are the Chinese devout indeed. Whatever other faults they may possess,
idleness is not one of them. The struggle for existence keeps them
active. Yet they live on almost nothing. A German merchant told me that
one of his coolies, after twenty-five years of service, had recently had
his salary raised to ten dollars a month. The laborer was, of course,
delighted. "Now," he exclaimed, "I intend to marry another wife. For
years I have longed to have two wives, but have never been able to afford
it; but now, with ten dollars a month, I can indulge in luxuries!"
[Illustration: APPROACH TO A SHRINE.]
In strolling about among these Chinese coolies, I found that life in
China is indeed reduced to its lowest terms. In some of the Canton shops,
for example, I saw potatoes sold in halves and even in quarters, and
poultry is offered, not only singly, but by the piece--so much for a leg,
so much for a wing. Second-hand nails are sold in lots of half-a-dozen.
A man can buy one-tenth of a cent's worth of fish or rice. I understood,
at last, how Chinese laundrymen can go home from the United States after
a few years' work, and live upon their incomes. When one perceives
under what conditions these swarming myriads live, one naturally asks
how pestilence can be averted. One source of safety is, no doubt, the
universal custom of drinking only boiled water in the form of tea. If it
were not for this, there would be inevitably a terrible mortality, for
the coolies take no precautions against infection. A gentleman in the
English consular service told us that he had seen two Canton women in
adjoining boats, one washing in the river the bedclothes of her husband
who had died of cholera, the other dipping up water in which to cook the
family dinner!
[Illustration: ONE OF THE MANY.]
If, perchance, these people should fall ill, I fear they would not be
greatly benefited by any Chinese doctor whom they might employ. Chinese
physicians are thought to be ignoramuses, unless they can diagnose a
case by merely feeling the pulse. Hence, if they are called to attend a
lady, they see of her usually nothing but her wrist, thrust out between
the curtains of the bed. Those who prescribe for internal diseases are
called "inside doctors," while others are "outside" men, just as some of
our medicines are labeled "for external use only." A story is told of a
man who had been shot through the arm with an arrow. He first applied
to an "outside" doctor, who cut off the two ends of the weapon and put
a plaster on each wound. "But," said the patient, "the remainder of the
arrow is still in my arm." "Ah!" replied the "outside" doctor, "that is
not my affair. To have that removed, you must go to an 'inside' man."
[Illustration: A CHINESE DOCTOR.]
One day, in passing through a temple gate, a half-clad Chinaman offered
me for sale a box of grasshoppers, which, when ground into a powder,
make a popular remedy for some ailments. In fact, aside from ginseng
and a few other well-known herbs, the medicines used in China seem
almost incredible. A favorite cure for fever, for example, is a soup
of scorpions. Dysentery is treated by running a needle through the
tongue. The flesh of rats is supposed to make the hair grow. Dried
lizards are recommended as a tonic for "that tired feeling," and iron
filings are said to be a good astringent. Chinese physicians say that
certain diseases are curable only by a decoction whose chief ingredient
is a piece of flesh cut from the arm or thigh of the patient's son or
daughter. To supply this flesh is thought to be one of the noblest proofs
of filial devotion. This is not an exaggeration. In the Pekin _Official
Gazette_ of July 5, 1870, is an editorial, calling the emperor's
attention to a young girl who had cut off two joints of her finger and
dropped them into her mother's medicine. The mother recovered, and the
governor of the province proposed to erect a monument in honor of the
child.
[Illustration: A MEMORIAL GATE.]
[Illustration: BEGGARS ON THE TEMPLE STEPS.]
[Illustration: A CHINESE FUNERAL PROCESSION.]
In view of such a pharmacopoeia, it is a comfort to learn that in
the Chinese theology a special place in hell is assigned to ignorant
physicians. All quacks are doomed to centuries of torture, the worst
fate being reserved for doctors who abuse their professional skill for
purposes of immorality. Their punishment is the cheerful one of being
boiled in oil. Another curious, and not altogether absurd, custom of the
Chinese is to pay a physician so long as they continue in health, but if
they fall ill, the doctor's salary ceases until they recover, whereupon
it commences again.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF CHINESE WOMEN.]
Chinese women seemed to me, as a rule, exceedingly plain, but, even were
they Venuses, one of their characteristics would make my flesh creep. I
refer to their claw-like finger-nails, which are so long that apparently
they could be used with equal ease as paper-cutters or stilettoes. Gloves
cannot possibly be worn upon these finger-spikes, so metal sheaths have
been invented to protect them. To show what can be done in nail-growing,
the following lengths were measured on the left hand of a Chinese belle:
thumb nail, two inches; little finger nail, four inches; third finger,
five and one-quarter inches. Under these circumstances we cannot wonder
that in China it is not the custom to shake hands: otherwise, painful
accidents might occur. Accordingly, the Chinese clasp their own hands and
shake them gently at each other.
[Illustration: LILY FEET.]
[Illustration: MOTHER AND CHILD.]
A still more repulsive peculiarity of Chinese women is their stunted
feet, which for the purposes of locomotion are little better than hoofs.
All Chinese ladies of the better class must have these "lily feet," as
they are called. Sometimes a Chinaman will have two wives; the first an
ornamental one with "lily feet," the second, a large-footed woman for
business. The origin of this barbarous custom of preventing the growth
of the foot is unknown. Perhaps it sprang from a sentiment which Ah Cum
graphically expressed by saying:
"A small foot is much safer to live with. A big foot runs about too
easily and gets into mischief. Moreover," he added, with a smile, "a
big-footed woman sometimes kicks." One Chinaman assured me with great
pride that his wife's foot was only two and a half inches long. There
is a class of women here whose regular business it is to bind the feet
of little girls when about six years of age. The process of repressing
the natural growth of the foot lasts for seven years--the four smaller
toes being bent under until they lose their articulations and become
identified with the sole of the foot. When this has been accomplished,
the second and severer operation commences--of bringing the great toe
and the heel as nearly together as possible. The bandage is drawn
tighter, month by month, until the base of the great toe is brought into
contact with the heel, and the foot has become a shapeless lump. By this
unnatural treatment the leg itself becomes deformed, and its bones are
made not only smaller in diameter, but shorter. The circulation also is
obstructed, and the large muscles are soon completely atrophied from
disuse. The agony caused by such interference with nature can be only
faintly imagined. It made the tears come to my eyes to hear a Chinese
gentleman describe the methods taken to console his suffering children
and help them forget their misery. The poor little creatures scream and
moan from the incessant pain, and often lie across the bed with their
legs pressed against the edge, in the hope that this will lessen their
distress; but nothing can relieve them but freedom from the torturing
bandage, which is never relaxed. It makes one sick at heart to think that
such a custom has prevailed in China for more than a thousand years.
[Illustration: A DISTORTED FOOT.]
Should we approach a group of Chinese merchants in Canton, and ask any
one of them "How many children have you?" we could be almost certain
that he would not think of counting his daughters, or that he would at
least make this distinction--"I have two children, and one girl." For
to a Chinaman nothing in life is so important as to have a son to offer
sacrifices for him after death and worship at his grave, since, in
their opinion, a daughter is not capable of doing this. When a boy is
born, therefore, the father is overwhelmed with congratulations, but if
the newcomer be a girl, as little reference as possible is made to the
misfortune. Friends are informed of the birth of a child by strips of
paper carried through the street. If it be a boy, yellow paper is used,
but in case of a girl any color will do. This feeling, intensified by
poverty, is the cause of the infanticide which has been, and still is, in
certain provinces, so dark a blot on the domestic history of China. It is
said, for example, that in the vicinity of Amoy thirty per cent, of all
new-born girls are strangled or drowned, as unwelcome kittens sometimes
are with us.
[Illustration: A CHINESE LADY.]
[Illustration: THE HOMES OF THOUSANDS.]
On our second day in Canton we investigated another phase of Chinese
life, in some respects stranger than anything we had thus far seen.
Along the shores of the Canton river, and in its various canals, is
a population of a quarter of a million souls, living on thousands of
peculiar boats crowded together side by side, and forming streets, and
even colonies, of floating dwellings. Moreover, these conditions prevail
in every river-town throughout the empire.
[Illustration: A CHINESE PATERFAMILIAS.]
Each of these "sampans," as they are called, though only about twenty
feet in length, constitutes the home of an entire family. Eight people
frequently live on one boat--grandpa and grandma, father and mother,
uncle and aunt, two or three children, and a baby. The latter is tied
to the back of its mother, even when she is rowing. As for the other
children, their parents fasten around them pieces of bamboo, like
life-preservers, and tie them to the rail by a cord. If they tumble
over, they float until some one gets a chance to pull them in. Upon these
little boats thousands are born, eat, drink, cook, and sleep, and finally
die, having known no other home. Under the flooring are stored their
cooking utensils, bedding, clothing, provisions, oil, charcoal, and other
requisites of their aquatic life. Above them, usually, are movable roofs
of bamboo wicker-work, to give protection from the sun and rain.
[Illustration: A MARKET-PLACE.]
Some of these families even take boarders! I verified this by going at
night among this floating population, and found that sleeping space on
the boats is rented to those who have no fixed abode. Planks are laid
over the seats to form a floor, and on these lie the numerous members of
the household and the lodgers. Conspicuous figures in this boat-life
are the itinerant barbers and physicians, who go about in tiny sampans,
ringing a bell and offering their services.
[Illustration: A FLOWER-BOAT.]
Occasionally, however, we beheld a boat much larger and finer than the
craft around it. It proved to be one of the Chinese flower-boats, which
are the pleasure resorts of China's _jeunesse dorée_. By day they are
conspicuous by their size and gilded wood-work, and in the evening by
their many lights. Never, while memory lasts, shall I forget an excursion
made at night with our hotel-proprietor among these flower-boats and
their surroundings. Many of them were anchored side by side, and planks
were stretched from one to the other, like a continuous sidewalk. As
we walked along, we passed by countless open doors, each of which
revealed a room handsomely furnished with mirrors, marble panels,
and blackwood furniture. Here were usually grouped a dozen or more
hilarious Chinamen, who were eating, drinking, and smoking, together
with professional singing-girls, who are hired by the owners of these
flower-boats to entertain their guests with songs and dances. We could
not pause to observe them carefully, for foreigners are not wanted
here, either as visitors or patrons. Meanwhile, at the very doorways of
these handsome rooms, beggars in greasy garments crowded around us and
almost threateningly demanded alms. "Look out for your pockets," was the
proprietor's constant warning.
[Illustration: CHINESE MUSICIANS.]
I have an indistinct remembrance of thus passing row after row of lighted
boats, room after room of painted girls, group after group of sleek,
fat Chinamen at tables, and then, on leaving these, of seeing miles of
loathsome boats containing half-clad men stretched out on bunks and
stupefied by opium, hag-like females cooking over charcoal braziers, and
ragged children huddled in dark corners. I have a vivid recollection,
too, of walking over slimy planks, of breathing pestilential odors, and
of looking down on patches of repulsive water, so thick with refuse
that they resembled in the lamp-light tanks of cabbage-soup. We also
shudderingly passed some leper-boats, whose inmates are afflicted with
that terrible disease, and who are forced to live as outcasts, begging
for alms by holding out a little bag suspended from a bamboo pole. But
finally shaking off the beggars who had followed us, and fleeing from
this multitudinous life, as one might turn with horror from a pool of
wriggling eels, I staggered into the boat belonging to the hotel. As it
moved out into clearer water, I drew a long breath and looked up at the
stars. There they were--calm and glorious as ever--scattered in countless
numbers through measureless space. At any time, when one looks off into
the vault of night, our little globe seems insignificant, but never
did it seem to me so tiny and comparatively valueless, as when I left
these myriads of Chinamen, swarming like insects in their narrow boats,
apparently the reduction of humanity to the grade of microbes.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL CHINESE CRAFT.]
The gentleman who had accompanied me on this occasion was a Wall street
broker. "Well," he exclaimed at last, "I have spent fifteen years among
the Bulls and Bears, and I think my nerves are pretty strong, but for
experiences which unnerve a man, and things which (glad as I am to have
seen them once) I never wish to see again, nothing can compare with the
sights and smells discovered in a trip to Chinatown!"
What impressed me most, however, in this experience was the idea that
the millions in and around Canton are but an insignificant fraction of
the Chinese race. It filled me with horror to reflect that all I had
witnessed here was but a tiny sample of the entire empire. For Canton is
said to be superior to many Chinese cities.
One writer has declared that, after walking through the Chinese quarter
of Shanghai, he wanted to be hung on a clothes-line for a week in a
gale of wind. Tientsin is said to be still worse for dirt and noxious
odors. Even Pekin, from all accounts, has horribly paved and filthy
thoroughfares, and its sanitary conditions are almost beyond belief. If
such then be the state of things in the capital, what must it be in the
interior towns, so rarely reached by foreigners?
[Illustration: A WHEELBARROW BUILT FOR TWO.]
It may, however, be objected that in the open ports, where they encounter
foreign influence, the people are at their worst. But Chinamen are not
impressionable, like the North American Indians or the aborigines on the
islands in the Pacific, who eagerly adopt the vices of their conquerors,
and speedily succumb to them.
China is one of the oldest countries in the world. Most of her ideas,
customs, as well as the personal habits of her people are of immemorial
antiquity, and her inhabitants are too conservative to change them. What
one beholds in Canton, therefore, may be fairly supposed to exist from
one extremity of the empire to the other.
But now, among so much that is disagreeable, one naturally inquires, "Are
there not some redeeming features in this Chinese life?" I must confess
there are not many discernible to the passing traveler, but I will gladly
mention one about which I made careful inquiry. It is their honesty in
business. It is the almost invariable custom for Chinese merchants every
New-Year's day to settle their accounts, so that no errors may be carried
over into the coming year; and I was told that if a tradesman fails to
meet his liabilities at that time, he is considered a defaulter and his
credit is forever lost. English and German merchants spoke to us of
Chinese commercial honor in the highest terms, and drew comparisons in
this respect between them and the Japanese which were not flattering to
the latter.
[Illustration: A MARRIAGE PROCESSION.]
Even in Japan, I found at all the foreign banks, in some of the shops,
and in the Grand Hotel, that the cashiers were not Japanese, but
Chinamen. Of course, one who has never traded with them cannot judge of
their comparative abilities in a business way, but merchants in Yokohama,
Shanghai, and Hong-Kong, as well as on the island of Shameen, told us
that Chinamen were more trustworthy than the Japanese, and could be
usually depended on to live up to their contracts, whether they proved
favorable or unfavorable.
An English gentleman who had resided both in China and Japan for years,
once said to me: "The more you see of the Japanese the less you will like
them. The more you see of the Chinese the less you will dislike them. You
will always like the Japanese; you will always dislike Chinamen; but the
degree in which you cherish and express these sentiments will constantly
diminish."
[Illustration: A CHINESE JUNK.]
Besides the numerous differences between Oriental and Occidental customs
noticed in Japan, we found in China many other proofs of what has been
well called a state of topsy-turvydom. Thus, our tailors draw the needle
inward; Chinese tailors stitch outward. With us military men wear their
swords on the left side; in China they are worn on the right. In boxing
the compass a Chinaman says "East, West, South, North." To mark a place
in a book we turn the corner of a page inside; a Chinaman bends it the
other way. We print the title of a volume on the back; the Chinese on the
front. We play battledore and shuttlecock with our hands; the Chinese use
their feet for a battledore and catch the shuttlecock on their foreheads.
We use our own names when engaged in business; in China fancy names are
taken. We carry one watch hidden in our pocket; a Chinese gentleman
sometimes wears two outside his clothes, with their faces exposed. We
black our boots; the Chinese whiten theirs. With us it is considered
impolite to ask a person's age; in China it is a high compliment,
and there a man is congratulated if he is old. Men, at least in the
Occident, have plenty of pockets; the Chinaman has none, and uses his
stockings as receptacles for papers, and at the back of his neck inserts
his folded fan. At our weddings youthful bridesmaids are desired; at
Chinese nuptials old women serve in that capacity. We launch our vessels
lengthwise; the Chinese launch theirs sidewise. We mount a horse from the
left; they mount their horses from the right. We begin dinner with soup
and fish, and end with dessert; they do exactly the reverse. Finally, the
spoken language of China is never written, and the written language is
never spoken.
[Illustration: SACRED ROCKS, INTERIOR OF CHINA.]
[Illustration: LI HUNG CHANG'S VISITING-CARD.]
[Illustration: A JOSS-HOUSE.]
After all, however, we should remember that Chinamen who travel in our
own country think that our customs are as strange as theirs appear to
us. A prominent official of the Flowery Kingdom, who made the tour of
Europe several years ago, took notes of what he saw, and published them
on his return. Among them are the following: "Women, when going to the
drawing-room of Queen Victoria regard a bare skin as a mark of respect."
"When people meet and wish to show affection, they put their lips and
chins together and make a smacking sound." This is not so difficult to
understand, when we recollect that, like most Orientals, the Chinese do
not kiss, and that even a mother does not kiss her own baby, although she
will press it to her cheek. Again, he thus describes our dancing parties:
"A European skipping match is a strange sight. To this a number of men
and women come in couples, and enter a spacious hall; there, at the
sound of music, they grasp each other by both arms, and leap and prance
backward and forward, and round and round, till they are forced to stop
for want of breath. All this," he adds, "is most extraordinary;" and when
we Occidentals think of it, perhaps it is. A Chinese youth, after eating
for the first time a European dinner, wrote of his experience: "Dishes
of half-raw meat were served, from which pieces were cut with sword-like
instruments and placed before the guests. Finally came a green and white
substance, the smell of which was overpowering. This, I was informed,
was a compound of sour milk, baked in the sun, under whose influence
it remains until it becomes filled with insects; yet the greener and
livelier it is, the greater the relish with which it is eaten! This is
called _Che-sze_."
[Illustration: WATERING-PLACE FOR ANIMALS.]
[Illustration: PLACE OF EXECUTION, CANTON.]
[Illustration: A PAGODA.]
[Illustration: DRAWING WATER.]
The object of most gruesome interest to me in Canton was its place of
execution. On entering this, I looked about me with astonishment; for
almost all the space between the rough brick walls was filled with
coarse, cheap articles of pottery. Ah Cum explained, however, that when
a batch of heads are to be cut off, the jars are all removed, much as a
hotel dining-room is cleared for dancing. The condemned prisoners are
always brought in baskets to this place, and are compelled to kneel
down with their hands tied behind their backs. Their queues are then
thrown forward, and they are beheaded at a single stroke. Traces of
blood were visible on the ground, and from a mass of rubbish close at
hand a grinning Chinaman pulled out several skulls which he had hidden
there, and claimed a fee for exhibiting them. I was presented to the
executioner, and asked him how many men he had himself decapitated, but
he could not tell. He kept no count, he said--some days six, some days
ten, in all probably more than a thousand. As he was resolutely opposed
to having his picture taken, we placed his two-edged sword against the
wall, and photographed that. When I was told that, once a week, twenty
or thirty men are brought into this filthy court to die like cattle in
a slaughter-house, I stood aghast, but when I subsequently learned that
this is the only execution-place in a great province with a population
of twenty millions, the number did not seem so appallingly excessive.
This is, however, merely the average in ordinary times. After certain
insurrections, such as the Taiping rebellion, this hideous square has
seemed almost a reservoir of human blood. The venerable missionary,
Dr. Williams, states that he saw here one morning at least two hundred
headless trunks, and stacks of human heads piled six feet high. Careful
estimates place the number executed here during fourteen months, at
eighty-one thousand,--or more than thirteen hundred every week!
[Illustration: FEMALE CULPRITS.]
[Illustration: A PRISONER.]
I doubt if many criminals beheaded here feel much regret at leaving life,
so horrible has been their previous condition in the Canton prison. We
visited this institution, but to obtain a picture of it was impossible.
Within an ill-kept, loathsome area, we saw a crowd of prisoners wearing
chains, while around their necks were heavy wooden collars, which, being
from three to five feet square, were so wide that the poor wretches
wearing them could never possibly feed themselves, but must depend on
others for their nourishment. How they lie down to sleep with them on I
do not know. Yet they must wear such collars for weeks, and even months,
at a time. I have no sentimental sympathy for criminals, and thoroughly
believe in the enforcement of just laws, but I was shocked at the sight
of these poor creatures. Whatever may have been their guilt, such
treatment is a degradation of humanity.
[Illustration: JUDGE AND PRISONERS.]