of China all have fine race courses, club-houses and stables. In hot
Hongkong the racing, gymkana and polo meets occur from September to
April. Szechuen and Mongolian ponies, Australian and Indian horses are
used, but few American or British, the cost and insurance risk for
the latter being too great. Every white man, singly or in clubs, goes
in for the “king of sports”, and from a military point of view this
interest in racing is very advantageous. The betting is generally on
the French method of Paris Mutuels, where those who bet on the winning
animal divide the pool, less eight per cent. for club expenses. The
Chinese are beginning to understand the horse, and mafoo-jockeys and
trainers are being developed. Up and down the China coast the owners
ship their champion racers, and the interport rivalries are keen in
this, and every other sport. The main ambition is for the owner to
ride his horse as a “gentleman-jockey” in the crowning Derby event,
and quite a few Hebrew and Parsee owners enter their horses in a
widening sporting fraternity, which not long ago was limited to Saxons,
and which may yet include Chinese gentry. The stocky Mongolian pony,
weighing fifteen hundred pounds, only covers the mile in two minutes
and eight seconds, and being hard of mouth and stubborn, he is as
likely as not to cover the mile the opposite way to that which has been
prescribed by the stewards! Not only has Hongkong two very fine
golf courses, but Canton, Macao, Hankau, Shanghai, Peking, Tientsin,
and other treaty ports have excellent courses famous for their novel
bunkers of tombstones, etc., and club-houses. During most of the year
at Hongkong the game is played on the Wong Nei Chong course shortly
after daylight, as after eight o’clock the overhead sun is too hot for
that exercise which is essential if one expects to keep “fit” in the
Orient.
[Illustration:
Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
The mountain palaces of Hongkong; clouds almost cover the great
peaks. Note gate house, covered chairs; extensive verandas.
Hongkong’s architecture dominates the New China; it is a heavy
adaptation of the Renaissance, with massive verandas added.
]
[Illustration:
Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
Race meet at the Jockey Club, Wong Nei Chong Valley, Hongkong.
The cosmopolitan crowd: Hindus, Portuguese, Britons, Americans,
Japanese, Chinese, Parsees, etc. Note the famous mat-shed for
the “Hoi Polloi” in the background. These immense structures are
erected overnight, with matting and bamboo.
]
[Illustration:
Copyright, 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
The railway breaking through the wall of Peking. The immense new
railway development of China has been put under the direction of
the Honorable Sun Yat Sen.
]
Many have asked what was the organization of the crown colony of
Hongkong Island, where 3,000 white troops, a navy, 2,000 Indian troops,
and 500 British, Indian and Chinese police guard and rule 3,000 white
men and 500,000 Chinese so successfully that after paying her own
expenses, Hongkong continues, what she was the first colony to offer,
to pay to the British government a large sum for military and naval
expenses. The government is organized under the Home Colonial Office,
as follows: a governor, the general of British troops in China, a
local colonial secretary, an attorney-general, a colonial treasurer,
a director of public works, a registrar-general, a superintendent of
police, a clerk of councils, four white civilians, and two Chinese
civilians, the six latter serving mainly for the honor. The famous
Sanitary Board serves as a separate commission. Almost every one will
admit that this is a compact, graftless, powerful and very economical
organization, and it has more than answered expectations in a worldwide
fame, both for Britain and China. The able newspapers of the ports are
the Opposition, and keep the government up to efficiency. There is
only one flaw, which may soon be remedied. There should be a director
of education, for the purpose of honoring education, and not because
education is backward in the progressive colony, which has had so
many hero governors and cultured heads of department. Their great
deeds would fill volumes as yet unwritten, for the many authors who
have lived and served at Hongkong have not written of themselves.
_In modestia magnus!_ Hongkong has had some famous regiments in its
garrison, musical and sporting life. After the South African War the
Royal Welsh, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire regiments came. In 1911 the
noted Yorkshire Light Infantry were in garrison. Their fine bands,
often massed with the Indian regiments’ bands, are the feature in the
musical life of the royal colony. The Yorkshires served in garrisoning
the foreign settlement on Shameen Island, Canton, when, following
the revolution of 1911, the pirate chief Luk seized the forts around
Canton. Over at Kowloon, the mainland section of the colony in 1860,
was mobilized the army of Sir Hope Grant’s 13,000 British troops and
Baron Gros’ 6,000 French troops for the Taku-Peking campaign, and
though the existence of their nation was at stake, the southern Chinese
did not make a protest against this mobilization on what was then
China’s territory.
The municipal organization at Amoy is seven councilmen, two of whom are
a clergyman and a physician. They employ a captain-superintendent, and
a judge who sits in a “Mixed Court” with a Chinese mandarin. American
naval officers were given warm receptions by the Chinese of Amoy when
the battleship fleet went round the world in 1908. The island-dotted
and hill-surrounded harbor is one of the finest and most beautiful in
China, and there is a great future before the port. At one time it was
the largest tea port in China. The foreign settlement is on the hilly
Kulangsu Island. The streets to see are Likin, Temple, Bootmaker, etc.
The native Chamber of Commerce entertained the visiting members of the
American Chambers of Commerce in 1910 in the Nan Pu Tu Temple. There
are notable clubs and theaters; the Kwan Tai and other temples. The
scenery is famous for the Valley of 10,000 Boulders, a sort of “Garden
of the Gods”, in which the Deified Rock is worshiped. Many of the
boulders are engraved by nature-worshipers. Note should be taken of
the dainty architecture of the White Stag Temple and gates. The London
Mission at the boat landing has partially adopted the Chinese style of
architecture in the up-curling cornices. Forts which have seen hard
service are placed on the hills. The foreign race course and jockey
club is under the hill where the noted Lampotah Temple stands. Amoy
is particularly famous for the best oysters, coolie oranges, pumeloes
(grapefruit), fish, game, sugar, ginger and grasscloth in China. At
Amoy stone buildings are seen everywhere, and extend southward through
Fukien and Kwangtung provinces. The natives, who have a little Arab
blood, and who often wear turbans as well as hats, are tall, turbulent,
humorous and curious. There is much infanticide, because the small
farms are only able to support sons. Amoy is connected by railway with
Changchow on the Lung (Dragon) River, and it is planned to have a coast
railway connecting all these cities from Shanghai to Canton. There is
almost daily steamship connection with Hongkong. Native Amoy City is on
a large island. The walls, which climb straight up the hills, are about
eight miles around. The city was taken by the republicans on November
12, 1911, and there were many subsequent engagements with pirates when
American marines from the _Monterey_ had to be landed. Centuries ago
the people of this province offered the most stubborn resistance to
the Manchus when that dynasty conquered China. The dialect is the most
isolated in China, showing that the northern ruling Chinese influenced
the people very slightly. To instance:
In Fukien In Mandarin
---------- -----------
Hokchiu Fuchau
Amoy Hsia-men
Quemoy Chinmen
Though the port was formally opened to foreign trade in 1842, the East
India Company had hongs here as early as 1661 and up to 1730.
There is much for the antiquarian to trace as he follows the
traditions of Arab visits in centuries preceding the Portugese
discovery, at Canton. We hear reports that St. Thomas, the disciple,
and Mohammed’s uncle journeyed here, taking the route none ever has
since, across Persia, India and Burma. The tourist should not fail
to visit the noble park of thousands of examination stalls, where
the old classical learning held rule from Confucius’ time until
recently. There is evidence enough that the state has grasped the new
educational conditions recommended by the great Emperor Kwang Hsu, and
the Cantonese reformers, in the splendid Kwangtung normal college,
which consists of two wings and a tower building in the style of the
University of New York. A noble stucco wall, pierced with portholes,
surrounds the college. There is also the Canton Christian College,
established in the fine Martin Hall. It is supported by Americans.
American statesmanship and philanthropy will miss their glorious
opportunity if they do not soon erect at Canton the preparatory
department of a comprehensive American-Chinese university, the higher
classes to be at Peking or Nanking. Trace should also be made of
the factory of Milner & Bull, of New York, which sheltered Robert
Morrison in 1807, when he was preparing for his immortal translations
and dictionary. This was the time when American tradesmen of New
York, Philadelphia and Boston showed keen sympathy with statesmanship
and learning. Olyphant & Company, of New York and Canton, backed the
printing of the priceless _Chinese Repository_, and brought fifty
missionaries free from New York in their famous clipper ships. The
Boston merchants who ran regular lines in those days to Canton, and had
factories there, were Forbes, Perkins, Cabot, Sturgis, Russell, Cushing
and Coolidge.
The morbid will want to see the execution ground in the Thirteen
Factories section. It has no rival as the bloodiest spot on this earth.
Governor Yeh, of Kwangtung, during the Taiping rebellion in October,
1856, beheaded 100,000 rebels here, and during the pirates’ attack
under Luk, at Canton, in March, 1912, executions were part of each
day’s work here. The ground is small and insignificant looking, and
when not legally in use is used for spreading pottery in the sun. This
Thirteen Factories section is in rather bad odor as an entertainer
of opium smugglers and counterfeiters. Confucius’ temple near the
Examination Park should not be missed, not for its beauty, but for
its significance in the national ethics of so many centuries of one
uninterrupted idea. The Parade Ground, under the eastern wall of the
old city, should be visited, for here the nucleus of China’s new army,
which we will some day hear much of, is training. China must learn
to marry martial force and productive mechanics to, what through the
long ages she has been preeminent in, literature, agriculture and art.
In the western suburbs, the looms of the silk weavers, the native
hospital, the Temple of Longevity, and the Temple of Five Hundred Genii
are of exceeding interest, and if one can go as far as the White Cloud
Hills there is the historic spot to see, where Morrison baptized, in
1804, Tsai Ah Ko, the first Protestant convert in China.
Various other places of interest are Tsiang Lan Kiai (Physic Street),
which is protected from the sun with matting; Ma An Street, where the
shoe shops are; Book Store and Jade Streets, with their tea saloons;
the Hall of Green Tea Merchants radiant in porcelain; the Pok Chai
native hospital; and the public gardens which were confiscated from
the rich salt merchant, Pun Shih Cheng, because he evaded the law by
smuggling, etc. China first prophesied that restitutionary besides
prohibitive laws will yet be adopted world-wide to straighten out the
economic tangle. Many modern improvements have come to Canton, such as
a wide modern bund, electric cars and light, water, sanitary buildings,
hospitals, etc. The University of Pennsylvania and the American
Presbyterian Women have notable medical establishments at Canton,
which city is connected with the early life of Doctor Sun Yat Sen, who
has become immortal by formulating the republican Chinese rebellion
and nation. Canton is already a railroad center, having rails east to
Hongkong, south to medieval Macao, and north toward Hankau, and she
proposes to link up west by running a railroad to Nanning and Yunnan.
There is a vast steamer and launch traffic to Hongkong and up the West
(Si) and North (Pe) Rivers, and along the iron-bound coast. Canton is
the largest and most representative city of ethnical, republican and
commercial China. Its stores and small factories are decidedly the most
notable, efficient and varied in the wide land. The foreign settlement
on Shameen Island in the Pearl River has every luxury in the way of
modern clubs, hotels and residences, and in the native city there are
clubs where the foreigner and native gentleman are trying to approach
nearer to each other. Canton has two dialects, the Cantonese and the
Hakka, and I know of no better authority on them than my old friend,
Dyer Ball, the veteran author and linguist of Hongkong, though Canton
has had many famous foreign students among her foreign residents in
exile. The curious Hakka tribe composes one-third of the inhabitants
of Canton. They can be distinguished by vivacity, by the flat hat with
valance, worn by the women, and by their love of jewelry. The sanpan,
junk, slipper boat and launch people, the most distinctive feature of
Canton’s life, are largely Hakka. For further information regarding
this tribe, which is also largely in evidence at Hongkong, Amoy and
Swatow, I would recommend Dyer Ball’s authoritative books. _Dutch Folly
Island_ commemorates an early settlement of trading Hollanders.
The writer in his book, _The Chinese_, dealt at length with the oldest
foreign settlement in China, the Portugese city of Macao, and its
famous author, Camoens, who wrote _The Lusiads_. Authors who have
written on quaint medieval Macao are Doctor Eitel, Norton Kyshe,
Montalto de Jesus, Kutschera, Ljungstedt, the famous Sir John Bowring
and the immortal Camoens himself. The largest library on the subject
is to be found in the National Libraries of Lisbon, Coimbra, and other
educational centers of old Portugal. The first American consuls lived
at Macao, as did also the noted Jesuit explorer Abbé Huc, in 1840, in
the seminary here. The British artist, Chinnery, lived and painted at
Macao, as did the lovely Chinese colorist, Nam Cheong. Edmund Roberts,
the first American ambassador of the United States “to Siam, Cochin and
Muscat” died of bubonic plague here on June 12, 1836. In a study of
Macao the old volume of the _Chinese Repository_ should not be left
unsearched. In a temple at Wang Hiya, beyond the quaint Porto Cerco
gate, the first commercial treaty between America and China was signed
respectively by Cushing, Daniel Webster’s son Fletcher, and Ki Ying.
The remarkable miniature garden at the governor’s summer palace on the
Monte Road should be seen, and rather amusing miniature photo statues
are to be seen in the cemeteries. The largest cement factory in China
(British owned) is on Green Island, which is connected by a causeway
with Macao. The silted up harbor is being dredged in an effort to
bring the long lost shipping back to old Macao. There is to be railway
connection with Canton, and there is palatial steamer connection with
Hongkong and Canton. The modern hotels, such as the Boa Vista and the
Hing Kee, are excellent, the former occupying an unusually scenic
site. The drives and Praya Grande are delightful. Macao is famous for
its medieval carnivals and processions. It has an ambitious Chinese
population whose leading spirits are the progressive Ho Sui Tin
and Fong families. Its gambling houses are possibly notorious, and
its opium farm, now somewhat restricted, was once a great thorn in
international and hygienic matters.
Off the three-mile limit at Kowhowyang anchorage, the smuggling
steamers occasionally lie. The trouble between Japan and China over the
“Tatsu Maru” incident, and the subsequent severe trade boycott, which
nearly bankrupted a Japanese trans-Pacific steamship and coastal line,
will be recalled. The Chinese and Portuguese are constantly at swords’
points over harbor questions and the inclusion of the large islands of
Lapa, Joao and Taipa in the beautiful colony, which would have been
rushed long ago by the Chinese but for fear of Britain which supports
Portugal “for auld acquaintance’ sake” and the memories of Wellington’s
peninsular campaign when Portugal assisted Britain in her need. Chinese
and Portuguese gunboats are always watching each other in the rather
turbulent waters.
Lovely flowery Macao, of fast and festival, is the favorite health
resort of Hongkong, because of its sou-west monsoon in the summer
months. The wave of the Portuguese republican revolution took a month
to reach Indian Goa and Cathayan Macao. The newspapers were read by the
soldiers in the two beautiful barracks which stand high over Cape Sao
Francisco and beneath Monte Fort. They were then loaned to the sailors
on the gunboat _Patria_ which rose and fell on the yellow tide in the
offing. On November 29, 1910, the sailors of the _Patria_ landed,
marched to the square where the Senato Leal stands on high ground
on Rua Central in the center of the closely built city. There three
volleys were fired as a signal to the troops who, a mile away, broke
into the armories and armed with ball cartridge ready for liberty’s
business! The Legionaires Regiment first proceeded to the Santa Clara
Convent, drove the nuns to the steamboats lying in the inner harbor,
and forced them to sail for Hongkong, forty miles away, the objection
to the long intrenched religious orders being that they successfully
compete with business by not paying taxes. Then the revolutionists,
dragging cannon, marched to the artistic government “Palais” on the
picturesque Praya Grande, where the governor and representatives of
the Senato Leal were forced at the bayonet’s point to agree to the
expulsion of favored religious orders, the establishment of a republic
in Portugal and her colonies, the suppression of the oligarchic and
religious organ, _Vida Nova_, and similar reforms obtained by the
republicans in Portugal. Most wonderful to relate, as a new sign
on the horizon of the twentieth century, the Chinese viceroy of
Kwangtung province brought up his Chinese army to stand by and see
that order elsewhere was maintained while European revolutionists,
European monarchists and reactionary Catholics fought out questions of
representative and popular government in a corner of the sacred soil of
old China. Correctly speaking then, it was little historic Portugal,
and not ancient China, that first established a republic on Chinese
soil, and Portugal’s republican influence, _multum in parvo_, as well
as America’s and France’s, has been influential with Chinese reformers.
Fuchau, the capital of turbulent Fukien province, is situated
twenty-five miles from the coast on one of the most romantic rivers
of China, the Min. “Fu” means happy, and is the most used word in
superstitious China, if we except perhaps a “strange oath” or two,
and the family name Chang, which almost half of the Chinese carry.
This city lies in a river plain surrounded by a glorious amphitheater
of hills. With Hongkong, Fuchau joins as the two most scenic ports
of China. The wide walls are thirty feet high, ten miles around, and
up a mountain on one side, and there are seven fort gates, the most
notable being the North Tower, with its curious spirit shrines. The
most noted temples are those to the goddess Kwan Yun, the God of War,
and Ching Hwang Temple. The seven-storied White Pagoda is famous. It
has Romanesque doors and stunted galleries with railings. It is more
ponderous than beautiful, and is remarkable for its great antiquity.
The city is a noted educational center, missionary and native, It was
a reform center even back into the Dowager Empress Tse Hsi’s day in
1897 and 1898, and produced its martyr, young Lin, who fell a victim
of that reactionary Jezebel. Six miles south of the city on Ku-Shan,
1,700 feet high, is the noted Bubbling Well Monastery. The chair ride
there affords a wonderful view. Fuchau is a health resort, as it has
many hot springs. The Pacific Coast Chamber of Commerce was entertained
by the city guilds at the Nan Pu Tu Temple in October, 1910. The valley
of boulders is notable, as are also the rich pumelo groves. Fuchau used
to be a great tea port. The trade declined from 1898 to 1907, but it
is picking up again with the increased demand for China teas. Pagoda
Island exhibits a severely plain and ancient pagoda and some remarkable
Pai Piku (white stern) junks of the olden time. An ancient bridge nine
centuries old, with sixty arches, on which are many overhanging shops,
propped from the piers, connects one of the islands.
Fuchau went over to the rebel provisional government in October, 1911,
but the Manchu city was not captured until a month later. There is a
naval arsenal here, a dock, navy school, mint and a foreign settlement
on Nan Tai Island. The climate is extremely trying.
Many unique costumes and turbans are to be seen. Fukien province people
have some Arab blood in them, though the Mohammedan religion has been
lost. They boast that they have never been conquered, and that many of
the notorious pirates are Fuchau men. Their women wear a head-dress
that looks like the model of an air-ship. There are excellent Methodist
and Congregational schools, an American hospital, and a fine London
mission which has done what missions should do in architecture. It has
adopted to a degree the characteristic and beautiful Chinese style.
All the missions and foreign trade buildings should strive to retain
this wonderful art instead of daring to bring square ugliness or Greek
coldness of column to artistic China, where it does not fit well in
so warm a land. Down at the seaside bamboos are placed in the beds so
that the oysters may cling to them. There are factories for glass
filigree lamps. Trips should be made to the Yuan Fu Monastery, built
on props on Wu Hu (Five Tiger) range, and up to which five hundred
steps have been cut; the Paeling tea hills, fifteen miles north; the
olive and orange groves; and the hot mineral springs. Fuchau is to have
railway connection north and south. With Soochow, Fuchau is the center
of the lacquer art, and old specimens are highly prized. In 1885 the
French fleet under Admiral Courbet sailed into Fuchau and battered
at the forts and the city, virtually compelling the Chinese for the
time to cede the great province to Tonquin. This is what the Chinese
call the “Sacrilege of Fuchau”. The city is also the center of tinfoil
workers, their product being used in great quantities in making the
gold and silver models which are burned at the graves. Beautiful heavy
wall paper is also made. The noted sinologue, Professor Parker, of
Manchester University, the witty author of _John Chinaman_, etc., was
once British consul at Fuchau.
Ningpo (Peaceful Wave) in friendly Buddhist Chekiang province, could
be called the Azalea City, and is one of the most delightful and
picturesque cities of China. It is the second oldest in its relations
with Europe, the Portuguese having founded a trading settlement here
in 1522. The city is moated, and the walls are broken with six gates.
Old Krupp cannons lie about on the parapet. The best wood carvers,
masons, and varnish makers of the kingdom work here, and their services
are sought for all over China. Its artists also are famous. Ningpo
lies twelve miles from the sea at the head of the Tatsieh River.
Three streams branch out into the hills, which lie spread around in
a most picturesque panorama, including valleys, canals and lakes. It
is a great fishing center, and its sailors are venturesome. The fast
river slipper boats of Ningpo are noted far and wide. The inhabitants
do not disdain the use of such a modern thing as ice, as the many
straw-covered, peaked ice houses show. Much tea and silk are produced.
Excellent stone carving is done, as witness that gem of architecture,
the Fukien men’s Guild Hall, with its carved dragon-entwined columns,
comical stone lions, and splendid, up-curving tiled roofs. The screens
and bronze urns at the many temples are also a delight in this center
of culture, the new rights of women, engineering and commerce. There
are successfully run native cotton mills, and the district produces
fine matting, rice, oils, varnish, sepia, bamboo, lumber, tea, game,
flowers, rape, barley, tallow trees, etc. There is a curious street
covered with pailoo arches to widows who would not remarry, to
scholars, children, etc. There is a foreign quarter with its splendid
bund, race course, house boats, clubs, churches, hill bungalows, etc.