A GLIMPSE OF CANTON
WHAT can I write of Canton? If Hong-Kong was wonderful, if Shanghai was
interesting, if Burmah was picturesque, what was Canton? It was
superlative!
I know that Europeans go into Canton and come out of it with stolid
faces, and sneer languidly as they speak of it. I know a woman who
preferred poor little, colourless, on-sufferance Sha-mien, to great,
mysterious, unfathomable, lurid Canton. Ah, well! it takes all sorts to
make a world—and I dare say I revolted her as much as she disgusted me.
“Would you rather live in Canton than in Sha-mien?” some one asks me.
Certainly not—at least not permanently. But I, nevertheless, regard
Sha-mien as utterly insignificant as compared with Canton. The only
significant thing about Sha-mien is its courage in being there at all.
No; I should not prefer Canton to Sha-mien as a place of residence for
myself. I should be sorry to spend twenty unbroken years in Canton, and
I should be displeased to spend twenty unbroken years on the most
magnificent iceberg that ever floated on the Polar Seas. But for all
that I think the iceberg vastly more interesting, more fascinating,
grander, more beautiful, than the snow-flakes that are feebly smudging
my window-pane.
Let me introduce you for a moment to my London back-yard, as I see it at
this moment. It is a grim conglomeration of rubble, dilapidated ivy, of
thin snow blotches, and of burst water-pipes. Nothing could be less
picturesque. No earthly eye could think it beautiful, save the eye of a
plumber. Yet I would rather live here than in Canton, where a million
pictures are yours for the looking. In all Canton I never saw one
unpicturesque bit. And once I almost felt like tearing up my
sketch-book—not because of my own incompetence, for to that I am
accustomed, but because for every sketch I tried to make I must leave
ten thousand unattempted. That made selection very difficult.
We sent Mr. Paulding from Hong-Kong to Canton, to see if we could give a
performance at Sha-mien. He wrote back, “There are not a hundred
Europeans in the place, and there is no theatre. It is expensive getting
here. But if the ‘burra memsahib’ is determined to come, I think we
might clear our X.’s. Leave the company in Hong-Kong, and you two give a
Shakespearian recital in the hotel dining-room. What do you say?”
Perhaps I should explain that “X.’s” means expenses. It is not
theatrical slang, it is dramatic abbreviation. That letter entailed upon
me a mental struggle. I was anxious to see Canton, and my husband
insisted that if I went I must “help him out” with the recital. In all
my wicked life I had never given a recitation—or at least not since I
was a nice little girl with a nice pink sash. Moreover, I had said that
I never would give a recitation. I did not approve of them; for that
matter, I do not approve of them now; but Canton tempted me, and I was
weak.
We made out a programme and mailed it to Mr. Paulding. Mine friend was
prepared with any number of recitations, but the only one I knew was
“Bingen on the Rhine,” and my associate feared that the audience might
have heard that before. Finally, I was put down for two recitations, but
it was not specified what they were to be. My husband selected his three
recitations, and we added to the list four scenes from Shakespeare.
Early one morning, before our babies were awake, we steamed slowly up
the Canton River. I put the thought of the horrid recital out of my
mind; and settled into my cosy steamer chair and said to myself, “If
there be an Elysium on earth it is this—it is this.” The day was
perfect. Ah! how many perfect days this old world has seen, and yet how
she throbs and smiles and blushes into beauty, and looks quite like a
bride, the disreputable weather-beaten old jade, and welcomes the kisses
of each new perfect day, and beneath those kisses assumes the virtue of
loveliness, even though she have it not!
We were carrying some hundreds of coolies, and some thousands of fish to
Canton. The coolies were tightly packed behind a secure grating. The
fish were poured by hundreds into holes, purposely made in the side of
the boat. How they sprang for their freedom, the scaly, silvery,
speckled things, and with what splendid splutter and splash they fell
back into the water-filled hole!
There were four cabin passengers on the delightful little bark. I was
the only woman on the boat—fore or aft. When I am the only woman among
a boat-load of men, and the weather behaves itself, I always say to
myself, “If there be an Elysium on earth it is this—it is this!” The
three gentlemen were—the Editor of a Hong-Kong paper, a charming fellow
and a good friend of ours; an interesting German who spoke French
fluently and told me a great deal about Canton; and last, but if you
please, not least, that extremely fortunate individual who is my
husband.
What a pleasant fellow the captain was! He will, most probably, never
see these lines, and I feel it my duty to describe him. He was my fellow
countryman—and the kind of man who causes you to hold up your head and
say, “It’s a good thing to be an American.” I am supposed to be a bad
American. I don’t quite plead guilty to the accusation; but I certainly
do not fill Sir Walter Scott’s ideal of patriotism. I fear he would even
consider my soul dead. My cosmopolitanism is far more than my
patriotism. But it always gives me a deep thrill of real pleasure to
meet in a foreign land—delightful Americans. I think of my compatriots
as some one thought of a little girl whom they immortalised in the
lines,
When she was good, she was very, very good.
But when she was bad, she was horrid.
No one is more charming, more admirable, than a charming American. I
know Americans whom the children of no other nation can excel. If
patriotism consists in praising the shrilly cackling, over-diamonded
women, and the ill-educated, shallow, opinionated men of our _hoi
polloi_—why then I am not patriotic. They, beyond everything else
human, set my teeth on edge, do Americans the vulgar. But because I cry
out at them with genuine American acrimony, it does not follow that I am
stupid enough to think them the only Americans. There is another type of
American of whom I would far rather think, and I wish that he travelled
more. I mean the man who stands hat in hand to welcome you on to the
porch of his Virginia home. I mean the man who is superlatively a
gentleman even when he carries our flag through the wigwams of the wild
west. I mean—oh! well, I mean all that ilk!
Our captain was a courtly, cultivated gentleman. He was highly educated,
and had lived in China intelligently. He was quite a perfect host.
Everything combined to make our little trip enjoyable. The Chinese
butler not only understood his duty but did it. Dinner was eminently
successful. But it was on deck that we were happiest.
China! China! For all your great antiquity, how new and fresh and
fascinating you were to me!
Fortresses and pagodas dotted the banks, with here and there a scattered
collection of squalid huts. The sky was royal, and the perfumed air
swayed the branches of a dozen, to us unknown, trees.
Just before we reached Canton we passed the leper boats. The population
of Canton is too dense for the most truly paternal Government on earth
to risk the presence of lepers in the midst of the Cantonese myriads.
The miserable lepers looked out at us from the windows of their
boat-prisons. Had we been nearer they would have cried to us for food
and cash. The sufferings of the Asiatic lepers are not exaggerated. I
never went amongst them (and in India I went amongst them often) without
thinking, “How long, O Lord! how long?”
Nothing impressed me as more unique in unique China than the
perseverance of the Roman Catholic Church in her desperate attempt to
convert the unconvertible Chinese.
The following telegram was recently sent from Shanghai:—“The Roman
Catholic Mission at Lichuen, near the Szechuen border of the province of
Hu-Peli, has been attacked by a mob. The priests escaped into the
neighbouring provinces.”—_Reuter._ Similar messages have been flashed
to us before; similar messages will be flashed to us again. So long as
Europe overstrains the forbearance of Asia, the blood of a few Europeans
must dampen the ire of the Asiatic populace.
I met in Canton a venerable churchman who has been for many years
eminent in Roman Catholicism in China. Like all men eminent in the
Church of Rome, he was a man of the world, open-minded, cultivated, and
charmingly companionable. I ventured to ask him, “How many Chinamen have
you converted during your long residence here—converted in the fullest,
most absolute significance of the word?”
The old man looked across the Canton river, upon which we were at the
time. To our left lay the floating prisons of the Cantonese lepers. To
our right, floated the “flower boats” of the Cantonese frail. Then he
answered me: “Daughter, none! But”—pointing with his thin white hand to
the left—“we have alleviated suffering, and”—pointing to the right,
“we have checked sin. There is yet great sin and great suffering calling
out to us for help; and we are paving the way for the spiritual success
of the priests unborn. Rome of the seven hills was not built in a day.
Rome, the spiritual, will not be made perfect and entire in a
generation. Little by little we are gaining ground here. A Chinaman
pretends a conversion he does not experience—for the sake of benefits
we confer on him. His children grow accustomed to our blessed symbols
and our holy rites. It is our great hope that his grandchildren, or
perhaps his great-grandchildren, may become truly and entirely sons of
the true Church. In the meantime, we hope and pray and work, and do what
good we may.” This then is the hope of Rome concerning China—to make
possible the conversion of the Chinese of the future.
For this possible future accomplishment Rome spends vast sums of
money—erects superb edifices—risks many noble lives. The Chinese
accept the comforts bought with the money. They take shelter—when it
suits their convenience—in the buildings that they demolish when it
pleases their enraged whim; and they destroy the lives dedicated wisely,
or unwisely, to their service.
[Illustration: CHINESE ACTORS. _Page 136._]
Rome fails, and I believe will fail. The religion and the life of the
Chinese are one. It is the same with all Eastern peoples except the
Japanese. In the East, religion stands for social sanctities, for
hygienic regulations. Above all, it is the national expression of
patriotism. Moreover, the religions of the East suit the peoples of the
East. The Christian religion does not. The Church of Rome, with her fine
Machiavelian wisdom, does her utmost to make her belief appropriate to
the Mongolian temperament and mentality. Rome fails—because she
attempts the impossible. The religion of China (although in one sense
little respected) is the poetry of China, the art of China, the
tradition of China. It will make way, as the religion of the North
American Indians has made way, when the Chinese are exterminated and
ground in their native dust, as the North American Indians have been
crushed and spiritually exterminated.
Can we blame the Chinese for their allegiance to a form of religion
which has satisfied their extremest ethical need for thousands of years?
I, for one, cannot unqualifiedly condemn them for their cruel
inhospitality, when I recall scenes I have seen in the Chinese quarters
of San Francisco and of Melbourne. I have seen a joss house demolished
by the hands of civilised Anglo-Saxons; but I deplore that China’s not
unnatural retaliation should fall upon a self-sacrificing body of men
who only seek the good of China and the glory of the God in whom they
earnestly believe.
Three years ago, almost to a day, I visited the Roman Catholic Mission
which recently was destroyed by the infuriated Chinese. What a waste of
art and life!
Every Englishman living in China, who is not blinded by an overplus of
religious enthusiasm, will, I think, bear me out that the Chinese cannot
be converted. An Anglican clergyman lived and preached for twenty odd
years in Shanghai; he failed to make many converts. But he consoled
himself inasmuch as he had snatched one brand from the burning. His
“boy,” to whom he paid unusual wages, was a most devout Christian. When
the divine left China he reluctantly parted with “Foo Sing,” bestowing
upon him several Bibles and many yen. Half an hour after the English
mail had sailed, a friend of the churchman’s met “Foo Sing.”
“Well, Foo Sing,” said the European, “what are you going to do now Dr.
—— has gone?”
“Me,” said Foo Sing, “Me go chin chin my own joss. English joss all
played out.”
Rome is attempting a great thing in China. Her methods are dignified;
and the Chinese deal with Rome with proportional brutality. At the
American Missionaries, the men of whom wear false “pigtails” and the
women modified pantaloons, the Chinese merely laugh. One of the
Chinaman’s chief characteristics is his sense of humour.
On the other side of our good ship (to return to our first entry into
Canton), opposite to the poor leper boats, floated the famous flower
boats of Canton. They were the prison palaces of the moral lepers of
Canton. It was daylight now, and the small boats floated demurely on the
rippled water. The matting blinds were down. The women were sleeping.
When the sun had set, the little boats of sin would sparkle with a
thousand lanterns and tinkle with a hundred guitars, and shameless
mandarins would smoke long opium pipes and sip small cups of hot,
perfumed wine.
The unfortunate women of China are at least less scourged by public
opinion than are their Occidental sisters. Nor are they sneered at by
their righteous half-sisters, nor slapped in the face by Mrs. Grundy’s
wee white hands. They live apart.
We anchored some few yards from Canton, and then began what we thought
rare fun. A world of sampans pushed about us, and the women coolies
rushed on deck, demanding our luggage and begging to row us ashore. The
women of the coolie class do all such work in Canton. We fell into the
clutches of a good-natured old thing called “one-eyed Sarah.” She was
very fat, very rich, and very jolly. Our friend the Editor chaffed her
roundly, but she took it all in good part, and gave as good as she took.
When we had accepted her as our boatman, she screamed to two young
girls, who ran lightly up and shouldered our luggage quite calmly. My
box was heavy, and we had quite a collection of little things. Sarah
carried nothing, but she helped us all into her boat, and I learned
afterwards that she would willingly have carried me because she thought
I looked little and helpless. I am at least a head taller than Sarah.
How wonderfully those women guided their boat! They are wonderful
watermen, the sampan women of Canton. We were jammed among some hundreds
of other boats, and our position seemed inextricable and perilous. But
it was neither the one nor the other. In and out they pulled, away from
the steamer, up the narrow water-way that stretches between Canton and
Sha-mien, until they landed us at the steps of the Sha-mien hotel. Then
Sarah did lift me out on to _terra firma_, to the great delight of my
disrespectful husband. “Little girl,” she said patronisingly, “but
plenty heavy.”
Europeans are not allowed to live in Canton. Even to go into Canton they
must have a pass or permit, which must be shown to the guards at the
city gate. Sha-mien is the European concession. There live all the
Occidentals who have diplomatic or other business at Canton. They are
only a handful—the European permanent residents at Sha-mien; eighty
odd, I think, they numbered when we were there—all told I mean; men,
women and children. They live with their lives in their hands. The moral
force of Europe is great, but if the Cantonese become vicious enough,
they will rally across that narrow bridge and massacre every European in
Sha-mien. They have done it before; they will do it again, if they grow
angry enough. I hope that they never may. It is to be hoped that they
will be given no cause.
The hotel was a pleasant, clean, white place. It stood upon green grass
among green trees. A pretty little donkey came and begged a biscuit from
me. It was the pet of Europe in Sha-mien. Our bills were profusely
displayed in the hotel hall. They made me shudder a bit, for our recital
was to be that night.
“Do you know yet what you are going to recite to-night?” asked my
husband meanly.
“I think we’ll cut my recitations out,” I said sweetly.
“No we won’t,” said my husband. He even offered to accompany me up to
our rooms and try to teach me some recitations; but I refused flatly.
When the night came, I would get through it in some desperate fashion.
But now I was going into Canton.
Canton lay just across the canal. It was walled, as almost every Chinese
city is. We could catch no glimpse of the city itself from Sha-mien.
That made me the more impatient to be off.
There are at least three wonders in the East that can never be
exaggerated: the Taj Mahal, sunrise on the Himalayas, and Canton.
I forget our guide’s name—we could not go into Canton without a guide;
but he appeared very much of a gentleman and spoke accurate English. We
went into quaint box-like palanquins. There were four chairs, two for
us, one for our Editor, and one for the guide. Three coolies carried
each chair. Across the bridge; through the guarded gateway: We were in
Canton!
If I could describe it as perfectly as I remember it! I had expected
noise and crowds, new sights, new sounds, new smells, long endless
streets, and tall, tall houses. But what I found was ten times more. The
streets were often so narrow that, if two chairs wished to pass, one had
to retreat into the nearest shop until the other had gone on. The houses
were so tall that they seemed to lean toward each other and to touch at
the vertical point of sight. Indeed many of them did almost meet—they
were so built out with balconies. I don’t know what was in the upper
rooms of those houses; but certainly everything appeared to be on the
balconies. What clothing a poor or middle-class Chinaman possesses
beyond that on his back usually hangs on his balcony. The Chinese have
more cleanliness than they are accredited with by the generality of
Europeans.
We went for miles in Canton without seeing the sky. The density of the
city, the swarming, seething inhabitants, the variety of shops and
trades, are indescribable.
The first shop at which we stopped was the studio of painters on rice
paper. And a very unstudio-like place it was. The artists (two of them
were famous) sat at workman-like tables, doing their careful work. The
rice paper is lovely of itself, and the painting was exquisitely done.
Chinese art is a difficult subject. The Chinese execution is often very
delicate; the Chinese sense of colour is very true, though with the
exception of their dull predominant blue, all their colours are
brilliant in the extreme. But even their characteristic blue they use
rather sparingly in their painting. Chinese drawing impressed me as
primitive, but not inexact; but if I were less ignorant about Chinese
art, I might regard it very differently.
I have a dozen or more of the dainty “rice pictures” that were being
painted in that queer unartistic Cantonese studio. Not one picture has
been painted by one man. For instance, I have among them the figure of a
mandarin. It is not over six inches high, but it represents the
considerable work of three artists, one of them noted throughout China.
He painted the mandarin’s face, and told me that for thirty odd years he
had painted faces, and done no other thing, save to sleep a little, eat
a great deal, worship his ancestors, and chin chin his joss sometimes.
He was a courtly old gentleman, and smilingly allowed me to spoil
several sheets of rice paper, and waste sundry brushfuls of colour,
trying to imitate his methods. The draperies of my little figure were
painted by another artist, and the hands were the work of a third man
who paints nothing but hands. There were men there who painted nothing
but leaves—others who painted only flowers. There were other men who
spent all their lives painting one picture again and again. The picture
they painted one week, they copied the next. And one artist in that room
painted only caterpillars—he had painted nothing else for ten years. He
painted them exquisitely. It will be readily understood that their
execution was deft and exact in the extreme, but that their work lacked
breadth, great atmosphere, and inspiration of design.
Next we stopped at a jeweller’s. They were making queer silver things,
and inlaying them with infinitesimal bits of bright blue feather. The
finished ornaments were more curious than beautiful; but the wings that
lay upon the workmen’s trays were magnificently beautiful. Thousands of
kingfishers are murdered every year to deck these foolish Chinese
baubles. I believe that the meat of the birds is utilised for food; and
that, of course, makes the crime nil—if we are to eat slaughtered
innocents at all.
We bought ivories at one shop, and carved ebonies at another. We saw
baskets full to the brim with rare pearls; we saw seed-pearls sold by
the pound.
Our journalistic friend had come to Canton on business; but he was
neglecting it that he might help us to see more thoroughly the city,
which he probably knew as well as any Englishman in China.
We pressed in between the busy looms in a big weaving establishment. The
men talked learnedly of looms and like machinery all over the world; and
I gloated over the marvellous silks and satins. We went through such
gorgeous collections of black furniture. My husband, who rarely longs
for any creature comfort beyond a cigar, a rowing boat, and a horse, was
as tempted as I—I, who am always and so easily tempted,—and wanted to
buy a boat-load of the great, grotesque, carved things.
On our way back to the city gate, we stopped at a silk shop, and my
husband bought me a shawl that I kissed for its sheer loveliness, and
crêpes that I patted and stroked, and, when we were home, threw in
great, soft, silken heaps on the bed.
Chinese and Japanese embroideries are very different. Each excels in
some qualities. The Japanese are the more admirable in the use of gold
and silver; the Chinese are the superior in the use of many and mingled
colours.
When we reached the hotel—none too soon,—my spirits fell. We had a
hurried but merry dinner, and then we went upstairs, with just an hour
and a half to spare before our great “Shakesperian Recital.”
“James,” said my husband, severely,—he calls me James when I’m
bad—“James, you’re a villain.”
“But you are a saint,” I said in my most wheedling accents. “And you
know you recite superbly. You do all the recital. Tell them I’m
dead—make a speech before you begin, you know. And I will sit at the
door, and take tickets, and lead the applause.”
But he was uncoaxable. So I had to dress, and descend into the little
ante-room off the dining-room. I took with me a book of “Fine Poetical
Selections,” and searched feverishly for something to read. I boast of
having an exceptionally quick “study,” but, of course, I could not
memorise three poems in one hour and five minutes; so I had necessarily
determined to read, and not to recite.
I was the unhappiest woman in China that night.
My husband was in a gale of delight. He had trapped me into a recital
for once.
Well, it began at last. All the Europeans in Sha-mien—save one, I
believe—were there.
Our little stage was very wonderful. While we had been palanquin riding
through Canton, three or four coolies had brought into the dining-room
pieces of bamboo of different lengths. These had not been nailed
together; they had tied them together with wisps of bamboo until the
stage was shaped. Then across the top they had laid smooth planks. Into
these even they had not driven a nail, they had tied them in place. The
result was a perfect little stage.
My _confrère_ opened the, to me, ghastly entertainment. When he came
off, I seized my book desperately, and marched to my doom. They gave me
a cordial little reception. I could have shaken them. Our friend the
Editor, who knew the full measure of my unpreparedness, sat in the front
row, trying manfully to look respectful. Mr. Paulding stood gracefully
near the door. He looked anxious and nervous, and appeared contemplative
of flight.
I thought of Demosthenes, and wondered how it would do to begin by
saying, “Men and women of Sha-mien.” But really they looked too gentle;
so I said instead, “Ladies and gentlemen.” My husband giggled in the
ante-room. I could hear him. I opened the book—opened it by chance at
“Ostler Joe.” It wasn’t quite long enough, so I prefaced it with a
speech. In that speech I told all I knew, and a good deal that I didn’t
know, about the history of the piece, the author of the piece—an
American woman who had made it famous in Washington; and I remember that
I contrived to say something about the Princess of Wales. At that they
broke into hearty applause. Then I began to read. The print was bad, and
the light was worse, but I struggled through in some sad fashion. When I
had finished, it was the most astonished little audience you ever saw;
and Mr. Paulding had left.
I won’t chronicle my other two selections, nor record how they were
received. But, I assure you, on my word of honour as an actress, that I
was not a success.
However, I am, I believe, justified in saying that the second part of
the programme was worse than the first. The second part comprised four
scenes from Shakespeare—so the programme said. Mr. Paulding says that I
wrote the programme; I say that he wrote it. My husband, who, with all
his faults, is a gentle, peace-making man, says that the mistakes in the
programme were made by the Chinese printer. Mr. Paulding and I are both
reluctant to parent the programme when we recall how it was carried out.
The details of the “Four Scenes from Shakespeare” were—
A Scene from _Romeo and Juliet_.
A Scene from _Macbeth_.
A Scene from _Antony and Cleopatra_.
A Scene from _The Fool’s Revenge_.
At least so the Chinese printer said, but who could expect a Cantonese
compositor ever to have heard of Tom Taylor?
I do not know which of the four tragic selections was the funniest.
Picture Romeo, Macbeth, Antony, and Bertuccio in a nice new dress suit,
nice new patent-leather shoes, nice new white kid gloves; picture
Juliet, Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra, and sweet, simple little Fiordelisa in
a long, black, jetted, sleeveless French frock, ridiculously long tan
gloves, and shoes that were monstrous Parisian burlesques of the “human
foot divine!”
Need I say that there was no scenery? I tried to do my duty as a soldier
of the mask should. But my husband, who is a very shameless person, was
in an unseemly state of hilarity. And indeed, for all my trying, I
cannot say that Juliet’s impassioned words fell “trippingly from my
tongue.”
It was over at last, and the kind, patient audience went sadly out.
Across the globe I send them my greeting. Perhaps they will forgive me
the dire distress I must have inflicted upon them if they ever learn
that their misspent yen enabled me to see Canton.
How good, how English they were, those patient people! They would have
taught me, had I not known long before, that, whatever an English
audience may think, it is incapable of showing disapprobation to a
woman.
When the poor audience had escaped we had supper; our editor, Mr.
Paulding, my husband, and I. The editor said that he preferred my acting
to my reciting. Mr. Paulding said he had enjoyed the entertainment
immensely—especially after he left. My husband laughed and laughed, and
I ate my supper and suggested a midnight prowl through Canton.
But that, like much I say, was easier said than done. The Canton gate
was shut. So we said good-night and retired as nice English people
should. I lit a big flare of joss sticks in our chamber, for I had no
mind to forget, even in my sleep, that I was in Cathay.
We sat for a few moments on our balcony and spun strange webs of fancied
thought about Canton. We struck, with our mental fingers, a thousand
copper gongs and weaved big fabrics of Mongolian romance. And all the
while Canton was asleep.
The Chinese are a very normal people. Though their industriousness prods
them to lamp-lit work, they, as a rule, sleep as soon after sunset as
they can.
The next day broke in big Oriental splendour. There was to be no
Shakespearian Recital that night. We were going to spend the week in
Canton, and I was the happiest woman in Asia.
When we had paid to the Chinese dawn the weak obeisance of buttered
toast, fried fish, and superlatively hot coffee, we sallied forth into
Canton. How shall I describe that week? I can’t describe it. I can only
say, “Go East—go East—go East!”
We found the same chairs awaiting us. Our guide looked brisk and ready;
he had not attended our Shakespearian Recital. They carried us first to
the Cantonese execution-grounds. We did not go into them. I am a
curious, inquisitive, not to say a tautological female, but I did not
care to penetrate into that place of slaughter.
Three or four of our boys went from Hong-Kong to Kowloon to see an
execution. That was what they said; but revelations over which they had
no control led me to believe that they, in part at least, went to pit
the hard-earned wages of histrionic genius against the oblong gold
pieces of Chinese exchange.
They, knowing what a free-lance I was, asked me to go with them to
observe the extinguishment of sinful Chinese life; but my imagination is
more than my courage, and I declined. My husband was (what husband would
not have been?) madly angry.
I have never known whether the boys were joking or not; but I am
inclined to give them and myself the benefit of the doubt and to believe
that they were.
At all events, our Cantonese guide was in grim earnest, and evidently
felt injured because he was prevented from showing us what he apparently
thought the chief glory of his native city.
If you too, good reader, feel deprived of your sanguinary rights, I must
refer you to the printed records of more strongly-minded travellers.
There have been many such, and in their pages you will find your just
due of gory Chinese swords and of ghastly, trunkless Chinese heads in
big brown jars.
We spent several hours in a fascinating shop where old Chinese robes and
marvellous antique embroideries were sold. My husband bought me a
charming, magnificent cape that had belonged very many years before to a
mandarin. It was coarsely designed, but superfinely executed open-work.
Roses, leaves, and butterflies were the burden of its embroidered song.
The points of its irregular edges were finished with queer, silky,
crimson knobs and wee golden bells. Last summer I took off the balls and
the bells and three of the most _prononcé_ butterflies, and the former
cape of the noble yellow man made an inexpressibly effective zouave on
my prettiest house gown.
We were a little disappointed in the temple of the five thousand genii
and in the five-storied pagoda. But the flowery pagoda was a marvel of
quaint beauty; and the changing, panoramic wonder of the streets never
palled upon us.
We had a Chinese lunch with a Chinese dignitary, and he let me prowl
about his mansion and the ridiculous courtyard. He introduced me to his
wife, and she introduced me to her husband’s concubines, with whom she
seemed to be on the best of terms.
In China “concubine” means something very analogous to the “handmaiden”
of Biblical times. She is not a wife, but to Occidental ears the term is
best understood if it is translated “underwife—lesser wife.”
After lunch we visited the sanctum of a Cantonese editor, and from there
we went to one of the large popular markets. Shall I describe it? Shall
I try? Yes; there were—black ones and white ones and gray ones. The
black ones are considered far the most choice. Isn’t it horrible to
think of human creatures eating cats and dogs and rats? Is it not most
horrible? And yet—why? Can we allege one single sound reason against
it? I think not. And yet as I stood in that Cantonese market I did feel
for a moment very much as Hamlet felt when he held Yorick’s earthy skull
in his hands. As for my husband; he fled. I wonder why men are in so
many ways daintier than women?
It was a gruesome sight, that busy market-place, with great piles of
meat cut from animals we scarcely mention when we eat. Poor pussies!
they looked very pathetic. And I could have cried over the massacre of
the puppies. The rats hung in countless numbers upon long, stretched
strings. Probably I would better not describe more minutely. It did
revolt me. And yet I do not know why it should have done so.
Unless we adopt vegetarianism and abstain from eating aught that has
possessed animal life and consciousness, I do not see how we can
consistently condemn the Chinaman, because he is less erratic than we in
his selection of food, and because he is the creature of a sterner
necessity than ours. If we consider the vast numbers of Chinese that
must eat to live,—if we consider the proportional density of the
population,—I am sure that we shall be just enough to realise that the
Chinese must utilise every available atom of wholesome food.
Emperors and heroes have supped off strange flesh in time of war.
According to some historians Napoleon’s larder was reduced to cat’s
flesh, during the retreat from Moscow.
The most elegant woman I ever knew, a French woman who went through the
Commune, told me once, “Ze meat of ze horse, it iz very nasty, but ze
meat of ze rat it is nice, if you know not what it iz.”
“The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.”
We tip-tilt our nice European noses at a great deal, because we have had
no usage of it. Sometimes we are condemned as unreasonable. Prejudice
and lack of sympathy are near akin to injustice and misjudgment.
We left Canton reluctantly. As we neared Hong-Kong my comrade said to
me—
“James, would anything on earth induce you to repeat that recital?”
“My friend,” I said, “if I could have another long day’s prowl about
Canton I would stand up and recite the whole play of _Hamlet_ all by
myself,—and to an audience of three.” And I meant it.