 
shillings a week, and their hours of labour are from 
seven o clock in the morning to about 4 P.M. 

Baron von Richthofen has assured us that there is 
plenty of coal in Hunan and Hupeh, and that the coal 
field of Szechuan is also of enormous area. He adds 
that at the present rate of consumption the world could 
draw its supplies from Southern Shensi alone for 
several thousand years ; and yet, in the very places 
referred to, it is not uncommon to find the Chinese 
storing up wood and millet-stalks for their firing in 
winter, while coal in untold quantities lies ready for 
use beneath their feet. These vast coal-fields will 
constitute the basis of China s future greatness, when 



456 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

steam shall have been called in to aid in the develop 
ment of her enormous mineral wealth. 

Wu-shan Gorge, which we reached on the morning 
of the 1 8th, is more than twenty miles long, and we 
entered this great defile at about ten o clock. The 
river was perfectly placid, and the view which met our 
gaze at tne mouth of the gorge was one of the finest 
we had hitherto encountered. The mountains rose in 
confused masses to a great altitude ; the most distant 
peak, at the extremity of the passage, resembling a cut 
sapphire, with snow-lines that sparkled in the sun like 
the gleams of light on the facets of a gem, while the 
cliffs and precipices gradually deepened in outline 
until they reached the bold lights and shadows of the 
rocky foreground. 

The officers of a gun-boat stationed at the boundary 
which parts the provinces of Hupeh and Szechuan, 
warned us to beware of pirates, and they had good 
reason for so doing. We came to anchor at a place 
where the rocks towering overhead wrapped the scene 
in pitchy darkness ; and it was nearly 10 P.M. when 
our skipper sent to say we had better have our arms 
ready, as pirates were prowling about. One boat had 
just passed noiselessly up alongside, and its occupants 
were talking in whispers. We hailed them, but they 
made no reply ; so we then fired over their heads. 
Our fire was responded to by a flash and a report from 
some men on the bank, not far off. After this we kept a 
watch all night, and at about two in the morning were all 
roused again to challenge a boat s crew that was noise 
lessly stealing down on our quarters. A second time 
we were forced to fire, and the sharp ping of the rifle- 
ball on the rocks had the effect of deterring further 



MYSTIC LIGHTS. 



457 



advances from our invisible foe. The disturbers of 
our repose must have been thoroughly acquainted with 
this part of the river, for even by clay it is somewhat 
dark, and at night it is so utterly without light that no 
trading-boat would venture an inch from her rock- 
bound moorings. On another night, in this gorge, f 




NATIVES OF SZECHUAN. 



was summoned by my boy, who appeared in the cabin 
with a face of blank terror, and told me that he had 
just seen a group of luminous spirits that were haunt 
ing the pass. It was evident that something unusual 
had occurred, as I had never seen the boy in such a 
state of clammy fear before ; so we followed him on to 



458 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

the deck, and, looking up the precipice about eight 
hundred feet above our heads, we then saw three lights 
on the face of the rock performing a series of the most 
extraordinary evolutions. My old attendant declared, 
the cold perspiration trickling down his face the while, 
that he could make out sylph-like forms waving the 
lights to warn wayfarers off from the edge of the 

abyss : 

* This seraph band, each waved his hand, 

It was a heavenly sight: 
They stood as signals to the land, 
Each one a lovely light. 

The true explanation of the phenomenon lay in the 
fact, perhaps, that in this very gorge there are hapless 
beings, convicts immured in prison-cells cut in the face 
of the rocks, into which they are dropped by their 
gaolers from above, and from which they can never 
hope to escape unless to seek destruction by a plunge 
into the river below. Here, too, we find inhabitants 
of a widely different stamp, a number of the philosophic 
followers of Laou-tsoo, who pass their lives as hermits 
in these dark solitudes. In one cave we came across 
the remains of a Taouist philosopher of this sort ; a 
recluse who expired, so my boy informed me, at the 
ripe age of 200 years. Several of the boatmen 
averred that they knew him to have been more than 
a century old. His relics lay in the centre of 
the cave, covered over with a cairn of stones and 
sods, which had been thrown up by passing moun 
taineers. 

February 15. To-day we met with a disaster as 
we were ascending a rapid. The boat was caught by 
a blast of wind, and this, aided by a strong eddy, was 



WU-SHAN GORGE. 459 

just sending her over when the skipper s mate, the 
most active youth on board, sprang forward and cut 
the tracking line. The trackers, unexpectedly relieved 
of the great strain, were sent sprawling over the rocks ; 
while, as for the boat, she righted at once, spun round 
and round, and then drifted down the rapid, till at last 
she settled on a spit of sand half a mile below the 
scene of the accident. So far the result was satisfac 
tory ; but then we were on one side of the stream and 
our crew on the other. As there was a village near at 
hand, we at once repaired thither to engage a boat to 
convey our men across ; but not a soul would stir 
unless we paid them beforehand nearly as much as 
would buy another village, such as it was. We offered 
them what the boatmen considered a fair hire, but this 
they stedfastly refused ; until at last we jumped into 
one of their boats, and threatened to use it ourselves. 
Seeing this, they thought better of it, apologised, and 
struck a fair bargain. We came to, for that night, 
above the Wu-shan Gorge. Before us, on the left 
bank, lay the walled town of Wu-shan, surrounded by 
low hills and richly-tilled valleys ; and here we noticed 
the outlet of a small river that joins the Yang-tsze, and 
down which salt is brought in great quantities from 
mines at a place called Ta-ning. 

Opium, silk, and tea, are among the chief pi oducts 
of this district, and it is also singularly rich in fruits of 
various sorts. We bought the most delicious oranges 
I ever tasted in China for a shilling a hundred. Next 
day we made a strenuous though futile effort to reach 
Kwei-chow-fu ; but we could make no headway in the 
face of a storm that swept in fearful blasts down the 
gorge, and filled the air with a fine blinding sand, most 



460 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

irritating to the eyes. We therefore left Szechuan on 
the 1 6th, after having ascended a distance of between 
twelve and thirteen hundred miles above Shanghai. 
The return voyage was comparatively easy, and 
eighteen days after leaving Szechuan we again set foot 
on the foreign settlement at Hankow. Here our 
friends received us with a hearty welcome, and plied 
us with the most minute enquiries as to the state of 
the river, and the exact appearance of the proposed 
new treaty-port at Ichang. Several even supposed 
that we must have been looking out for land in the 
new settlement, and had perhaps negotiated some 
secret investments in likely sites a course of action 
which, as things have turned out, would on the whole 
have proved a rather premature and ruinous specula 
tion. 

At Hankow I rejoined some of my oldest friends 
in China, and they greeted me, after my voyage, almost 
as one risen from the dead. It was not without a 
pang of sincere regret at parting from them that I 
stepped on board the steamer. 

I stopped at Kiukiang on the downward trip, and 
spent two or three days in the settlement. The native 
city, although it holds an important position near the 
mouth of the Po-yung lake, and thus communicates 
with the network of canals and streams that form the 
trade routes into the vast green-tea fields of Kiangsi 
and Ngan-Hwei, has nevertheless failed to attain a 
high commercial position ; nor has the foreign settle 
ment either done much yet towards monopolising the 
traffic of the richly productive districts by which it is 
surrounded. The city suffered a severe blow at the 
hands of the rebels, who left it a ruined waste in 1861 ; 



KINKIANG. 461 

and even at the time of my visit it had not regained 
its former prosperity. Nevertheless, the streets were 
again struggling up by degrees out of the wreck and 
ddbris which had been left behind by the benign 
followers of the * Heavenly King. 

Kiukiang will probably rise into much greater 
commercial importance when the Po-yung lake shall 
have been thrown open to steam navigation. One or 
two excursions which I made into the surrounding 
districts enabled me to form a very favourable estimate 
of the fertility of the soil, and the prosperity of its 
cultivators. The region, however, seemed thinly popu 
lated, and this fact alone is sufficient to account for the 
absence of the poverty and misery which fall to the lot 
of the toiling millions in many quarters of the land. 

At a place called Tai-ping-kung, about ten miles 
inland from Kiukiang, I. found the ruins of an ancient 
shrine, presenting most remarkable architectural fea 
tures. All that remained of a once extensive edifice 
were two towers pierced with windows, which looked 
something like the pointed gothic apertures of a medi 
eval European building. The walls of a small joss-house 
adjoining were built partly of finely sculptured stones ; 
and the whole ruin, indeed, was unlike anything I had 
before seen in China. It seemed more European than 
Chinese, and possibly may point to Ricci s Jesuit 
mission to that part of the province in 1590. It is, 
however, said to have once been one of the greatest 
Buddhist establishments in Cathay. On the way back 
from this old shrine I passed over classic ground, 
where the rocks are inscribed with the praises of Chu- 
fu-tze, a celebrated Confucian commentator and philo 
sopher who lived in the twelfth century. 



462 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Even the spot where he dwelt as a hermit is still 
pointed out, and his tomb may be seen on a mound 
there, shaded by venerable cypress and pine-trees. 
He is depreciated now-a-days by the modern school of 
Chinese doctors as somewhat unsound in his doctrine, 
and as having been influenced by the philosophy of the 
Buddhists. 

The next point at which I touched was Nanking, 
the ancient capital of China, where there is no foreign 
settlement, nor any port open for trade. It was dark 
when, with my boys, and baggage, and two Chinese 
officers of the Governor-General s household, I de 
scended from the steamer Hirado into a native boat, 
and landed on the muddy bank beneath the outer walls 
of this famous city. We had to spend the night in a 
small shed which had been provided for the conve 
nience of passengers making use of the river steamers. 
The place was crowded w 7 ith an orderly company of 
natives, who very kindly made room for me to re 
pose myself on a table; but it was in vain that I courted 
sleep, for the air was obscured by clouds of tobacco- 
smoke, and conversation was kept up with an incessant 
clamour all night through. As it happened, the talk 
was of the deepest interest ; Tseng-kuo-fan, the great 
Chinese general who had fought side by side with 
Li-hung-chang and Colonel Gordon in the suppression 
of the Taiping rebellion, had just expired at his palace 
in Nanking. Many present said that he had perished 
by his own hand, or had succumbed to an overdose of 
gold-leaf; whereas the truth was, as I afterwards dis 
covered, that he had died in a fit of apoplexy, the second 
with which he had been attacked. His death was a 
great disappointment to me, as my chief motive in 



TSENG- KUO- FA N. 463 

visiting Nanking had been to see the celebrated leader, 
and, if possible, obtain his likeness for my larger v/ork. 
I carried with me an introduction to him from Li-hung- 
chang, the Governor-General of Pei-chil-li, and this note 
I duly presented to his son, who sent me a reply ex 
pressing the deep regret of the family that they should 
have missed the opportunity of obtaining a portrait. 
But a general officer subsequently remarked that after 
all it was, perhaps, as well for me that I had not arrived 
in time to take the picture, as most assuredly the 
speaker himself, and others as well as he, would have 
accused me of causing the untimely death. It is a 
wide-spread Chinese belief, from which men of the 
highest intelligence are by no means free, that, in 
taking a photograph, a certain portion of the vital 
principle is extracted from the body of the sitter, and 
that thus his decease within a limited period is rendered 
an absolute certainty. 

The reader will gather from this that I was fre 
quently looked upon as a forerunner of death, as a sort 
of Nemesis, in fact ; and I have seen unfortunates, 
stricken with superstitious dread, fall down on bended 
knees and beseech me not to take their likeness or 
their life with the fatal lens of my camera. But all this 
might have occurred in our own country not many 
years ago, where a photograph would have been 
esteemed a work of the devil, or to catch the sunlit 
image with the dark eye of science would have 
been likened to the ancient miracle of our Lord when 
he gave sight to the blind. 

Tseng-kuo-fan was one of the foremost statesmen of 
his time. He was a member of the Grand Secretariat, 
and was created a noble of the second class after the 



464 2ND V- CHINA AND CHINA. 

expulsion of the rebels from Nanking. He was then 
at the zenith of his power, and it was even said that 
his wide-spread influence was dreaded by the court at 
Peking. In 1868 he became Governor-General of 
Pei-chil-li, and was removed from that office after, the 
Tientsin massacre, and for the third time appointed 
Governor-General of the two Kiang. 

The view of Nanking was a disappointing one. It 
is simply a vast area enclosed within a high wall which 
makes a circuit of twenty-two miles, and is therefore 
the largest city in the kingdom. Near at hand are 
several heights crowned with temples, and such-like 
sacred buildings, while a number of yamens and re 
ligious edifices may be seen dotting the great open 
spaces where cultivation is carried on. But the city 
itself, as usual, is crowded into the narrowest limits 
capable of supporting half a million struggling sons of 
Han. 

There were still many dreary acres of demolished 
streets with not a single occupant, but in other quarters 
the work of restoration was being actively carried on. 
This great Southern Capital must probably have been 
at one time what Le Comte stated, a splendid city 
surrounded by walls one within the other, the outer 
most sixteen long leagues round/ Such may have 
been its condition some fourteen hundred years ago, 
when it first became the Imperial head-quarters, or 
perhaps even so late as the fourteenth century, when 
Hung-Woo, the first Ming Emperor, is reported to 
have restored it to its pristine glory. But the place 
had already fallen sadly off at the advent of the Tien- 
wang, who conferred upon it the questionable honour of 
making it the capital of a Chinese dynasty once more. 



NANKING. 465 

It was said to have been at the recommendation of a 
very humble follower, an old sailor, that the * Heavenly 
King/ as he styled himself, decided on making Nan 
king the seat of his celestial government ; but in other 
matters this self-made potentate was not so easily per 
suaded. Why should he have been ? He believed 
implicitly that he was a second son of God sent down 
to redeem China. 

When the Imperialists were marshalling their forces 
around the great Ming tomb, and when his old soldiers 
and faithful adherents were starving in the streets, he 
gave orders that they should be fed on dew and sing a 
new song till the hour of deliverance came. Calmly he 
sat within his palace looking with disdain upon the 
gathering forces that ere long were to strike the fatal 
blow. The city had not yet fallen into the hands of 
his foes when his faith and fortitude forsook him, and 
he ended his days by his own hand. 

It is a tedious journey round the city moat to the 
southern gate. Many boats were to be met winding 
their way along this canal, or else drawn up into groups 
and forming little market-places every here and there. 
Sometimes we fell in with a wretched petty settlement 
on the banks, that looked like the scum and refuse that 
had been tossed over the city wall ; and at one small 
bridge beneath which we passed it was told me that 
there, after the fall of Nanking, the canal had been 
dammed up by the rebel heads. Outside the southern 
gate there is a large suburb. Why it should have been 
planted there, when there is so much vacant space 
within the walls, is difficult to tell. Many of its dwel 
lings are nothing more than rude huts erected over 
ground strewn with the graves and bones of Taipings 

ii ii 



466 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

and Imperialists mingled together in kindred dust. Here, 
too, I found the old porcelain tower of Nanking (once 
one of the seven wonders of the world, but now levelled 
to the earth), and a number of small speculators driving 
a trade in its porcelain bricks. But most of the bricks 
of this tower, and of the * Monastery of Gratitude to 
which it belonged, were used in constructing the Nan 
king arsenal close by : and of the two edifices I should 
say that the latter, planted as it has been by the fore 
most son of Han (Li-hung-chang) in the very heart of 
the Central Flowery Land, will be held to be far the 
more wonderful structure, except by those who may 
have a special prejudice in favour of porcelain pagodas. 
Here, then, the old Buddhist tower and the monastery, 
with its monotonous chants, have been replaced by a 
temple dedicated to the Chinese Vulcan and Mars, whose 
altars are furnaces, whose worshippers are melters of 
iron, and from whose shrines come the never-ceasing 
rattle of machinery and the reports of rifles that are 
being tested for service. 

This arsenal, built as I have said, under the 
auspices of Li-hung-chang, was the first of its kind in 
China, and is conducted on the most advanced scientific 
principles under the superintendence of Dr. Macartney. 
It is, indeed, a startling innovation on the old style of 
things. If the Chinese first taught us the use of guns 
(they are said to have employed them in 1232 at the 
siege of Khai-fung-fu), we are certainly repaying the 
obligation with interest by instructing them how our 
deadliest weapons are to be made. In this arsenal 
many hundreds of tons of guns and ammunition are 
manufactured every year, and I have no doubt its 
products have already proved of great service in the 



NANKING ARSENAL. 467 

prompt suppression of the Mahometan outbreak in the 
provinces of Kiangsu and Shensi. Here the Chinese 
can turn out heavy guns for battery- trains, or field- 
artillery, howitzers, gatling-guns, torpedoes, rockets, 
shot, shells, cartridges and caps. The rocket factory 
stands on an open plot of ground some distance from 
the main building ; and this is the place appropriated 
to the filling of rockets and shells with their explosive 
contents. With respect to these arsenals and their 
high state of efficiency, I have one further remark to 
offer ; and that is, that were the strict foreign manage 
ment under which they have matured to be withdrawn, 
they could not at present be carried on so as to be of 
really effectual service. Probably the same amount of 
money would be spent on their maintenance, but it 
would be subjected, in all likelihood, to a process of 
official filtration which would admit of nothing more 

o 

than the purchase of inferior materials, and the employ 
ment of labourers so underpaid, that they would have 
no heart to bestow honest work on the implements of 
whose construction now they are so justly proud. An 
experiment of this sort was once tried, to humour an 
officer who boasted himself able to produce everything 
in the shape of modern warlike inventions as perfectly 
as any foreigner in the Empire. But the attempt was 
not repeated, as the shells he manufactured turned out 
much more deadly projectiles in the hands of his own 
men than they could ever have proved in the ranks of 
an enemy. They were badly cast with coarse iron, 
and their dangerous imperfections were filled up with 
black-leaded clay. So my humble opinion is, that 
before the Chinese can hope to take a position among 
the civilised Powers of the world, they must acquire 

Ji .11 2 



468 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

something of simple honesty, and unlearn much of the 
science of deception by which they study to enrich 
themselves, while making ready to conquer their foes. 
It may happen that Li-hung-chang, the Chinaman who 
has now most power in the Empire, will in time teach 
his subordinates something of the value of this simple 
quality of honest dealing. 

Kin-Shan/ or Golden Island; Silver Island; 
and the mouth of the Grand Canal, were the last 
objects of interest I saw on the Yang-tsze river. The 
Grand Canal may be set down as the greatest public 
work of the race who wasted years of needless labour 
in constructing the great wall to shut out the barbarous 
hordes who, after all, are now masters of the Empire. 
But this huge artificial waterway is now useless in 
many places, and utterly broken down ; although it 
might have proved of incalculable service in draining 
off the great waters of the Yellow River, which have 
from time to time spread their desolating floods over 
the vast productive plains of the interior. 



CHEFOO. 469 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Chefoo The Foreign Settlement The Yellow River Silk Its Produc 
tion Taku Forts The Peiho River Chinese Progress Floods in 
Pei-chil-li Their Effects Tientsin The Sisters Chapel Condition of 
the People A Midnight Storm Tung-chow Peking The Tartar 
and Chinese Divisions of the Metropolis Its Roads, Shops, and People 
The Foreign Hotel Temple and Domestic Architecture TheTsungli 
Yamen Prince Kung, and the High Officers of the Empire Literary 
Championship The Confucian Temple The Observatory Ancient 
Chinese Instruments Yang s House Habits of the Ladies Peking 
Enamelling Yuen-Ming-Yuen Remarkable Cenotaph A Chinese 
Army Li-hung-chang The Inn of Patriotic Perfection The Great 
Wall The Ming Tombs. 

OF late years Chefoo has become the favourite water 
ing-place for foreigners resident at Peking or Shanghai, 
for there bracing air and sea-bathing may be enjoyed 
during the hottest months of summer. 

The beach on which the European hotel is built 
skirts the foot of a low range of grassy hills, and re 
minded me, in its semicircular sweep and general aspect, 
of Broclic Bay in Arran, on the west coast of Scotland. 
I have a lively recollection of Chefoo Bay ; of its 
stretch which at the time appeared interminable ; and of 
the soft yielding sand over which, with a friend re 
markable alike for his good-nature, weight, and agility, 
I had to run from the steamer to forestall the other 
passengers and secure the best apartment for an invalid 
lady from Shanghai. The thermometer at the time 
was standing at about one hundred degrees in the 



470 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

shade, so that after completing our task we were in a 
condition to enjoy to the full the cool breeze that swept 
through the verandah of the hotel. It was an unpre 
tending but charming retreat, and none the less so on 
account of the many comforts which the enterprising 
proprietor had in store for his guests. 

Chefoo foreign settlement lies on the opposite side 
of the bay, and is about the least inviting place of the 
kind on the coast. But still we must not forget that it 
enjoys the honour of standing on the ground of the 
most classic province in the Empire, where the engineer 
ing labours of the celebrated Yu were in part performed. 
Confucius, too, was a native of the Shan-tung province, 
and so indeed was Mensius his successor. While 
Pythagoras was pursuing his philosophical researches 
at Crotona, Confucius was compiling the classical lore 
that has since been to China what the compass is to 
the mariner at sea. But this ancient guide to national 
prosperity, social, political, and religious, when relied 
on by those who now-a-days control the helm of the 
Empire, is as untrustworthy as the compass in a man-of- 
war, where the steersman makes no allowance for the 
influences of the iron plates and steel guns with which 
science has surrounded his needle. And yet fain would 
the wisest Confucianists of the Central Flowery Land 
still rivet their fond gaze on their ancient books ; fain 
would they guide their steps by the rushlight of a dim 
science and philosophy, lit by sages of a thousand 
years ago ; and that though truth, like the sun in noon 
day splendour, is shining on the nations around. 

The foreign trade of Chefoo is small, though not 
unimportant. Whether it be that the natives affect 
more the simple robes of their ancient sages than the 



FOREIGN TRADE. 471 

Jess costly cotton fabrics of Manchester, or whether 
the constantly recurring floods of the Hwang-ho or 
Yellow River have so impoverished the inland dis 
tricts as to materially damage trade, is a difficult 
point to determine. At any rate the commercial rela 
tions of Chefoo with the outer world are by no means 
so extensive as they might, and undoubtedly would be, 
were foreigners and their wares once freely admitted 
into the interior, and European science made use of 
for keeping the old waterways open, draining the plains, 
and thus protecting the people from the grievous inun 
dations that annually lay waste their lands. 

Since the Yellow River has changed its course and 
now flows to the north of the Shan-tung mountains, a 
great portion of the Grand Canal has been rendered 
useless. In many places the banks have been carried 
away, and an eye-witness has described the scene in 
the following words : For dreariness and desolation 
no scene can exceed that which the Yellow River 
here presents : everything, natural and artificial, is 
at the mercy of the muddy dun -coloured waters as 
they sweep on their course towards the sea/ l 

But we shall see, as we pass through Pei-chil-li, 
how these floods actually affect the people. Thus 
while a considerable extent of country suffers from 
the withdrawal of the great river from its old 
channel, parts of Shan-tung and Pei-chil-li come in 
for a superabundant share of its waters. Notwith 
standing this there are some portions of the former 
province which are as productive as any soil in the 
world, and where the nature of the climate is favour- 

1 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, \\. 5. 



472 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

able to the culture of a wide range of products. These 
include millet, wheat, barley, rice, tobacco, and beans 
the latter, in the shape of * bean cake, forming" a valu 
able article of exportation. Besides the foregoing a 
certain sort of dark-coloured silk fabric, known as 
Pongee silk, is produced in Shan-tung, and exported 
in steadily increasing quantities from Chefoo. This 
silk is obtained from a wild black worm that feeds on a 
different kind of leaf from the mulberry. Rearing silk 
worms in China is an exceedingly delicate process, and 
one which one might almost have supposed unsuited 
to the natives, for the little worm is most exacting in its 
habits. It has even been stated that it will refuse either 
to feed or to work before strangers ; and the Chinese 
aver that it cannot endure the presence of foreigners 
or the sounds of barbaric tongues. If in this respect 
it resembles its masters, it differs from them widely in 
its abhorrence of uncleanly odours, and indeed in a 
polluted atmosphere will sicken and starve itself to 
death. For this reason the Chinese, from the time 
when the worm emerges from the egg to the moment 
when it perishes in its own silken robe, must suffer 
great inconvenience by the compulsory absence of all 
those strong smells wherein so many of them take an 
unaffected delight. No wonder, then, if the close of the 
silk season, when the dainty little toiler has woven its 
shroud and met its doom, should be one of great 
rejoicing. 

Like the culture of tea, silk which confers an 
enormous revenue on China and has now become a 
luxury indispensable to the world is the most mo 
dest industry imaginable. Let us cast a glance on 
the various progressive steps through which the 



SILK. 473 

staple passes till it is ready for the looms of China or 
Lyons. 

The eggs are hatched about the middle of April, 
and the best season to obtain them for exportation is 
in March or the beginning of April. The young worms, 
when hatched, are placed on bamboo frames and fed on 
mulberry-leaves cut up into small shreds. As the 
worms increase in size they are transferred to a larger 
number of frames, and are fed with leaves not so finely 
shred ; and so the process continues until, in their last 
stage, the leaves are given to them entire. The price 
of leaves runs from four shillings and sixpence to eight 
shillings a picul (133 Ibs.). 

After hatching, the worms continue eating during 
five days, and then sleep for the first time for two clays. 
When they awake again their appetite is not quite so 
good, and they usually eat for four days only and sleep 
again for two days more. Then they eat for the third 
time for four days and repose for two. This eating 
and sleeping is usually repeated four times, and then, 
having gained full strength, they proceed to spin their 
cocoons. The task of spinning occupies from four to 
seven days more ; and when this business is completed 
three clays are spent in stripping off the cocoon, and 
some seven days later each small cultivator brings his 
silken harvest to the local market and disposes of it to 
native traders, who make it up into bales. 

Leaving popular superstitious influences out of 
account, the quality of the silk is first of all affected by 
the breed of the worms that spin it, then by the quality of 
the leaves and the mode of feeding. As I have already 
remarked, the silk-worm is injured by noise, by the 
presence and especially by the handling of strangers, 



474 INDO-CHTNA AND CHINA. 

and by noxious smells. They must be fed, too, at 
regular hours, and the temperature of the apartment 
must not be too high. 

The greatest defect in Chinese silk is clue to the 
primitive mode of reeling which the natives adopt, and 
if they could only be induced to use foreign reeling 
machines its value might be raised 40 or 50 per cent. 
The rude way in which silk is at present reeled im 
parts damaging irregularities to the thread. Shanghai 
is the great silk mart, and there, about June i, the 
first season s silk is usually brought down. It is never 
the growers who bring the silk to the foreign market. 
These growers are invariably small farmers, who either 
purchase the leaves, or have a few mulberry bushes 
planted in some odd corner of their tilled lands, and 
the rearing of the worm and the production of silk by 
no means monopolise the whole of their time. It is 
only a spring occupation for the women and younger 
members of their families. Chinese merchants or brokers 
proceed to the country markets, and there collect the 
produce until they have secured enough to make up a 
parcel for the Shanghai or Chefoo markets, where it is 
bought up by foreigners for exportation. 

I paid two visits to Chefoo, and must have ex 
perienced the extremes of temperature. On the first 
occasion the heat was intense, but on my return the 
cold was so severe that my boy Ahong had his ears 
and nose frost-bitten. We had proceeded to a hill 
top to obtain a picture of Chefoo, but the north-west 
wind, blowing from the icy steppes of Mongolia, was 
like to freeze the blood in our veins. Having, however, 
succeeded in taking a photograph, I sent to a neigh 
bouring hut for a bottle of water to wash the negative ; 



TAKU FORTS. 475 

but no sooner had I withdrawn the plate from the 
shelter of the dark tent, and poured the water over it, 
than the liquid froze on its surface and hung in icicles 
around its edge. Ahong was standing nearly knee- 
deep in snow, with his face buried in his coat sleeves ; 
and as for the bottle, the water within had frozen into a 
solid lump. In spite of these difficulties we adjourned 
to a friendly hut, where we thawed the plate over a 
charcoal fire and washed it with hot water. Circula 
tion had been arrested at the point of Ahong s nose 
and also round his ears, so that sores broke out soon 
after, and for the space of a month or more kept him 
in lively recollection of Chefoo. 

The next place of importance at which we touched 
on our route north was Taku, at the mouth of the 
Peiho. The Taku forts are mud strongholds, which 
have been often and well described. At the time of 
my visit these forts had been under repair ; still they 
were not yet properly garrisoned, nor were their guns 
all mounted. I passed along a stone pavement which 
leads from the river across the inner extremity of the 
mud slough. It was here, in 1859, that so many of our 
men were shot down in the unsuccessful attempt to 
storm the southern fort. We carried the place without 
much difficulty a twelvemonth afterwards. The only 
entrance into this fort is across a wide ditch from 
behind. As for me, I passed inside it without a word 
being asked ; for, indeed, there were only one or two 
coolies loitering about the enclosure. The walls are 
of great thickness, and built, as formerly, of mud and 
millet-stalks a composition well adapted to resist shot. 
Within were two batteries of over fifty guns a-piece, 
one above the other, and commanding the entrance to 



476 



INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 



the stream. Some of them, however, were rusty, 
badly mounted on their carriages, and altogether sadly 
in want of repair. Lastly, I noticed two large Ameri 
can smooth-bores lying half buried in mucl in front of 
the officers quarters. On the whole the place wore 
the look of a deserted mud-quarry rather than a fortress. 
But I have been informed that a great change has 
since come over the scene that these fortresses, one 
on each side of the Peiho, are now armed with Krupp 
guns and properly garrisoned ; so that thus the defence 




TAKU FORTS. 



of the capital has been secured, after a scheme planned 
out and decided upon long before the Formosa diffi 
culty cropped up. I myself saw a battery of Krupp 
guns landed at Tientsin before I left that place of dark 
memories ; and, indeed, there can be no question that 
the Chinese are busily arming themselves with modern 
weapons, laying up stores of destructive projectiles 
and ammunition, and addressing themselves with 
earnestness to the task of guarding their own shores 
from invasion. It may be nay, it must be that 
there is a purpose in all this. The Chinese Govern- 



CHINESE POLICY. 477 

ment have not been blind all these years to what has 
been going on in Japan, to say nothing of the visions 
they may entertain of possible encounters with more 
formidable foes. They undoubtedly still retain the 
notion that they have an absolute right to do what 
they like with their own country and in it ; and they 
are probably only preparing themselves to assert or 
defend this right when a suitable opportunity presents 
itself. Prince Kung, in his despatch about the Woosung 
bar at Shanghai, has declined to dredge a channel to 
facilitate trade, and looks upon the sand-bank as a 
barrier set there by Divine Providence to aid the 
Chinese in the defence of the country and its ap 
proaches. He further points out that each nation has 
a right to guard and protect its own territory by the 
means it alone deems best. It is perhaps very natural 
to suppose that China was made exclusively for the 
support of Chinamen, and that no other race has a 
right to question this divine arrangement, or to seek 
by the simple dredging of a sand-bar to thwart the 
plans of a kind Providence, who is thus closing up the 
river-courses against the commerce which furnishes 
millions of Chinese with means to feed and clothe 
themselves that formerly they could never have ob 
tained, 

In this narrow policy there is not the faintest re 
cognition of that divine progress which, by a thousand 
telegraphs, railway?, and industries, is tending more 
and more to bind the nations of the earth together in 
one universal kinmanship, where, by free intercourse 
and liberal enlightened government, peoples of every 
nation, kindred, and tongue, will be rendered mutually 
dependent on each other. 



478 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

Perhaps the mandarins in charge of the hydro 
graphy of Pei-chil-li will also say that the waters which 
have perpetually laid waste the province wherein the 
Imperial city stands have been sent there by divine 
superintendence, to prevent the advance of an enemy 
on their great metropolis. And yet few enemies could 
work more disasters in annual raids over the fertile 
plains of Shan-tung and Pei-chil-li than do those turbid 
waters which the Yellow River, with an awful certainty, 
spreads far and wide through these provinces from 
year to year. In spite of this, by the exercise of a 
little foresight and honesty, the great Hwang-ho, which 
in former days was only a messenger of peace and 
plenty, might be kept flowing on within its natural 
channel. 

The inundations were predicted just as they hap 
pened years before the swollen river burst its barriers 
at Lung-men-Kan, and might have been easily pre 
vented by keeping clear what has always been an 
artificial channel. i The business was put off, however, 
from one year to another, until at last the red flood 
burst upon the plains, and transformed a fruitful 
smiling country into lakes, lagoons, and pestilential 
marshes. 

As we steamed up the Peiho there were many 
places where not a trace of the river s banks was to be 
discovered, and the further we ascended the more 
apparent became the fearful ravages of the flood. The 
millet-crop was rotting under water, and whole hamlets 
had in many places been swept away. The village dwel 
lings, like the Taku forts, were for the most part con- 

1 Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, \\. 19. 



THE COUNTRY UNDER WATER. 479 

structed of millet-stalks and mud ; but however well 
calculated to resist the shots of an ordinary foe, these 
frail abodes, one by one, had silently dissolved before 
the invading waters, leaving nothing behind them but 
something that looked like grave-mounds, the melan 
choly landmarks of each new work of desolation. We 
could see the wretched villagers squatting on the tops 
of their hillocks, sheltered by scraps of thatch or 
matting which they had rescued from the flood. All 
who had the means were removing to Tientsin, where 
the authorities were said to be doing their utmost to 
relieve the sufferers. Singularly enough I overheard 
a Chinaman say that he considered the flood a punish 
ment for the Tientsin massacre, which had occurred 
just a year before. 

It is quite impossible to estimate the misery that 
such disasters bring upon the toiling poor of the pro 
vince, who are thus bereft of food, shelter, and fuel ; 
and that, too, when the winter is just at hand. The 
scene on all sides presented one sheet of water, only 
broken by the wrecks of villages, and by islands of 
mud, where herds of cattle were packed and perishing 
for want of pasture. Men, women, and children, were 
to be seen fishing in the shallows of their harvest- fields. 
Fish were abundant ; and this was fortunate, as the 
people had little else to subsist on. How they got 
through the hot days and cold nights, and how many 
of them survived their hardships only to be subjected 
to them in the succeeding year, it is impossible to say. 
We could tell from the bodies drifting seaward that 
Death was busy among them, relieving the sick and 
satisfying the hungry in his own sad final way. 

The Chinese, like all peoples both ancient and 



480 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

modern, have a superstitious dread of disturbing the 
resting-places of their dead. For many miles around 
Tientsin the country is one vast burial-ground, and it 
was pitiful to notice the efforts the living were making 
to lash the coffins of their dead to trees or to posts 
which they had driven into the mud. But numbers 
of the huge clumsy coffins were to be seen floating 
adrift, with no living relation to care for their silent 
occupants. 

The water was so deep that in many places the 
tortuous river s channel had been abandoned, and 
native craft were sailing overland, so to speak, direct 
for the city. 

Our steamer, the Sin-nan : sing, had great difficulty 
in turning the sharp bends of the river ; her bow would 
stick in the mud of one bank, and her screw in the 
other ; but at length Tientsin was reached, and there 
we found the water five or six feet deep at the back of 
the foreign settlement, and the Peking road submerged. 
The club, too, was surrounded, and could only be 
reached by boat, and boating excursions could also be 
made to the celebrated treaty joss-house. 

The foreigners were looking forward to the pros 
pect of soon being shut in by a sea of ice. Here, on 
the bank of the river, was a British hotel called The 
Astor House, its modest proportions almost concealed 
by the huge sign-board in front. This establishment 
was constructed of mud, and on one side of it a window 
had fallen out, while on the other the wall had fallen 
in. I had a look at this unpromising exterior, and 
some conversation with its proprietor. The latter was 
an Englishman, and he lamented to me over the 
wreck of his property. There were still two apart- 



TIENTSIN. 481 

mcnts in front, one containing a billiard-table and the 
other a bar ; but a couple of mud bed-rooms had dis 
solved, and could be seen in solution through a broken 
wall. The stabling in the rear, also, out of sheer 
depression at losing its occupants, had taken a header 
inta the water and disappeared. We next passed out 
of doors to examine the ravages of the flood in sundry 
outhouses, which had also settled down ; but the dreary 
prospect was obscured by a cloud of musquitoes, the 
pests of the place during the summer months. In the 
bar-room I found a Scotchman connected with the 
Tientsin Powder Factory, saying some very hard 
things about the peculiar views of a Chinese tailor to 
whom he had entrusted some vara guid braid claith 
to mak a pair of breeks. It appeared that the tailor 
had found it necessary, on account of family concerns, 
to remove from Tientsin to another district, and had 
taken the cloth with him without going through the 
ceremony of leaving his card. 

I slept on board the steamer, and started for 
Peking on August 29. Before setting out I engaged 
a Tientsin man named Tao, or Virtue, at the rate of 
nine dollars a month ; but this sum was a trifle com 
pared with what he intended to make out of me, as in 
every transaction, whether it was simply to change a 
dollar into cash or to buy provisions, he made a profit 
able bargain for himself. My own southern men could 
have managed better, although they were ignorant of 
the northern dialect, and could only make known their 
wants in writing. Systematic pilfering, however, I 
soon discovered to be the common attribute of servants 
in the north. 

We engaged a boat to convey us to Tung-chow, 

I i 



482 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

the nearest point by water to Peking. This boat 
carried a wooden house in the centre, which could be 
shut up all round at night, so as to keep the cold out ; 
and it was just large enough to accommodate my party 
and baggage. The space within it was divided into 
two compartments, and in the after one stood a clay 
cooking-galley, around which the boys were stowed. 
Our crew consisted of a father, Wong-Tsing, and his 
two sons Wong-su and Wong-soon. We had to make 
our way up through the city of Tientsin along a narrow 
ever-changing channel between thousands of native 
trading-boats. Many of these, to all outward appear 
ance, were in the last stages of dry rot, although, accord 
ing to the strange notions of the Chinese, they would 
be esteemed in every respect seaworthy as long as they 
could hold together. The only sound pieces of wood 
about them were slung over the side, to prevent the 
iron-spiked poles of passing boatmen from destroying 
the crazy old hulls. 

It was not without a free use of such poles, and the 
vilest epithets in the language, that we got clear of the 
floating Babel at last. The left bank, hereabouts, was 
covered with mounds of salt, piled up beneath the mat 
sheds which the salt monopolist had erected to protect 
his precious store. 

Here, too, were junks laden with cargoes of cotton 
and cotton fabrics, which the Chinese merchants were 
about to convey to the markets of the interior. These 
native merchants have their own agents in Shanghai, 
who send up cotton, piece goods, opium, and other 
foreign products, in the steamers which ply between 
that port and Tientsin. 

The river at this point was about 200 yards wide, 



RUINS OF THE SISTERS C II A PEL. 483 

and on the right bank Tao pointed out the black bare 
walls of the Sisters Chapel, that had been burned 
twelve months before. There, too, we could see the 
ruins of the hospital, where the Sisters of Mercy had 
consecrated their lives to the ministration of the sick, 
and to rescuing outcast children; for which good works 
they had here been brutally murdered by an ignorant 
and superstitious mob. There was still a heap of 
ashes in front of the edifice, and the long breach in its 
wall through which the murderers dragged their hap 
less victims to their doom. The breach had indeed 
been plastered up with mud, a fitting type of the un 
satisfactory way in which the Chinese sought to atone 
for an outrage which was perpetrated almost within 
sight of the Governor-General s, yamen. 

From this point, too, we could descry, at the upper 
end of the reach, the imposing ruins of the Roman 
Catholic cathedral, the only striking object in the city 
of Tientsin ; and the reflection was forced upon me, 
from what I know of native superstition, that that noble 
pile of building, standing as it did so much above what 
the Chinese themselves hold most sacred in their 
yamens and shrines, must in itself have stirred up a 
bitter feeling against foreigners. This feeling was 
without doubt greatly intensified by horrible stories 
most ingeniously spread abroad by the literary mem 
bers of society, describing how foreigners manufacture 
medicines from the eyes and hearts of Chinese children, 
or even of adults. In the latter case it is to procure 
silver that these practices are alleged to be carried on ; 
and this we may gather from the accompanying passage 
out of a native work which was in brisk circulation 
when the massacre took place. The reason for ex- 



484 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

tracting the eyes is this. From one hundred pounds 
of Chinese lead can be extracted eight pounds of silver, 
and the remaining ninety-two pounds of lead can be 
sold at the original cost. But the only way to obtain 
this silver is by compounding the lead with the eyes of 
Chinamen. The eyes of foreigners are of no use, 
hence they do not take out the eyes of their own 
people. Further on it says : The people of France 
without exception follow the false and corrupt Tien- 
chu religion. They have devilish arts by which they 
transform men into beasts, &c. 

This pamphlet is full of matter unfit for quotation, 
and concludes with an appeal to the people to rise and 
exterminate the hated strangers : 

o 

Therefore, these contemptible beings having 
aroused our righteous wrath, we, heartily adhering to 
the kingdom of our sovereign, would not only give 
vent to a little of the hate that will not allow us to 
stand under the same heaven with them, but would 
make an eternal end of the distress of being obliged to 
have them ever near us. ... If the temporising policy 
is adopted, this non-human species will again increase. 1 
The author goes on, without mincing matters, to urge 
the utter extermination of foreigners, and the preser 
vation of the virtuous followers of Confucius. When 
we consider that this pamphlet had a wide, though, as 
it was pretended, a secret circulation ; and above all, 
when we reflect on the utter ignorance and superstition, 
and the savage fierceness, of the half-starved classes 
whom it professed to caution and enlighten, and on 
whom the calm, moderate, and subtle style of some of 

1 Death-blow to Corrupt Doctrines. 



DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 485 

its worst passages must have produced a fearful effect, 
we cannot wonder at the result. So far as I can judge, 
too, the future looks dark and foreboding ; nor will 
matters mend while Roman Catholic missionaries per 
sist in offering violence to Chinese prejudices by 
raising their churches far above the level of the highest 
roofs of the Imperial Palace itself, and by exercising a 
sort of semi-political protection over their converts. 

Tao believed implicitly in the strange stories which 
he had heard about the priests, and about the poor 
Sisters who had been so cruelly put to death. The 
ruins now were being carefully guarded by a fleet of 
native gun-boats ; but there were none of them at hand 
when succour was really needed, nor did they reach the 
spot until long after the deed had been accomplished. 

I could not refrain from offering some remarks 
to my new man about the miserable mud huts in 
which his countrymen dwelt. Whereupon, with a 
vanity not uncommon in his race although it surprised 
me at the time he pointed out what he held to be 
the advantages of occupying such abodes. His argu 
ment ran something like this : The materials, mud 
and millet-stalks, can be had all over the plain at every 
man s doorway cheaply ; for the lifting, indeed ; where 
as wood and stone are too dear for poor people to 
procure. Then, again, with such materials every man 
can be his own architect and mason ; and finally, when 
floods and rain dissolve the tenement, it sinks down 
quietly, forming a mound on which the furniture and 
domestic utensils may repose, and on which the family 
may sit till the waters have subsided, and they are 
able to set too again, and raise up their broken walls. 

The river here is spanned by one or two pontoon 



4 86 IN DO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

bridges, which had to be opened to let us pass through. 
These bridges form great impediments to the traffic, 
both on land and by water ; for the pontoon is never 
pulled up to make a passage until about a dozen junks 
and boats have collected, and their owners, who by 
that time have been long waiting for the event, are 
clamouring and fighting amongst themselves to get 
first through. While the boats are passing through, 
the land traffic is of course interrupted, and crowds of 
foot passengers and vehicles are pressing forward on 
each side of the aperture to await the replacement of 
the pontoon. One or two of them, unable to make 
their way back, were driven over into the water, and 
rescued by boat-hooks as we passed. The narrow 
wooden pavement of the bridge was made still narrower 
by a throng of shops and stalls, lepers, beggars, and 
jugglers. 

The country on both sides of the stream presented 
a poor aspect, and seemed to be anything but thickly 
populated. Many of the houses, in the mud villages 
which we passed, were overgrown with grass and weeds 
to such an extent that they hardly looked like human 
abodes ; while the finest, or rather the least objection 
able, specimens of the domestic architecture of the 
district, though to all appearance built of solid brick, 
proved not to be really so constructed. Thus there 
were some of them where builders were at work, and 
then the walls were seen to consist only of two thin 
layers of bricks filled in with mud ; but should the 
mud by some leak in the roof become moist, it settles 
gradually clown. Simultaneously the brick barrier begins 
to bulge out, and increases in size slowly, until at last 
it bursts and discharges the mud, whose presence it 



DRY LAND. 487 

can no longer confine. Other houses of a much more 
ingenious kind were made of a sort of honeycomb 
of brick filled in with clay. This might form a cheap 
style of wall for the erection of our magnificent modern 
London terraces, where the houses are, I believe, built 
in continuous blocks, simply to prevent them from 
being blown clown like nine-pins. But these honey 
combed brick walls were really very ingenious, whereas 
our metropolitan masonry is quite the opposite. 

As the land rose towards the hills, which sweep 
like a crescent around the north of Peking, we emerged 
from the flooded plains into a less desolate region, 
where the people were not so destitute of the common 
necessaries of life, and where the banks were lined 
with ripe fields of millet. Our boatmen, like the 
dwellers on land, lived on the flour of this useful cereal, 
which they season with salt-fish and garlic. The 
flour is made into bread, or rather cooked and pulled 
out into strings of hot tough elastic dough. This the 
people consumed in great quantities at meal-times, and 
always appeared to recover from its effects, although 
to me it seemed just about as digestible as worsted 
balls, rolls of flannel, or india-rubber cables. 

Here we encountered many ponies, mules, and 
donkeys in use ; the mules being of an exceedingly fine 
breed, and having, many of them, zebra stripes across 
the legs. As for the donkeys, they were thoroughly 
domesticated, and followed their masters to and fro 
like dogs. 

The huts improved in appearance as we neared 
Tung-chow, and the villagers, too, were more robust- 
looking, although even the best of these, in spite of 
their willow-shaded dwellings and their harvest-fields, 



4 88 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

betrayed evidences of a hard-struggling hand-to-mouth 
existence. 

I shall never forget a sunset which I witnessed in 
this district, and which even produced an impression 
on my material-minded Chinese followers. So much 
was this the case that the Wong family insisted on a 
halt, and my boys cooked my dinner with native garlic 
a graceful compliment to the charms of the locality, 
though disgusting to my own less educated tastes. 

o o o J 

There was an unnatural heat, and an oppressive still 
ness in the air. The sky was aflame with saffron- 
coloured light, while on the banks the millet, with its 
thousand plumes, stood out like a rich entablature of 
gold, supported by the glowing shafts that the sun 
sent deep clown into the placid stream. As day de 
clined the distant hills passed from a bright sapphire 
into a dull leaden hue ; broad shadows were flung across 
the plain, while a dark ominous cloud, like some strange 
spirit of the night, caught the last gleam of sunshine 
as it slowly unfolded its wings across the west. Wong, 
the skipper, silently cast out another anchor, and his 
sons moored the craft stem and stern to the bank. It 
was useless urging him to proceed. He said : No 
man living would tempt him to move : the strange sky 
and the oppressive stillness boded no good ; and so 
he sat and smoked, while his sons made all secure. 
The insect world, too, seemed to chirp and twitter 
uneasily, as if dreading some impending storm ; the 
birds escaped into shelter ; and soon a deep silence, 
only broken at intervals by the whispering of the wind 
among the millet, took entire possession of the scene. 
Wong smoked more than usual, and kept watch. It 
was well he did. Placing my revolver beneath my 



A MIDNIGHT STORM. 489 

pillow, and the matches close to the candle, I was soon 
fast asleep, and must have been slumbering till about 
midnight, when I was rudely roused by a sudden 
shock that sent me heels over head across the narrow 
cabin floor. I was still endeavouring to extricate my 
self from the miscellaneous property heaped around 
me, when the boat seemed to be lifted right out of the 
water, then struck a second time, and almost capsized. 
We were caught in a storm. I could hear the wind 

o 

growling and gathering its fury for another blast, as I 
forced the cabin door to learn the worst. The boat 
men were out on the bank looking to the moorings ; 
but they informed me that the worst was over. 

Meanwhile, Ahong and the others, as soon as they 
could extricate themselves from the wreck of the cook 
ing galley, were out too. But the worst was not over. 
Like a remorseful flood of tears after a fit of passion, 
the rain poured down in torrents, deluging everything ; 
so that even the matches were thoroughly soaked and 
useless before I could manage to lay my hands upon 
them. My clothes and cotton mattress were in the 
same sorry condition ; but somehow, when the rain 
abated, and I had made myself as comfortable as cir 
cumstances would permit, I fell asleep again, and woke 
at daylight to find my boys busy drying their property, 
that they might appear clothed and in their right mind 
at Tun^-chow. 

o 

It was not till the afternoon of the fourth day that 
we reached this place, though we made but another 
halt, to visit a village fair, where we saw a poor conjuror 
perform tricks for a few cash that would make his 
fortune on a London stage. And yet his greatest 
trick of all was transforming three copper cash into 



490 1NDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

gold coin. His arms were quite bare, and, having 
taken his cash in the palm of his hand, he permitted 
me to close the fingers over them. Then, passing a 
wand above the clenched fist, he opened it again, and 
feasted the greedy eyes of his rustic admirers on what 
looked extremely like glittering gold. He also killed 
a small boy whom he had with him by plunging a knife 
into his body. The youth became suddenly pale, 
seemed to expire, then jumping up again removed the 
knife with one hand while he solicited patronage with 
the other. There was one feat which this conjuror 
performed with wonderful dexterity. He placed a 
square cloth flat upon the ground, and taking it by the 
centre between his forefinger and thumb with one 
hand, he waved the wand with the other ; and, gradu 
ally raising the cloth, disclosed a huge vase brimful of 
pure water beneath it. 

At Tung-chow our boat was boarded by at least a 
dozen coolies eager to carry our baggage. One of 
them incautiously lifted a trunk, and was making off 
with it, when he was suddenly relieved of the burden 
by Tao and hurled pell-mell into the water. This 
summary procedure on the part of my Tientsin man 
almost cost him his much-venerated tail, for it had 
nearly been torn out at the roots by the infuriated 
coolies before I coulcl come to the rescue. Here we 
engaged carts for the journey to the metropolis. These 
carts are the imperial-highway substitutes for our rail 
ways, cabs, and omnibuses, but they have no springs. 
Notwithstanding this they might be comfortable 
enough if so constructed as to allow the passenger to 
sit down, and used only on a perfectly level road. Tao 
had himself carefully packed into his conveyance with 



TUNG-CHOW. 491 

straw, but as for me, not -liking 1 the look of the vehicles, 
I determined to walk at least a part of the way. 

There may be passages in what I have still to 
relate which may seem strange to a European reader, 
and I may be allowed perhaps, therefore, here to re 
mind him that I am describing only what I actually 
saw and experienced. Soon we were entering Tung- 
chow, the carts plunging and lumbering behind us over 
what at one time had been a massively constructed 
Mongolian causeway. Gallantly the carters struggled 
on beneath an ancient archway, when suddenly the 
thoroughfare was found jammed by a heavily laden 
cart drawn by a team of mules and donkeys, that had 
stuck fast among the broken blocks of stone. Straight 
way the air re-echoed with the execrations of a hundred 
carters who found their progress obstructed, and it 
was a full half-hour before we managed to pass. I 
should think that the distinguished members of the 
Peking Board of Works can hardly have ventured so 
far as Tung-chow on their tours of inspection. A few 
moderate-sized stone walls thrown across the street 
there could scarcely prove more serious impediments 
to the traffic than the existing dilapidated pavement. 
As for the town and its inhabitants, we had ample 
leisure to inspect them before the carts had struggled 
clear of their streets. The shop-fronts were of richly 
carved wood, quite different from what one sees in the 
south, but seemingly stained with the accumulated dust 
of ages. The townsfolk, too, looked dry and dusty, as 
if they as well as their shops belonged to some bygone 
era, and had been suddenly unearthed to resume their 
tasks with senses partially impaired by disuse. 

Even outside Tung-chow the roads were knee-deep 



492 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

in mud, in consequence of the heavy rain which had fallen 
during the previous night, so that I had no further choice, 
and perforce took refuge in the cart. My driver smelt 
of samshu and garlic ; and placed such implicit trust in 
his mule that, once fairly on the road, he fell asleep on 
the shaft, and had to be reminded frequently, by a shove 
off his perch, that he might as well do something to 
extricate his jaded beast and its burden from the pitfalls 
and mud-pools of the way. A long d4tour> taken to 
avoid an impassable portion of the stone highways, 
brought us at last once more upon the track, and then 
I wisely determined to resume walking, as I thought 
it as well to have one or two bones in my framework 
unbroken, to be relied on in case of need. 

At length we made a halt at an inn. These inns 
supply food for man and beast, and occur at frequent 
intervals along that road, reminding one in some re 
spects of those similar old-fashioned wayside resting- 
places which are now dying out rapidly in our own 
land. 

Outside this inn ran a long low wall, whitewashed, 
and inscribed in huge black characters with the sign or 
motto, Perpetual felicity achieved. 

Along the entire front of this establishment a 
narrow dwarf- table had been set up, and groups of 
travellers seated round it discussed reeking bowls of 
soup or tea, and the latest news from the capital. 
Their cattle they had already made over to the care of 
hangers-on at the inn. 

Tao and my Hainan men had gone on ahead, but 
I stopped here and partook of a dinner a la Chinoise, 
which was served up to me in a bedroom. This apart 
ment was a filthy place, and contained nothing on earth 



THE CHI HO GATE, PEKING. 493 

save a table and a chair, and a bed, or kang, made of 
bricks. As for the table, it was covered with a surface 
formation of dirt into which I could cut like cheese. 
But I must say that the dinner here supplied me was 
the best I ever tasted at a Chinese inn. The viands 
were stewed mutton cut up into small pieces, rice, an 
omelette, grapes, and tea. The room had recently 
been used as a stable ; and its window, filled in with a 
small wooden frame and originally covered with paper, 
was now festooned with dark dirty spiders webs. 
Another long detour at length brought us to the Chi-ho 
gate of the Tartar metropolis. 

Before we enter I will run over some of the more 
general characteristics of the city at which we have 
now arrived. It stands, as we have already seen, on a 
plain sloping down to the sea, and is indeed made up 
of two towns a Tartar or Manchu quarter, and a 
Chinese settlement joined together by a wall more 
than twenty miles round. 

At the time of the Manchu conquest these two 
divisions were parted from each other by a second, 
inner, wall ; the true natives of the soil, at least those 
of them supposed to be friendly to the new dynasty, 
being confined within a narrow space to the south ; 
while the Tartar army was encamped around the Im 
perial palace in the northern city, which covers a square 
space of double the area of the Chinese town. 

In so far as the features I have just described are 
concerned, Peking is the same to-day as it was a trifle 
over 200 years ago, when the descendant of Kublai 
Khan mounted the Imperial throne. There are still 
in the Tartar city the same high walls pierced with 
nine double gateways ; the same towers and moats and 



494 1NDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

fortified positions ; and within, the palace is still sur 
rounded by the permanent Manchu garrison, like that 
which was established in most of the provincial capitals 
of China. 

The army was originally divided into four corps, 
distinguished by the white, red, yellow, and blue 
banners under which they respectively fought. Four 
bordered banners of the same colours were subsequently 
added, and eight corps of Mongols, and an equal 
number of Chinese adherents, were created at a later 
date. 

Each corps of Manchu bannermen possesses, or 
rather is supposed to possess, its ground as originally 
allotted to it within the Imperial city ; and before the 
cottage doorways one may still see square paper lamps, 
whose colours denote the banners to which their pro 
prietors respectively belong. But time has changed 
the stern rules under which the Chinese were confined 
to their own quarter. Their superior industry, and 
their slowly but surely accumulating wealth, have 
gradually made them masters of the Tartar warriors, 
and of their allotments within the sacred city. In fact, 
Chinese thrift and commercial energy have conquered 
the descendants of the doughty Manchus who drove 
the Mings from the throne. 

It can hardly be credited by the stranger who visits 
this Chinese centre of the universe, that the miserable 
beings whom he sees clad in sheep-skins out of the 
Imperial bounty, and acting as watchmen to the pros 
perous Chinese, are in reality the remnants of those 
noble nomads who were at one time a terror to 
Western Europe, and at a later date the conquerors of 
the Central Flowery Land. 



OUTSIDE THE WALLS. 495 

The old walls of the great city are truly wonderful 
monuments of human industry. Their base is sixty 
feet wide, their breadth at the top about forty feet, and 
their height also averages forty feet. But alas ! time 
and the modern arts of warfare have rendered them 
practically nothing more than interesting relics of a 
bygone age. A wooden stockade would now-a-clays 
be about as effective a protection to the Imperial throne 
within. They seem to be well defended, however. 
Casting our eyes up to the great tower above the gate 
way, we can see that it bristles with guns ; yet the 
little field-glass of modern science reveals to us after 
all only a mock artillery, painted muzzles on painted 
boards, threatening sham terrors through the countless 
embrasures. 

A few rusty dismantled cannon lie here and there 
beneath the gateway, but everything looks out of repair. 
The moats have become long shallow lagoons, and 
yonder a train of 100 camels is wading calmly through 
one into the city. The Government probably know all 
this, and have wisely turned their attention to the 
defence of the coast line and frontiers ; in the hope 
perhaps that a foreign foe will never again be able to 
flounder over the broken highways, and bring warfare 
to the palace door. A vain delusion truly, unless China 
is prepared to take to heart the sad lessons of modern 
battle-fields, and to keep pace with the ever- progressive 
science that is at work in our European arsenals. 
How can she do this ? She may squander wealth- 
distilled out of the blood, sinews, and sweat of long- 
suffering labour upon fleets and armaments ; but 
where will she find the genius to use her weapons to 
advantage ? In the event of a collision with a foreign 



496 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

Power, what good end would the hasty purchase of 
iron-clads and arms secure? If as a distinguished 
Chinese scholar the other day remarked it takes 
1,200 years for the Chinese to introduce successfully 
a new tone into their language, how long, I would 
ask, must it be before they would even make it in the 
first place thoroughly understood, throughout the length 
and breadth of the Empire, that in order to sustain an 
efficient army the soldiers must be paid paid regularly, 
and on a scale sufficient to prevent their becoming a 
greater terror to their own peaceful countrymen than 
they would ever be probably to their foes. As for the 
new weapons which they are manufacturing for them 
selves, we will hope that the rulers may never become 
so utterly blinded as to place these in the hands of un 
trained troops, to defend the ancient policy of exclusive- 
ness so fatal to progress in China. 

But let us hasten our steps, and enter the gate to 
behold this great metropolis. A mighty crowd is 
pressing on towards the dark archway, and we betake 
ourselves again to our carts, feeling sure that our pass 
ports will be examined by the guards on duty at the 
portal. But after all we pass through unnoticed in the 
wake of a train of camels laden with fuel from the 
coal-mines not far off. There is a great noise and 
confusion. Two streams, made up of carts, camels, 
mules, donkeys, and citizens, have met beneath the 
arch, and are struggling out of the darkness at either 
end. Within, there is a wide thoroughfare, by far the 
widest I encountered in any Chinese city, and as roomy 
as the great roads of London. All the main streets of 
Peking can boast of this advantage ; but the cartway 
runs clown the centre of the road, and is only broad 



THE CITY OF PEKING. 497 

enough to allow two vehicles to pass abreast. The 
causeway in the middle is kept in repair by material 
which coolies ladle out of the deep trenches or mud- 
holes to be seen on either side of it. Citizens usino- 

o 

this part of the highway after dark are occasionally 
drowned in these sloughs. Thus one old woman met 
her end in this way when I was in Peking, so that I 
never felt altogether safe when riding through the 
streets at night ; while in the morning, when the 
dutiful servants of the Board of Works were flourishing 
their ladles, one had to face the insalubrious odours of 
the putrid mud ; and at mid-day again, more especially 
if the weather was dry, the dust was so thick that when 
I washed my beard I could have supplied a valuable 
contribution towards the repairs of the road. 

Notwithstanding all this, if there are no dust-clouds 
to obstruct the .sight, the Peking streets are highly 
picturesque and interesting. Along each side of the 
central highway an interminable line of booths and 
stalls has been set up, and there almost everything 
under the Chinese sun is to be obtained. Then out 
side these stalls, again, there are the footpaths, and 
beyond them we come upon the shops, which form the 
boundaries of the actual road. It is a complicated 
picture, and I only hope that the reader may not lose 
himself, as I have done more than once, amid the maze 
of streets. 

The shops had a great fascination for me. In both 
cities they are almost always owned by Chinese, for 
the Tartars, even if they have money, are too proud 
to trade ; and if they have none, as is most frequently 
the case, they possess neither the energy nor the 
ingenuity to make a start. The Chinese, on the other 

K K 



498 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

hand, will many of them trade on nothing ; and some 
seem capable of living on nothing too, until, by 
patience and thrift, if they have ever had the ghost of 
a chance, they manage to attain prosperity. 

The shops in Peking, both outside and within 
doors, are very attractive objects. Many of their 
fronts are elaborately carved, and painted and gilded 
so beautifully that they look as if they ought to be set 
under glass cases ; while as for the interiors, these are 
fitted up and finished with an equally scrupulous care, 
the owners ready for business inside, clothed in their 
silks, and looking a prosperous, supremely-contented 
tribe. I could discover evidences of a liberal distribu 
tion of the wealth of the official classes in all those 
shops which in any way supplied their wants, or 
ministered to their expensive and luxurious tastes. 

On the other hand, fearful signs of squalor and 
misery were apparent everywhere in the unwelcome 
and uncared-for poor : all the more apparent, perhaps, 
when brought face to face with the tokens of wealth 
and refinement. 

I have not space to relate a tenth of what I beheld 
or experienced in this great capital : how its naked 
beggars were found in the winter mornings dead at its 
gates ; how a cart might be met going its rounds to 
pick up the bodies of infants too young to require the 
sacred rites of sepulture ; how the destitute were to be 
seen crowding into a sort of casual ward already full, 
and craving permission to stand inside its walls, so as 
to obtain shelter from the wintry blast that would 
freeze their hearts before the dawn. There are acres 
of hovels at Peking in which the Imperial bannermen 
herd, and filth seems to be deposited like tribute before 



METROPOLITAN ROADS. 499 

the very palace gates ; indeed, there is hardly a spot 
in the capital that does not make one long for a single 
glimpse of that Chinese paradise we had pictured to 
ourselves in our youth ; for the bright sky, the tea- 
fields, orange-groves, and hedges of jasmine, and for 
the lotus-lakes filling the air with their perfume. Once 
or twice in China I had almost realised this dream ; 
but the perfection of the scene was always marred by 
something defective about the people themselves, or 
their habits. 

N ext to the shops, the footpaths in front of them 
are perhaps most curious to a foreigner. In these 
paths, after a shower of rain, many pools occur pools 
which it is impossible to cross except by wading, unless 
one cares to imitate an old Pekingese lady, who 
carried two bricks with her wherever she went, to 
pave her way over the puddles. But watery hollows 
are not the only obstacles to traffic. As in the Com 
mercial Road in London crowds congregate in front of 
the tents and stalls of the hawkers, while the shop 
keepers spread out their wares for sale so as to mono 
polise at least two-thirds of the pavement, so also in 
Peking, in yet greater numbers and variety, the buyers 
and sellers occupy every dry spot. Sometimes one can 
only get through the press by brushing against the dry 
dusty hides of a train of camels as they are being un 
laden before a coal-shed ; and one must take care, 
should any of them be lying down, not to tread on their 
huge soft feet, for they can inflict a savage bite. In 
another spot it may become necessary to wait until 
some skittish mule, tethered in front of a shop, has 
been removed by its leisurely master, who is smoking 
a pipe with the shopman inside. Once, as I threaded 



K K. 2 



500 JNDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

my way along, I had to climb a pile of wooden planks 
to reach the path beyond, and finding that a clear view 
could be obtained from the top, of a fine shop on the 
other side of the road, I had my camera set up and 
proceeded to take a photograph. But in two or three 
minutes, before the picture could be secured, there was 
a sudden transformation of the scene. Every available 
spot of ground was taken up by eager but good- 
natured spectators ; traffic was suspended ; and just as 
I was about to expose the plate some ingenious youth 
displaced the plank on which I stood, and brought me 
down in a rapid, undignified descent, immensely enter 
taining to the crowd. 

Some of the booths close to the foot-way are built 
of mud or brick, and would indeed become permanent 
structures but that their occupants may be ordered at 
any moment to clear them away, so as to make 
room for the progress of the Emperor. For I must 
tell you that whenever the Sovereign is carried abroad, 
outside his own palace walls, the roads must be cleared, 
and even cleaned, that his sacred eyes may not be 
offended with a glimpse at the true condition of his 
splendid capital. After he has passed by, booths, tents, 
and stalls are re-erected, and commerce and confusion 
resume their sway. As matters stand, these road-side 
obstructions are really a great boon to the people. 
Anything can be bought at the stalls, and their owners 
are neither slow nor silent in advertising the fact. At 
one a butcher and a baker combine their crafts. The 
former sells his mutton cut to suit the* taste of his 
customers, while at the same time he disposes of all the 
bones and refuse to the cook, who manufactures savoury 
pies before a hungry crowd of lookers-on. Twirling 



NATIVE STALLS. 501 

his rolling-pin on his board, he shrieks out in a shrill 
key a list of the delicacies he has prepared, while a 
chorus of dogs around respond in unfeignedly sym 
pathetic howls. 

Jewels, too, of no mean value, are on sale here as 
well, and there are peep-shows, jugglers, lottery-men, 
ballad-singers, and story-tellers ; the latter accompany 
ing their recitations with the strummings of a lute, 
while their audience sits round a long table and listens 
with rapt attention to the dramatic renderings of their 
poets. The story-teller, however, has many com 
petitors to contend against, and of all his rivals the 
old-clothes-men are perhaps the most formidable tribe. 
These old-clothes-men enjoy a wide celebrity for their 
humorous stories, and will run off with a rhyme to 
suit the garments as they offer them to the highest 

bidder. Each coat is thus invested with a miraculous 



history, which gives it at once a priceless value. If it 
be fur, its heat-producing powers are eloquently de 
scribed. It was this fur which, during the year of the 
great frost, saved the head of that illustrious family 
Chang. The cold was so intense that the people were 
mute. When they spoke their words froze, and hung 
from their lips. Men s ears congealed, and were devoid 
of feeling, so that when they shook their heads they 
fell off. Men froze to the street and died by thousands ; 
but as for Chang of honoured memory, he put on this 
coat, and it brought summer to his blood. How much 
say you for it ? * &c. The foregoing is a rendering of 
the language actually used by one of these sellers of 
unredeemed pledges. 

I saw two or three men who were driving a trade 
in magic pictures and foreign stereoscopic photographs, 



502 1NDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

some in not the most refined style of art : and as for 
the peep-shows, well, the les-s one says about them the 
better ; they certainly would not be tolerated in any 
public thoroughfare in Europe. The original Punch 
and Jucly also, is to be encountered in the Peking 
streets ; puppets worked by the hands of a hidden 
operator, on just the same plan as with us. At night, 
too, I have frequently seen a most ingenious shadow 
pantomime contrived by projecting small moveable 
figures on to a thin screen, under a brilliant light from 
behind. 

Capital clay images may be purchased at some of 
the stalls ; but in no part of China has this art of 
making coloured clay figures reached such perfection 
as at Tientsin. 

At that place tiny figures are sold for a mere song 
which are by far the cleverest things of the kind I ever 
saw. These are riot only most perfect representations 
of Chinese men and women, but many of them hit off 
humorous characteristics with the most wonderfully 
artistic fidelity. 

If I go rambling on in this way over the city, we 
shall never reach the hotel, nor receive that welcome 
which was so warmly accorded to me by Monsieur 
Thomas, the proprietor. Thomas was not the cleanest 
man in the world, but he was extremely polite, which 
was something. There was, however, about his cos 
tume a painful lack of buttons, and its appearance might 
perhaps have been improved by the addition of a waist 
coat, and by the absence of the grease that seemed to 
have been struggling up to reach his hair, but had 
not arrived at its destination. His hands, and even 
his face, in prospect of our coming, had been hastily 



THE HOTEL. 503 

though imperfectly washed. But then he was a cook, a 
good cook, too ; and he remarked, when I flattered him 
on this head, that there was nothing like a little cau-dc- 
vic to enable an artist to put the finishing touches on a 
chef-d oeuvre either of cookery or painting. Had he 
confessed to a great deal of that stimulant, he would 
have been much nearer the truth. 

My bedroom was not a comfortable one. How 
could it be ? it was chiefly built of mud. The 
mud floor, indeed, was matted over, but the white 
washed walls felt sticky, and so did the bed and cur 
tains ; a close, nasty smell, too, pervaded the whole 
apartment, and on looking into a closet I discovered a 
quantity of mouldy, foreign apparel. This, as I found 
out next morning, had been left there as plague-stricken 
by a gentleman who, some clays previously, had nearly 
died of small-pox in this very room. Fortunately, I 
escaped an attack of the malady. 

I paid a visit to the Corean Legation in the Tartar 
quarter of the city. It is customary for the King of 
Corea to send an annual embassy of tribute-bearers to 
Peking. The first detachment of the embassy had just 
arrived before I quitted the capital. There were but 
a few members present at the Legation at the time of 
my visit, and the apartments in which they dwelt were so 
scrupulously clean that I almost wished that I had left 
my dirty shoes at the doorway, in my fear of soiling the 
white straw mats. I was also most favourably im 
pressed with the spotless purity of their garments, 
which were almost entirely of white. It was with 
great difficulty, however, that the accompanying illus 
tration was secured, bvit it was on that account all 
the more prized, as it is about all I can offer the 



54 



INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 



reader in connection with this isolated and interesting 
race. 

After my return from the Ming tombs, H. B. M. s 
Minister kindly invited me to stay at the Legation ; but 
I had promised Thomas to remain in his house, and 




COREAN. 



although unfortunate in some respects, he proved 
thoroughly honest, and did his best to make me 
comfortable. 

I bought a Mongolian pony, to save me time in 
exploring the city, and a saddle and bridle were kindly 



HORSE-SHOEING. 



55 



lent to me by a friend ; but the brute was a large- 
boned, large-headed animal, with a great round belly, 
over which, for want of a crupper, the saddle-girths 
were always sliding. It had, too, an enormous appetite, 
at least, so said the groom whom I employed. The 




CHINESE HORSE-SHOEING, PEKING. 

first night it consumed its bed, and when I examined 
it in the morning it seemed to be hungry still ; for it 
had barked the tree to which it was tethered, and had 
besides this devoured about five shillings worth of 
millet-bran, and so forth. I soon found out that I was 
being fleeced by the stable-boy, who had a pony of 



506 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA, 

his own in the next house, and had determined to feed 
it at my expense. 

The Pekingese have a strange mode of shoeing their 
horses. They pull three feet together with cords, and 
leave the hoof that is to be shod free. Then they 
sling the animal bodily up between two posts, after the 
manner shown in the engraving. 

In the plan of the city of Peking there is every 
evidence of careful design, and this has been carried 
out minutely, from the central buildings of the palace 
to the outermost wall of fortification. The ground-plan 
of the Imperial buildings is in most respects identical 
with the ground-plans of the great temples and tombs 
of the country. So much alike are they, even in the 
style and arrangement of their edifices, that a palace, 
with scarcely any alteration, might be at once converted 
into a Buddhist temple. Thus we find that the Great 
Yung-ho-Kung Lamasary of the Mongols, in the north 
east quarter of the city, was at one time the residence 
of the son and successor of Kang-hi. The chiefs halls 
of the Imperial palace if we may judge from the 
glimpse one gets of their lofty roofs when one stands 
on the city wall are three in number, extending from 
the Chien-men to Prospect Hill, and in every instance 
are approached by a triple gateway. The like order 
prevails at the Ming tombs. There one finds an equal 
number of halls, with a triple doorway in front of each ; 
while the temple and domestic architecture throughout 
the north of China is based upon the same plan. In 
the latter case there are three courts, divided from each 
other by halls, the apartments of the domestics being 
ranged about the outer courts, while the innermost of 
the three is devoted to family use. 



THE TEMPLE OF HEA VEN. 507 

It is interesting to observe the evidences which 
crop up everywhere, showing the universal sacredness 
of the numbers three and nine. Thus at Peking, the 
gates with which the outer wall of the Tartar city is 
pierced form together a multiple of three, and the 
sacred person of the Emperor can only be approached, 
even by his highest officers, after three times three 
prostrations. The Temple of Heaven, too, in the 
Chinese city, with its triple roof, the triple terraces of 
its marble altars, and the rest of its mystic symbolism 
throughout, points either to three or to its multiples. 

The Rev. Joseph Edkins was, I believe, the first 
to draw attention to the symbolical architecture of the 
Temple of Heaven, and to the importance which the 
Chinese themselves attach to the southern open altar 
as the most sacred of all Chinese religious structures. 
There, at the winter solstice, the Emperor himself 
makes burnt offerings, just as the patriarchs did of old, 
to the supreme Lord of Heaven. In the city of Foo- 
chow, on the southern side of the walled enclosure, 
are two hills, one known as Wu-shih-shan, and the 
other as Kui-shen-shan, or the Hill of the Nine Genii/ 
On the top of the former there is an open altar a 
simple erection of rude unhewn stone, approached first 
by a flight of eighteen steps, and finally by three steps, 
cut into the face of the rock. This altar is reputed to 
be very ancient, and to it the Governor-General of the 
province repairs at certain seasons of the year as the 
representative of the Emperor, and there offers up 
burnt sacrifices to heaven. In this granite table, 
covered with a simple square stone vessel filled with 
ashes, we have the sacrificial altar in what is probably 
its most ancient Chinese form. The southern altar at 



5o8 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

Peking bears a wonderful resemblance to Mount Meru, 
the centre of the Buddhist universe, round which all 
the heavenly bodies are supposed to move ; and there 
we find the tablets of sun, moon, and stars arranged 
around the second terrace of the altar, according to the 
Chinese system of astronomy. 

The city of Peking, or rather the Tartar portion of 
it, is laid out with an almost perfect symmetry. The 
sacred purple city stands nearly in the centre, and there 
are three main streets, which run from north to south. 
One of these streets leads direct to the palace gates, 
and the other two are nearly equi-distant from it on 
either side ; while myriads of minor thoroughfares and 
lanes intersect one another in the spaces between, but 
are always either parallel with or at right angles to the 
three main roads. Viewed from any stand-point on 
the outer wall, the whole scene is disappointing. With 
the exception of the palace buildings, the Buddhist 
shrines, the Temple of Heaven, the Roman Catholic 
cathedral, and the official yamens, the houses never 
rise above the low modest uniform level prescribed for 
them by law. Much, too, that is ruinous and dilapi 
dated presents itself to the gaze. Here and there we 
see open spaces, and green trees that shade the build 
ings of the rich ; but again the eye wearies of its wan 
derings over hundreds of acres of tiles and walls, all 
of one stereotyped pattern, and cannot help noticing 
that the isolation of the Chinese begins with the family 
unit at home. There stands the sacred dwelling of 
the mighty Emperor, walled round and round ; his 
person protected from the gaze of the outer world by 
countless courts and * halls of sacred harmony ; and 
one can note the same exclusiveness carried out in all 



PRINCE KUNG. 509 

the dwellings of his people. Each residence is enclosed 
in a wall of its own, and a single outer entrance gives 
access to courts and reception-rooms, beyond which 
the most favoured guest may not intrude to violate by 
his mere presence the sanctity of the domicile. There 
are, of course, tens of thousands of houses and hovels 
where this arrangement cannot be observed ; but where 
the people, nevertheless, manage to sustain a sort of 
dignified isolation by investing themselves with an air 
of self-importance, which the very street beggars never 
wholly lay aside. These, if they be Manchus, are 
proud at any rate of their sheepskin coats ; or if they 
be not, then the more fugitive covering of mud, which 
is all that hides their nakedness, is still carried with a 
sort of stolid solemnity which would be ludicrous were 
it not for their misfortunes. 

I had the good fortune while in the metropolis to be 
introduced to Prince Kung and the other distinguished 
members of the Chinese Government ; and they wisely 
availed themselves of my presence to have their por 
traits taken at the Tsungli-yamen, or Chinese Foreign 
Office. Prince Kung, as most of my readers are aware, 
is a younger brother of the late Emperor Hien-fung, 
and consequently uncle to the reigning monarch Tung- 
che. He holds several high appointments, military as 
well as civil, and in particular he is a member of the 
Supreme Council a department of the State which 
most nearly resembles the Cabinet in our own constitu 
tion. He is, too, a man esteemed by all who know 
him, quick in apprehension, comparatively liberal in 
his views, and regarded by some as the head of that 
small party of politicians who favour progress in 
China. 



5io INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

The creation of the Tsungli-yamen, or Foreign 
Board, was one of the important results which followed 
the ratification of the Treaty of Tientsin. Up to that 
time all foreign diplomatic correspondence had been 
carried on through the Colonial Office, where the great 
Powers were practically placed on a level with the 
Central Asian dependencies of the Empire. This 
yamen stands next to the Imperial College, where a 
staff of foreign professors is now employed in instruct 
ing Chinese students in European languages, literature, 
and science. Accompanied by one of these professors, 
who kindly undertook to be my interpreter, I found 
myself one morning entering a low narrow doorway 
through a dead wall. After making our way along a 
number of courts, studded with rockeries, flowers, and 
ponds ; and after passing down dingy corridors in dismal 
disrepair, we at length stood beneath the shade of an 
old tree, and in front of the picturesque, but purely Chi 
nese-looking, audience-chamber, wherein the interests 
of vast numbers of the human race are from time to 
time discussed. We had barely time to glance at the 
painted pillars, the curved roofs, and carved windows, 
when a venerable noble issued from behind a bamboo 
screen that concealed a narrow doorway, and accorded 
us a quiet courteous welcome. 

The Prince himself had not arrived ; but Wen-siang, 
Paou-keun, and Shen-kwe-fen, members all of them of 
the Grand Council, were already in attendance. Wen- 
siang is well known in diplomatic circles as a statesman 
endowed with intellectual powers of the highest order, 
and as one of the foremost ministers of his age. It is 
said of him, that in reply to the urgent representations 
of a foreigner who was clamouring for Chinese progress, 



THE TSUNGLI-YAMEN, 511 

he delivered himself of the following 1 prophecy, which 
has not yet, however, been fulfilled : Give China 
time, and her progress will be both rapid and over 
whelming in its results ; so much so, that those who 
were foremost with the plea for progress will be sighing 
for the good old times/ This transformation may be 
looming in the far-off distance, like some unknown 
star whose light is travelling through the immeasurable 
regions of space, but has not yet reached our own 
sphere. China has had her ages of flint and bronze ; 
and her vast mineral resources tell us that she is yet 
destined to enter upon all that is implied in an age of 
coal and iron. 

Wen-siang and Paou-keun are Manchus, while 
Shen-kwe-fen is one of the Chinese members of the 
Grand Council of State. 

Cheng-lin, Tung sean, and Maou-cheng-he, ministers 
of the Foreign Board, were also present. Tung-sea n 
is the author of many valuable works. One of these, 
on the hydrography of northern China, was in the 
press at the time of my visit ; and, as the reader will 
have gathered from my account of the inundations, his 
treatise is likely to be of great value, provided that 
its suggestions for draining the country and restoring 
the broken embankments can, or rather will, be 
carried out. The ministers wore simple robes of 
variously-coloured satin, open in front and caught in 
by a band at the waist ; collars of pale blue silk taper 
ing down from the neck to the shoulders, and thick- 
soled black satin boots. This costume was extremely 
picturesque, and, what is of far greater importance, the 
ministers, most of them, were as fine looking men as 
ever our own Cabinet can boast. All of them had that 



512 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

air of quiet dignified repose which only comes of con 
stant intercourse with highly-cultured minds. 

The arrival of Prince Kung on the scene cut short 
our general conversation. The Prince for a few 
minutes kept me in a pleasant talk, enquiring about my 
travels and about photography, and manifesting consider 
able interest in the process of taking a likeness. He 
is a man of middle stature, and of a rather slender 
frame ; his appearance, indeed, did not impress me so 
favourably as did that of the other members of the 
Cabinet ; yet he had what phrenologists would describe 
as a splendid head. His eyes were penetrating, and his 
face when in repose wore an expression of sullen reso 
lution. As I looked upon him I wondered whether he 
felt the fearful burden of the responsibility which he 
shared with the ministers around in guiding the destinies 
of so many millions of the human race ; or whether he 
and his distinguished colleagues were able to look with 

o o 

complacency upon the present state of the Empire and 
its people. 

These men have had many and great difficulties 
to contend against in their time. Foreign war, civil 
insurrection, famine, floods, and the rapacity of their 
officials in different quarters of the land, have done 
much to weaken the prestige and power of the great 
central Government ; and her authority now can never 
be properly felt and acknowledged in the more distant 
portions of China, until each remotest province of that 
vast kingdom shall have been united to Peking by the 
iron grasp of railways and by a network of telegraphic 
nerves. 

Perhaps the most grave and distinguished-looking 
member of the group now before me was Maou-cheng- 



CHONG-UN DEGREE. 513 

he. This man s scholarly attainments had won him 
the highest post of literary fame, and formerly he had 
been chief judge of the metropolitan literary examina 
tions. 

Extraordinary is the honour which the Chinese 
attach to literary championship, and to the achieve 
ment of the Chong-un or Han-lin degree which is con 
ferred by the Peking examiners. At the triennial exa 
mination of 1871 a man from Shun-kak district, in the 
Kwang-tung province, carried off the Chong-un. His 
family name was Leung. Now this literary distinction 
had been obtained by a Kwang-tung scholar some half- 
a-century before, and he was the first who achieved 
that success during a period of 200 years. Thus the 
new victory of their own candidate was hailed by the 
men of Kwang-tung as a great historical event It 
was reported, however, that Mr. Leung had after all 
obtained the honour by a lucky fluke. As one of a 
triad of chosen scholars of the Empire, he produced the 
composition which was to decide his claims. There 
were nine essays in all, and these, when they had been 
submitted to the Han-lin examiners, were sent by them 
to the Empress Dowager (the Emperor being under 
age) to have their own award formally confirmed. The 
work of greatest merit was placed uppermost ; but the 
old lady, who had an imperial will of her own, felt 
anxious to thwart the decision of the learned pundits ; 
and, as chance would have it, the sunlight fell upon the 
chosen manuscript, and she discovered a flaw, a thin 
ness in the paper, indicating a place in the composi 
tion where one character had been erased and another 
substituted. The Empress rated the examiners for 

I. L 



514 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

allowing- such slovenly work to pass, and proclaimed 
Leung- the victor. 

The superstitious Cantonese declared that it was a 
divine choice, that the sunbeam was a messenger sent 
by Heaven to point out the blemish in, the essay at first 
selected for the prize. 

Mr. Leung reached Canton in May 1872, and was 
received there by the local authorities with the highest 
possible honours. All the families who bore the name 
of Leung (and who also had means to afford it) paid 
the Chong-un enormous sums of money to be permitted 
to come and worship at his ancestral hall. By this 
means they established a spurious claim to relation 
ship, and as soon as the ceremony was over were 
allowed to place tablets above the entrances of their 
own halls inscribed with the title Chong-un. 

An uncle of the successful senior wrangler, uniting 
an exalted sense of his duty to his family with a 
laudable desire to repair his own fortune, forestalled the 
happy Chong-un, and acted as his deputy before his 
arrival, in visiting sundry halls. For such honourable 
service this obliging relative at times received a thou 
sand dollars, and his nephew, for the sake of the family 
name, had to sanction the steps thus prematurely adopted 
to spread his fame abroad. 

To show the great esteem in which such a man is 
held by the Chinese, I may add that a brother of Mr. 
Leung rented a house in Canton, and its owner hearing 
that he was the brother of the famous Chong-iin made 
him a free gift of the tenement. 

After partaking of tea with one or two of the 
members of the Cabinet, and after some general talk 



THE CONFUCIAN TEMPLE. 515 

on topics of common interest, we rose and quitted the 
yamen. 

I must leave many of the temples and other objects 
of interest in Peking undescribed, as my aim at present 
is rather to convey a general impression of the condi 
tion of the country and of its people, as we find them 
now-a-days, than to enter into minute details. I can 
therefore only cast a passing glance at a few places of 
public importance. The Confucian temple covers a 
wide area, and like all palaces, shrines, and even houses, 
is completely walled around. The main gateway which 
leads into the sacred enclosure is presented in the ac 
companying picture. This gateway is approached, as 
were the ancient shrines of Greece and Rome, through 
an avenue of venerable cypress trees ; and the whole 
establishment forms perhaps the most imposing speci 
men of purely Chinese architecture to be found among 
the ornaments of the capital. The triple approach, and 
the balustracling, are of sculptured marble ; while the 
pillars and other portions of the gateway are of more 
perishable materials wood, glazed earthenware, and 
brick. On either side are groves of marble tablets, 
bearing the names of the successful Hanlin scholars for 
many centuries back ; and that one to the left, supported 
upon the back of a tortoise, was set up here when 
Marco Polo was in China. 

Within this gate stand the celebrated stone drums, 
inscribed with stanzas cut nearly 2,000 years ago in the 
most primitive form of Chinese writing. Thus these 
drums prove the antiquity at once of the poetry and of 
the character in which that has been engraved. These 
inscriptions have been translated by Dr. S. W. Bushel!, 
the gentleman who has also recently discovered the 

L L 2 



5 i6 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

site of the famous city of Shang-tu, referred to by 
Coleridge as Xanadu, and spoken of by Marco Polo 
as the northern capital of the Yuen dynasty. The 
great hall within simply contains the tablet of China s 
chief sage and those of twenty-two of his most distin 
guished followers. 

The spirits of the departed great are supposed to 




PEKING OBSERVATORY. JESUIT INSTRUMENTS. 

reside in their tablets, and hence annually, at the vernal 
and autumnal equinoxes, sheep and oxen fall in sacrifice 
in front of this honoured shrine of literature. 

Close to the Confucian temple stands the Kwo-tze- 
keen, or National University ; and there, ranged around 



THE OBSERVATORY. 517 

the Pi-yung-kung, or Hall of the Classics, are 200 
tablets of stone, inscribed with the complete text of the 
nine sacred books. 

The Observatory has been set up on the wall on 
the eastern side of the Tartar city. PI ere, in addition 
to the colossal astronomical instruments erected by the 
Jesuit missionaries in the seventeeth century, we find 
two other instruments in a court below, which the 
Chinese made for themselves towards the close of the 
thirteenth century, when the Yuen dynasty was on the 
throne. Possibly some elements of European science 
may have been brought to bear on the construction of 
even these instruments ; although the characters and 
divisions engraved on their splendid bronze circles 
point only to the Chinese method of dividing the year, 
and to the state of Chinese astronomy at the time. 
Yet Marco Polo must have been in the north of China 
at about the period of their manufacture ; or, at any 
rate, John cle Carvino was there, for he, under Pope 
Clement V., became bishop of Cambalu (Peking) about 
1290 A.D., and perhaps, with his numerous staff of 
priests, he introduced some knowledge of Western art. 
Mr. Wylie (than whom there is probably no better 
authority) was with me when I examined these instru 
ments, and is of opinion that they are Chinese, and 
that they were produced by Ko- show-king, one of the 
most famous astronomers of China. One of them is 
an astrolaba, furnished beneath with a splendid sun 
dial, which has long since lost its gnomon. The whole, 
indeed, consists of three astrolabe, one partly moveable 
and partly fixed in the plane of the ecliptic ; the second 
turning on a centre as a meridian circle ; and the third 
the azimuth circle. 



5i8 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

The other instrument is an armillary sphere, sup 
ported by chained dragons, of most beautiful workman 
ship and design. This instrument is a marvellous 
specimen of the perfection to which the Chinese must, 
even then, have brought the art of casting in bronze. 

The horizon is inscribed with the twelve cyclical 
characters, into which the Chinese divide the day and 
night. Outside the ring these characters appear again, 




ANCIENT CHINESE ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENT. 

paired with eight characters of the denary cycle, and 
four names of the eight diagrams of the book of 
changes, denoting the points of the compass ; while 
the inside of the ring bears the names of the twelve 
States into which China, in ancient times, was portioned 
out. An equatorial circle, a double-ring ecliptic, an 
equinoctial colure, and a double-ring colure, are ad- 



MR. YANG. 19 

justed with the horizon ring. The equator is engraved 
with constellations of unknown antiquity ; while the 
ecliptic is marked off into twenty-four equal spaces, 
corresponding to the divisions of the year. All the 
circles are divided into 365^ degrees, for the days of 
the year; while each degree is subdivided into 100 
parts, as for everything less than a degree the centenary 
scale prevailed at that period. I take these instru 
ments to be of great interest, as indicating the state of 
astronomical science in China at about the end of the 
thirteenth century. 

While in Peking I made the acquaintance of many 
educated and intelligent natives, one of whom accom 
panied an English physician and myself on an excursion 
to the ruins of the Summer Palace. With another 
gentleman, Mr. Yang, I became considerably intimate ; 
and in this way enjoyed some opportunity of seeing 
the dwelling s and domestic life of the upper classes in 
the capital. Both my friends were devoted to photog 
raphy ; but Yang, not content with his triumphs in that 
branch of science, frequently carried his researches and 
experiments to a pitch that caused the members of his 
multitudinous household no less inconvenience than 
alarm. Yang was a fine sample of the modern Chinese 
savant fat, good-natured, and contented ; but much 
inclined to take short cuts to scientific knowledge, and 
to esteem his own incomplete and hap-hazard achieve 
ments the results of marvellously perfect intelligence. 
His house, like most others in China, was approached 
through a lane hedged in by high brick walls on either 
side, so that there was nothing to be seen of it from 
without save the small doorway and a low brick parti 
tion about six feet beyond the threshold the latter 



520 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

intended to prevent the ingress of the spirits of the 
dead. Within there was the usual array of courts and 
halls, reached by narrow vine-shaded corridors ; but 
each court was tastefully laid out with rockeries, 
flowers, fish-ponds, bridges, and pavilions, as may be 
gathered from the accompanying illustrations. Really 
the place was very picturesque, and admirably suited 
to the disposition of a people affecting seclusion and 
the pleasures of family life ; and who (so far as the 
women are concerned) know little or nothing of the 
world in which they live beyond what they gather 
within the walls of their own abode. 

Here I was, then, admitted at last into the sacred 
precincts of the mysterious Chinese dwelling. Its 
proprietor was an amateur, not merely of photography, 
but of chemistry and electricity, too ; and he had a 
laboratory fitted up in the ladies quarter. In one 
corner of this laboratory stood a black carved bedstead, 
curtained with silk, and pillowed with wood ; while a 
carved bench, also of black wood, supported a hetero 
geneous collection of instruments, chemical, electrical, 
and photographic, besides Chinese and European 
books. 

The walls were garnished with enlarged photo 
graphs of Yang s family and friends. In a small outer 
court care had been taken to supply a fowl-house with 
a steam saw-mill, with which the owner had achieved 
wonders in the short space of a single day. 

The machine, indeed, had never enjoyed but that 
one chance of distinguishing itself ; for the Pekingese, 
disturbed by the whirr of the engines, scaled the walls 
with ladders, clustered on to the roofs, and compelled 
the startled proprietor to abandon his undertaking. 



CHINESE LADIES. 521 

There, then, stood the motionless mill, with one or two 
dejected fowls perched upon its cylinder a monster 
whom long familiarity had taught even the poultry to 
despise. I saw the ladies several times while I was 
teaching my friend how to concoct nitrate of silver and 
other photographic chemicals. Some of these women 
were handsome, and all were dressed in rich satins ; 
but the following information, which I received from 
an English lady (Mrs. Eclkins), who is much and de 
servedly esteemed for her good works among the 
natives, will give further insight into the daily life of 
the Pekingese ladies. 

o 

Many Chinese ladies spend a great portion of their 
time in gossiping, smoking, and gambling very un- 
lady-like occupations, my fair readers will exclaim ; 
nevertheless, these accomplishments, taken either singly 
or collectively, require years of assiduous training before 
they can be practised with that perfection which pre 
vails in polite circles in China. Gambling, it is to be 
regretted, is by far the most favourite pastime, and it 
is perhaps but cold comfort to reflect that this vice is 
not monopolised by the ladies of Cathay, but that it is 
their lords who set them the example. They never 
dream of playing except for money ; and when they 
have no visitors of their own rank to gamble with, they 
call up the domestics and play with them. 

Poorer women meet at some gaming den, and there 
manage to squander large sums of money ; thus afford 
ing their devoted husbands at the end of the year, 
when debts must be discharged which they are unable 
to pay, an excuse for committing suicide. 

The married lady rises early, and first sees that tea 
is prepared for her husband, as well as some hot water 



522 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

for his morning" wash. The same attention is also 
exacted by the mother-in-law ; for she is always present, 
like the guardian angel of her son. As a rule, how 
ever, the mother-in-law is not held to be an angel by 
the wife, who, during the lifetime of her husband s 
mother, has to be a very drudge in the house. It may 
be unkind to relate it, but the truth must be told : the 
ladies, in the morning, fly about with shoes down at 
heel that is, the Tartars do, who have not small feet- 
dressed en ddshabillc, and shouting out their orders 
to the domestic slaves. In short, a general uproar 
prevails in many Chinese households until everything 
for the elaborate toilet has been procured. 

Each lady has generally one or two maids, besides 
a small slave-girl who waits on these maids, and trims 
and lights her mistress pipe. The dressing of a lady s 
hair occupies her attendants from one to two hours ; 
then a white paste is prepared, and daubed over her 
face and neck ; and this, when dry, is smoothed and 
polished once. Afterwards a blush of rose-powder is 
applied to the cheeks and eyelids, the surplus rouge 
remaining on the lady s palm, as a rose-pink on the 
hand is greatly esteemed. Next they dye the nails 
red with the blossom of a certain flower ; and finally 
they dress for the day. Many of them have chignons 
and false hair ; but no hair-dyes are used, for raven 
hair is common, and golden tresses are not in repute. 

Numbers of ladies pass a portion of their time in 
embroidering shoes, purses, handkerchiefs, and such 
like gear ; while before marriage, nearly all their days 
are occupied in preparations for the dreary event of 
wedding one whom probably they never yet have seen, 
and for whom they can never care. Women of educa- 





CANTON ESE BOATVVOMAN. 



NINGPO WOMAN. 





EVENING AMUSEMENTS. 



523 



tion there are, alas! but a few occasionally hire 
educated widows in needy circumstances to read novels 
or plays to them. Women capable of reading in this 
way can make a very comfortable living. Story-tellers 
and ballad-singers are also employed to entertain them 
in the courts of their houses. 

The evenings they generally spend in their court 
yards, smoking and watching the amusements of the 




TARTAR LAD1KS. 



children ; and on these occasions conjurors, Punch-and- 
Judy men, and ventriloquists, are much in demand. 
The families retire early to rest, the ladies never caring 
to spoil their eyes by working under the light of a 
lamp. Opium-smoking is freely indulged in by many 
women in China. 

The romance of love is not unknown in the land, 



524 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

although few marriages are ever celebrated where the 
contracting parties have formed an attachment, or even 
seen each other, before their wedding-day. 

On leaving Yang s dwelling, I had always to make 
my way across a flooded court, where a steam mining- 
pump had once been set going, and had deluged the 
premises before it could be stopped. My friend, when 
I took my departure, was daily expecting the complete 
apparatus for a small gas-work, to supply his house 
with gas a feat which I believe he successfully accom 
plished without blowing up his abode. 

Pekingese Enamelling. There are but one or two 
shops in Peking where the art of enamelling is carried 
on. The oldest enamelled vases were made during 
the Ta-ming dynasty, about three centuries ago ; but 
these are said to be inferior to what were produced 
about 200 years later, when Kien-lung was on the 
throne. Within the last quarter of a century the art 
has been revived. One of the best shops for such 
work stood not far from the French Legation, and was 
strangely enough kept by a Manchu named Kwan. 

The first part of the process consists in forming a 
copper vase of the desired form, partly beaten into 
shape, and partly soldered. The design for the 
enamelled flowers and figures is then traced on to the 
copper by a native artist, and afterwards all the lines 
engraved are replaced by strips of copper, soldered 
hard on to the vase, and rather thicker than the depth 
of the enamel which they are destined to contain. 
The materials used for soldering are borax and silver, 
which require a higher temperature for fusion than the 
enamel itself. The design is now filled in with the 
various coloured enamels, reduced to a state of powder 



MR. WANG. 525 

and made into a paste by the admixture of water. 
The enamel powders are said to be prepared by a 
secret process, known only to one man in Peking, who 
sells them in a solid form, like slabs of different-coloured 
glass. The delicate operation of filling in the coloured 
powders is chiefly carried on by boys, who manage to 
blend the colours with wonderful perfection. After 
the design has been filled in, the vase is next subjected 
to a heat that fuses the enamel. Imperfections are 
then filled up, and the whole is fused again. This 
operation is repeated three times, and then the vase is 
ready to be filed, ground, and polished. The grinding 
and polishing are conducted on a rude lathe, and when 
completed the vase is gilt. Some of the largest and 
finest vases sell for thousands of taels, and are much 
prized by the Chinese, as well as among foreigners. 

On October 18 I set out with two friends for the 
Summer Palace at Yuen-ming-Yuen, about eight miles 
to the north-west of Peking. One of our party, Mr. 
Wang, to whom I have already referred, was connected 
with the Peking Board of Works. This gentleman 
used his official cart and was followed by a mounted 
retainer, while Dr. Dudgeon and I rode ponies. On 
the way, near the Imperial palace, we fell in with a pro 
cession of sixty-four men bearing a huge sedan, wherein 
sat fourteen friends of Wang, his colleagues at the 
Board of Works. These gentlemen were testing the 
strength of the chair which they had prepared to convey 
the remains of an Imperial princess to sepulture. 
Something, this, on the principle of placing a railway 
director in front of every train ! A great vase filled 
to the brim with water had been set up in the centre 
of the sedan, in order to train the bearers to maintain 



526 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

an accurate level. Whether the tea and refreshments, 
and the general hilarity of the party, had anything to 
do with this official investigation I am at a loss to 
determine, but at any rate the duties of the Board, 
apart from their extreme usefulness, appeared to be 
far from disagreeable. Further on the road I had a 
race with a cavalry officer, and I managed to get ahead 
of him, but not until the saddle of my trusty steed was 
nearly over its shoulders. 

By four o clock we had reached the grounds of the 
palace, and there we found a wilderness of ruin and 
devastation which it was piteous to behold. Marble 
slabs and sculptured ornaments that had graced one of 
the finest scenes in China now lay scattered everywhere 
among the ddbris and weeds. But there were some of 
the monuments which had defied the hand of the 
invaders, or been spared, let us hope, on account of 
their beauty. Among these is a marble bridge on 
seventeen arches, which spans a lotus lake. This was 
still in perfect preservation ; and in the far distance, 
too, the great temple on Wan-show-shan could be seen 
sparkling intact in the sunlight. At the base of this 
pile were a multitude of splendid statues, pagodas, and 
other ornaments, overthrown during the fearful raid of 
the allies. Enough yet remained, however, to give 
some faint notion of the untold wealth and labour that 
must have been lavished on this Imperial retreat. 

The Summer Palace lay in ruins within its boundary 
walls, just as it was looted and left. It is a pity that 
redress for a breach of treaty obligations was not sought 
by some less destructive mode than this ; by some 
really glorious achievement, which would have im 
pressed the Chinese with exalted ideas of our civilisa- 



YUEN-MING- YUEN. 5 2 7 

tlon as much as it terrified them with the awfulness of 
our power. If, for example, the capital had been held 
long enough to show what improvements a wise and 
liberal administration could, even in a short time, ac 
complish in the condition of the people and the country ; 
then, after a suitable indemnity had been paid for the 
lesson which we had been forced to convey, we might 
have withdrawn with dignity and left no cleep-rooted 
rankling hatred behind. This hatred will probably 
manifest itself ere long, not in the petty annoyances to 
which foreign travellers or traders have now to submit, 
but in one desperate concentrated effort to drive the 
foreigner from Chinese soil. 

Wang made not a single allusion to the wreck 
around him. He admired, indeed, what little was left 
of the former splendour of the palace ; but it was im 
possible to fathom his real sentiments, for a Chinaman, 
when interrogated, will never disclose what he thinks. 

At the monastery of Wo-foh-sze, or the Sleeping 
Buddha, we found a resting-place for the night. The 
old Lama here was complaining of bad times. There 
was not enough land, he said, to support the establish 
ment, and that though every monk enjoyed a yearly 
grant of twelve taels (equal to about 3/. los. of our 
money) from the Peking Board of Rites. But of late 
years there have been but few of the members of the 
Imperial family to bury a ceremony for which this 
establishment receives a fee of some 300 taels. 

A remarkably beautiful place was Wo-foh-sze ; and 
the quarters of the monks there, though furnished with 
the usual simplicity, were wonderfully clean and well 
kept. 

There are many institutions and objects of interest 



528 INDO- CHINA AND CHTNA. 

in Peking, but to describe even the most prominent 
among them would require a volume by itself. 

The most remarkable, and perhaps the finest, monu 
ment in all China is the marble cenotaph erected over 
the robes and relics of the Banjin Lama of Thibet. 
This edifice stands in the grounds of the Hwang-She 
monastery, about a mile beyond the north wall of 
Peking. When on my way to inspect it I witnessed 
a review of some of the northern army on the Anting 
plain. Many thousands of troops, infantry as well as 
cavalry, were in the field, and at a distance they made 
a warlike and imposing show ; but nearer examination 
always seems to me to alter one s conceptions of the 
greatness of human institutions, and more especially so 
where Chinese are concerned. Thus a close view of 
one of their river gun-boats revealed to me that a stand 
of rifles which occupied a prominent place on its deck 
were all constructed of wood ; and the ancient foes of 
China have more than once in the same way advanced 
with caution to surprise a tented camp, and discovered 
that the tents were but white- washed clay mounds in 
undisturbed possession of the field. Thus also on the 
Anting plain, beneath the flaunting banners, we found 
the men armed with the old matchlocks or with bows 
and arrows ; and carrying huge basket-work shields 
painted with the faces of ogres to strike terror into the 
hearts of a foe. For all that, evidences of military 
reform were not altogether wanting. Thus there were 
modern field-pieces, modern rifles, fair target practice, 
and, above all, desperate efforts to maintain discipline 
and order. At the same time I could not help thinking 
of Le-hung-chang (to whom I had the honour of 
being introduced at Tientsin), the founder of the first 



LE-HUNG-CHANG. 529 

arsenal on a foreign type in China, and the companion 
in arms of Colonel Gordon and Tseng-kwo-fan. Per 
sonally Le is the picture of a military leader, tall, 
resolute, and calm, a man of iron will, and altogether 
the finest specimen of his race whom I ever fell in with. 
He probably at the present moment is influencing the 
progress and destinies of his countrymen more than 
any living son of Han. Perhaps he entertains an 
exaggerated belief in the capabilities of his nation ; 
but at the same time he is deeply conscious of the 
power of Western kingdoms, and ardently desires to 
fathom the secrets of their superiority. On one occa 
sion, when filled with honest admiration of the beauty 
and genius displayed in a piece of foreign mechanism,, 
he exclaimed, * How wonderful ! how comes it that 
such inventions and discoveries are always foreign ? 
It must be something different in the constitution of 
our minds that causes us to remain as we were. But 
after all perhaps he may have intended to compliment 
his auditors rather than to give genuine expression to 
his opinions. He probably knows that for untold 
centuries there has been little or no opportunity for 
the development of genius in China. The light of 
truth has been sought for only in the dark pages of 
past history ; and the Chinese, in their efforts to attain 
to the perfection of their mythical kings and of the 
maxims embodied in their classics, have set up an in 
quisition which perforce suppresses originality and 
uproots invention like a noxious weed. 

We are now at the grand cenotaph ; but, after all, 
what is there in its massive proportions, its grotesque 
sculptures, its golden crown, and its shady groves of 
cypress and pine that will for a moment compare in 

M M 



530 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

interest with the daily life and aspirations of the mean 
est coolie who comes here to gaze with reverend awe 
and to place his simple votive offering before the 
temple sh rine ! The story of this building is a short 
one. The broad white marble base which gleams in 
the sunlight covers the relics of a Mongol Lama who 
was esteemed an incarnate Buddha. Yonder is the 
vacant throne in the Hwang-Shi, or Central Hall/ 
whereon this human deity sat in state with his face to 
the East. In another apartment we see the bed on 
which his holiness expired ; poisoned, as is said, by a 
jealous Emperor towards the end of the eighteenth 
century, the Imperial murderer treating his victim with 
the most stately courtesy to the last, and even worship 
ping and glorifying him in public while his sacrifice was 
being secretly prepared. 

Mr. Wylie, of the London Bible Society, who was 
journeying into the Northern Provinces, accompanied 
me to the great wall ; and Mr. Welmer, a Russian 
gentleman, also joined our party. Outside the Anting 
plain we halted at an inn called * The Gem of Pros 
perity, and, praise be to the Board of Works ! we there 
found men repairing the roads. At Ma-teen there was 
a sheep-market, and Mongols disposing of their flocks. 
It is strange to note the strong nomadic tendencies of 
this race. In the Mongol quarter at Peking I have 
seen them actually place their beasts of burden inside 
the apartments of the house they hired, and pitch their 
own tent in the court outside. The condition of the 
sheep testified to the richness of the Mongolian pas 
tures ; while the shepherds, clad in sheep-skin coats, 
were a hardy, raw-boned looking race. At Sha-ho 
village, in the inn of Patriotic Perfection/ we made a 



NANKOW. 531 

second halt. Here in our chamber we found this 
maxim written up on a board : All who seek wealth 
by the only pure principles will find it. Judging by 
this doctrine our host must have been a sad ruffian, 
for the poverty of his surroundings bore witness that 
he, for his part, must have sought after riches in some 
very questionable channel. We spent the night at Suy- 
Shan Inn, Nankow. It was truly a wretched place : 
the grand chamber measured about eight feet across, 
and was supplied with the usual brick bed, having an 
oven underneath it. In a room of this sort the fire is 
usually lit at night and is made up of charcoal, so that 
persons sleeping there are apt to be poisoned by the 
fumes. Such a calamity indeed, at times, will occur. 
In other respects those who are used to a brick bed 
and a billet of wood for a pillow may sleep comfortably 
enough ; unless by chance the bricks become red-hot, 
and then one is apt to be done brown. We left Nan 
kow at six o clock in the morning, and followed the old 
Mongol road formed by blocks of porphyry and marble. 
Through the pass our conveyances were litters slung 
between two mules, one in front the other behind. 
Although there is here a great traffic between Thibet, 
Mongolia, Russia, and China, the road in many places 
was all but impassable, not to say extremely dangerous, 
skirting as it does precipitous rocks where the slip of a 
hoof on the part of either mule might end in a fatal 
accident. We were constantly falling in -with long 
trains of camels, mules, and donkeys, all heavily laden, 
some with brick-tea for the Mongolian and Russian 
markets, while others bore produce to the capital from 
the outer dependencies of China. At Kew-yung-kwan, 
an inner spur of the great wall sweeps across the pass ; 

M M 2 



532 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

and here, too, is the old arch to which I have already 
referred, and which has been rendered famous by Mr. 
Wylie s successful labours in translating the Buddhist 
prayer inscribed in six different languages on its inner 
wall. On this arch, too, we find bas-reliefs representing 
the Kings of the Devas in Buddhist mythology. The 
structure is supposed to have been erected during the 
Yuen dynasty, and is said originally to have carried 
a pagoda on its summit : but this was afterwards taken 
down by the Mings, to propitiate the Mongol tribes. I 
have on another page drawn attention to the Indian 
mythological figures with which this arch is adorned, and 
Mr. Wylie s notice of the inscription will be found in 
the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society/ vol. v., 
part i, pp. 14, seq. 

It is necessary to be careful in bargaining with the 
men who take one up this pass, for they will impose on 
foreigners in every possible way. Thus, when about 
to struggle through the rough parts of the roughest 
road in the world, they will ask for a guide a-piece to 
pilot them over each rock and boulder that has to be 
crossed. It always happens that these guides are 
themselves most extortionate characters, and as the 
way grows more difficult some fresh demand is certain 
to be put forward. Our friend, Mr. Welmer, had 
arranged everything with our men before we left 
Peking, but still they made most pertinacious efforts to 
extort more money from us. 

At the great wall I reluctantly parted from Mr. 
Wylie, who is one of the most distinguished and 
modest travellers it has been my good fortune to meet. 

The wall has been often described, but I confess 
that it disappointed me. It is simply a gigantic useless 



THE GREAT WALL. 533 

stone fence, climbing the hills and dipping down into 
the valleys. At the point I visited it has been fre 
quently repaired, and only attained to its present 
massive proportions during the Ming dynasty. That 
piece of it which we see in the Nankow pass at Pan- 
ta-ling is not so old by several centuries as the outer 
wall, which was built by Tsin-she-whang, B.C. 2I3. 1 
In its route of over 1,000 miles there are some portions 
of the wall which, from neglect, have now fallen into 
decay ; but it was never much more than a clay mound 
even in its best parts, faced with sun-dried bricks, and 
in the passes, as at Pan-ta-ling, with stone. It now 
only stands as a colossal monument of misdirected 
human labour, and of the genius which the Chinese 
have ever displayed in raising costly barriers to shut 
out barbarians from the Central Flowery Land. In 
vain were all these toilsome precautions ! The danger 
that was threatening them within the country they all 
the while failed to guard against, and from this very 
cause at last the native dynasty had to succumb before 
an alien race. 

To understand this we must remember that a rebel 
wrested the throne from the last Chinese Emperor, and 
that, when this usurper had been in turn dethroned, the 
Manchus, taking advantage of the existing disorder, 
came in and conquered China. 

On my return journey I fell. in with a gang of con 
victs, heavily chained, and sent adrift to seek a pre 
carious living in the pass. There they spent their 
existence, shut out from the villages, and shunned by 
all. One, who had charge of the rest, rode an ass. 
Half the hair had been rubbed off this poor brute s 

1 See Journeys in North China, Rev. Dr. Williamson, ii. 390. 



534 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. 

back by the irons of its rider, and even with it respect 
able donkeys, as they passed in trains, would hold no 
intercourse. Many of the traders we met were fine- 
looking men, and few went by us without bestowing a 
kindly salutation. 

At Nankow I put up again at the inn, and there 
found a native merchant in possession of the best 
room. He politely offered to vacate it in my favour ; 
but this I, of course, refused to allow, contenting my 
self with an apartment where Ahong, having first ob 
tained the unwilling consent of the landlord, set to with 
a half-naked slave to reduce the table and chair until 
they disclosed the wood of which they were made. 
There were also many spider-webs ; but we left these 
undisturbed, for their bloated occupants were feasting 
on the flies with which the room was infested. The 
merchant had a train of fourteen mules, an elegant 
sedan, and a troop of muleteers, who were carousing 
in the next apartment. A merry time they had of it ! 
One of them was still gesticulating like a Chinese 
stage-warrior as I dropped off to sleep. 

In the morning I was awakened by the clang of a 
smith s anvil, and found that the smith was one of the 
many travelling workmen who abound in Cathay. He 
was making knives and reaping-hooks, and had con 
trived a simple forge by attaching a tube to his air- 
pump, passing this beneath the ground, and then bring 
ing up the end, so as to play through the fire which 
lay in a hollow in the soil. 

There was also a Mohammedan inn at Nankow, and 
there the host and his attendants were remarkable for 
their Indian physiognomies. At the same place, too, 
I found a guide, who had distinguished himself by 



THE MING TOMBS. 535 

showing former visitors through the pass. This indi 
vidual had fallen heir to a pair of enormous foreign 
boots, which he kept on his feet by pads and swathes 
of cloth. He had, besides, obtained a number of 
certificates from his patrons, which, almost without ex 
ception, described him as a great ruffian. These 
certificates he presented for my inspection, with an 
evident air of pride. He also said that his sympathies 
were not Chinese, and, pointing to his boots, declared 
that he was a foreigner like myself. 

From Nankow I proceeded on to the Ming tombs. 
For the information of those among my readers who 
may be still unacquainted with the great burial-ground 
where thirteen Emperors of the Ming dynasty were 
interred, I will give a brief summary of my experiences 
in that place. 

It will be remembered that Nanking, the ancient 
capital, where the founder of the Ming dynasty estab 
lished his court, contains the first mausoleum of those 
Kings a mausoleum in almost every particular resem 
bling the tombs of the same line in the valley thirty 
miles north of Peking. These tombs lie at the foot of 
a semi- circle of hills, which has something like a three 
miles radius. 

The temple of Ching-tsoo, who reigned with the 
national designation of Yung-lo, from 1403 till his death 
in 1424, is by far the finest of these Imperial resting- 
places. It is approached through an avenue of colossal 
animals and warriors sculptured in stone, and although 
some of the figures are in attitudes of perfect repose, 
well becoming in the guardians of the illustrious dead, 
yet when we view them as the finest specimens of 
sculpture which China has to show, we must acknow- 



536 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. 

ledge that her ancient art falls far short of our own 
modern standard. I doubt, however, whether Chinese 
artists of the present day could produce anything, I do 
not say better, but even so good as these Ming statues. 
The great tomb may be set down in most respects as 
a counterpart of the architecture which prevails in the 
temples, the palaces, and even the dwellings in China. 
I was pleased to find that Mr. Simpson, in his interest 
ing account of his tour round the world, has also 
noticed this similarity. It must of necessity be so, as 
the Chinese look upon such a tomb as this as the 
palace of the spirit of Yung-lo. The animals and 
warriors form his retinue, while offerings to his soul 
are annually made at the shrine in the great sacrificial 
hall. In the same way with their gods : the temples 
are the palaces wherein the deities reside, and indeed 
the word kung, 1 used to designate Taouist temples, 
signifies a palace. 

The Emperors of the present dynasty, who drove 
the Mings from their dominions, still offer sacrifices at 
the tombs of those sovereigns ; and this they do, it 
may be, out of mere state policy, or perhaps because 
the spirits of the departed monarchs are supposed to 
exercise an influence over the Imperial throne. 

Although Chinese buildings, in their general plan, 
present many points of similarity, differences neverthe 
less exist in the number of their courts, and in the 
details of the various kinds of edifices. Thus the 
magisterial yamen has usually four courts ; the first 
three, with the apartments attached to them, comprising 
the various offices required for administrative purposes ; 
while the fourth, with its buildings, is sacred to the 

1 The Religious Condition of the Chinese, Edkins, p. 42. 



CONCLUSION. 537 

mandarin and his family. But it is impossible to treat, 
at the conclusion of a chapter, of a subject which would 
worthily fill a volume ; nor can I do more than bestow 
this passing glance at the Valley of Tombs, which 
marks the resting-place of the last Chinese dynasty. 

In conclusion, I venture to hope that so far as my 
years of travel and personal observation suffice I have 
given the reader some insight into the present condition 
of the inhabitants of the vast Chinese Empire. The 
picture at best is a sad one ; and though a ray of sun 
shine may brighten it here and there, yet, after all, 
the darkness that broods over the land becomes but 
the more palpable under this straggling fitful light. 
Poverty and ignorance we have among us in England ; 
but no poverty so wretched, no ignorance so intense, 
as are found among the millions of China. 



APPENDIX. 



THE ABORIGINAL DIALECTS OF FORMOSA. 

THERE appears to be no trace of the existence of a written 
language among the aborigines of Formosa, unless indeed 
we take into account the use which the semi-civilised tribes 
have made of Roman and Chinese written characters. 

The use of the former was taught by the Dutch over two 
centuries ago, when they occupied the island. Some singular 
specimens of Romanised Malay documents are still treasured 
up among the tribes, although they are quite ignorant of their 
value, as they are now unable to translate them. These 
papers are chiefly title-deeds to property, or simple business 
agreements between man and man. 

The Chinese, since the time of the Dutch occupation, have 
impressed upon the Pepohoan, or strangers of the plain/ their 
own language both written and oral. It was therefore only from 
the oldest members of the Baksa Pepohoan tribe that I could 
obtain the words set down in the Vocabulary. At Baksa the 
native language has been superseded by the Chinese colloquial 
dialect. 

The Shekhoan is the great northern tribe of half-civilised 
aborigines. They still retain their original tongue, although 
the crafty Chinese invaders are making rapid inroads on their 
fertile valleys, and civilising them out of the lands, if not 
out of the language of their fathers. 

In the savage mountain tribes of Formosa separated as 
they are from each other by impenetrable forests, rocky bar 
riers, impetuous torrents, and deep ravines, as well as by cease 
less warfare we have an example of the change which, in time, 
may be effected in a language by the breaking up of a race 
into tribes which for at least two hundred years have been 



540 APPENDIX. 

from necessity, for the most part, isolated from each other, 
and where oral tradition afforded the only means of retaining 
a knowledge of their original tongue. We find that the nu 
merals of the language, which were probably the sounds most 
constantly in use, have suffered least change, and the number 
five has retained its original sound. This may be from the 
fact that among primitive tribes, who have no written numerals, 
the five fingers of the hand are invariably used to solve their 
simple problems in arithmetic; so notably, indeed, is this the 
case, that in many dialects five and hand are synonymous : the 
hand in that way becoming a sort of if I may use the ex 
pression rude hieroglyphic signifying five. In the same 
way eye, or Mata, is a simple, easily remembered sound ; 
and as it designates the organ of sight something that has 
its sign in each human face, that is in constant use, and 
constantly appealed to to satisfy the savage, as well as the 
most cultivated instincts it too has been retained, in nearly 
its pure sound, in the various dialects. Thus I might go on 
selecting the w r ords that appear to me to have retained their 
primitive sounds, simply because they find their visible symbols 
in the objects which surround the simple abodes of the 
aborigines. 

But the reader, by referring to the Vocabularies, will be 
enabled to form his own conclusions, and to trace out the 
affinities, or the opposite, that exist between the Formosan 
dialects, and also the close family likeness which they bear to 
the Polynesian languages. (See Polynesian Vocabularies in 
Crawford s Indian Archipelago/ vol. iii., and the words noted 
on Table III.) 

Fresh evidence of the existence of races on the New 
Guinea coast who speak the Polynesian dialects has been 
afforded by the Rev. W. W. Gill, who made three visits to the 
island in 1872.* Thus, he tells us that the word for eye with 
two separate tribes is Mata, for ear Taringa and Taia, and for 
hands Ima-ima and Rima-rima. These words are all to be 
found in the Formosan dialects, and indeed might have been 
taken from them. As for the numerals in use among the 
1 Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, xviii. 45. 



APPENDIX, 



54 



aborigines of Formosa, they would afford but doubtful evidence 
of the Polynesian origin of the tribes, were they not supported 
by the more direct testimony which the various dialects supply. 



SHORT VOCABULARIES OF THE DIALECTS SPOKEN 
BY THE ABORIGINES OF FORMOSA. 

TABLE I. 





NAMES OF TRIBES 


English 


Pachien 


Sibucoon 


Tibolal 


Banga 


Bantanlang 


Singapore 
Malay 


Man 


Lalusa 


Lamoosa 


_ 


Sarellai 


Aoolai 


Orang 


Woman 


Atlain 


Maou-spingth 


. . 


Abaia 


Abaia 


Prampaun 


Head 


Bangoo 


Bangoo 


Sapchi 


Kapallu 


Kapallu 


Kapala 


Hair 


. 


- 





Ussioi 


. . 


Rambut 


Tooth 
Neck 


Guon-gorath 





Nganon 


Oorohu 


Oorohu 


Gigit 
Leher 


Ear 
Mouth 


Charunga 
Mussoo 


Nipoon 





Charinga 
Didisi 


Charinga 
Muto-mytoo 


Talinga 
Mulut 


Nose 


Ngoon-goro 


Muttus 


Nguchu 


Coomonu 


Ongoho 


Idung 


Eye 


Ooraitla 


Mata 


Muchen 


Macha 


Macha 


Mata 


Heart 


Takaru 


Kanum 





Kasso 


Tookuho 


Janteng 


Hand 


Ramucho 


Tarima 


Ramucha 


Arema 





Tangan 


Foot 


Sapatl 


Ktlapa 


Sapchi 


Tsapku 


Amoo 


Kaki 


Thigh 


Bannen 


Pinassan 


Tangigya 


Danoosa 


Laloohe 


Pauh 


Leg 


_ 


. 




Tiboo-sabosba 





Betis 


Knee 


Anasatoo 


Khap 


_ 


Pookuro 


Sakaho 


Lutut 


Leopard 


Lakotl 








Likalao 


Rikoslao 


AnimauKambang 


Bear 


Chumatu 


. 





Choomatu 


Choomai 


Bruang 


Deer 


Putooru 


_ 





Silappu 


Caliche 


Rusa 


Wild hog 


Aroomthi 











Babooy 


Babi-outan 


Monkey 
Wild goat 


Okin 





~ 


~ 


Mararooko 
Kehe 


Monyet 
Kambing-outan 


Fowl 


Turhook 








Turkook 


Turkook 


Ayam 


House 








. . 


Dami 


Dami 


Ruma 


Chief 





Titan-garchu 





Tital-abahi 


Tallai 


Rajah 


Bamboo 


Baswera 








. 


Taroo-lahiroi Bulah 


Cassia 











Tara-inai 





Kulit Manas 


Tea 





._ 





Lang-lang 





J)aun Teh 


Cooking, pan 
Pumpkin 


Kusang 








Tangu-tangu 


Palangu 


Kwali-Masak 

Labu Fringgi 


Fragrant 














Anaremu 


Wangle 


Rice 














Chiluco 


Bras 


Rice boiled 


Oaro 








Curao 


Ba-ooro 


Nasi 


Fire 


Apooth 


Sapooth 


Pooju 


Apoolu 


Apooy 


Api 


Water 
Ring 


Sat loom 
Tujana 


Manum 
Paklis 


Choomai 


Achilai 
Tarra 


Achilai 
Mata-na 


Ayer 
Chin-chin 


Flar-ring 










Chin-gari 


Ang-choy 


Krabu 


Bracelet 


Pitoka 


Pu.sh-tonna 





Uliule 


Ibsaise 


Galang 


Pipe 


Katsap 


Kaconan 





Ang-choy 


Ang-choy 


Pipa 


Gun 


Taklito 


Pavak-sap m 





Guang 


Guangu 


Sanapang 


Skin jacket 


Nicaroota 


Shiddi 





Amalin 


Carridha 


Bajo-kulet 


Cap 


Sarapun 


Tamoking 





Tara-pung 


I orra-pungu 


Topic 


Letter 





. 





Senna 


Uraome 


Surat 


Smoke 


Worlbooro 


Khosalt 


__ 


Uburon 





Asap 


By-and-bye 


Chuden 




__ 





Churana 


Lagi-sabuntar 


Warm 


Machechu 








Mechechi 


Mechechi 


Panas 


Cold 


Matilku 








Matilku 


Malilku 


Sajuk 


Rain 













Maisang 


Ugan 















Xote. The Formosa vocabularies, with the exception of the Baksa Pepohoan, were supplied by 
Dr. Maxwell and the Rev. Mr. Ritchie, Formosa. The Baksa vocabulary was taken down by the 
author when among the Pcpohoans. 



542 



APPENDIX, 



TABLE II. 





NAMES OF TRIBES 




NAMES OF TRIBES 


English 


Shekhoan 


Malay 


English 


Shekhoan 


Malay 


Man 
Woman 


Mamalung 
Mameoss 


Orang 
Prampaun 


Thou or ye 
Good 


Isu 
Riak 


Inkang 
Biak 


Child 


Lakehan 


Anak 


Bad 


Satdeal 


Jahat 


O-_ 


f Lakehan ) 




Sun 


Liddock 


M ata-hari 


oon 


1 Mamalung j" 


Ano 


Moon 


Illas 


Bulan 


Daughter or girl 


Mamaop 





Star 


Bintool 


Bintang 


Father 


Aba 


Bapa 


Heaven 


Babu-kanas 


Surga 


Mother 


Inna 


Ma 


High 


Baban 


Tingi 


Elder brother 


Abusan 


Abang 


Mountain 


Binaiss 


Bukit 


Younger brother 


Soaip 


Adik 


Sea 


Anass 


Laut 


Sister 


Mamaop 




Free 


Katxaney 


Mardika 


Head 


Poonat 


Kapala 


Great 


Matalah 


Besar 


Hair 


Bakus 


Rambut 


Small 


Tateng 


Kechil 


Mouth 


Lahar 


Mulut 


Day 


Lahan 


Hari 


Eyes 


Darik 


Mata 


Night 


Hinien 


Malum 


Nose 


Mood ing 


Idung 


One 


Ida 


Satu 


Arm 


Limat 




Two 


Doosah 


Dua 


Leg 


Karan 





Three 


Tooro 


Tiga 


Live 


Meirad 


Id up 


Four 


Supat 


Ampat 


Die 


Polekat 


Mati 


Five 


Hassub 


Lima 


Eat 


Makan 


Mukanan 


Six 


Boodah 


Anam 


Eat rice 


Makan-somai 


Makan-nasi 


Seven 


Bi-doosut 


Tugu 


Drink 


Mudauch 


Menam 


Eight 


Bi-tooro 


Da-lapan 


Drink wine 


J Mudauch ) 
{ inunsat j 


Menam-angur 


Nine 
Ten 


Bi-supat 
Isid. 


Simbilan 
Sa-puluh 


I or me 


lakok 


Aku 









TABLE III. 





NAMES OF TRIBES 




NAMES OF TRIBES 


English 


Tribe at 
Pilam 


Malay 


English 


Tribe at 
Pilam 


Malay 


Man 


Atinbe 


Orang 


Cold 


Litak 


Sajuk 


Male 


Mainaen 


Jantan 


Sea 


A-nik 


Laut 


Female 


Babaian 


Batena 


Earth 


Darak 


Tana or darat 


Father 


Amoko 


Bapa 


Fire 


Apui 


Api 


Mother 


Abu 


Ma 


Mountain 


Adenan 


Bukit 


Son 


Alak 


Anak 


Rice 


Rumai 


Bras 


Daughter 


Abavi 


Anak dara 


Good 


Inava 


Biak 


Head 


Tun grow 


Kapala 


Bad 


Kaotish 


Jahat 


Eye 


Mata 


Mata 


Darkness 


Aruning 


Galap 


Nose 


Atingran 


Idung 


Strike light 


Pulalauit 


Dapat-api 


Mouth 


Indan 


Mulut 


North 


Loud 


Utara 


Face 


Tungur 


Muka 


South 


Daiah 


Salalan 


Ear 
Hand 


Tungila 

A-lima 


Talinga 
Tangan 


East 
West 


Ameh 
Timur 


Tmur 
Barat 


Body 


A-liduk 


Badan 


One 


Itu 


Satu 


Feet 


Lapar 


Kaki 


Twe 


Lusa 


Dua 


Heart 


Ne-rung-arung 


Jantong 


Three 


Taloh 


Tiga 


House 


A-ruma 


Ruma 


Four 


Sepat 


Ampat 


Garden 


A-uma 


Cabun 


Five 


Lima 


Lima 


Vegetables 


A-ropan 


Siuer 


Six 


Onam 


Anam 


Village 
Wood 


A-tikal 
Kiau 


Campong 
Kiau 


Seven 
Eight 


Pitu 
Aloo 


Tugu 
Da-lupan 


Water 


A-tuei 


Ayer 


Nine 


Siva 


Sambilan 


Heat 


Beaus 


Panas 


Ten 


Pelapsang 


Sa-puluh 



APPENDIX. 



543 



TABLE IV. 





NAMES OF TRIBES. 




NAMES OF TRIBES 


English 


Baksa 
Pepohoan 


Malay 


English 


Baksa 
Pepohoan 


Malay 


Man 


Kaguling-ma 


Orang 


Heat 


Ma-kinku 


Panas 


Male 


Ama 


Jantan 


Cold 


Ma-hunmoon 


Sajuk 


Female 


Enina 


Batina 


Rain 


Mudan 


Ugim 


Son 


Alak 


Anak 


Stone 


Batu 


Batu 


Daughter 


Yugant nina 


Anak-dara 


Wood 


Kiau 


Kiau 


Child 


Yugant 


Anik 


Iron 


Mani 


Bisi 


Father 


I ma 


Bapa 


Flower 


Eseep 


Bunga 


Mother 


Ina 


Ma 


Fruit 


Toto 


Bua 


Elder brother 


Jaka 


Abang 


Earth 


Ni 


Tana 


Younger brother 


Ebe 


Adik 


Water 


Jalum 


Ayer 


Elder sister 


Jaka 





Wind 


Bali 


Angin 


Younger sister 


Ebe 





Smoke 


Atu 


Asap 


Husband 1 
and wife t 


Maka-kaja 


- 


Clean 
Dirty 


Ma-kupti 
Ma-luksung 


Brisi 

Color 


Head 


Mongong 


Kapala 


Black 


Ma-edum 


Etam 


Body 


Bwan 


Badan 


White 


Ma-puli 


Puti 


Belly 


Ebuk 


Prut 


Red 


Ma-epong 


Mera 


Heard 


Ngih 


Jangut 


Rice 


Dak 


Bras 


Tooth 


Wall 


Gigi 


Rice cooked 


Rudak 


Bras-masa 


Mouth 


Mutut 


Mulut 


River 


Mutu 


Sungi 


Throat 


Luak 


Lhaer 


Sky 


Towin 


Langit 


Hair 


Bukaun 


Rambut 


Sea 


Baung 


Laut 


Hand 


Lima 


Tangan 


To blow 


Ayn 


Teop 


Foot 


La pan 


Kaki 


To push 


Dudung 


Kaki 


Finger-nails 


Ku-rung-kung 


Kooku 


Banana 


Bunbun 


Pisang 


Eye 


Mata 


Mata 


Cocoa-nut 


Agubung 


Kalapa 


Ear 


Tangela 


Talinga 


Mango 


Mangut 


Mampalam 


Nose 


Togunut 


Idung 


Orange 


Busilam 


Lemo 


Death 


Ilapati 


Mali 


Potatoe 


Tamarm 


Obie 


Life 


Maonga 


Idup 


Bad 


Masari 


Jahat 


Fire 


Apoi 


A pi 


Good 


Magani 


Biak 


Tobacco 


Tabacow 


Timbacu 


Disease 


Maalam 


Sackit 


Pipe 
Stand 


Timbakang 
Netuku 


Pepo 
Burderi 


To kill 


Lumpo 


J Kasa-mati 
1 or Bono 


Walk 


Daran 


Jalan 


Sun 


Wali 


Mata-hari 


Sing 


Mururou 


Ngnia 


Moon 


Buran 


Bulan 



544 



APPENDIX. 



W 

P^ 
O 

PLH 
<1 

O 

^ 

I ( 
c/2 

a 

s? 



w 



O , 

fe Q 



O 



o g 
^ a 

<1 

^ 

w 

w 

H 

PM 
O 

w 

PQ 
<d 
H 

W 

















c 


e 






















g 




3 




-utg jo Aun- j^ 


3 


rt 

Q 


H 


a 


rt 
J 



rt 


1 


rt 
Q 


,3 

1 


ft 




S5Kpi?o 




rt 


a 




rt 







3 




g 




OptJlH2J\[ 3Q 


$ 






a 





rt 


2 


"rt 





1 




^SJllOJJBH *>3<I 


w 


P^ 


M 


< 


- 


< 


s 


.^ 


c/5 


PL, 





























MBH 




rt 


5 




rt 




3 


O 




3 
Q) 






rfi 


" 






c 












rt 






H 








^ 


C 


C 


^ 


^ 


J5 


S? 




** 


rt 
1 


rt 

3 

O 


1 





J 




5 


1 


I 

rt 


rt 

M 


_0 

o 




snbdXj S3Q 


L 


o 

c 





a 


J 



u 

f 


3 


1 


G 

.2 
7! 


1 
o 




























tSSSZ 


i 


rt 


H 


rt 


| 


o 

c: 


E 


Warou 


rt 


inhafouro 
















































C 

D 














rt 






p 




^ei 






1 


rt 
3 


y 


rt 


5 

3 


o 

c 

o 


| 


u 


rt 
it 


S 
















g 








^ 




auiddiT 18 


Si 


"3 


/o 


rt 

p. 





.2 
c 


o 


/O 




rt 


rt 




. .l.Hd 




Q 


& 




t-1 


p 


ffi 




O> 


Jz; 




-tfSS 


rt 


rt 

3 

rt 


c 
"rt 
H 


a 


/rt 



- 


J 

S 


/o 

s 


O 

"rt 


rt 
: X 


ft 

1 




UBoq 


1 
CO 


\ 

Q 


a 


a 

Q 


rt 


" 


Danum 


p, 
Q 


1 

3 
fed 


j 


S 

3 ^ 


3 

3 


reOUUOjI 


8i 


SI 












a 


/o 


g 


.rt 


/o 

g 




iqoui Cg 


w 


- 


^ 


CO 


J 


P 


s 


<5 


o3 






















g 


3 


3 




TJSOUIJOJ; 


Sc 


V 






,rt 







rt 


rt 

:/ 

















g 








c 








Q 


fc 


: 

H 










s 





^ 


pS 
















rt 




O 

g 


5 


1 








v- 








- 




rt 








BSUBH 


1 


g 


5 


1 


3 


3 
a 
fc 


2 

s 


E 


C 

M 


1 
















rt 













i{^[oqij, 


g 

3 





:. 

- 


a 


| 



rt 


o 


rt 
V 


M 


Is 1 






U 


5 


EH 


(7} 


J 


^ 


PH 


3 


O 


S 




csouuOjj 
uooonqig 


Tashang 


1 

i 


^ 


rt 


P 


1 


1 


| 


:> 

i/3 


3 
in 

w 




















- 




fl 




















c 








S?rej 





- 






/rt 




E 

a 
u 


/O 


rt 


/rt 

g 









CO 


w 


H 




s 


fe 





^ 





^ 




^ 





H 


1 


1 


J 


c 


| 


1 


V 

c 


1 1 



APPENDIX, 545 



DIURNAL LEPIDOPTERA OF SIAM, 

COLLECTED BY THE AUTHOR AND NAMED BY H. W. BATES, ESQ. F.L.S. &C. 

Fam. DANAIDJE. 

Ideopsis Daos (Boisduval). One example. 

Danais Melcneus (Cramer). Several examples. 

Danais Aglea (Cramer). Apparently common. 

Danais Similis (Lin.). Equally common with D. Aglea. 

Danais Pleocippus (Lin.). Two examples. 

EuplcKa Superba (Herbst). One pair. 

Euplcea Eunice (Godart). One example. 

Euplcea Midamus (Lin.). Many examples. 

Fam. SATYRIDJE. 

CyUo Lcda (Lin.). Several specimens. 
Mycalesis Mineus (Lin.). Several specimens. 

Fam. NYMPHALID^E. 

Melanitis Undularis (Drury). Several specimens, with varieties. 

Cethosia Cyane (Drury). Two examples. 

Terinos Clarissa (Boisd.). One example. 

Cirrhochroa Thais (Fab.). One example. 

Mcssaras Erymanthis (Drury). Several examples. 

AtcIIa Phalanta (Drury). Several examples. 

Precis Ida (Cramer). One pair. 

Diadema Bolina (Lin., Cram.). Several examples, of both sexes. 

Athyma Lcucothoe (Lin.). Two examples. 

Adolias Monina (F.). Several specimens. 

Minetra Sylvia (Cram.). Two examples. 

Fam. PIERIN/E. 
Pontia Nina (F.). 

Terias Hecabe (L.). Several examples, with varieties. 
Pier is Ncrissa (Fab.). 

Tachyris Lyncida (Cram.). Several examples. 
Tachyris Paulina (Cram.). One example. 
Eronia Valeria (Cram.). Several examples. 

N N 



APPENDIX. 



Fam. PAPILIONID.. 
Ornithoptera Rhadamanthiis (Boisd.). Var. Thomsonii. 

The single male example which Mr. Thomson collected in 
Siam differs from those of the Philippine Islands, by the 
longer and more falcate form of the anterior wings, and by 
the clear yellow colour of the hind wings, on which there is a 
dusky mark only round the three marginal spots near the 
anal angle. The yellowish gray streaks of the anterior wings 
are confined to the margins of the branches of the median 
nervure. 

This local form, or subspecies, is distinguished from the 
North Indian form of O. Rhadamanthus by the distinct red 
collar, and by the yellow abdomen (of the male) marked only 
with a dusky patch in the middle of each dorsal segment ; 
there is also a pinkish-red spot on each side of the base of the 
abdomen. 

In a genus like Ornithoptera, offering so strong a ten 
dency to the formation of local forms throughout the areas of 
distribution of the species, it is necessary that such forms 
should receive distinguishing names. Such has been the 
practice of most entomologists, and on this account the present 
Siamese form may bear the subspecifk name of O. Thom 
sonii. 

Papilio Macareus (Godt). One example. 
Papilio Diphilus (Esper). Many examples. 
Papilio Erithonius (Cramer). Several examples. 
Papilio Pammon (Lin.). Several examples. 
Papilio Helemis (Lin.). Two examples. 
Papilio Memnon (Lin.). Several examples. 
Papilio Antiphates (Cram.). One example. 
Papilio Agamemnon (Lin.). Several examples. 
Papilio Sarpedon (Lin.). Several examples. 



a) 



Spottisivoode &> Co., Printers, New-street Square, London. 



?,SKssir-- 

JC or to the 

LC 






University of California 
Richmond, CA 94804-4698 



ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 



DAVS 



DUEASSTAMPED BELOW 





FOK/ 



v\ i\w. uuo, 






724.10)* 



$ 



GENERAL 




THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY