With the Priest of the God of the Golden Fish.
On the south side of the island of Hongkong are a number of small
villages occupied by fishermen. Any one of these hidden away under the
shade of the great bamboos may be taken as a type of all the others.
The little houses have roofs made of reeds and bundles of twigs, but
these do not serve so well for protection from wind and weather as the
thick foliage of the overhanging trees. On the beach fishing nets are
spread to dry; and in the calm waters of the little bay a number of
poor old junks ride lazily at anchor. One of these is drawn up on the
shore and the men are examining the haul of fish just brought in.
Women and children with baskets and buckets are hurrying down to the
beach to do their part in the work of sorting. The large shining blue
fishes with bands of blue and rose-red and the yellow ones with spots
of red and green they pack in small baskets between rows of green
leaves. The lobsters, always plentiful, they place in baskets having
compartments so that they cannot get at each other and mangle their
bodies fighting; the oysters they throw into a large common bucket,
keeping out the small and inferior ones to carry to their huts to use
for food. Whenever wind and weather permit the men go off on fishing
expeditions, and this is the usual scene which attends their home
coming. Then, according to whether the haul has been a good or a poor
one, Lihoa, the oldest man in the village, says: "We will take to the
God of the Sea who rides on the Golden Fish a thank offering," or "The
God who rides on the Golden Fish is angry with us; we must pacify him
with strips of gold-paper." And, regularly on an appointed day, the
old man goes up to the cell of the priest carrying the thank- or the
sin-offering, as the case may be, to the God with the dreadful goggle
eyes who rides a gilded sea-monster.
On the day on which the crosses had been erected on the Cathedral of
the Holy Saviour Lihoa and his people had had a miserably small catch
of fish.
"My children," cried Lihoa, "what crime against the God of the Golden
Fish have you committed? So small a haul as this we have not had for a
year and a day. The New Year is at hand. How can we have our usual
celebration with only a sapeck or two in our pockets?"
"How shall we celebrate the New Year?" cried one. "How shall we
appease the God?" wailed others mournfully.
An old Chinaman, whose wrinkled face looked like parchment cried out:
"Why do you even ask the cause of our bad luck? Do you not know why it
has come upon us? Were not those white-faced women here again
yesterday whose God is the enemy of our God? Again they have carried
off bur babies to the great white house in Hongkong. Why do not the
people kill the superfluous children according to the old custom of the
land? Why let living children get into the hands of these foreign
women to be murdered and to have their eyes and hearts stewed up into
magic drinks? The God of the Golden Fish is angry with us. Not
another good haul shall we have; and what is more we shall be swallowed
up in the sea, if we allow any more children to be taken to the house
of the foreign God."
"Be still, be still, old Loha," answered Lihoa. "You don't know what
you are taking about. I myself have been to the great white house of
the foreign women in Hongkong. There they do naught but good, and
nobody ever hears of your doing anything good from morning till night.
Our children are better taken care of there than here in our poor old
huts. If our women only loved their babes as much as these white-faced
women do! Be still. Your drivelling talk about stewing up their eyes
and hearts to make drinks is all a foolish lie. Did we not open one of
the graves of one of the children to see if the eyes and hearts were
there? And they were. A nephew of mine, the son of my sister Luli,
who was exposed twelve years ago by his mother, because her husband was
drowned and she had no means of bringing him up, was taken to the great
house and now he is a splendid big boy. From there they sent him to
the school, and he can speak and write the Chinese language and also
that of the West. Some day I shall go and get him and bring him back
to live with our family.--Ah! here we stand and gossip like old women,
while the sun is sinking. It is time to take the fish and the oysters
to the market. Whose turn is it to go?"
Four men stepped forward and raised the wooden yoke having attached to
it buckets of oysters and baskets of fish. The sack containing the
crabs Lihoa himself swung over his shoulder, and they started at a
quick pace up the hill over which the path to Victoria lay. The women
as they turned to go with the children to the huts to prepare the
evening meal bade them farewell and called out, "A fortunate sale!"
Night settled down quickly, for in a tropical climate the twilight does
not last so long as with us. In Hongkong the sun hardly sets before it
is dark, and this evening as the moon, almost at the full, stood high
in the heavens, Lihoa had no occasion to light the little lantern which
he carried with him. He found the footpath leading up the hill without
difficulty, and his people followed after him goose-fashion in single
file. Almost at the top they came to the cell in the rock occupied by
the priest of the God of the Golden Fish, and in the moonlight to their
astonishment saw in the broad open space in front of it a group of men
from the neighboring villages. At a signal from Lihoa the carriers
placed their burden upon the ground and all went forward to see what
the gathering meant.
"Have you heard nothing, Lihoa, of the great scheme which is on foot?"
asked the leader of the most important of the villages on the north
coast of Hongkong. "Has not the recruiting officer of the rich Natse
been to your village?--Oh, it is so small and hidden away that he does
not deem it worth his while to go to you, and then, besides, the three
hundred who are wanted have announced their intention to go, for who
would remain here and tiresomely drag out existence with the niggardly
sums to be made from fishing when elsewhere the gold lies in such heaps
that one can pick up whole bags full in a few days?"
"How? What? For heaven's sake!--sacks full of gold in a few days?"
cried Lihoa, who, like all Chinamen, was covetous of great wealth.
"Speak, Lohe, tell us, can we get some of the gold,--at least a handful
or two? It is just as you say, our village is the last and the very
least in the world, and not a soul has come to us with the good news.
Tell us the road to fortune."
The agent Lohe, who for each able-bodied Chinaman whom he secured,
received a hundred sapecks, agreed to tell Lihoa the road for the
reason that he was "his cousin and was glad to do him a little
service". He pictured to him a land, bearing the barbaric name
Australia, which the "devils from the West" had discovered many days'
journey away beyond the islands to the south, where the gold lay in the
fields like the stones on the island of Hongkong, and where great
nuggets, as large as a man's head, were to be had. This Goldland "the
devils from the West" wanted for themselves, but the priest of the God,
in whose cell he had just been, said that this gold could be taken away
only by the sons of the Celestial Kingdom, that the treasures of this
land belonged to the Chinese, and not to the barbarians of the West.
The sly discoverers of the Goldland had come to get the Chinese to
bring these lumps of gold to their ships, where the men from the West
and the sons of the Celestial Kingdom would divide the spoils. The
rich Natse was out in search of three hundred men to bring this gold
from the distant land to the south. Of course, each one of the three
hundred fortunate enough to go would receive his own weight in gold,
and for him and his entire family there would be a life of wealth and
honor on his return home.
Thus Lohe explained the situation.
"More than a hundred pounds of gold, and wealth and honor," repeated
Lihoa, on whom the story of the gold which the God had said was to be
given to the Chinese and not to the hated barbarians from the West, had
made a deep impression.
"Have you heard it, my people? We can all become as rich as rich
Natse, and even richer, if we go on the ship to the southland."
"Yes", said one of the oyster carriers, "if all that is true--"
"And if we are not drowned on the long journey," put in another.
"Or, if 'the devils from the West' do not kill us for our money after
we have brought all the gold from the land to the ship for them," put
in the third fish carrier.
"Yes, but if I knew that I would surely come back with some of the
gold, I would go," added the fourth.
"There, just see how sharp you all are!" said Lohe. "Just such doubts
as these troubled my friends and myself, so we are here to consult the
priest of the God of the Golden Fish, who surely knows. We have
promised to have a new fish made of solid gold to replace the gilded
wooden one, if he counsels us well and has a care over us while on the
way. The priest is now in his cell burning incense before the God, and
when the moon reaches that constellation in the middle of the heavens,
he will tell us the God's answer."
The moon had almost reached the place designated. Lihoa and his
followers with the rest of the men seated themselves on the mossy rocks
before the sanctuary, to await the answer of the spirit. The nearer
the time came the quieter they were; until at last they scarcely dared
breathe. The rim of the moon touched the constellation: no sound was
heard in the cave. Softly the silver beams of light fell upon the bare
rocks and cast over the "waters of the sea a shimmering bridge that
stretched from the foot of the hill away into the darkness.
"Will the spirit not answer?" whispered Lihoa impatiently.
"Wait. The moon is not yet in the middle of the constellation,"
answered Lohe. Hardly had he uttered these words when from the cell
came the sound of a gong, then a song in a high nasal tone, which was
plainly heard, but being in a strange language was not understood by
any of the listeners.
"The Spirit speaks to the priest," said the credulous men, trembling
with superstitious fear. The secret song lasted for a minute perhaps,
then from the depths of the cave came a flash of lightning and a loud
peal of thunder. Many of the Chinamen, half frightened out of their
wits, fled screaming at the top of their lungs. Again the gong
sounded, and the priest came to the entrance of the cell with a smoking
pan of incense in his hand. So suddenly did he appear, that it seemed
as if he had sprung out of the very rock on which they stood. All gave
a wild cry of terror, as with utter abhorrence they gazed, while a
little deformed old man described figures in the air with his smoking
pan, and said, shaking his great bald head:
"What do you fear, O children of the Middle Kingdom? Surely not my
master, the terrible God that rides on the back of the Golden Fish, nor
me, poor old Lihong. For you and you alone I have just subjected
myself to his terrible gaze. Had you seen his burning eyes, your
courage would have failed you. He is angry because some of you do not
hate enough those who serve the foreign God, his deadly enemy; yet he
answered your questions, because many of you have heretofore brought to
him your offerings. Listen to the words of the Spirit which rides upon
the back of the Golden Fish:
Gold, gold, gold,
In distant fields so far away!
'Tis his who comes to seek, I say;
'Tis his to take where'er he will,
'Tis his go where he will--his still.
Gold, gold, gold,
In getting it three things beware!
In discord take no part or share;
Beware the sea's engulfing waves,
And thirst which drives men to their graves."
With open mouths the Chinamen listened to the mysterious words of the
priest, and when he had finished his slyly contrived speech, they sat
for a time in mute astonishment. Finally Lohe spoke up:
"To me the answer seems favorable. The God confirms the idea of there
being gold in a distant laud to the south, and says that we can get and
keep possession of it, if we only take heed of three things--discord,
the sea, and thirst. As to discord--it lies within our power to avoid
that; as to the sea--we could be drowned quite as easily on our own
coast as on a long journey to the south, if that is to be our fate; and
as to thirst, who would not endure thirst for the sake of becoming ten
times richer than the rich Natse?"
All agreed that the answer was most favorable. The greedy priest did
not stop, but went on to tell that the God could not be relied upon to
take them safely through all dangers, unless rich sacrificial offerings
were made. "Daily", said he, "I will burn incense and strips of gold
paper before his picture. The clouds of smoke will appease the spirits
of the storm and fall upon you as rain-drops which will quench your
burning thirst, and the gold paper will reconcile the spirits that
watch over the gold in the distant Goldland, so that they will
willingly give to you their treasures."
The Chinamen reached into their pockets and handed over their last
sapeck to the priest, then in silence left, firmly resolved to attempt
the journey to the Goldland.