ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-OF-WAR (_continued_).
THE INDIA AND CHINA STATIONS.
The Red Sea and its Name—Its Ports—On to the India Station—Bombay:
Island, City, Presidency—Calcutta—Ceylon, a Paradise—The China
Station—Hong Kong—Macao—Canton—Capture of Commissioner Yeh—The Sea
of Soup—Shanghai—“Jack” Ashore there—Luxuries in Market—Drawbacks:
Earthquakes, and Sand Showers—Chinese Explanations of
Earthquakes—The Roving Life of the Sailor—Compensating
Advantages—Japan and its People—The Englishmen of the
Pacific—Yokohama—Peculiarities of the Japanese—Off to the North.
The Red Sea separates Arabia from Egypt, Nubia, and Abyssinia. Its name is
either derived from the animalculæ which sometimes cover parts of its
surface, or, more probably, from the red and purple coral which abound in
its waters. The Hebrew name signifies “the Weedy Sea,” because the corals
have often plant-like forms. There are reefs of coral in the Red Sea which
utterly prevent approach to certain parts of the coasts. Many of the
islands which border it are of volcanic origin. On the Zeigar Islands
there was an alarming eruption in 1846. England owns one of the most
important of the islands, that of Perim, in the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.
It is a barren, black rock, but possesses a fine harbour, and commands one
entrance of the Red Sea. It was occupied by Great Britain in 1799,
abandoned in 1801, and re-occupied on the 11th of February, 1857. Its
fortifications possess guns of sufficient calibre and power to command the
Straits.
[Illustration: JIDDAH, FROM THE SEA.]
The entire circuit of the Red Sea is walled by grand mountain ranges. Some
of its ports and harbours are most important places. There is Mocha, so
dear to the coffee-drinker; Jiddah, the port for the holy city of Mecca,
whither innumerable pilgrims repair; Hodeida, and Locheia. It was in
Jiddah that, in 1858, the Moslem population rose against the Christians,
and killed forty-five, including the English and French consuls. On the
African side, besides Suez, there are the ports of Cosseir, Suakim, and
Massuah. The Red Sea is deep for a partially inland sea; there is a
recorded instance of soundings to 1,000 fathoms—considerably over a
mile—and no bottom found.
After leaving the Red Sea, where shall we proceed? We have the choice of
the India, China, or Australia Stations. Actually, to do the voyage
systematically, Bombay would be the next point.
Bombay, in general terms, is three things: a city of three-quarters of a
million souls; a presidency of 12,000,000 inhabitants; or an island—the
island of Mambai, according to the natives, or Buon Bahia, the “good
haven,” if we take the Portuguese version. The city is built on the
island, which is not less than eight miles long by three broad, but the
presidency extends to the mainland.
In 1509, the Portuguese visited it, and in 1530 it became theirs. In 1661,
it was blindly ceded to our Charles II., as simply a part of the dowry of
his bride, the Infanta Catherine. Seven years after Charles the Dissolute
had obtained what is now the most valuable colonial possession of Great
Britain, he ceded it to the Honourable East India Company—though, of
course, for a handsome consideration.
Bombay has many advantages for the sailor. It is always accessible during
the terrible south-west monsoons, and possesses an anchoring ground of
fifty miles, sheltered by islands and a magnificent series of breakwaters,
at the south end of which is a grand lighthouse. Its docks and dockyards
cover fifty acres; ship-building is carried on extensively; and there is
an immense trade in cotton, coffee, opium, spices, gums, ivory, and
shawls. Of its 700,000 inhabitants, 50,000 are
Parsees—Persians—descendants of the original Fire-worshippers. A large
proportion of them are merchants. It may not be generally known to our
readers that the late Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy—who left wealth untold,
although all his days he had been a humane and charitable man, and who
established in Bombay alone two fine hospitals—was a Parsee.
Calcutta, in 1700, was but a collection of petty villages, surrounding the
factories or posts of the East India Company, and which were presented to
that corporation by the Emperor of Delhi. They were fortified, and
received the name of Fort William, in honour of the reigning king. It
subsequently received the title of Calcutta, that being the name of one of
the aforesaid villages. Seven years after that date, Calcutta was attacked
suddenly by Surajah Dowlah, Nawab of Bengal. Abandoned by many who should
have defended it, 146 English fell into the enemy’s hands, who put them
into that confined and loathsome cell of which we have all read, the
“Black Hole of Calcutta.” Next morning but twenty-three of the number were
found alive. Lord Clive, eight months later, succeeded in recapturing
Calcutta, and after the subsequently famous battle of Plassey, the
possessions of the East India Company greatly extended. To-day Calcutta
has a “Strand” longer than that of London, and the batteries of Fort
William, which, with their outworks, cover an area half a mile in
diameter, and have cost £2,000,000, form the strongest fortress in India.
Across the continent by railway, and we land easily in Calcutta. It has,
with its suburbs, a larger population than Bombay, but can never rival it
as a port, because it is a hundred miles up the Hooghly River, and
navigation is risky, although ships of 2,000 tons can reach it. It derives
its name from Kali Ghatta, the ghaut or landing-place of the goddess Kali.
Terrible cyclones have often devastated it; that in 1867 destroyed 30,000
native houses, and a very large amount of human life.
[Illustration: CYCLONE AT CALCUTTA.]
The sailor’s route would, however, take him, if bound to China or
Australia, round the island of Ceylon, in which there are two harbours,
Point de Galle, used as a stopping-place, a kind of “junction” for the
great steamship lines, of which the splendid Peninsular and Oriental (the
“P. & O.”) Company, is the principal. Point de Galle is the most
convenient point, but it does not possess a first-class harbour. At
Trincomalee, however, there is a magnificent harbour.
Ceylon is one of the most interesting islands in the world. It is the
Serendib of the “Arabian Nights,” rich in glorious scenery, equable
climate, tropical vegetation, unknown quantities of gems and pearls, and
many minerals. The sapphire, ruby, topaz, garnet, and amethyst abound. A
sapphire was found in 1853 worth £4,000. Its coffee plantations are a
source of great wealth. Palms, flowering shrubs, tree ferns,
rhododendrons, as big as timber trees, clothe the island in perennial
verdure. The elephant, wild boar, leopard, bear, buffalo, humped ox, deer,
palm-cat and civet are common, but there are few dangerous or venomous
animals. The Singhalese population, really Hindoo colonists, are
effeminate and cowardly. The Kandyans, Ceylonese Highlanders, who dwell in
the mountains, are a more creditable race, sturdy and manly. Then there
are the Malabars, early Portuguese and Dutch settlers, with a sprinkling
of all nationalities.
There, too, are the outcast Veddahs, the real wild men of the woods. With
them there is no God—no worship. The Rock Veddahs live in the jungle,
follow the chase, sleep in caves or in the woods, eat lizards, and
consider roast monkey a prime dish. The Village Veddahs are a shade more
civilised.
One reads constantly in the daily journals of the India, China, or
Australian Stations, and the reader may think that they are very
intelligible titles. He may be surprised to learn that the East India
Station not merely includes the ports of India and Ceylon, but the whole
Indian Ocean, as far south as Madagascar, and the east coast of Africa,
including Zanzibar and Mozambique, where there are dockyards. The China
Station includes Japan, Borneo, Sumatra, the Philippine Islands, and the
coast of Kamchatka and Eastern Siberia to Bering Sea. The Australian
Station includes New Zealand and New Guinea. The leading stations in China
are Hong Kong, Canton, and Shanghai. Vessels bound to the port of Canton
have to enter the delta of the Pearl River, the area of which is largely
occupied with isles and sandbanks. There are some thirty forts on the
banks. When the ship has passed the mouth of this embouchure, which forms,
in general terms, a kind of triangle, the sides of which are 100 miles
each in length, you can proceed either to the island of Hong Kong, an
English colony, or to the old Portuguese settlement of Macao.
The name Hong Kong is a corruption of Hiang Kiang,(91) which is by
interpretation “Scented Stream.” Properly, the designation belongs to a
small stream on the southern side of the island, where ships’ boats have
long been in the habit of obtaining fine pure water; but now the name is
given by foreigners to the whole island. The island is about nine miles in
length, and has a very rugged and barren surface, consisting of rocky
ranges of hills and mountains, intersected by ravines, through which
streams of the purest water flow unceasingly. Victoria, Hong Kong, is the
capital of the colony, and the seat of government. It extends for more
than three miles east and west, part of the central grounds being occupied
by military barracks and hospitals, commissariat buildings, colonial
churches, post-office, and harbour-master’s depôt, all of which are
overlooked by the Government-house itself, high up on the hill. Close to
the sea-beach are the commercial houses, clubs, exchange, and
market-places.
It was the shelter, security, and convenience offered by the harbour that
induced our Government to select it for a British settlement; it has one
of the noblest roadsteads in the world. Before the cession to England in
1841, the native population on the island did not exceed 2,000; now there
are 70,000 or 80,000.
Macao (pronounced _Macow_) is forty miles to the westward of Hong Kong,
and an agreeable place as regards its scenery and surroundings, but
deficient as regards its harbour accommodation. Dr. Milne, himself a
missionary resident for fourteen years in China, says, writing in 1859:
“To some of the present generation of English residents in China, there
can be anything but associations of a comfortable kind connected with
Macao, recollecting as they must the unfriendly policy which the
Portuguese on the spot pursued some sixteen or seventeen years since, and
the bitterly hostile bearing which the Chinese of the settlement were
encouraged to assume towards the ‘red-haired English.’”
Macao is a peninsula, eight miles in circuit, stretching out from a large
island. The connecting piece of land is a narrow isthmus, which in native
topography is called “the stalk of a water-lily.” In 1840 a low wall
stretched across this isthmus, the foundation stones of which had been
laid about three hundred years ago, with the acknowledged object of
limiting the movements of foreigners. This was the notorious “barrier,”
which, during the Chinese war of 1840-1, was used to annoy the English. As
large numbers of the peasantry had to pass the “barrier gates” with
provisions for the mixed population at Macao, it was a frequent manœuvre
with the Chinese authorities to stop the market supplies by closing the
gate, and setting over it a guard of half-starved and ravenous soldiery.
[Illustration: MACAO.]
Leaving Macao for Canton, the ship passes the celebrated “Bogue Forts,”
threads her course through a network of islets and mud-banks, and at last
drops anchor twelve miles from the city off the island of Whampoa, where
the numerous and grotesque junks, “egg boats,” “sampans,” &c., indicate a
near approach to an important place. The name Canton is a European
corruption of Kwang-tung, the “Broad East.” Among the Chinese it is
sometimes described poetically as “the city of the genii,” “the city of
grain,” and the “city of rams.” The origin of these terms is thus shown in
a native legend. After the foundation of the city, which dates back 2,000
years, five genii, clothed in garments of five different colours, and
riding on five rams of different colours, met on the site of Canton. Each
of the rams bore in its mouth a stalk of grain having five ears, and
presented them to the tenants of the soil, to whom they spake in these
words:—
“May famine and death never visit you!”
Upon this the rams were immediately petrified into stone images. There is
a “Temple of the Five Rams” close to one of the gates of Canton.
The river scene at Canton is most interesting. It is a floating town of
huts built on rafts and on piles, with boats of every conceivable size,
shape and use, lashed together. “It is,” says Dr. Milne, “an _aquarium_ of
human occupants.” Canton has probably a population of over a million. The
entire circuit of city and suburbs cannot be far from ten miles.
Canton was bombarded in 1857-8 by an allied English and French force. Ten
days were given to the stubborn Chinese minister, Yeh, to accede to the
terms dictated by the Allies, and every means was taken to inform the
native population of the real _casus belli_, and to advise them to remove
from the scene of danger. Consul Parkes and Captain Hall were engaged
among other colporteurs in the rather dangerous labour of distributing
tracts and bills. In one of their rapid descents, Captain Hall caught a
mandarin in his chair, not far from the city gate, and pasted him up in it
with bills, then starting off the bearers to carry this new advertising
van into the city! The Chinese crowd, always alive to a practical joke,
roared with laughter. When the truce expired, more than 400 guns and
mortars opened fire upon the city, great pains being taken only to injure
the city walls, official Chinese residences, and hill forts. Then a force
of 3,000 men was landed, and the city was between two fires. The
hill-forts were soon taken, and an expedition planned and executed,
chiefly to capture the native officials of high rank. Mr. Consul Parkes,
with a party, burst into a _yamun_, an official residence, and in a few
seconds Commissioner Yeh was in the hands of the English. An ambitious
_aide-de-camp_ of Yeh’s staff protested strongly that the captive was the
wrong man, loudly stammering out, “_Me_ Yeh! _Me_ Yeh!” But this attempted
deceit was of no avail; the prize was safely bagged, and shortly
afterwards the terms of peace were arranged. The loss of life in the
assault was not over 140 British and 30 French.
Shanghai is a port which has grown up almost entirely since 1844, the date
of its first occupation by foreigners for purposes of commerce. Then there
were only forty-four foreign merchant ships, twenty-three foreign
residents and families, one consular flag, and two Protestant
missionaries. Twelve years later, there were, for six months’ returns, 249
British ships, fifty-seven American, eleven Hamburg, eleven Dutch, nine
Swedish, seven Danish, six Spanish, and seven Portuguese, besides those of
other nationalities. The returns for the whole year embraced 434 ships of
all countries; tea exports, 76,711,659 pounds; silk, 55,537 bales.
Shanghai (“the Upper Sea”) has been written variously Canhay, Changhay,
Xanghay, Zonghae, Shanhae, Shanghay, and so forth. Its proper
pronunciation is as if the final syllable were “high,” not “hay.”
“Sailing towards the north of China,” says Milne, “keeping perhaps fifty
or sixty miles off the coast, as the ship enters the thirtieth parallel, a
stranger is startled some fine morning by coming on what looks like a
shoal—perhaps a sand-bank, a reef—he knows not what. It is an expanse of
coloured water, stretching out as far as the eye can reach, east, north,
and west, and entirely distinct from the deep-blue sea which hitherto the
vessel had been ploughing. Of course, he finds that it is the ‘Yellow
Sea;’ a sea so yellow, turbid, and thick, certainly, that you might think
all the pease-soup in creation, and a great deal more, had been emptied
into one monster cistern.” The name is therefore appropriate, as are the
designations of several others:
“The Yellow Sea, the Sea that’s Red,
The White, the Black, the one that’s Dead.”
Between the thirtieth degree of north latitude, where the group of the
Choosan Islands commences, and the thirty-seventh degree, this sea of
soup, this reservoir of tawny liquid, ranges, fed by three great rivers,
the Tseen-Tang, the Yangtsze-Kiang, and the Hwang-Ho, the greatest of
which is the second, and which contributes the larger part of the muddy
solution held in its waters. Forty-five miles from the _embouchure_ of the
Yangtsze-Kiang, you reach the Woosung anchorage, and a few miles further
the city of Shanghai, where the tributary you have been following divides
into the Woosung and Whampoa branches, at the fork of which the land ceded
to the British is situated. Here there is a splendid British consulate,
churches, mansions, and foreign mercantile houses.
The old city was built over three centuries ago, and is encircled, as
indeed are nearly all large Chinese cities and towns, by a wall
twenty-four feet high and fifteen broad; it is nearly four miles in
circumference. Shanghai was at one time greatly exposed to the
depredations of freebooters and pirates, and partly in consequence of this
the wall is plentifully provided with loop-holes, arrow-towers, and
military observatories. The six great gates of the city of Shanghai have
grandiloquent titles, _à la Chinoise_. The north gate is the “calm-sea
gate;” the great east gate is that for “paying obeisance to the honourable
ones;” the little east one is “the precious girdle gate;” the great south
is the gate for “riding the dragon,” while another is termed “the pattern
Phœnix.”
Its oldest name is Hoo. In early days the following curious mode of
catching fish was adopted. Rows of bamboo stakes, joined by cords, were
driven into the mud of the stream, among which, at ebb tide, the fish
became entangled, and were easily caught. This mode of fishing was called
_hoo_, and as at one time Shanghai was famous for its fishing stakes, it
gained the name of the “Hoo city.” The tides rise very rapidly in the
river, and sometimes give rise to alarming inundations. Lady Wortley’s
description of the waters of the Mississippi apply to the river-water of
Shanghai; “it looks marvellously like an enormous running stream of
apothecary’s stuff, a very strong decoction of mahogany-coloured bark,
with a slight dash of port wine to deepen its hue; it is a
mulatto-complexioned river, there is no doubt of that, and wears the
deep-tanned livery of the burnished sun.” Within and without the walls,
the city is cut up by ditches and moats, which, some years ago, instead of
being sources of benefit and health to the inhabitants, as they were
originally intended to be, were really open sewers, breathing out effluvia
and pestilence. In some respects, however, Shanghai is now better ordered
as regards municipal arrangements.
The fruits of the earth are abundant at Shanghai, and “Jack ashore” may
revel in delicious peaches, figs, persimmons, cherries, plums, oranges,
citrons, and pomegranates, while there is a plentiful supply of fish,
flesh, and fowl. Grains of all kinds, rice, and cotton are cultivated
extensively; the latter gives employment at the loom for thousands. On the
other hand there are drawbacks in the shape of clouds of musquitoes,
flying-beetles, heavy rains, monsoons, and earthquakes. The prognostics of
the latter are a highly electric state of the atmosphere, long drought,
excessive heat, and what can only be described as a stagnation of all
nature. Dr. Milne, reciting his experiences, says: “At the critical moment
of the commotion, the earth began to rock, the beams and walls cracked
like the timbers of a ship under sail, and a nausea came over one, a
sea-sickness really horrible. At times, for a second or two previous to
the vibration, there was heard a subterraneous growl, a noise as of a
mighty rushing wind whirling about under ground.” The natives were
terror-struck, more especially if the quake happened at night, and there
would burst a mass of confused sounds, “Kew ming! Kew ming!” (“Save your
lives! save your lives!”) Dogs added their yells to the medley, amid the
striking of gongs and tomtoms. Next day there would be exhaustless gossip
concerning upheaval and sinking of land, flames issuing from the
hill-sides, and ashes cast about the country. The Chinese ideas on the
subject are various. Some thought the earth had become too hot, and that
it had to relieve itself by a shake, or that it was changing its place for
another part of the universe. Others said that the Supreme One, to bring
transgressors to their senses, thought to alarm them by a quivering of the
earth. The notion most common among the lower classes is, that there are
six huge sea-monsters, great fish, which support the earth, and that if
any one of these move, the earth must be agitated. Superstition is rife in
ascribing these earth-shakings chiefly to the remissness of the
priesthood. In almost every temple there is a _muh-yu_—an image of a scaly
wooden fish, suspended near the altar, and among the duties of the
priests, it is rigidly prescribed that they keep up an everlasting tapping
on it. If they become lax in their duties, the fish wriggle and shake the
earth to bring the drowsy priests to a sense of their duty.
A singular meteorological phenomenon often occurs at Shanghai—_a fall of
dust_, fine, light and impalpable, sometimes black, ordinarily yellow. The
sun or moon will scarcely be visible through this sand shower. The deposit
of this exquisite powder is sometimes to the extent of a quarter of an
inch, after a fall of a day or two; it will penetrate the closest venetian
blinds; it overspreads every article of furniture in the house; finds its
way into the innermost chambers and recesses. In walking about, one’s
clothes are covered with dust—the face gets grimy, the mouth and throat
parched; the teeth grate; the eyes, ears, and nostrils become itchy and
irritable. The fall sometimes extends as far as Ningpo in the
interior—also some 200 miles out at sea. Some think that it is blown all
the way from the steppes of Mongolia, after having been wafted by typhoons
into the upper regions of the air: others think that it comes across the
seas from the Japanese volcanoes, which are constantly subject to
eruptions.
[Illustration: VESSELS IN THE PORT OF SHANGHAI.]
The population of Shanghai, rapidly increasing, is probably about 400,000
to 450,000 souls. It swarms with professional beggars. Among the many
creditable things cited by Milne regarding the Chinese, is the number of
native charitable institutions in Canton, Ningpo, and Shanghai, including
Foundling Hospitals, the (Shanghai) “Asylum for Outcast Children, retreats
for poor and destitute widows, shelters for the maimed and blind, medical
dispensaries, leper hospitals, vaccine establishments, almshouses, free
burial societies,” and so forth. So much for the heartless Chinese.
The sailor certainly has this compensation for his hard life, that he sees
the world, and visits strange countries and peoples by the dozen,
privileges for which many a man tied at home by the inevitable force of
circumstances would give up a great deal. What an oracle is he on his
return, amid his own family circle or friends! How the youngsters in
particular hang on his every word, look up at his bronzed and honest face,
and wish that they could be sailors,—
“Strange countries for to see.”
How many curiosities has he not to show—from the inevitable parrot,
chattering in a foreign tongue, or swearing roundly in English vernacular,
to the little ugly idol brought from India, but possibly manufactured in
Birmingham!(92) If from China, he will probably have brought home some
curious caddy, fearfully and wonderfully inlaid with dragons and
impossible landscapes; an ivory pagoda, or, perhaps, one of those
wonderfully-carved balls, with twenty or so more inside it, all separate
and distinct, each succeeding one getting smaller and smaller. He may have
with him a native oil-painting; if a portrait, stolid and hard; but if of
a ship, true to the last rope, and exact in every particular. In San
Francisco, where there are 14,000 or more Chinese, may be seen native
paintings of vessels which could hardly be excelled by a European artist,
and the cost of which for large sizes, say 3½ by 2½ feet, was only about
fifteen dollars (£3). What with fans, handkerchiefs, Chinese ladies’ shoes
for feet about three inches in length, lanterns, chopsticks, pipes,
rice-paper drawings, books, neat and quaint little porcelain articles for
presents at home, it will be odd if Jack, who has been mindful of the “old
folks at home,” and the young folks too, and the “girl he left behind
him,” does not become a very popular man.
And then his yarns of Chinese life! How on his first landing at a port,
the natives in proffering their services hastened to assure him in “pigeon
English” (“pigeon” is a native corruption of “business,” as a mixed jargon
had and has to be used in trading with the lower classes) that “Me all
same Englische man; me belly good man;” or “You wantee washy? me washy
you?” which is simply an offer to do your laundry work;(93) or “You wantee
glub (grub); me sabee (know) one shop all same Englische belly good.” Or,
perhaps, he has met a Chinaman accompanying a coffin home, and yet looking
quite happy and jovial. Not knowing that it is a common custom to present
coffins to relatives during lifetime, he inquires, “Who’s dead, John?” “No
man hab die,” replies the Celestial, “no man hab die. Me makee my olo
fader cumsha. Him likee too muchee, countoo my number one popa, s’pose he
die, can catchee,” which freely translated is—“No one is dead. It is a
present from me to my aged father, with which he will be much pleased. I
esteem my father greatly, and it will be at his service when he dies.” How
one of the common names for a foreigner, especially an Englishman, is “I
say,” which derived its use simply from the Chinese hearing our sailors
and soldiers frequently ejaculate the words when conversing, as for
example, “I say, Bill, there’s a queer-looking pigtail!” The Chinese took
it for a generic name, and would use it among themselves in the most
curious way, as for example, “A red-coated _I say_ sent me to buy a fowl;”
or “Did you see a tall _I say_ here a while ago?” The application is,
however, not more curious than the title of “John” bestowed on the
Chinaman by most foreigners as a generic distinction. Less flattering
epithets used to be freely bestowed on us, especially in the interior,
such as “foreign devil,” “red-haired devil,” &c. The phrase Hungmaou,
“red-haired,” is applied to foreigners of all classes, and arose when the
Dutch first opened up trade with China. A Chinese work, alluding to their
arrival, says, “Their raiment was red, and their hair too. They had bluish
eyes, deeply sunken in their head, and our people were quite frightened by
their strange aspect.”
Jack will have to tell how many strange anomalies met his gaze. For
example, in launching their junks and vessels, they are sent into the
water _sideways_. The horseman mounts on the _right_ side. The scholar,
reciting his lesson, _turns his back_ on his master. And if Jack, or, at
all events one of his superior officers, goes to a party, he should not
wear light pumps, but as thick solid shoes as he can get; _white lead_ is
used for _blacking_. On visits of ceremony, you should keep your hat _on_;
and when you advance to your host, you should close your fists and _shake
hands with yourself_. Dinners commence with sweets and fruits, and _end_
with fish and soup. White is the funereal colour. You may see adults
gravely flying kites, while the youngsters look on; shuttlecocks are
battledored by the _heel_. Books begin at the end; the paging is at the
bottom, and in reading, you proceed from right to left. The surname
precedes the Christian name. The fond mother holds her babe to her nose to
smell it—as she would a rose—instead of kissing it.
What yarns he will have to tell of pigtails! How the Chinese sailor lashes
it round his cap at sea; how the crusty pedagogue, with no other rod of
correction, will, on the spur of the moment, lash the refractory scholar
with it; and how, for fun, a wag will tie two or three of his companions’
tails together, and start them off in different directions! But he will
also know from his own or others’ experiences that the foreigner must not
attempt practical jokes upon John Chinaman’s tail. “_Noli me tangere_,”
says Dr. Milne, “is the order of the tail, as well as of the thistle.”
Now that most of the restrictions surrounding foreigners in Japan have
been removed, and that enlightened people—the Englishmen of the Pacific in
enterprise and progress—have taken their proper place among the nations of
the earth, visits to Japan are commonly made by even ordinary tourists
making the circuit of the globe, and we shall have to touch there again in
another “voyage round the world” shortly to follow. The English sailors of
the Royal Navy often have an opportunity of visiting the charming islands
which constitute Japan. Its English name is a corruption of
_Tih-punquo_—Chinese for “Kingdom of the Source of the Sun.” Marco Polo
was the first to bring to Europe intelligence of the bright isles, whose
Japanese name, Nipon or Niphon, means literally “Sun-source.”
On the way to Yokohama, the great port of Japan, the voyager will
encounter the monsoons, the north-east version of which brings deliciously
cool air from October to March, while the south-west monsoon brings hot
and weary weather. On the way Nagasaki, on the island of Kiusiu, will
almost certainly be visited, which has a harbour with a very narrow
entrance, with hills running down to the water’s edge, beautifully covered
with luxuriant grass and low trees. The Japanese have planted batteries on
either side, which would probably prevent any vessel short of a strong
ironclad from getting in or out of the harbour. The city has a population
at least of 150,000. There are a number of Chinese restricted to one
quarter, surrounded by a high wall, in which is a heavy gate, that is
securely locked every night. Their dwellings are usually mean and filthy,
and compare very unfavourably with the neat, clean, matted dwellings of
the Japanese. The latter despise the former; indeed, you can scarcely
insult a native more than to compare him with his brother of Nankin. The
Japanese term them the Nankin Sans.
The island of Niphon, on which Yokohama is situated, is about one hundred
and seventy miles long by seventy broad, while Yesso is somewhat longer
and narrower. Japan really became known to Europe through Fernando Mendez
Pinto, a Portuguese who was shipwrecked there in 1549. Seven years later
the famous Jesuit, Francis Xavier, introduced the Catholic faith, which
for a long time made great progress. But a fatal mistake was made in 1580,
when an embassy was sent to the Pope with presents and vows of allegiance.
The reigning Tycoon(94) had his eyes opened by this act, and saw that to
profess obedience to any spiritual lord was to weaken his own power
immeasurably. The priests of the old religions, too, complained bitterly
of the loss of their flocks, and the Tycoon determined to crush out the
Christian faith. Thousands upon thousands of converts were put to death,
and the very last of them are said to have been hurled from the rock of
Papenberg, at Nagasaki, into the sea. In 1600, William Adams, an English
sailor on a Dutch ship, arrived in the harbour of Bungo, and speedily
became a favourite with the Tycoon, who, through him, gave the English
permission to establish a trading “factory” on the island of Firando. This
was later on abandoned, but the Dutch East India Company continued the
trade on the same island, under very severe restrictions. The fire-arms
and powder on their ships were taken from them immediately on arrival, and
only returned when the ships were ready for sea again.
[Illustration: YOKOHAMA.]
Yokohama, the principal port, stands on a flat piece of ground, at the
wide end of a valley, which runs narrowing up for several miles in the
country. The site was reclaimed from a mere swamp by the energy of the
Government; and there is now a fine sea-wall facing the sea, with two
piers running out into it, on each of which there is a custom-house. The
average Japanese in the streets is clothed in a long thin cotton robe,
open in front and gathered at the waist by a cloth girdle. This
constitutes the whole of his dress, save a scanty cloth tied tightly round
the loins, cotton socks and wooden clogs. The elder women look hideous,
but some of their ugliness is self-inflicted, as it is the fashion, when a
woman becomes a wife, to draw out the hair of her eyebrows and varnish her
teeth black! Their teeth are white, and they still have their eyebrows,
but are too much prone to the use of chalk and vermilion on their cheeks.
Every one is familiar with the Japanese stature—under the general
average—for there are now a large number of the natives resident in
London.
Jack will soon find out that the Japanese _cuisine_ is most varied. Tea
and sacki, or rice beer, are the only liquors used, except, of course, by
travelled, Europeanised, or Americanised Japanese. They sit on the floor,
squatting on their heels in a manner which tires Europeans very rapidly,
although they look as comfortable as possible. The floor serves them for
chair, table, bed, and writing-desk. At meals there is a small stand,
about nine inches high, by seven inches square, placed before each
individual, and on this is deposited a small bowl, and a variety of little
dishes. Chopsticks are used to convey the food to their mouths. Their most
common dishes are fish boiled with onions, and a kind of small bean,
dressed with oil; fowls stewed and cooked in all ways; boiled rice. Oil,
mushrooms, carrots, and various bulbous roots, are greatly used in making
up their dishes. In the way of a bed in summer, they merely lie down on
the mats, and put a _wooden_ pillow under their heads; but in winter
indulge in warm quilts, and have brass pans of charcoal at the feet. They
are very cleanly, baths being used constantly, and the public bath-houses
being open to the street. Strangely enough, however, although so
particular in bodily cleanliness, they never wash their clothes, but wear
them till they almost drop to pieces. A gentleman who arrived there in
1859, had to send his clothes to Shanghai to be washed—a journey of 1,600
miles! Since the great influx of foreigners, however, plenty of Niphons
have turned laundrymen.
Their tea-gardens, like those of the Chinese, are often large and
extremely ornamental, and at them one obtains a cup of genuine tea made
before your eyes for one-third of a halfpenny.(95)
[Illustration: THE FUSIYAMA MOUNTAIN.]
The great attraction, in a landscape point of view, outside Yokohama, is
the grand Fusiyama Mountain, an extinct volcano, the great object of
reverence and pride in the Japanese heart, and which in native drawings
and carvings is incessantly represented. A giant, 14,000 feet high, it
towers grandly to the clouds, snow-capped and streaked. It is deemed a
holy and worthy deed to climb to its summit, and to pray in the numerous
temples that adorn its sides. Thousands of pilgrims visit it annually. And
now let us make a northward voyage.
[Illustration: A TEA MART IN JAPAN.]