THE DRAGON'S CLAWS
The next morning the boys were up bright and early, ready for their trip
through the city.
"By George," said Dick, "I have to pinch myself to realize that we're
really in China at last. Until a month ago I never dreamed of seeing it.
As a matter of course I had hoped and expected to go to Europe and
possibly take in Egypt. That seemed the regulation thing to do and it
was the limit of my traveling ambition. But as regards Asia, I've never
quite gotten over the feeling I had when I was a kid. Then I thought
that if I dug a hole through the center of the earth I'd come to China,
and, since they were on the under side of the world, I'd find the people
walking around upside down."
"Well," laughed Bert, "they're upside down, sure enough, mentally and
morally, but physically they don't seem to be having any rush of blood
to the head."
An electric launch was at hand, but they preferred to take one of the
native sampans that darted in and out among the shipping looking for
passengers. They hailed one and it came rapidly to the side.
"See those queer little eyes on each side of the bow," said Tom. "I
wonder what they're for?"
"Why, so that the boat can see where it is going," replied Dick. "You
wouldn't want it to go it blind and bump head first into the side, would
you?"
"And this in a nation that invented the mariner's compass," groaned Tom.
"How are the mighty fallen!"
"And even that points to the south in China, while everywhere else it
points to the north. Can you beat it?" chimed in Ralph.
"Even their names are contradictions," said Bert. "This place was
originally called 'Hiang-Kiang,' 'the place of sweet waters.' But do you
catch any whiff here that reminds you of ottar of roses or the perfume
wafted from 'Araby the blest?'"
"Well, not so you could notice it," responded Ralph, as the awful smells
of the waterside forced themselves on their unwilling nostrils.
They speedily reached the shore and handed double fare to the
parchment-faced boatman, who chattered volubly.
"What do you suppose he's saying?" asked Tom.
"Heaven knows," returned Ralph; "thanking us, probably. And yet he may
be cursing us as 'foreign devils,' and consigning us to perdition.
That's one of the advantages of speaking in the toughest language on
earth for an outsider to master."
"It is fierce, isn't it?" assented Bert. "I've heard that it takes about
seven years of the hardest kind of study to learn to speak or read it,
and even then you can't do it any too well. Some simply can't learn it
at all."
"Well," said Tom, "I can't conceive of any worse punishment than to have
to listen to it, let alone speak it. Good old United States for mine."
At the outset they found themselves in the English quarter. It was a
splendid section of the city, with handsome buildings and well-kept
streets, and giving eloquent testimony to the colonizing genius of the
British empire. Here England had entrenched herself firmly, and from
this as a point of departure, her long arm stretched out to the farthest
limits of the Celestial Kingdom. She had made the place a modern
Gibraltar, dominating the waters of the East as its older prototype held
sway over the Mediterranean. Everywhere there were evidences of the law
and order and regulated liberty that always accompany the Union Jack,
and that explains why a little island in the Western Ocean rules a
larger part of the earth's surface than any other power.
"We've certainly got to hand it to the English," said Ralph. "They're
the worst hated nation in Europe, and yet as colonizers the whole world
has to take off its hat to them. Look at Egypt and India and Canada and
Australia and a score of smaller places. No wonder that Webster was
impressed by it when he spoke of the 'drum-beat that, following the sun
and keeping pace with the hours, encircled the globe with the martial
airs of England.'"
"It's queer, too, why it is so," mused Bert. "If they were specially
genial and adaptable, you could understand it. But, as a rule, they're
cold and arrogant and distant, and they don't even try to get in touch
with the people they rule. Now the French are far more sympathetic
and flexible, but, although they have done pretty well in Algiers
and Tonquin and Madagascar, they don't compare with the British as
colonizers."
"Well," rejoined Ralph, "I suppose the real explanation lies in their
tenacity and their sense of justice. They may be hard but they are just,
and the people after a while realize that their right to life and
property will be protected, and that in their courts the poor have
almost an equal chance with the rich. But when all's said and done, I
guess we'll simply have to say that they have the genius for colonizing
and let it go at that."
"Speaking of justice and fair play, though," said Bert, "there's one big
blot on their record, and that is the way they have forced the opium
traffic on China. The Chinese as a rule are a temperate race, but there
seems to be some deadly attraction for them in opium that they can't
resist. It is to them what 'firewater' is to the Indian. The rulers of
China realized how it was destroying the nation and tried to prohibit
its importation. But England saw a great source of revenue threatened by
this reform, as most of the opium comes from the poppy grown in India.
So up she comes with her gunboats, this Christian nation, and fairly
forces the reluctant rulers to let in the opium under threat of
bombardment if they refused. To-day the habit has grown to enormous
proportions. It is the curse of China, and the blame for the debauchery
of a whole nation lies directly at the door of England and no one else."
By this time they had passed through the British section and found
themselves in the native quarter. Here at last they were face to face
with the real China. They had practically been in Europe; a moment later
and they were in Asia. A new world lay before them.
The streets were very narrow, sometimes not more than eight or ten feet
in width. A man standing at a window on one side could leap into one
directly opposite. They were winding as well as narrow, and crowded on
both sides with tiny shops in which merchants sat beside their wares
or artisans plied their trade. Before each shop was a little altar
dedicated to the god of wealth, a frank admission that here, as in
America, they all worshipped the "Almighty Dollar." Flaunting signs, on
which were traced dragons and other fearsome and impossible beasts, hung
over the store entrances.
"My," said Ralph, "this would be a bad place for a heavy drinker to find
himself in suddenly. He'd think he 'had 'em' sure. Pink giraffes and
blue elephants wouldn't be a circumstance to some of these works of
art."
"Right you are," assented Tom. "I'll bet if the truth were known the
Futurist and Cubist painters, that are making such a splurge in America
just now, got their first tips from just such awful specimens as these."
"Well, these narrow streets have one advantage over Fifth Avenue," said
Ralph. "No automobile can come along here and propel you into another
world."
"No," laughed Bert, "if the 'Gray Ghost' tried to get through here, it
would carry away part of the houses on each side of the street. The
worst thing that can run over us here is a wheelbarrow."
"Or a sedan chair," added Tom, as one of these, bearing a passenger,
carried by four stalwart coolies, brushed against him.
A constant din filled the air as customers bargained with the
shop-keepers over the really beautiful wares displayed on every hand.
Rare silks and ivories and lacquered objects were heaped in rich
profusion in the front of the narrow stalls, and their evident value
stood out in marked contrast to the squalid surroundings that served as
a setting.
"No 'one price' here, I imagine," said Ralph, as the boys watched the
noisy disputes between buyer and seller.
"No," said Bert. "To use a phrase that our financiers in America are
fond of, they put on 'all that the traffic will bear.' I suppose if you
actually gave them what they first asked they'd throw a fit or drop
dead. I'd hate to take the chance."
"It would be an awful loss, wouldn't it?" asked Tom sarcastically, as he
looked about at the immense crowd swarming like bees from a hive. "Where
could they find anyone to take his place?"
"There are quite a few, aren't there?" said Ralph. "The mystery is where
they all live and sleep. There don't seem to be enough houses in the
town to take care of them all."
"No," remarked Bert, "but what the town lacks in the way of accommodations
is supplied by the river. Millions of the Chinese live in the boats along
the rivers, and at night you can see them pouring down to the waterside in
droves. A white man needs a space six feet by two when he's dead, but a
Chinaman doesn't need much more than that while he is alive. A sardine has
nothing on him when it comes to saving space and packing close."
At every turn their eyes were greeted with something new and strange.
Here a wandering barber squatted in the street and carried on his
trade as calmly as though in a shop of his own. Tinkers mended pans,
soothsayers told fortunes, jugglers and acrobats held forth to delighted
crowds, snake charmers put their slimy pets through a bewildering
variety of exhibitions. Groups of idlers played fan-tan and other games
of chance, and through the waving curtains of queerly painted booths
came at times the acrid fumes of opium. Mingled with these were the
odors of cooking, some repellant and some appetizing, which latter
reminded the boys that it was getting toward noon and their healthy
appetites began to assert themselves. They looked at each other.
"Well," said Ralph, "how about the eats?"
"I move that we have some," answered Tom.
"Second the motion," chimed in Dick.
"Carried unanimously," added Bert, "but where?"
"Perhaps we would better get back to the English quarter," suggested
Ralph. "There are some restaurants there as good as you can find in New
York or London."
"Not for mine," said Tom. "We can do that at any time, but it isn't
often we'll have a chance to eat in a regular Chinese restaurant. Let's
take our courage in our hands and go into the next one here we come to.
It's all in a lifetime. Come along."
"Tom's right," said Dick. "Let's shut our eyes and wade in. It won't
kill us, and we'll have one more experience to look back upon. So 'lead
on, MacDuff.'"
Accordingly they all piled into the next queer little eating-house they
came to, but not before they had agreed among themselves that they would
take the whole course from "soup to nuts," no matter what their stomachs
or their noses warned them against. A suave, smiling Chinaman seated
them with many profound bows at a quaint table, on which were the most
delicate of plates and the most tiny and fragile of cups. They had of
course to depend on signs, but they made him understand that they
wanted a full course dinner, and that they left the choice of the food
to him. They had no cause to regret this, for, despite their misgivings,
the dinner was surprisingly good. The shark-fin soup was declared by
Ralph to be equal to terrapin. They fought a little shy of indulging
heartily in the meat, especially after Bert had mischievously given a
tiny squeak that made Tom turn a trifle pale; but in the main they stuck
manfully to their pledge, and, to show that they were no "pikers" but
"game sports," tasted at least something of each ingredient set before
them. And when they came to the dessert, they gave full rein to their
appetites, for it was delicious. Candied fruits and raisins and nuts
were topped off with little cups of the finest tea that the boys had
ever tasted. They paid their bill and left the place with a much greater
respect for Chinese cookery than they had ever expected to entertain.
The afternoon slipped away as if by magic in these new and fascinating
surroundings. They wove in and out among the countless shops, picking up
souvenirs here and there, until their pockets were much heavier and
their purses correspondingly lighter. Articles were secured for a song
that would have cost them ten times as much in any American city, if
indeed they could be bought at all. The ivory carvers, workers in jade,
silk dealers, painters of rice-paper pictures, porcelain and silver
sellers--all these were many _cash_ richer by the time the boys, tired
but delighted, turned back to the shore and were conveyed to the
_Fearless_.
"Well," smiled the doctor, as they came up the side, "how did you enjoy
your first day ashore in China?"
"Simply great," responded Bert, enthusiastically, while the others
concurred. "I never had so many new sensations crowding upon me at one
time in all my whole life before. As a matter of fact I'm bewildered by
it yet. I suppose it will be some days before I can digest it and have a
clear recollection of all we've seen and done to-day."
"Yes," said the doctor, "but, even yet, you haven't seen the real China.
Hong-Kong is so largely English that even the native quarter is more or
less influenced by it. Now, Canton is Chinese through and through.
Although of course there are foreign residents there, they form so small
a part of the population that they are practically nil. It's only about
seventy miles away, and I'm going down there to-morrow on a little
business of my own. How would you fellows like to come along? Provided,
of course, that the captain agrees."
Needless to say the boys agreed with a shout, and the consent of the
captain was readily obtained.
"How shall we go?" asked Ralph.
"What's the matter with taking the 'Gray Ghost' along?" put in Tom.
The doctor shook his head.
"No," said he. "That would be all right if the roads were good. Of
course they're fine here in the city and for a few miles out. But beyond
that they're simply horrible. If it should be rainy you'd be mired to
the hubs, and even if the weather keeps dry, the roads in places are
mere footpaths. They weren't constructed with a view to automobile
riding."
So they took an English river steamer the next day, and before night
reached the teeming city, full of color and picturesque to a degree not
attained by any other coast city of the Empire. Their time was limited
and there was so much to see that they scarcely knew where to begin. But
here again the vast experience of the doctor stood them in good stead.
Under his expert guidance next day they visited the Tartar City, the
Gate of Virtue, the Flowery Pagoda, the Clepsydra or Water Clock, the
Viceroy's Yamen, the City of the Dead, and the Temple of the Five
Hundred Genii. The latter was a kind of Chinese "Hall of Fame,"
with images of the most famous statesmen, soldiers, scholars, and
philosophers that the country had produced. Before their shrines fires
were kept constantly burning, and the place was heavy with the pungent
odor of joss sticks and incense.
They wound up with a visit to the execution ground and the prisons, a
vivid reminder of the barbarism that foreign influence has as yet not
been able to modify to any great degree. The boys were horrified at
the devilish ingenuity displayed by the Chinese in their system of
punishment.
Here was a poor fellow condemned to the torture of the cangue. This was
a species of treebox built about him with an opening at the neck through
which his head protruded. He stood upon a number of thin slabs of wood.
Every day one of these was removed so that his weight rested more
heavily on the collar surrounding his neck, until finally his toes
failed to touch the wood at the bottom and he hung by the neck until he
slowly strangled to death.
"Yes," said the doctor, as the boys turned away sickened by the sight,
"there is no nation so cruel and unfeeling as the Chinese. Scarcely one
of these that pass by indifferently, would save this poor fellow if they
could. They look unmoved on scenes that would freeze the blood in our
veins."
"This is bad enough," he went on, "but it is nothing to some of the
fiendish atrocities that they indulge in. Their executioners could give
points on torture to a Sioux Indian.
"They have for instance what they call the 'death of the thousand
slices.' They are such expert anatomists that they can carve a man
continuously for hours without touching a vital spot. They hang the
victim on a kind of cross and cut slices from every part of his body
before death comes to his relief.
"Then, too, they have what they name the 'vest of death.' They strip a
man to the waist and put on him a coat of mail with numberless fine
openings. They pull this tightly about him until the flesh protrudes
through the open places, and then deftly pass a razor all over it,
making a thousand tiny wounds. Then they take off the vest and release
the victim. The many wounds coalesce in one until he is practically
flayed and dies in horrible torment."
The boys shuddered at these instances of "man's inhumanity to man."
"Life must be horribly cheap in China," observed Tom.
"I wonder if such terrible punishment really has any effect as an
example to criminals," said Ralph.
"I don't believe it does," put in Bert. "We know that formerly in Europe
there were hundreds of crimes that were punishable with death. In
England, at one time, a young boy or girl would be hung for stealing a
few shillings. And yet crime grew more common as punishment grew more
severe. When they became more humane in dealing with offenders, the
number of crimes fell off in proportion."
"Yes," assented the doctor. "The modern idea is right that punishment
should be reformatory instead of vindictive. But it will be a good while
before China sees things from that standpoint."
"It is possible of course that the culprit here does not suffer so
cruelly as a white man would under similar conditions. The nervous
system of a Chinaman is very coarse and undeveloped. He bears with
stolidity torture that would wring shrieks of agony from one more highly
strung."
"Perhaps so," said Bert, "but I don't know. We say that sometimes about
fish. They're coldblooded, and so it doesn't hurt them to be caught.
I've often thought, though, that it would be interesting if we could
hear from the fish on that point."
"No doubt," returned the doctor. "It's always easy to be philosophical
when somebody else is concerned. But we'll have to go now," looking at
his watch, "if we expect to get to the boat in time."
"Well, fellows," said Bert that night as, safe on board of the
_Fearless_, they prepared to tumble in, "it certainly is interesting to
go about this land of the 'Yellow Dragon,' but it's a cruel old beast.
I'd hate to feel its teeth and claws."
Was it a touch of prophecy?