A JAUNT IN A HOUSE-BOAT—THROUGH THE HOME OF THE WILD WHITE ROSE
I HAVE been lying in a steamer chair, in which I have crossed half the
large bodies of water in the world, and trying to recall the absolute
stillness of the night I drove from the theatre in Shanghai to the canal
up which we were going into China,—Chinese China, I mean; not
semi-European China! Nothing moved. The crunching of our carriage wheels
was the only sound we heard. The pungent Chinese flowers scented the
air, and the clear moonlight brocaded the white ground with sharp black
shadows of the blue wistarias.
Many weeks’ hard work was over. We had been playing bravely through the
hot Chinese summer; now we were going to have a rest. This was one of
our delightful little vacations, all the sweeter for being stolen, as
they almost invariably were; and to which I look back as the Swiss going
into exile looks back to the high white peaks of his native mountains.
We can recall several years very full of hard work. But we can also
recall days of rest we snatched from our own busy life as it rushed by
us—days when we were free and breathed new air.
China is intersected with canals, as an oak leaf is netted with veins.
Every primitive people has its favourite mode of travel. The travelling
Chinaman goes in a house-boat, a junk, or a sampan; and the European who
would pierce beyond the outer edge of China must adopt the Chinaman’s
method of journeying,—there is no other way to get into China.
A delightful fellow, who lived in Shanghai, was supping with us one
night. My husband spoke of my mania for seeing queer places, and told
how I had gone in Hong-Kong where no European woman had been before me;
of how I had gone into the Burra Bazaar in Calcutta at midnight, and
told of a hundred other follies, for which I had been soundly scolded at
the time, but which I had thoroughly enjoyed, and remember with
considerable pleasure.
Mr. Brown said, “Would you like to go in a house-boat up one of the
canals into Chinese China, where Europeans almost never go?”
I was overjoyed at the suggestion. There were two difficulties in our
way, but woman-like I ignored them, and man-like they overcame them. The
first difficulty was that we were playing six nights a week, and the
second was that the house-boat was very small and had only one cabin. My
husband agreed to give our company a short holiday. Mr. Brown suggested
that they two could sleep on deck, or if it turned cold, a curtain could
be stretched across the tiny cabin. We were to go, and I was happy.
It was about one in the morning when we reached the boat. It was a funny
little bark, and looked as if it had been carved from a big Chinese nut.
The moonlight was so bright that we could see the faces of the scantily
clad coolies who lay on the deck. They were our sailors. There were only
two servants, the cook and Mr. Brown’s “boy,” who was to act as butler
and general factotum. They stood waiting for us, their bare feet hidden
by the coarse Chinese grass that grew on the banks, their long cues
beautifully braided and finished with red cotton, and their long blue
garments (for all the world like pinafores) new laundried.
I was asked once more if I were afraid—if I really wanted to go; then
our carriage turned back, and we went on board.
The sailors undid our moorings. They took up their long poles, and we
moved on through the moonlit darkness. We stood on deck a few moments
before we went down to supper. We were alone with the night, and with
China. I leaned over the rail and felt that I was the only European
woman in China; those in Shanghai and in Hong-Kong didn’t count, no, nor
even those in Sha-mien. But _I_ was in China, and I was going up, up
into the forbidden country.
Mr. Brown made me go below. What a capital host he was; and what a funny
little cabin. There was a table a little smaller than that at which I’m
writing, and there were seats round the cabin’s sides, a bunk at one
end, and that was all. No not all: there were red curtains at the
windows; there were cushions on the seats; there were satin heaps of
eider down on the one bunk (my bunk); there was a vase of flowers; and
Ah Loon was bringing in the supper.
We had a pigeon pie that would have done credit to the Langham; we had
an omelet in which the blessed cook had stirred _pâté de foie gras_; we
had anchovy sandwiches and salad. The men sipped whisky and water as men
will, and I had some champagne. We had some easy talk, but not for long.
Two of us were tired, so after going on deck for one more look at the
moon-bathed shore and the queer sailors, I said “good-night” and went
below. Ah Loon had taken away the supper and pulled down the little red
curtains. He had dived into my bag and laid out my kimono. I put it on,
pulled up the curtains, put out the lights, and climbed into my
throne-like bed. Yes; and I was as happy as a queen!
I have found that natives and monkeys warm to one who goes among them
fearlessly. And then it would have meant such bitter reckoning for those
sailors if any ill thing had befallen us. The night was still, the
moonlight accented everything, but no leaf moved. Two sounds broke the
stillness now and again. As we passed some temple the tom-toms clashed
out the brazen prayer of the priest who was spending the night in
worship; then as we passed some other boat, our boatmen cried out, in
Chinese, “Make way, make way for us; we have distinguished foreigners
aboard.” I tucked the eider down more cosily about me and sank back,
drowsy with the delicious luxury of being called a “distinguished
foreigner.” A sweet, mild smell of tobacco came from the deck like a
last good-night from my husband and our host. I dozed, then I woke to
feel a faint perfume creep across my face, it was my welcome into China;
it was the scent of the wild white rose.
When I woke in the morning Ah Loon was brightening the cabin with
Oriental disregard of narrow European bedchamber sanctities.
“You sleep wellie?” he said. “I bling you tea decky or you dlinky in
bedie? They gone decky, they done washie.”
I had my tea in bed, and then I induced him to leave the room. The cabin
was sweet with yellow jasmine. One of the sailors had swam ashore to
pull it. I dressed myself, but my boots were gone. I found them in the
cook-house with Ah Loon. He refused to part with them. So I had to take
him back to the cabin and let him button them for me. He wanted to
“dlessie” my “hailie” but I postponed that.
All day we went on through panoramaed details of Chinese life. In one
place big-leaved tobacco plants grew almost to the canal’s edge. The
coolies who were cultivating the field rested from their work to look at
us. It was quite a shock to me to see tobacco untended by American
darkies. A sudden shower drove us below, and made the coolies bundle
into their odd rain-coats. These garments are made of long, coarse
grass. They make one think of the old nursery rhyme, “The beggars are
come to town,” but they keep their wearers dry and they are very light.
Breakfast was ready. The French and the Chinese make the best coffee in
the world. The Chinese are excellent cooks; ours had been borrowed from
the “Shanghai Club,” and he was, what it is a crime for a cook not to
be, an artist. He had done some delightful things with fresh fish, and
he had made a _suprême_ of chicken breasts in which tomatoes, mushrooms,
and olives were mingled with the happiest result. The Chinese fruits (of
course we ended our meal with fruit) are delicious. And you can’t eat
them out of China. They are as pertinacious in their love of home as the
Chinamen themselves. You can buy liches at Covent Garden—dried liches,
but they are no more like the big pink-green fruit you eat in China than
the toy pagoda you buy at the Lowther Arcade is like the great pagoda at
Canton. After breakfast I went and tried to make friends with the cook.
He was crouching over a little naphtha stove. The weird, blue flame made
the six feet by seven kitchen look like a baby “Blue Grotto” and it
threw a purple haze about yellow Yen Yang that turned him into a
picturesque demon. He failed to make me over-welcome, and the sickly
smell of the naphtha disgusted me; so I went back to the cabin.
The rain was over. We went on deck. We were just in time to see a dozen
or more Chinamen of the better class clustered about the base of an old
Pagoda. “Loong Hwa” it was called I think, and it had a long interesting
history. We passed acres and acres of rice, in different stages of
growth. In many of the fields men, women, and children stood knee deep
in the water without which the young rice won’t grow. Then we passed
through a strange crowded city. The “Soochow” canal, on which we were,
seemed to be the city’s principal street. Shops and houses were huddled
together indiscriminately. All were open to the view of passers-by, and
all were swarming with life. The buildings were of brick, of mud, of
wood, and of bamboo. The roofs, which were invariably peaked, were
covered with anything and everything; matting, broken flower pots,
grass, tiles, and fifty other materials. On half the roofs children were
playing or sleeping. Outside a shop, in which a “red button mandarin”
was making a purchase, waited his little body-guard of seven soldiers;
six of them carried round bamboo shields, and one bore his flag. We
passed a famous Chinese temple and paused a little to study a wonderful
idol on the outer wall. It was in _bas relief_, and tinted with every
colour on the Chinese palette.
All that day and all the next—all that night and all the next—we went
on through “that old world which was to us the new.” I have not space
for even passing mention of half the wonders I saw. My pen must skip
much that I shall always remember. But I must not omit a passing
description of our wine-cellar. Three ropes trailed behind our
house-boat. They hung low in the water—one was weighted with a bottle
of beer; one was heavy with a bottle of claret; and one sunk deep in the
cool stream because a bottle of champagne was tied to it. It was the
duty of a half-grown Chinese boy to watch those ropes, and to watch a
grass bag filled with bottles of soda-water which hung over one side.
When a bottle was pulled in, another replaced it; and all our drink was
beautifully cool.
On the third morning we landed. I had to walk across a thick bamboo
pole, which they threw from the deck to the bank. I toddled like a
“small-footed” woman of the best Chinese society; and I should have
fallen had not Mr. Brown on shore and my husband on the boat, held the
two ends of a tightly stretched-rope. I steadied myself by holding to it
with one hand. And I stood in China!
We had a long walk before us—a walk up to where Rome sat enthroned on
the Chinese hills; for we were going to a cathedral presided over by an
eminent Roman Catholic prelate. We had gone about a quarter of a mile,
climbing over rocks, breaking through tangling flowers and shrubs, when
we came upon a sea of perfumed beauty. We had reached the home of the
wild white rose.
Eighteen years before, at Heidelberg, my father found and gave me a wild
white rose. It was the first wild white rose we had ever seen, and,
though William Black tells of wild white roses in England, my father
never saw another. Now I saw a wilderness of wild white roses at my
feet. They lay like unmelting snow-flakes on the breast of the Chinese
summer. We went on, up the hills. We passed through three or four
Chinese farmyards. No one molested us, and they scarcely looked at us,
though Europeans were almost unknown there. Chinese dignity is
imperturbable.
I grew tired. A woman who was hulling corn gave me a glass of milk. But
when my two comrades intimated that they too were tired and thirsty, she
shook her head and frowned. Who shall say that the women of the Orient
are not emancipated?
Half-way up the hill we stopped and looked across China.
Green—green—green! Rice—rice—rice! The food of the nation was
growing on the land of the people. Every known and unknown shade of
green was there. The boundaries of each farm were cleanly outlined; and
in the atmosphere, as clear as that of Italy, we could see for miles and
miles; far in the distance the green fields and the blue sky melted into
each other—making by their mingling a lovely indescribable gray.
We had reached a little chapel. Over the doorway was a crucifix. On the
hill above stood a white cathedral. It would have adorned any street in
Paris or Vienna; and the great gold cross that tipped it flashed like
intersecting rainbows in the noon-day sun.
We waited in the chapel while our cards were sent up to the fathers. The
walls were hung with Scriptural texts (in Chinese characters) and
Biblical illustrations from a Mongolian point of view. Joseph, and a
greater than Joseph, wore “pigtails,” and Mary had “little feet,” and
the ample trousers of a Chinese woman. I have noticed all over the world
that the Church of Rome is very wise in her concessions to the peoples
she would convert. She adapts her teachings to the language her hearers
can easiest understand.
Our messenger came back. The fathers were in retreat, and of course
could not see us; least of all could they see me. But the head of their
order kindly sent me down his “chair,” and two coolies to carry me up to
the cathedral. I appreciated that courtesy, before we reached the top;
for my husband and our friend found the climb very hard. The steep steps
were cut in the rock in a manner typical of the Journey to the Cross.
The first set of steps bore upward to the right; then a rude shrine was
cut in the rocks. That represented the first station. The next set of
steps bore upward to the left; then another niche represented the second
station. The third set of steps bore upward to the right; the fourth
bore upward to the left. There were twelve sets of steps, and at the end
of each a holy lamp burned in front of a niche frescoed with the
pictures that you will find in every illustrated Roman Catholic
prayer-book. From the last station three broad, easy steps led into the
beautiful cathedral. There were no pews; mats lay upon the mosaic floor.
The huge building was empty. At the door the marble basins held holy
water unrippled by devout fingers. The altar-piece was wonderfully fine,
and reminded me of the admirable figure of Mary on the high altar of the
cathedral in Montreal.
We lingered a long time in the cool, vacant fane, speaking in hushed
tones of the vast enterprise of Rome. Her priests have made practically
no converts in China; and they know it. But they persist. They spare no
expense, count no cost of life; because they believe that in after
generations they shall have so permeated Chinese life with Roman
Catholic thought that real conversion of the Chinese may be possible. I
am not a Roman Catholic; but the longer I live—the farther I
travel—the more deeply I respect the Church of Rome. She sent her
Sisters of Charity into the battlefields of old Europe; she has
encouraged art and literature when, but for her, they must have
perished; and her pioneers press always in the advance guard of
civilisation.
It was sunset when we returned to our house-boat. We seized upon the
dinner table. I had had a glass of milk since breakfast, and the
hospitable priests had sent us a light lunch into their outer garden;
but we had climbed eight miles at least; the men had walked up and down
the long, steep steps leading to the cathedral; and we were very hungry.
We went on deck for coffee. We had begun our return journey. I tried to
paint the sunset. How I failed! Red melted into orange, and warm violet
faded to cold green, before I could fix either to my half liking. A few
miles down, the canal widened into a lake. We waited there a little to
watch some novel fishing. On the centre of the lake were three or four
motionless sampans; in each were two or three Chinamen; but the
fishermen were huge cormorants. Each man had two birds; each bird was
fastened, by one foot, to a long string, the other end of which was
secured to the Chinaman’s wrist; each bird had a metal ring about his
throat, to prevent his swallowing the fish he caught. The birds sat on
the edge of the sampans, peering intently into the water. Suddenly one
would plunge into the water, coming up almost instantly, with a silver
fish gleaming in its cruel beak. The cormorants never made a mistake. It
was only after a fierce fight that they could be made to relinquish
their prey; and the men who had them in charge had many a torn finger.
When the boats were full, the men poled to the shore. The birds were
carried some distance from the sampans; the rings were taken from their
necks; and they were given a few of the fish they had been used to
catch. I have seen few sights more weird, more distinctively odd, than
the fishing cormorants of China.
An hour later—it was still bright and light—we passed through a
Chinese town. A high picturesque bridge that spanned the canal was
teeming with people. It was the Chinese hour of rest; the Chinese (the
busiest people on the globe) were doing nothing but enjoying themselves.
They were all talking—their language is never musical, but it is
characteristic.
I have heard a great deal of Chinese antagonism to Europeans; I have
never witnessed it. Friends have told me of hair-breadth escapes from
Chinese mobs, and of loathsomely insulting language to which they have
been subjected by the Chinese. My experience has been quite to the
contrary. I have traversed the length and breadth of the island of
Hong-Kong alone, but for my ’rickshaw coolie. I have gone down into the
depths of old Shanghai; and I have stood, one of three Europeans, in the
midst of ten thousand Cantonese, and I have received courteous
kindness—nothing else. I have had them laugh at me. A woman in Canton
crept up to me and felt the strange European texture of my dress; a
woman in Shanghai begged a glove from me—giving me a ring in return. I
have had presents, unsolicited and unrequited, from almost every class
of Chinese. As we passed beneath the big red bridge, a girl leaned over
the parapet and threw a bunch of sweet-briar into my lap. In reporting
my days in China, I must report unbroken kindness; for no grown woman
can be expected to count the fact that, as she sat on the deck of a
house-boat, half-a-dozen Chinese urchins called out, “La-le-lung!
La-le-lung!” That means a thief, a liar, and something else as
complimentary. And one boy called after us, “Fankwai!” which means
foreign devil. But the delightful frankness of the small boy is too
world-wide to be laid at the door of China; and to me a small boy is the
most delicious animal in the wide world; and I can forgive him sins much
more grievous than calling me a “foreign devil.”
We didn’t land where we had embarked a few nights before. We kept on
down through the entrance to the Soochow creek. There the native houses,
with their queerly ventilated walls, clustered in indescribable
confusion. The roof of every Chinese building is peaked liked the prow
of an ancient ship. I have often wished for leisure to study Chinese
architecture, the few theories I have heard about its peculiarities are
so interesting.
We forced our way through a multitude of native boats, out into the
fresh breezes of the open water,—we were in the river. We made for the
harbour.
We were back in Shanghai; our happy holiday was over. I shall always
hold Mr. Brown’s memory very blessed; and remember as one of the most
pleasant and unique experiences of my life our jaunt in a house-boat
through the home of the Wild White Rose.