relate how we got there. I do not know, myself. I think of it now as one
recalls the pulling of a tooth when under the influence of laughing-gas.
I have a dim remembrance of jumping from one reeling skiff to another,
of stumbling over slippery seats, of holding on to Ah Cum, Sr., and
being pushed by Ah Cum, Jr., and now and then grabbing frantically at
a Chinese queue, as a drowning man catches at a rope. The only reason
that I did not fall into the water is that there was not space enough
between the boats. At last, however, bruised and breathless, we reached a
place of refuge, and watched our boatmen fight their way out through the
crowd, until we landed on the neighboring island of Shameen. After the
pandemonium around the steamer, this seemed a perfect paradise of beauty
and repose. It is about a mile and a quarter in circumference, and is
reserved exclusively for foreigners.
[Illustration: CHINESE BOATS, CANTON.]
Shaded by drooping banyan trees, stand many handsome houses inhabited
by Englishmen, Germans, and Americans whom the necessities of business
keep in banishment here. Their social life is said to be very pleasant,
and I should think, indeed, that in so small a settlement the members
of this little colony (if they did not hate) would love each other
cordially. This pretty place, before the capture of Canton, in 1857, was
nothing but a hideous mud-bank. But foreigners have transformed it almost
as completely as they have Hong-Kong, and have built around it broad
embankments made of solid granite, which form an agreeable promenade.
[Illustration: THE FLOATING HOMES OF THOUSANDS, CANTON.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A EUROPEAN'S HOUSE.]
Unfortunately, however, Shameen boasts of only one hotel, and of this
such dismal stories had been told us that we had half made up our
minds to eat and sleep on the American steamers, changing from one to
another every morning as they came and went. This seemed, however, so
difficult, that we resolved to try the accommodations here. We did so,
and discovered that in this case "the devil is not so black as he is
painted." At all events, clean, comfortable rooms made some amends for a
meager bill of fare.
I cherish no delightful recollections of our meals on the island of
Shameen. In fact, when a "globe-trotter" has reached India or China, the
time has come for him to eat what he can get, and be devoutly thankful
that he can get anything. Misguided souls who live to eat should never
make a journey around the world. Of course, the foreign residents here
live better than travelers at hotels; but a gentleman who entertained us
apologized for his poor table, and said that it was especially difficult
to get good beef, since Chinamen consider it extravagant to kill such
useful animals as cows and oxen. "Accordingly," he added, "we classify
the so-called beef that we consume as 'donkey beef,' 'camel beef,' and
'precipice beef.'
"Precipice beef!" I exclaimed, "what in the world do you mean by
'precipice beef?'"
"That," he replied, "is nearest to the genuine article, for it is the
product of a cow that has killed herself by falling over a precipice."
[Illustration: THE JINRIKISHA IN CHINA.]
On one side of this island flows the Canton river, and on the other
is a small canal which separates it from the city. Two bridges span
this narrow stream, each having iron gates which are invariably closed
at night and guarded by sentinels. No Chinese, save employees of the
foreigners, may come within this reservation. In 1883, however, a
Chinese mob attacked it fiercely, and swarmed across the bridges, as the
legendary mice invaded Bishop Hatto's tower on the Rhine. The English,
French, and German families escaped to steamers in the river, leaving
their houses to be plundered or burned. During my stay here, every
evening when this bridge was closed, and every morning when it was
reopened, I heard a hideous din of drums and horns, concluding with the
firing of a blunderbuss. Our consul told me that the object of all this
was to inspire fear. "Tremble and obey!" are the words which close all
Government proclamations in the Chinese empire.
[Illustration: STARTING FOR CANTON.]
[Illustration: BRIDGE AT CANTON.]
The morning after our arrival, we found awaiting us outside the hotel
door some coolies with the sedan-chairs in which we were to make our
first excursion through Canton. Another party also was about to start,
including several ladies, each of whom held in her hand either a flask of
smelling-salts or a piece of camphor wrapped in a handkerchief. In fact,
the druggists of Hong-Kong do quite a business in furnishing visitors
to Canton with disinfectants and restoratives. Some of these ladies
feared being insulted by the Canton populace, and told exciting stories
of an English lady who had been recently spat upon, and of American
ladies who had been followed by a hooting crowd. Ah Cum, however, smiled
complacently.
"There is no danger," he assured us; "my father will take care of you
ladies, as I will of these gentlemen. Every one here knows us. Our people
are always safe."
[Illustration: A CANTON STREET.]
[Illustration: ALONG THE SHORE, CANTON.]
Accordingly we started, crossed the bridge, and two minutes later found
ourselves engulfed, like atoms in a sewer, in the fetid labyrinth of
Canton. One should not be surprised that illustrations of its streets
are not clearer. The marvel is that they are visible at all! "Streets,"
as we understand the word, they cannot be truthfully called. They are
dark, tortuous alleys, destitute of sidewalks, and from four to eight
feet wide, winding snake-like between long lines of gloomy shops.
Comparatively little daylight filters through them to the pavement, not
only by reason of their narrow limits, but from the fact that all these
passageways are largely filled up, just above the people's heads, with
strips of wood, which serve as advertising placards. Many of them are
colored blue, red, white, or green, and bear strange characters, gilded
or painted on their surfaces. These in the dark perspective of a crowded
alley look like the banners of some long procession.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF CONFUCIUS, CANTON.]
These letters do not give the merchants' names, but serve as trade-marks,
like the dedicatory words above the doors of shops in France. How any one
can read them is a mystery; not merely on account of the twilight gloom,
but from the fact that here at every step one comes in contact with a
multitude of repulsive Chinamen, many of them naked to the waist, who
seem compressed within this narrow space like a wild torrent in a gorge.
To stop in such a place and read a sign appeared to me as difficult as
studying the leaves of the trees while riding through a forest on a Texas
broncho.
[Illustration: A CANTON COOLIE.]
As our bearers pushed their way through these dark, narrow lanes, the
people squeezed themselves against the walls to let us pass; then closed
about us instantly again, like sharks around the stern of a boat. At any
moment I could have touched a dozen naked shoulders with my hand, and
twice as many with my cane. Meanwhile, to the noise of the loquacious
multitude were added the vociferations of our bearers, who shouted
constantly for people to make way, ascribing to us, we were told,
distinguished titles that evidently excited curiosity even among the
stolid Chinamen. Occasionally we met a sedan-chair coming in the opposite
direction. Both sets of bearers then began to yell like maniacs, and we
would finally pass each other with the utmost difficulty, our coolies
having frequently to back the chair-poles into one shop, and then run
them forward into a doorway on the opposite corner, thereby blocking the
noisy, surly crowd until the passage could be cleared.
[Illustration: A WHEELBARROW FOR FREIGHT.]
The faces packed about us, while not positively hostile, were as a
rule unfriendly. An insolent stare was characteristic of most of them.
Some disagreeable criticisms were pronounced, but Ah Cum's expression
never changed, and we, of course, could not understand them. Once a
banana-skin, thrown probably by a mischievous boy, flew by my head; and I
was told that China's favorite exclamation, "foreign devils," was often
heard. But I dare say that if a Chinese mandarin, in full regalia, were
to walk through some of our streets, he would not fare as well as we did
in Canton; and that if he ever went to the Bowery, "he'd never go there
any more."
[Illustration: ONE OF THE BROADEST STREETS.]
[Illustration: CHINESE TEA-PICKERS.]
As we kept passing on through other alleys teeming with half-clad
specimens of the great unwashed, I called to mind the fact that this
low class in China has been deliberately taught to hate, despise, and
thoroughly distrust all foreigners. The unjust opium war with England,
the recent territorial war with France, the stories told them of the
treatment of their countrymen in the United States,--all these would,
of themselves, be enough to make them hostile; but they are as nothing
to the effect produced upon an ignorant, superstitious populace by the
placards posted on the walls of many Chinese cities. I read translations
of a few of these, and I believe they cannot be surpassed in literature
for the vulgarity and infamy of their accusations. They are in one sense
perfectly absurd; but when we recollect the riotous acts to which they
have frequently incited their deluded victims, they challenge serious
consideration.
[Illustration: CHINESE MERCHANTS DRINKING TEA.]
On entering some of the shops that line these passageways, I was
astonished at the contrast they presented to the streets themselves. The
latter are at times no more than four feet wide. Not so the shops. Many
of them have a depth of eighty feet, and in the centre are entirely open
to the roof. In the corner of each is placed a little shrine. A gallery
extends around the second story, and on that floor, or in the rear of
the building, the owners live. Some of these shops are handsomely adorned
with fine wood-carving and bronze lamps, and on the shelves is stored a
great variety of goods, frequently including articles as dissimilar as
silk and cotton fabrics, fans, jewelry, umbrellas, Waterbury clocks, and
Chinese shoes.
[Illustration: HALL IN A CHINESE HOUSE.]
[Illustration: A CHINESE BED AND FURNITURE.]
Among these shops we saw a building used partly as a temple and partly as
the Guild Hall for the Canton silk merchants. Guilds, or trade-unions,
have existed here for centuries. They permeate every branch of Chinese
industry, legal and illegal. Even the thieves form themselves into a
guild, and I suppose there is "honor" among them. The origin of these
unions is partly due to unjust taxation. Canton contains a vast amount
of wealth, but those possessing it are careful to conceal all trace of
any superabundance. On this account disputes between the various guilds
are settled by arbitration. To allow their affairs to go into court
would show too plainly to the tax-collectors their financial status.
Accordingly litigation is almost unknown. Moreover, when a case is
settled by arbitration, the losing party not only pays the disputed sum,
but is obliged to give a supper to the victor.
[Illustration: EXORCISING SPIRITS.]
In another building that we passed I saw a curious ceremony, which Ah Cum
explained as that of three Buddhist priests who were clearing a house
of evil spirits. It appears that, two weeks before, a man had committed
suicide on the premises, in order to avenge himself on the proprietor.
For in China a man, instead of killing his enemy, sometimes kills
himself, the motive being a desire that the hated one shall be regarded
as responsible for his death, and be pursued by evil spirits here and
in the world to come. To be annoyed by ghosts must be exceedingly
unpleasant, but, on the whole, I hope that all my enemies will try the
Chinese method.
Occasionally we discovered in these streets an itinerant barber. These
Chinese Figaros carry their outfits with them. First in importance comes
a bamboo pole, which is the immemorial badge of their profession. To
this is usually attached one solitary towel,--free to every customer.
From one extremity of this pole hangs a small brass basin, together
with a charcoal stove for heating water; the other end is balanced by a
wooden cabinet, which serves the patient as a seat during the operation,
and contains razors, lancets, tweezers, files, and other surgical
instruments.
[Illustration: LADY AND MAID.]
[Illustration: CHINESE BARBER.]
It matters not where one of these tonsorial artists practises his
surgery. A temple court, a flight of steps, a street, or a back-yard,
are quite the same to him. He takes his queue where he can find it.
One of his commonest duties is to braid that customary appendage to a
Chinaman's head, without which he would be despised. It is comical to
estimate the thousands of miles of Chinese queues which even one barber
twists in the course of his career--enough, if tied together, end to
end, to form a cable between Europe and America. Yet this singular style
of hair-dressing (now so universal) was introduced into China only two
hundred and fifty years ago. Before that time the Chinese wore full heads
of hair, and the present fashion of shaved crowns and twisted queues is
of Tartar origin, and was imposed by a conquering dynasty as a badge of
servitude. The wearing of a mustache in China is an indication that he
whose face it adorns is a grandfather. In fact, until he is forty-five
years old, a Chinaman usually shaves his face completely; but this fact
does not prove that after that time he can dispense with the services
of a barber. For the tonsorial art in China is exceedingly varied; and
Chinese barbers not only braid the queue; they also shave the eyebrows,
clean the ears, pull teeth, and massage. Moreover, they scrape the inside
of their victim's eye-lids--a custom which is believed by foreigners to
be the cause of much of the ophthalmia in China.
[Illustration: A CHINESE MERCHANT.]
Chinese fortune-tellers had for me a singular fascination. I found
them everywhere--in temple courts, at gateways and beside the
roads--invariably wearing spectacles, and usually seated at a table
decorated with huge Chinese characters. Their services seemed to be in
great demand. In every case the ceremony was the same. Each applicant in
turn approached, and stated what he wished to know; for example, whether
a certain day would be a lucky time for him to buy some real estate, or
which of several girls his son would better marry. Upon the table stood
a tin box full of bamboo sticks. One of these slips the customer drew
at random, and from the sentence written on it the fortune-teller gave
his answer in oracular words--which could, as usual, be interpreted in
various ways.
[Illustration: A CHINESE FORTUNE-TELLER.]
[Illustration: A WALL OF CANTON.]
At length, however, leaving for a time the shops and dimly-lighted
alleys, we found ourselves approaching a huge gate. For Canton, like most
other Chinese cities, is divided into certain districts, each of which is
separated from the adjoining one by a wall. The gateways in these walls
are always closed at night, and are of special use in case of fires or
insurrections, since they are strong enough to hold in check a surging
crowd till the police or soldiers can arrive.
[Illustration: THE FIVE-STORIED PAGODA.]
Passing through this portal, we made our way along the wall until we
arrived at a prominent point of observation, known as the Five-storied
Pagoda. Whatever this may once have been, it is to-day a shabby,
barn-like structure, marked here and there with traces of red paint, like
daubs of rouge on a clown's face. All visitors to Canton, however, will
recollect the building, with a certain amount of pleasure, as being the
resting-place in which one eats the lunch brought from the steamer or
hotel. Not that there is not food of certain kinds obtainable in Canton
itself, but somehow what one sees of Chinese delicacies here does not
inspire him with a desire to partake of them. In one of Canton's streets,
for example, I entered a cat-restaurant. Before the door was a notice
which Ah Cum translated thus: "Two fine black cats to-day, ready soon."
On stepping inside, I heard some pussies mewing piteously in bamboo
cages. Hardly had I entered when a poor old woman brought the proprietor
some kittens for sale. He felt of them to test their plumpness, as we
might weigh spring chickens. Only a small price was offered, as they
were very thin, but the bargain was soon concluded, the woman took her
money, and the cadaverous kittens went to swell the chorus in the cages.
Black cats, by the way, cost more in China than cats of any other color,
for the Chinese believe that the flesh of dark-coated felines makes good
blood.
[Illustration: A WAYSIDE RESTAURANT.]
To some Chinamen, dogs fried in oil are also irresistible. In one untidy
street, swarming with yellow-skinned humanity, we saw a kind of gipsy
kettle hung over a wood fire. Within it was a stew of dog-meat. Upon a
pole close by was hung a rump of uncooked dog, with the tail left on, to
show the patrons of this open-air restaurant to what particular breed the
animal had belonged. For it is said there is a great difference in the
flesh of dogs. Bull-terriers, for example, would probably be considered
tough. Around this kettle stood a group of coolies, each with a plate and
spoon, devouring the canine stew as eagerly as travelers eat sandwiches
at a railway restaurant after the warning bell has rung. Some hungry ones
were looking on as wistfully as boys outside a bun-shop. One man had
such a famished look that, through the medium of Ah Cum, I treated him
at once. Moreover, hundreds of rats, dried and hung up by the tails, are
exposed for sale in Canton streets, and shark's fins, antique duck eggs,
and sea-slugs are considered delicacies.
[Illustration: CHINAMEN OUT ON A PICNIC.]
We tried to bring back photographic proofs of all these horrors, but
it was impossible. Whenever we halted in the narrow lanes, in fifteen
seconds we would be encircled by a moving wall of hideous faces,
whose foremost rank kept closing in on us until the atmosphere grew
so oppressive that we gasped for breath and told our bearers to move
on. Nor is this all. These crowds were sometimes positively hostile.
A superstitious fear of being photographed by "foreign devils" made
them dangerous. This fact was several times made disagreeably evident.
Thus, in a garden adjoining a Chinese temple, I wished to photograph
some sacred hogs which were attached to the sanctuary in some unknown
capacity. But scarcely had the exposure been made, when a priest gave the
alarm, and in three minutes a mob of men and boys were rushing toward
us, uttering yells and throwing stones. Ah Cum himself turned pale. He
sprang in front of us, and swore (may heaven forgive him!) that not a
picture had been taken. Of course we offered money as indemnity, but the
priests rejected it with scorn, claiming that by the pointing of the
camera we had stopped the growth of the hogs. I do not think I exaggerate
the situation when I say that if the politic Ah Cum had not been there to
defend us, we should have suffered personal injury.
[Illustration: THE SACRED HOGS.]
[Illustration: SORTING TEA.]
[Illustration: CHINESE MERCHANTS.]
[Illustration: A CHINESE FARM-HOUSE.]
Standing up on the summit of the Five-storied Pagoda, we looked out over
the city of Canton. For wide-spread, unrelieved monotony, I never saw
the equal of that view in any place inhabited by human beings. True,
the confusion of the foreground was to be excused, since a tornado had
recently blown down many of the native houses. But far beyond this mass
of ruins, stretching on and on for miles, was the same monotonous,
commonplace vista of low, uninteresting buildings, seamed with mere
crevices in lieu of streets. Meantime, from this vast area came to us
a dull, persistent hum, like the escape of steam from a locomotive,
reminding us that here were swarming nearly two million human beings,
almost as difficult for a foreigner to distinguish or identify as ants in
a gigantic ant-hill.
[Illustration: THE FLOWERY PAGODA, CANTON.]
The exact population of Canton is hard to determine. The number arrived
at depends upon where one leaves off counting the three hundred suburban
villages, each of which seems a part of the city. Bishop Harper, who
lived here for forty years, says, that if one should plant a stake in
the centre of Canton, and count all around it within a radius of ten
miles, one would find an aggregate of three-and-a-half million people.
One village, for example, eleven miles away, noted for silk and other
manufactures, is thought to contain eight hundred thousand inhabitants.
[Illustration: CANTONESE PAWN-SHOPS.]
Out of this wilderness of mediocrity there rose in one place a pagoda,
which by contrast seemed to possess prodigious height; but such objects
are exceptional. To understand what Canton is like, one must picture to
himself a city which, with its suburbs, is larger and more populous than
Paris, yet has not one handsome avenue, one spacious square, or even one
street that possesses the slightest claim to cleanliness or beauty. Worse
than this, it is a city without a single Chinese building in its whole
extent that can be even distantly compared in architectural elegance
with thousands of imposing structures in any other city of the civilized
world. "But are there no European edifices in Canton?" the reader may
perhaps inquire. Yes, one, which makes the contrast only more apparent.
It is the Roman Catholic cathedral, whose lofty towers are, strangely
enough, the first objects in the city which the traveler sees in sailing
up the river from Hong-Kong. This handsome Gothic structure, built
entirely of granite, rising from such a sea of architectural ugliness, at
once called forth our admiration. To the Chinese, however, these graceful
towers are objects of the utmost hatred. It angers them to see this area,
which French and English conquerors obtained by treaty, still occupied
by a Christian church. So far, it has escaped destruction; but there are
those who prophesy its doom and say that the time will come when not one
stone of it will be left upon another.
[Illustration: CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL, CANTON.]
There are, however, five or six other buildings in Canton, which rival
the pagoda and the Catholic church in height. These hideous objects,
which look like monstrous granite boxes set on end, are pawn-shops. One
might conclude from their enormous size that half the personal property
of the Cantonese was in pawn. They certainly are well patronized, for
pawning clothes is such a common thing in China that hundreds of the
Cantonese send here for safe-keeping their furs and overcoats in summer,
and their thin summer clothes in winter, receiving money for them as
from any pawn-broker. The Chinese mode of guarding these tall structures
against thieves is certainly unique. Upon the roofs are piled stones to
be dropped upon the heads of robbers, and also reservoirs of vitriol,
with syringes to squirt the horrible acid on invaders.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF FIVE HUNDRED GODS.]
Astonished at this lack of imposing architecture, we asked if there
were no temples in Canton, Assuredly there were--eight hundred of them,
all more or less defaced and incrusted with dirt. One of the oldest
and most sacred is called the "Temple of Five Hundred Gods," because
within its walls are seated five hundred life-size images of gilded
wood, representing deified sages of the Buddhist faith. But they are
all coarse specimens of sculpture, and many are amusing caricatures. In
front of each is a small jar of ashes, in which the worshiper burns a
stick of incense in honor of his favorite god. Offerings of money, too,
are sometimes made--but not of genuine money. The Chinese are usually
too practical to use anything but imitation money made of gilded paper.
I do not know what the gods think of this Oriental style of dropping
buttons in the contribution-box, but the priests do not like this sort of
currency. They are all "hard money" men.
[Illustration: AN OLD TEMPLE, CANTON.]