_A LITTLE PEKING PUG._
Enjoyment.--Anticipation.--Regret.
He was only six months old when we first knew him, with long silky
ears, and a little head covered with delicate yellow down, undeveloped
puppy body, but a grand white chest, and black muzzle; he had fine
long moustachios and long black eyelashes, from between which looked
out engaging lustrous eyes of a singularly intelligent expression. He
weighed just about three pounds at his utmost; and when he stretched
himself to his greatest length, he was only a hand and a half long.
But his port and his attitudes were those of a lion, or, when engaged
in worrying a piece of cord dangled invitingly before him, for all the
world just like those of a Chinese monster, only in miniature. In some
ways he was like a kitten rather than a puppy, so graceful and gentle
in his movements, with long claws, too, at the tips of his little
feathery feet, and a way of purring when he was pleased. He made many
little plaintive sounds, as if he were talking to himself; and
sometimes it almost seemed as if he were talking to other people too,
so articulate were they. His tail was his weak point--it was too
long. But some people said, that as he grew older it would curl up and
look shorter. We do not know if this would have been so, nor whether
his body might have developed into being too long or too thin, or
something. In size he was like a puppy, and his head and chest were
lovely. It was very difficult to avoid treading upon him, he was so
small and noiseless in his movements. So he wore three little rattles
round his throat, for he was too small to wear real Peking bells. And
it was extraordinary the genius the little creature had for crying out
before he was hurt, and as if he had been half killed too. But no one
ever saw little Shing-erh--Little Apricot, as he was called, from his
colour--put out, or angry about being hurt. He was always pleased,
always full of life, ready to fall off fast asleep, or spring up wide
awake, without a moment's notice, and never afraid of any person or
thing.
[Illustration: PEKING PUG (SHORT-HAIRED).
_Property of Mrs. Claude Rees_]
When bought of a Chinaman in the streets of Peking, he showed no
distrust, but nestled at once into European arms, went home in them,
and growled when strangers approached his master's door, or sprang up
delighted to welcome his master himself. He was carried about in a
coat pocket, or sat in an office drawer, gravely watching the writing
of manifests by the hour together; or at times trotted gaily through
the streets, ever and anon stopping to sniff out some to him perfectly
delicious bit of nastiness. Who so delighted as little Shing-erh, when
he found out he could actually run up the stairs to the dining-room?
And from that moment he was always fancying it luncheon-time or
dinner-time; for there was no doubt of one thing--the little
sleeve-dog did enjoy being fed. He enjoyed caresses also. If he would
not come when he was called, there was always one way to secure his
attention, and that was to pet Wong, our other dog, a Shantung pug,
about five times Shing-erh's size. Then the little one would come at
once. Poor Wong! He had been used to being called 'Little Wong,' and
treated accordingly, and at first he growled, and even bit the
new-comer. After that he looked heartbroken for a day or two, went
home by himself when taken out walking, and resisted all the little
one's efforts to draw him into a game of romps, till an idea struck
him, and he began to jump on to sofas and armchairs; for did he not
see the little one on them made much of? Once he even jumped right up
into my lap, and tried to nestle there. And he tried to bite bits of
cord, or our hands. But his teeth were very different from the tender
milk-teeth of the little sleeve-dog, who could not bite any one if he
tried. So these advances of his had to be summarily repelled. And
gradually, though somewhat sadly, Wong reconciled himself to the
situation; submitted to everyone's offering the little one crumbs of
delicacy, while he sat up on his hind legs unnoticed, although
chin-chinning beautifully with his two front paws; submitted when the
little one bit his ears, or flew at his eyes, or pulled his tail, in
order to attract his attention; and even condescended to be played
with occasionally.
It was a great affair taking little Shing-erh out; for he found the
world so full of interest, and would look round with intelligent eyes,
wagging his tail, as much as to say, "All right! but look what a
delightful place I find myself in." It was impossible to be angry with
him, though it made progress through the streets very slow at times.
Then when one took him up and carried him as a sort of punishment--for
he did dearly love to run--he would look so grave and serious, one
longed to see him frolicking once more. The only way was to walk very
fast; then the four little feet would go galloping along, the tiny
puppy bent on showing he could run as fast as other people. He was
never afraid of any dog, but quite big dogs used to run away from him,
he was so lionlike in his advances; and when he went to pay a visit to
any other dog, he always first drove his host into a corner with his
tail between his legs. Then only would the little one make up to him,
and gradually they would have a game of romps together. But just
because we were so fond of him he was a great anxiety; for any
Chinaman could put him up his sleeve and run away with him quite
easily. And every one took a fancy to him; though not every one, like
two sweet little children, asked first if they might carry him, next
if they might kiss puppy-dog, and finally if they might exchange a
baby-sister of the same age for him.
One day, holding him up for a child to stroke, I noticed that the
little one's breath, till then always so sweet, smelt a little. It had
been very cold coming up-river in the winter weather, and it was still
colder going on, damp and raw; and we hardly knew how to keep
ourselves warm, much less the little puppy-dog. So it seemed hard to
prevent him from lying close to the stove; but possibly it was that
which made him ill. Or it may have been the little bones people gave
him on the steamers. Every one used to ask deferentially, "May I give
the little dog this? There is no meat on it." But there was a little
meat sometimes, and all the while there was poor Wong begging
unnoticed. But, then, Wong was very particular what he ate--he liked
some things, disliked others; while as to little Shing-erh, we never
found out what he did not like to eat whilst he was well. But now we
noticed he no longer cared to play. He would take a run outside for a
little while, he dearly loved to forage under the dinner-table, and
pick up stray crumbs; otherwise he wanted always to be nursed, making
little cooing sounds of satisfaction as he curled himself up on one's
lap, his little feathery head and long ears showing off to great
advantage as he did so. He was learning to sit up like Wong and beg
too, and even did so sometimes without anything to lean his feeble
puppy back against; and he had almost learnt to give a paw when asked.
We used to talk of all we were going to teach him, believing firmly
that nothing was beyond our puppy's capacity. We used to think how
pleasant it would be when our new house was built and the garden laid
out, and the little one could run freely about in it without anxiety
as to his being stolen. But from the day we arrived up-country, it
became increasingly evident that something was amiss with our tiny
dog. He could not eat biscuit soaked in milk, his regular food whilst
in Shanghai. He refused rice, unless fish were mixed with it. He
showed himself ravenous for fish. Perhaps it would have been wiser to
have been guided by the little creature's preferences. But bones and
meat were always very attractive to him, and they could hardly have
been the best food. He did not want to run after the first few days,
sitting down upon his haunches, looking very serious when set down.
How the country people admired him, when we carried him about, calling
him, "Little sleeve-dog," "Cat-dog," "Little lion," and asking leave
to stroke him, or stroking him without leave. "He comes from Peking,"
they would say; and they looked at him with pride and pleasure.
[Illustration: PEKING LION DOG (LONG-HAIRED).
_Property of Mr. George Brown, H.B.M. Consul._]
At last a day came when we despaired of his life. A Chinaman said,
"Let me take him, and nurse him. I think I can cure him. You see, he
is a Chinese dog, and you do not understand how to treat him. I can be
with him all the while." So from our great love for him we let him go
in his little quilted basket, with his quilted coverlet of gay
patchwork, and little red pillow made expressly for himself, because
he was so fond of making a pillow of an arm or a hand.
But in an hour or two he was brought back. He had thrown in his lot
with Europeans, and the little Chinese dog would not eat from the
hands of strange Chinamen, nor do anything they wished. His eyes were
already glazed, and he seemed already half dead when he was brought
back. So because all seemed over, and as if it did not matter what we
did now, we held him quite close to the stove and poured port-wine
down his throat. The little glazed eyes became limpid once more, and
he looked up, content to be with us. Then I sat with him on my lap,
thinking still of him as dead, and only waiting for the end. But the
little dog rallied so, that that night, when taken upstairs, he
struggled out of his basket on to the bed, where he had always loved
best to sleep. He liked to lie there, with his little black-and-tan
head looking so droll on the white pillow. Put down on the floor, for
fear he should fall off--for, alas! his little legs gave way under
him, and he tottered once as he tried to cross the bed--he actually
ran about the room, till he found the water-jug, stood up on his hind
legs, and deliberately dipped his pretty head into it and drank.
Perhaps that draught injured him, for the Chinese declared cold water
must be fatal to him. Anyway, after that his rallying power appeared
to have abandoned him. But even then he still used to look up and
listen with great intensity when he heard his master's step upon the
stair, recognising that to the very last. But though he lingered on
all the next day and night, and on into the next morning, he was
always growing weaker, till at last he could not swallow the spoonfuls
we gave him every two hours. Once or twice he had fits of barking; but
as he lay quite still and barked, we hoped he was quite happy,
thinking he was fighting and vanquishing some other dog rather than
suffering pain. Yet after such long drawn out dying it was a relief in
the end when on the twelfth day up-country we saw the little thing lie
quite still and stiff; though, as we looked at the graceful little
head curled round with its two silky ears, our eyes filled with tears,
and we felt almost as if we had lost a child.
[Illustration: ON A MOUNTAIN ROAD.
_By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
The little dog had been of no use, and required much looking after;
yet he had endeared himself to all who knew him. His dainty ways, his
bright good humour, and intense pleasure in the society of his friends
perhaps accounted for this. And yet our hearts smote us as, after the
little one was taken from us, and we stooped to caress poor faithful
Wong with a warmth to which of late he had been unaccustomed, the
honest creature sprang on to the seat beside me with extraordinary
effusiveness, and began leaping about and catching at our hands with
the exuberance of long-repressed affection. Next night, though
provided with a beautiful kennel full of straw downstairs, Wong slept
out in the cold and rain in the courtyard outside our door, as he had
been used to do in the old days. We tried to pet him, and make up for
our loss by being additionally kind to all other dogs we saw. But when
I see the pencil I once gave Shing-erh to gnaw, with all the marks of
his little teeth, or his little rattles, the aching comes again to my
heart, thinking of what might have been, and how if we had known
better we might perhaps have preserved the life of the pretty pet, who
so implicitly trusted and relied upon us.
As the intensest feelings ever become less intense if spoken about, so
that in all ages the greatest danger has been for teachers of
religious faith lest they should themselves cease to feel whilst
infusing faith in others, so I have sought to take the edge off my
grief by writing some account of little Shing-erh, aged twelve months
when he died. Anyhow, whenever we leave China behind us, there will be
a tenderer feeling in our hearts whilst thinking of the blue-gowned
race, because of this little creature born and bred amongst Chinamen,
and yet so engaging, so fastidious in all his ways, and so entirely
without any fear.
Since then Wong is dead; and Jack, our faithful friend, and constant
companion during nine years of travel, a beautiful long-haired terrier
from Shantung, he too lies in a little grave, though his lustrous,
intelligent eyes haunt me still. Let no one lightly enter on a Chinese
dog as companion; they make themselves too much beloved, become too
completely members of the family. Even Nigger, the black Chow dog that
my husband kept before our marriage, and whose greeting he looked
forward to all the long voyage out to China--even Nigger seems like a
living personality to me, and I can hardly believe I never saw him.
Beloved dogs, companions of a life too solitary, because amongst an
uncompanionable race, Requiescant in pace! Good-bye, Shing-erh!
good-bye, Jack! Others may, but I can never look upon your like
again. There must be some subtle unnoticed quality in the Chinaman to
breed such dogs; and the sweet little Szechuan ponies, miniature
race-horses in form, and almost human in their intelligence, are
fitting companions for the dogs, and doglike in their faithful,
cheerful friendliness.
[Illustration: A WHEELBARROW STAND.]
_AFFAIRS OF STATE._
PRELUDE.
PART I.--GETTING TO PEKING.
House-boat on the Peiho.--Tientsin.--Chefoo.--A Peking
Cart.--Camels.--British Embassy.--Walking on the
Walls.--Beautiful Perspectives.
It was in 1888 we first arrived in Peking, and we felt at once
convinced that, whatever wonders it might have to offer, nothing--no!
nothing could surpass the wonder of the journey. And when it is
considered that every high official throughout the empire had to
travel this same way in order to be confirmed in each appointment, the
wonder of it is enhanced. From Tientsin you could always ride to
Peking, if you were strong enough. Sir Harry Parkes did it in the day,
the year before he died. But if not equal to riding eighty miles at a
stretch, or eighty miles relieved (?) by nights at Chinese inns, you
had in 1888 to travel the way we did, taking boat up the Peiho as far
as Tungchow.
We left Tientsin at two o'clock on Thursday, and reached Tungchow at 9
p.m. on Sunday, having been very lucky, as it appeared. We had a
south-west wind all Friday, spinning us along certain reaches of the
ever wriggling, rather than winding Peiho. Along the reverse reaches
the men had to tow or pole us. On Saturday the wind was so high that
we had to lie to in the middle of the day, the men being unable to
make any way against it by towing. And we only made a very few miles
that day. In the afternoon it rained, and was altogether cheerless.
But on Sunday we had a fine westerly wind blowing us on. Although a
river, the Peiho in this part of its course is decidedly more
canal-like and uninteresting than the English canal down which I had
had some thought of travelling the year before, till I decided it
would be too tedious. But after all there is a charm about this
exceedingly slow method of progression. The world does not really
stand still with you, but you feel as if it did. You get interested in
the boats you pass and meet; some coming down stream, laden with
plants in pots--two dwarf orange-trees, with oranges on them, I saw
once--or bringing down straw braid, or taking up brick tea--such
quantities of brick tea, which had, I suppose, come all the way down
the Yangtse from poor water-beleaguered Hankow of the willow avenues
and ravening mosquitoes, and round farther by sea from Shanghai to
Tientsin, and whose progress on strings and strings of dignified
camels Siberiawards we subsequently saw. What brick tea costs in the
original instance I do not know. But when I think of the labour
expended on its transport I feel it ought to be precious indeed to the
Siberians.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF GOVERNOR'S OFFICIAL RESIDENCE AT HANGCHOW.]
Every now and then we got out and walked along the banks, looking
backwards at the long zigzagging procession of boats behind us, each
with one large sail, or at times each with a bare mast, looking like a
long line of telegraph-poles. And beside us was the line of real
telegraph-poles, forerunners of the coming railway that has since been
opened; and we knew that the foreigners who would approach Peking in
the old historic manner were already numbered. For there will be
nothing to tempt people to provide themselves with all the necessaries
of life for a three or four days' trip, now that the railroad is open
and you can book direct. There is nothing to be seen upon the road
that cannot be seen as well elsewhere,--mudbanks, sandhills, millet-
and sorghum-fields with poor crops, fairly nice trees, fences gay with
convolvulus flowers, mud houses, mud roofs, and level mudbanks crowded
with all the disreputable refuse of a poor Chinese village; then
wood-cutters (one or two substantial coffins stood out prominently
alongside of them; wood seems too precious for anything but coffins in
those parts), a mule and a pony ploughing, or a donkey or an ox, never
a pair of animals of the same kind. All these one looks at with a
pleasant interest as one saunters or floats by. But you can see them
elsewhere; or you can never see them, and yet be none the worse for
the miss.
It is true that by the old method you could shut yourself into the
boat cabin, and study colloquial Chinese according to Sir Thomas Wade,
or write letters home to say how you were enjoying yourself, or drink
tea, or smoke, just as your previous way of life disposed you to act,
there being no restraining influence further than the size of the
cabin. A native boat is not quite as luxurious as a Shanghai
house-boat, though it is well enough, except in the matter of its
being impossible to open the cabin door from the inside. So that when
we were shut in, I always thought how, if the boat should heel over,
we should be drowned inside like mice in a trap. Another exception
must be made--not in favour of the cracks which grow portentously
larger, as the boards shrink with the increasing dryness of the air,
and which must let in an inordinate draught in winter, when the air is
more cold than kindly. Even towards the end of September we found it
hard enough to keep warm at night. We had two cabins, but one was
pretty well all bedstead, being a raised ottoman sort of a place,
under which boxes could be put, and on which mattresses were laid. We
had to provide ourselves with everything we wanted, even to a
cooking-stove. But then we paid only nine and a half dollars for our
boat, including drink money. This at the then rate of exchange was
under thirty shillings. The men fed themselves. So did we. It is
tiresome that, travelling in China, nothing is to be bought by the
way, beyond chickens and eggs, and sweet potatoes (delicious!) and
cabbage (horrible!). It is tiresome, also, that the makers of tinned
things do not put dates upon their tins; therefore in the
outports--which Shanghai fine ladies always pronounce as if they were
only peopled by "outcasts"--people have to put up with the tinned milk
that somehow did not sell at Shanghai. It is a pity that the local
representatives of the Army and Navy Stores do not see to this, and
put dates on their tins. It would be well worth the "outcasts'" while
to pay extra for recently tinned butter and milk, if they could rely
upon the dates. As it was, our milk was very nearly butter, though it
could not quite be used for that, and it certainly was not milk.
The Concession at Tientsin is either so far away from the Chinese
town, or so satisfactory to its inhabitants, that they never stray
away among the Chinese. On landing at the bridge of boats in the
native city, while our servants made a few purchases, I found I
excited as much interest as if there had not been a European colony
within a thousand miles. It was, however, a particularly friendly
crowd that accompanied me. A boy danced in front, clapping his hands,
as if to bid the people in the street make way; another boy was very
eager to point out all the sweet cakes he thought nicest; two old
women and an old man went down on their knees to beg; an old man was
washing very old shoes upon the bridge; another was selling odds and
ends of old things, that looked as if they never had been new. There
were sweet potatoes cooking; there were various other buyers and
sellers, and crowds passing by, both on foot and in boats. Sometimes
the bridge would be opened, sometimes closed to let the foot
passengers go by. There was always a crowd; whichever way of progress
was open, people were always progressing by it before it was ready for
them. Nobody pushed, nobody was rude; every one appeared pleasant. But
there, looking down the long straight reach of the river, was the tall
tower of the ruined Roman Catholic Cathedral, recalling the massacre
of 1870--a massacre that might so easily have embraced all the
Europeans in the Concession, had not the rain mercifully come down in
torrents and dispersed the mob. It did not seem possible, when we were
there, to think of any danger of the kind threatening the
exceptionally thriving-looking settlement.
I have not seen any Concession yet I liked the look of so well as that
of Tientsin. There is a go-ahead look about the place, with all its
goods stored in heaps on the Bund with only matting over them, instead
of, as elsewhere, in warehouses; which makes it contrast especially
with Chefoo, that sleeping beauty, whom no fairy prince has yet
awakened. Perhaps, when he does, the merry wives of China, who used to
resort there every summer, may find it hardly as charming as it was in
its tranquillity and freedom from all restraint. But it was so
tranquil, so absolutely uneventful, that our summer month there seemed
only like a dream to look back upon. Its coast-line is beautiful; but
it is a coast-line with nothing behind it, as it were--like the cat's
smile in _Alice in Wonderland_, a grin and nothing more.
But it was at Tungchow in the old days that the tug of war in getting
to Peking used to begin. You had bought all your stores, and
furnished your boat, and spent days and nights in it; but all that was
nothing to the great business of getting to Peking. There were
thirteen miles yet to do, and the question was, How did you mean to
try to get over them? My own firm conviction now is that the easiest
way would have been to get up very early in the morning and walk. But
as it was, I came into Peking in the traditional style, feet foremost
in a springless cart, holding on hard to either side. We started at
eleven in the morning from Tungchow, paused for an hour at a wayside
inn to eat and rest, and did not reach Peking till six, only just
before the gates were closed. At first starting I thought the accounts
of the road had been exaggerated. It is true it was so dusty at
intervals I was more reminded of a London fog than anything else. It
is true I could not leave go with either hand without getting a
tremendous bump on the head. But still I did not think the road was
quite as bad as I had expected. Alas! the road was so bad we had not
started by it at all, but were simply getting along by a way the carts
had made for themselves. At Pa-li Chiao we came upon the real grand
stone road, with the grand bridge made by the Ming Dynasty--when they
moved their capital from Nanking to Peking, in order better to repel
invading Tartar hordes--and never in the centuries since repaired by
the Tartar horde of Manchus, who at once conquered them, when they
thus obligingly put themselves within easy reach at the very extreme
limit of their vast empire.
[Illustration: FARMER AND WATER BUFFALOES.
_By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
There was the road, with huge blocks of stone, some of them five feet
long, and wide and thick in proportion, but sometimes worn away,
sometimes clean gone. Now to hold on like grim death! How the smartly
varnished little carts with their blue tops kept together at all I
cannot imagine. But I know I immensely respected the mule that could
pull us into and out of the holes and ruts, into which we dropped with
a veritable concussion, not a jolt. Of course it was a new
sensation--but a new sensation it can do no one any good to
experience; and before I had had half an hour of it I had had enough,
and asked for a donkey. However, the donkey brought was so tiny that,
after a rest on its poor little thin back, I tried the cart again. The
road did not seem quite so bad as before, until we got nearer the
capital. Then--then I got out and walked. There was no help for it.
And walking was decidedly less fatiguing. But an increasing crowd
followed me. Every one spoke to me--I hope complimentarily. Men
selling clothes waved them at me, and sang to invite purchase. It was
hard work to avoid the carts, and donkeys, and mules, and camels, and
men carrying things, and Manchu women with feet of the natural size,
violently rouged faces, and hair made up into teapot handles, sticking
out quite six inches behind their heads, or made into stiff wings,
projecting about three inches on either side, and always with flowers
stuck into their hair. It was hard work to avoid all these, and to
keep up with the carts, and disagreeable to be choked and smothered in
dust, and to feel oneself all the while appearing to every one as an
escaped lunatic--ploughing through dust on one's own feet, instead of
being driven along properly. But anything was better than jolting
along that road till the great mock fortress came into view. We were
about to enter the gates. The crowd there was too great to try to
press through; so I climbed into the cart once more, and thus entered
Peking _comme il faut_, in a springless cart.
[Illustration: PAPER-BURNING TEMPLES.
_By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
It is the custom to say the road to Peking from Tungchow is
desperately uninteresting. It may be so. I feel I ought hardly to
hazard an opinion, for I was afraid to leave my eyeglasses dangling,
and thus only once or twice managed both to get them out and up to my
eyes sufficiently steadily to see through them; but to my shortsighted
gaze there appeared to be a constant series of interesting graves and
gateways and monsters, which I longed to examine more closely. Then
the long procession of camels carrying brick tea northwards, or
coming south empty to fetch it, did not become monotonous, even after
I had seen some thousands or more of them. The men riding upon them
had handkerchiefs tied in a very simple way, which, however, I at once
saw was the original of the old homely English sun-bonnet. The men
walking by their sides had conical oil-paper hats, which were equally
evidently the original of the Nice hats of my youth. They had even red
linings to them, such as I had so often worn myself in Europe, and
three little spots of black, whose nature I could not quite make out,
but which on my hats used to be represented by three little stars of
black velvet. I had always thought a Nice hat looked Chinese, and,
since I came to China, that it would be the very thing to wear in
summer; and now here I found these camel-drivers wearing the old
original model, which probably the Jesuits carried over long ago to
North Italy.
The camels placed their springy hoofs softly on the hard, stony road.
Those that wore bells carried their arched necks high. Their grave
eyes looked down kindly on the clouds of dust. Between their two humps
rode a man, as in a natural saddle. Their yellow necks shone in the
slanting rays of the sun, while the great tufts of hair at the tops of
their legs stood out darkly. I thought I should grow tired of them,
but I had not even by the time we had reached the gate of Peking, at
the end of our long day's travel of _thirteen_ miles.
"Is this inside the city or outside the city?" I asked at last of my
stout carter, when we seemed to have been travelling an interminable
distance through roads rather like Clapham Common, if there were no
grass upon it, and two rows of booths cutting it into three
divisions--two of booths and one of road--so wide and uncared for and
wildernesslike was this last. "Inside the city," answered he
haughtily. I felt as if I had been very rude to ask, and longed to
apologise, if I had hurt his feelings. But the road was so unlike a
city street. It was like a large caravanserai, or like the encampment
of a savage tribe. The shops that skirted the road had gaily gilded
fronts, and every now and then a shopkeeper sent out men to scoop up
the liquid filth at either side, and sprinkle it upon the dust by way
of somewhat keeping it down. The smell resulting left nothing to be
desired. Long before we reached Peking I had decided that the Chinese
were a docile, peaceable nation of traders, overrun by a northern
horde so incurably barbarous, that not even centuries of contact with
the Chinese had been able to civilise them, though it might have made
them so effeminate that they would soon become effete. I now began to
wonder how long Peking could go on accumulating filth within its walls
without breeding a Black Death or other awful pestilence.
We drove on and on. At last we turned down a very disreputable,
dilapidated sort of mews; and there was the French Embassy to the
right, very smart in fresh paint; the Japanese Embassy, very perky,
with a European gateway; the German Embassy, dignified and fresh
painted. Round the corner stood the English Embassy, with a massive
but somewhat jail-like portal.
In the Middle Ages it often seems as if it must have been very
pleasant for the lords and ladies. And in Peking it is very pleasant
to live in a ducal palace. From the moment the Embassy servant stepped
forward with a fly-flap, and courteously flapped the dust off our
boots, everything was charming. We never wished to go outside again to
face that vile mews, with its holes, its dust, its smells. We forgot
all about it, as we looked at the stately perspective of the inner
entrance of the Palace,--its ceilings richest blue and brilliant
green, relieved by golden pomegranates and dragons; its mortised beams
projecting, all highly painted, green, red--green, red. Not a sound
penetrated within its sheltered courtyards. The wood-carvings were
beautiful, the galleries long enough to satisfy all desire for
walking. The Chinese decorations satisfied our eyes. At last--at last
we had come upon something Oriental in China, æsthetic,
eye-satisfying. At the same time we were surrounded by every English
comfort, enjoying delightful English society! Why ever go outside the
Embassy compound? Could Peking possibly have anything to show worth
encountering such horrors as those of its entry, a survival from those
Middle Ages so agreeable to read about, so disagreeable to live in?
[Illustration: APPROACH TO MING EMPERORS' TOMBS, PEKING.
_By Mr. Stratford Dugdale._]
But one evening we took the one Peking walk, along the summit of the
walls. There was something pathetic, as well as ludicrous, in thinking
of European attachés and their wives, European diplomatists and their
families, having for a pleasure-walk the walls of Peking. The horrors
of the approach to them can only be realised by those who know what
the _entourage_ of the walls of a Chinese city is generally like. They
cannot be described in a book, that may lie on an English drawing-room
table. Arrived at the top, you find a wilderness of thorns and plants
and trees, and there in and out amongst them a narrow way, along which
a lady can barely manage to walk without tearing her dress. From the
walls you see the yellow roofs of the Imperial Palace buildings within
the inner wall, inside the Forbidden City. And you wonder what it must
be like to be a Chinese Emperor, brought up under one of those yellow
roofs, and never allowed outside that Forbidden City, except for a
ceremonial visit to a temple, to pray for rain or fine weather. You
see the green-tiled roofs of the princely ducal buildings, far more
effective than the yellow by the evening light. On the one side you
look at the "Outside City," the China town; on the other the "Inside
City," the Tartar town, where the Embassies, etc., are. In the centre
of this last, four-square, is placed the Forbidden Imperial City. Then
you look out into the distance upon the western hills, beautiful in
the sunset light. But it is fast growing dark. As we came out, the sun
was still too hot to be pleasant. Now already it is too dark to
discern distant objects. We turn back to that oasis in the wilderness
of Peking, that fairy palace, the Ying-kuo Fu. We reach once more the
beautiful perspective, that makes us long for the British Minister to
stand in state with his following, holding a reception of Chinese
mandarins, that we might see them all grouped according to their
dignities against such a picturesque background. Then looking at the
blue and green and golden dragon beams, at the sunshine and the
stillness of the courtyards, we feel inclined, like Germans, to evolve
the rest of Peking out of our own inner consciousness. Oh, rest ye,
brother-mariners, we will not wander more!
PART II.--THE SIGHTS OF PEKING.
Tibetan Buddhism.--Yellow Temple.--Confucian
Temple.--Hall of the Classics.--Disgraceful
Behaviour.--Observatory.--Roman Catholic
Cathedral.--Street Sights.--British
Embassy.--Bribes.--Shams.--Saviour of Society.--Sir
Robert Hart.
The "sights" of Peking have not been on view of late years. It seems a
pity, considering how many people have travelled thither hoping to see
them. And yet I am not sure that it is not a relief. It seems a duty
one owes oneself to go and see those one can, and the people even at
those behave with an insolence and indecorum such as I am not quite
sure if even seeing the sight makes up for. Anyway, the Temple of
Heaven has been closed of late years--that Temple in which to this day
worship is offered by the Emperor on behalf of his people, in
accordance with a ritual more ancient than any other still in use. The
Temple of Agriculture is closed; ditto the Clock Tower and the Bell
Tower; ditto, they say, all that remains of the Summer Palace. Even
the Examination Hall we could not succeed in getting into. Whilst his
one great friend advised us not to attempt the Lamaserai, where the
living Buddha in Peking resides, such a set of rowdies are the Lamas.
They demand exorbitant sums for opening each fresh gate; they lay
forcible hands upon visitors, and finally demand what they please for
letting them out again. That very thrilling tale of horrors "The
Swallows' Wing" is only a little heightened version of what a
traveller who went in might have to undergo. We rode up to the gate,
and the expression of the Lamas outside, who thought we were coming
in, was enough for me. I have studied the expressions of Neapolitan
priests, but they do not compare for vileness with those of these
Lamas: the Lamas, too, look fierce--fierce, coarse, and insolent. They
of course redouble their demands and insolence, when ladies are among
the visitors. The living Buddha himself can only be approached in the
guise of a tribute-bearer bringing offerings: a bottle of brandy, a
pound of sugar, and a tin of Huntley & Palmer's mixed biscuits,
sugared, are said to be the most acceptable. And we considered sending
this information to Messrs. Huntley & Palmer for advertising purposes.
But even with the biscuits and the brandy there has to be a good deal
of arrangement, all of which demands time. And, after all, the living
Buddha is only occasionally _en statue_; at other times he receives
like any other Tibetan. And whether one cares to associate with
Tibetans at all, except for missionary purposes, is a question. That
Buddhism, which with the Chinese is so pure and humane a religion,
they have transformed into something so gross, it seems their very
gods are unfit to look upon; the God of Happy Marriage impossible to
show to a lady, as said the Russian gentleman who had made a
collection of images, Chinese, Indian, and Tibetan! Chinese images are
all fit for any one to see, as their classics are fit for any one to
read; Indian images are questionable; but about Tibetan there seems no
question at all, and he simply asked me to advance no farther into his
museum, as my husband examined them. It was impossible for me even
then not to think that living surrounded by those horrible emblems of
divinity, his whole drawing-room full of them, must have some effect
upon the unhappy man's character. As I stood among them, an evil
influence seemed to emanate from them, and the subsequent career of
their unhappy collector confirms the theory; for but a few years later
he was dismissed from the Chinese Customs for some crime too bad to
mention, dying shortly afterwards. The collection has been bought by a
German museum. Let us hope those dreadful Tibetan images are not now
poisoning the minds of blue-eyed Germans.
Tibetan musical instruments for sacred purposes are made of virgins'
bones (the virgins killed expressly, we were told, but I doubt this);
their sacred pledge-cups, of human skulls. They prefer necklaces each
bead of which is made out of a tiny portion of a human skull, thus
each bone representing a human life. Their idols are represented as
wearing human skins, with girdles hung with human heads. So much as
this I was allowed to see in this wonderful collection of gods and
praying-machines, where meekly pious or coarsely jocund Chinese images
sit cheek-by-jowl with graceful, slender Indian deities, and cruel,
devilish Tibetan images. After all, no nation's conception of God can
be higher than the nation; but it is at least, as a rule, supposed to
be as high. Judging them by their idols, it was better, I thought
then, to keep out of the way of Tibetan Lamas--little thinking it was
to be my good fortune in subsequent years to penetrate into Tibet
itself, nor how rudely there I should find the Lamas treat me.
Even the tomb erected to the Banjin Lama at the Hoang Ssu (Yellow
Temple) repelled me, in spite of intricate marble carvings, considered
well worth the seeing. The workmanship was good, but the outline was
simply hideous. Not even purple-blue sky, and golden sunshine, and old
fir-trees, with golden-balled persimmons nestling beside them,
relieved it from its native ugliness. But alongside of it was a great
two-storied building in true Chinese style, that we indeed admired. It
stood four-square, with a grandly massive _porte-cochère_, answering
all the purposes of a verandah, so vast was it. We looked at the
simple, graceful curves of its two stories of roofs, the upper
definitely but only slightly smaller than the lower, and wished that,
when it fell to our lot to own a house in China, it might be after
this model. For two stories seem advisable for health, and nothing
could surpass in roof-grace those grand curves, modelled, it is said,
upon the upturning boughs of forest trees, though more probably upon
the tent of former ages.
[Illustration: TOMB OVER BANJIN LAMA'S CLOTHES, BUILT AFTER TIBETAN
MODEL OF MARBLE. BELL-LIKE CUPOLA AND UPPER ORNAMENTS OF GOLD.
INSCRIPTIONS IN DEVANAGARI CHARACTER, SANSCRIT, AND CHINESE.]
The Confucian Temple, where there are tablets to Confucius and his
four great followers, may be called a satisfactory sight, and has
remained open of late years. Viewed as a picnic place, it is
delightful. The vast courts, with their old, old fir-trees, gave me
far more pleasure even than the marble balustrades, or the ancient
granite so-called drums we had gone to see. But even there the
behaviour of the people was what anywhere else one would call insolent
in the extreme. The importunity, sores, and dirt of the Peking gamins
render them also a detestable _entourage_. Things reached their
climax, however, at the Hall of the Classics. The open door was as
usual banged to in our faces, as we came near; and we were then asked
through the closed door how much we would give to get in. Then as soon
as we got in, all the detestable rabble following us were let in too,
much though I begged they might be kept out. I do not think I had up
to that time seen anything so neglected and dilapidated as the Hall of
the Classics, the building in all China which one would most expect to
see kept in good order, nothing being so much esteemed in China as
learning, and especially the learning of the ancients. Some workmen,
with almost no clothing, were apparently employed in making it
dirtier; but directly we entered they left off doing whatever it was,
and devoted themselves to horse-play of the coarsest description,
standing upright on their hands, pirouetting their feet over the heads
of the crowd who came in with us, knocking some of them down, and
rolling them in the dust. They even went so far as to sit down in
their more than semi-nude condition on the same bench on which I was
sitting, and as near me as possible; whilst all the while there was
such a shouting and noise, it was impossible for my husband and me to
speak to one another.
It is all very well to remind oneself one is in the presence of a
great work, and to try and feast one's soul upon proportions and
perspectives in the presence of such lewd behaviour of people of the
baser sort. To put it prettily, I was distracted by a great pity for
people whose chances in life seemed to have been so small; in plainer
English, my temper began to rise. The porcelain arch we had come to
see was certainly beautiful, a masterpiece, but not soul-satisfying.
We duly noticed the elaborate eaves, protected by netting from the
birds. But then came the usual question: How much would we pay to get
out? They locked the door in our faces, demanding more money before
they would let us out. My husband could stand no more. He was just
recovering from a dangerous illness; but he took up a big beam, and
smashed open the door. It fell, lintel and all, and the latter so
nearly killed a child in its fall the crowd was awed. This just gave
us time to get on our donkeys. Then Babel broke loose again, and the
storm continued till we had ridden half an hour away, our donkey-men
nearly indulging in a stand-up fight in the end, one of them
brandishing at the other a very gracefully carved sceptre, that I had
just picked up at a fair, to my intense delight. "A nice fellow you
are," shouted one to the other. "You ate up all the biscuits, and now
you don't know the road. You are worth nothing at all." So that was
the way the biscuits had disappeared: the donkey-men had levied toll
on our luncheons, and we had suspected the Peking gamins. As there are
other porcelain arches in Peking, it might be as well for other
visitors to avoid the Hall of the Classics altogether, we thought.
It is horrible to write expressing so much dissatisfaction in the
presence of the far-famed masterpieces of a great empire, and the more
so as we were very sorry to be leaving Peking, and should much have
liked to spend a winter there, studying it all more thoroughly. But
Sir Harry Parkes, when he came back to it, said it was returning to
"Dirt! Dust! and Disdain!" and the only objection the passing
traveller would be likely to make to this sentence is that it might
contain a few more D's.
The Observatory is a delightful sight--always barring the behaviour of
the custodian, the most loathsome wretch I had yet encountered. And he
wanted to feel me all over; did feel all over the Legation Secretary
who kindly accompanied us, finally ransacking his pockets for more
money than he had thought needful to bestow upon him. The weird,
writhing bronze stands of the old instruments, with their redundancy
of carving, will be for ever imprinted on my brain. Both those that
stand below in a neglected courtyard, and those high above the wall,
standing out against the sky, commanding the great granaries and the
lovely mountains of the west, with the whole city of Peking lying in
between, its courtyards filled with fine trees, giving the whole the
aspect of a vast park rather than a populous city--all are beautiful.
These wonderful instruments were made under the instructions of the
old Jesuits, who so nearly won China to Christianity (would have done
so, probably, but for the jealousy of the other religious orders), and
who were for years the guides and counsellors of the Chinese Emperors.
As to the outside of the pavilions within the Forbidden City, all one
was allowed to see of them then, the glittering yellow Imperial roofs
are like my childish idea of a fairy palace. There they stand upon
their hills, dotted about among the trees, so glittering and graceful,
I thought I should never tire of riding past the Green Hill, across
the Marble Bridge.
[Illustration: LOTUS POND AND DAGOBA IN EMPEROR'S GARDEN.
_Lent by Mr. Willett._]
The Roman Catholic Fathers, who have for centuries lived under the
shadow of the Imperial Palace, were having then to turn out before the
New Year, as also the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, with their
innumerable foundling children. For it was said that the Empress
herself intended to reside in the Fathers' European house. It was she
who originally so objected to the high towers of the church, as
destructive of _Fung shui_. Then she was saying she observed ever
since they were built she had been particularly fortunate, and she
begged that church and towers and organ might be handed to her intact,
together with Père Armand David's valuable collection of birds.
Fortunately, there are counterparts of these in Paris, for it was
feared she might give one specimen to one favoured courtier and one to
another, and thus destroy the whole value of the collection. For the
shrewd Father, observing the extraordinary pride of the Chinese heart,
beside their own somewhat demure-coloured birds and butterflies, had
placed a collection of the most gorgeous specimens from Brazil and
Java, that he might say drily, when showing Chinese officials round,
"See how favoured are the other nations of the earth!" From the towers
the Empress may possibly intend to look down upon the Palace garden,
as no one hitherto has been allowed to do. For the Fathers were only
allowed to retain their cathedral on condition that no one ever
mounted the towers, from which a bird's-eye view can be obtained of
nearly the whole Palace garden. The church, it was then announced, she
would use as an audience hall, and, it was added, receive foreigners
in it. But such great changes as this have not yet come about in
Peking. No people better than Chinese understand saying they will do a
thing, and yet not doing it.
But, whatever happens in it, Peking, as long as it exists, can never
lose its character of a great caravanserai, in which one is always
coming upon the unexpected. For instance, a Red Button's funeral, as
we saw it one day, with about a hundred of the greatest ruffians,
misshapen, patched, tattered or naked, hideous, yet rejoicing in being
employed, each with a long red feather stuck strangely upright in the
oldest-looking Jim Crow sort of felt hat, carrying a banneret or a
parasol; the red chair of the official carried aloft; then afterwards
paper images of his wives, etc.! Or, if not a dignitary's funeral, one
comes across a bird market, every man with a well-trained,
red-throated bird sitting on a stick, crooked like a magnified note of
interrogation, or a hooded hawk. Then a street row--filth unutterable!
Perhaps a hundred camels sitting in little rings round their baggage,
and not obstructing traffic in the least; elegant curios laid out in
the dust of the street for sale; three carts all at once stuck in the
same rut, all their horses and mules resting, panting, after vain
efforts to get them out; Manchu women, with natural feet, very long
silk gowns of the most villainously tawdry hue; or mandarins in
exquisitely coloured silks, with only two wheels to their carts, and
those far behind it, so as to indicate their dignity, twenty gaily
clad retainers trotting after them on ponies! At one moment squalor
and filth, such as to make one think of St. Giles's as cleanly by
comparison; at the next or at the same moment gorgeous shop-fronts,
all of the finest carving, with most brilliant gilding.
But of all the sights on view in Peking, the finest sight to my mind
was the British Legation--a grand old Chinese palace, at that time
perfectly kept up, and gorgeous in colouring, deepest blue, pure
green, golden-dragoned, and lighted up with vermilion touches. Whether
one looked at the mortised beams, projecting outside as well as
inside, and thus forming the most complex, highly coloured eaves, or
at the decorated beams in the reception-rooms, each one a revelation
of colour to a London art-decorator, the eye was alike perfectly
satisfied. And at that time, owing to the exquisite taste of the then
British Minister's wife, as also probably to the liberality of Sir
John Walsham himself, the decorations of the Embassy thoroughly
harmonised with its architecture and colouring. If Peking outside was
an embarrassment of D's, the Legation was then all cleanliness,
comfort, and charm.
One cannot help reflecting sadly on what an object-lesson the capital
conveys to all the innumerable officials who have to travel thither,
as also to the crowds of young men who go there year after year to
compete for the highest honour to be obtained by competition--admission
to the Hanlin College. When the distances are considered in an empire
about as big as Europe, and also the difficulties of travel in a
country without roads and without railways, it is the more astonishing
this custom was ever started and can still be kept up. Each expectant
is mulcted in a heavy sum, as bribes to the officials about the
Palace. Thus the rabble of Peking live by tribute from the whole
empire. And so rooted is the custom, even the gatekeeper at the
British Legation would demand his toll, whilst the sums that have been
paid to get into the Imperial Palace often run into six figures. And
all who come to Peking know how things are administered there by
bribery and corruption, and see for themselves that nothing there is
cleaned, nothing ever put in order. As Sir Robert Hart himself says,
but for the clouds of dust continually kept in movement by the winds,
and brought in from the ever-increasingly impoverished country round,
they must have been all dead men in Peking long ago. The dust serves
as a great disinfectant, whilst it so permeates all clothing worn
there, that no dress in which one has once gone out in Peking seems
fit ever to put on again for any other purpose.
Peking is probably the only large city in the whole world where no
arrangements whatever are made for sanitation or even for common
decency. The result is alike startling and disgusting to the
traveller. But on inquiry it becomes even worse. There were
drains--sewers--in the time of the Ming Emperors, and it is now the
duty of a special official to report upon their condition every year,
and see that they are kept in order. But the drains are all closed up;
and though a boy in peculiar clothing is let down into them each year,
as it were at one end, it is another boy, though in the same peculiar
clothing, who is taken out at the other end.
[Illustration: MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, WITH SHAM BEACON FIRES TO LEFT,
FOOCHOW SEDAN-CHAIR IN FRONT.
_By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
China is the land of shams and middle-men, and the official from the
country sees all this, and, sore with the undue lightening of his own
purse, goes home, having learnt his lesson to exact bribes himself,
and himself rest satisfied with shams, and report all in order, when
he knows that it is not so. Far from feeling ashamed of the state the
roads in his own province have got into, he remembers those of Peking,
that are so much worse. Indeed, through all the country, since the
incoming of the Manchu Dynasty, it has been the deliberate official
intention to neglect the roads, thus making it the more difficult for
the people to assemble together and revolt against their alien rulers.
Probably, too, he sees the Tsung-li Yamen, the office created of late
years in order to transact business with European nations. Tsung-li
Yamen sounds well, but the building is a dirty, dilapidated shed,
that might pass muster for a cowhouse on an English gentleman's
estate, _if_ it were cleaned and fresh painted. To the Chinese mind
this building being set apart to hold interviews with the
representatives of Foreign Powers sufficiently indicates in what
esteem they are held by his Government, and what amount of courtesy he
is intended to mete out to them.
The foreigner, on the other hand, travels away, having learnt his
lesson too, if he be of a reflective mind, and that is, very briefly,
that there is no hope for China under the present dynasty. The Manchus
may have been a very fine people when they first entered China; but
since then they have lived _like gentlemen_, according to the common
saying, not earning their living, but as pensioners of the State,
nominally ready to be called out to fight, if wanted, in time of war.
They do not enter into business, they do not study, and they have lost
their martial qualities and become as effeminate as Chinamen. The
Chinese Empire has been decaying ever since it came into their hands;
and ever since I have known China the Chinese have been saying the
Manchu Dynasty has ruled its appointed number of years, and that it is
now high time for what they call a Saviour of Society to appear, as so
often in the past.
This Saviour of Society would probably have appeared long ago, but for
the help the nations of Europe, and especially England, have given
towards the centralisation of China. In the old days it is true the
Viceroys were appointed from Peking; but each Viceroy ruled pretty
well as he pleased in his own province, with his own exchequer, his
own army, and his own navy. We found it inconvenient to deal with so
heterogeneous a mass without any definite head, and threw our weight
into the scale of the Chinese Empire. First we helped to crush the
Taiping rebellion, which but for our intervention would probably have
succeeded, and by force have made the Chinese people at least nominal
Christians. Then through Sir Robert Hart the different Viceroys have
been impoverished; the money that in former times would have gone to
their private purses or to the administration of their provinces has
been diverted to Peking. The theory was that it would be used for the
good of the nation. But probably we shall some day know how much the
Empress has used for her private pleasures, according to the recent
indictment of her by the one great incorruptible Viceroy,
Chang-chih-tung, and how much has been absorbed by Li Hung-chang, and
all the army of Palace eunuchs and hangers-on.
The Chinese are a people of traders, and patient; they look on, and
say mentally, "No belong my pigeon," that is, "Politics are not my
business." But they dislike the Empress; they know the young Emperor
has been used merely as a puppet; and as to the idea of a Chinese
Empire, it is one that has never made its way into their heads. And
thus it is a grave question, when in the last Chino-Japanese war all
the great Yangtse was a moving procession of junks piled high with
human braves, their pigtails coiled about their heads, and their black
head kerchiefs giving them somewhat a piratical air, whether these men
of Hunan ever meant to fight the Japanese. They would have been ready
enough to fight the men of Anhui; and when the European settlement of
Shanghai found itself between a regiment of either force, the position
was so evidently critical, that very urgent remonstrances had to be
addressed to the Chinese authorities to move away either one force or
the other. But the Hunan men never fought the Japanese, and it remains
a question whether they ever intended doing so.
Even the passing foreigner must feel at Peking that it is not the
throbbing heart of a great country, as London is, as Paris is; but the
remains of the magnificent camp of a nomad race, that has settled
down, and built in stone after the fashion in which in its wanderings
it used to build in wood.
CHAPTER I.
_THE CHINESE EMPEROR'S MAGNIFICENCE._
The Emperor at the Temple of Heaven.--Mongol Princes
wrestling.--Imperial Porcelain Manufactory.--Imperial
Silk Manufactory.--Maids of Honour.--Spring
Sacrifices.--Court of Feasting.--Hunting
Preserves.--Strikes.--Rowdies.--Young Men to be prayed
for.
Almost all we can know of the Emperor of China is by hearsay. He lives
in his Palace inside the Forbidden City, which again is inside the
Manchu City, separated from the Chinese City, where are the lovely,
gilded curio shops. When he goes abroad, which he never does, except
to worship at the temples, all the people are ordered to keep
within-doors, and the most any outsider can do is to peep at him
through the crack of a door or from behind a curtain. But as I think
some details of his State may be interesting to the general reader,
and indeed would well repay thinking over, I have extracted an
abridged translation from a Chinese newspaper's account of the present
Emperor Kwang-shü's visit to the Temple of Heaven in 1888, when, it
must be remembered, he was only a boy between sixteen and seventeen.
Those who do not care for the accounts of pageants can easily skip
it. Those who read it will, however, learn much of Chinese usage
therefrom, and will perhaps better realise how remarkable must be the
character of the lad who, brought up from the age of four as the
central figure in such ceremonies, yet dared to place himself at the
head of the party of progress, and to introduce innovations. People in
England, angry with him for being overcome, think he must be a young
man of weak character. But contrast him with one of our European
princes, read what he has attempted, which I hope to describe in a
following chapter, and then decide which is the stronger character.
Kwang-shü has always been of weak physique--not unnaturally,
considering that he has never known what it is to go out into the
country, and take free, healthy exercise. But probably this has been
his salvation. Had he been a young man of strong physique, he could
never, probably, have withstood the promptings of his own nature,
together with those temptations of wine and women, by which he has
been surrounded from his earliest years. That he should not have taken
proper precautions for his own protection and that of his supporters
is hardly wonderful, considering that from babyhood he has been
treated as too august a personage even to be seen. Probably he had
learnt to believe his will was law, and must be executed. It is little
wonder if he now looks ill and his wife sorrowful, even if the
suspicions of poison be unfounded.
[Illustration:
SHAN CH'ING. PRINCE CH'ÜN. LI HUNG-CHANG.
Son of general (Tartar). Emperor's father (Manchu). (Chinese.)]
"On February 20th, 1888, the Emperor of China went in person to the
Temple of Heaven to pray for the harvest, with the usual ceremonies.
The day before his Majesty passed in the Hall of Abstinence, in
prayer, fasting, and meditation.
"On February 19th, at the fifth drum (the fifth watch, before
daylight), the Tʽai Chʽang Sze (a high bureau entrusted with the
arrangement of such ceremonials) placed a Yellow Table (the Imperial
colour) in the Hall of Great Harmony, the Tʽai-hwo Tien. South of the
Emperor's seat was placed an incense-burner, shaped like a small
pavilion; and in another similar erection, east of the left-hand
pillars, stood a scroll, on which a sentence of prayer was painted in
the choicest caligraphy. To the west of the right-hand pillars of the
building stood yet another pavilion, to contain the mounted rolls of
silk, which were painted with similar inscriptions. The Masters of
Rites and the Readers of Prayers stood respectfully waiting outside
the gate of the Hall of Great Harmony, holding in front of them the
silken scrolls in baskets and the incense in bronze censers.
"The Chief of the Ceremonial Bureau, already mentioned, called by Mr.
Mayers the Court of Sacrificial Worship, accompanied by other officers
of the Bureau, was waiting inside the Hall; and when the time arrived,
he proceeded, with the Imperial Astronomer, to the Gate of Pure
Heaven, to announce to the Emperor that it was two quarters of the
Hour of the Hare (_i.e._ 6.30 a.m.), and his Majesty issued from the
above-named gate, riding in a sedan-chair, passed through the back
left gate, and thus to the Hall of Great Harmony, where his
sedan-chair was deposited at the northern steps, and he entered the
building and stood in front of the left pillars, facing the west.
"Four officials of the Hanlin, or Imperial Academy of Literature, were
standing outside the right-hand door of the building, facing east. The
Readers of Prayers now issued from the inner cabinet, holding in front
of them, respectfully elevated, prayers written on scrolls of paper,
and entered the middle gate of the Hall of Great Harmony, the silken
scrolls and incense being borne after them into the Hall. In front of
them were borne a pair of incense-burners. The Masters of Rites, ten
in number, conducted them, preceding them, and mounted the central
steps as far as to the Vermilion Dais. The Readers of Prayers, those
who bore the prayer-scrolls, and the bearers of silken scrolls and
incense, having entered the central gate of the Hall, reverently laid
down their burdens one by one on the Yellow Table, and retired after
three _kʽotows_ (prostrations), touching the ground with the forehead.
"The Chief of the Court of Sacrifice then opened a prayer-scroll, and
the Master of Rites spread a cushion on the ground. The Emperor
advanced in front of the Yellow Table, and reverentially inspected the
objects lying on it, after which he performed the genuflection called
'once kneel and thrice _k´otow_,' and then took up his position again,
standing as before. The Chief of the Court of Sacrifice rolled up the
prayer-scroll again, and the cushion on which the Emperor had just
knelt was removed.
"The Readers of Prayers now advanced to the Yellow Table, and made
three _k´otows_. They respectfully took from the table and bore aloft
the prayer-scrolls, the silken scrolls, and the incense, which they
deposited one by one in the graceful pavilionlike stand meant to
receive them. With three more _k´otows_, they retired.
"The mandarin in charge of the incense now carried a box full of
incense to the incense-stand, placed it gently there, and withdrew.
"The bearers of the prayer-scrolls then left the edifice by the
central door, the stand containing the incense preceding them, and
that which contains the silken scrolls following behind. The Chief of
the Court of Sacrifice, kneeling, informed the Emperor that this part
of the solemn rite was over.
"His Majesty mounted his sedan-chair again, and returned to the
Palace.
"The clock struck 9 a.m., and the Emperor, in dragon robe and a cap of
ermine surmounted by a knob of crimson velvet, issued from the Palace
gate called the Pure Heaven Gate, seated in a summer chair borne by
eight men. Passing successively through the back left gate, the centre
left gate, and the Gate of Great Harmony, he arrived at the Mid-day
Gate, where he descended from his sedan-chair, and ascended his great
jade palanquin, borne on the shoulders of thirty-two men. As he
mounted, the equerries-in-waiting held a vermilion ladder or flight
of steps, leading up to the palanquin, to assist him in getting in.
All the bearers were dressed in outer robes of red silk and inner
robes of ash-coloured linen. On their feet were fast-walking boots of
the same grey material, with thin soles, the upper part round the
ankles being of black fur. They wore caps of leopard-skins, dappled as
if with coins of gold, with red velvet plumes, kept in position by
gold filigree plates, from which floated yellow feathers down their
backs. The palanquin is eight feet high, and weighs about 1 ton 16
cwt.; but the bearers walked swiftly under its weight, like
lightning-flashes or shooting stars rushing across the sky, and at
every five hundred yards they were relieved by a fresh set of
thirty-two men.
"When the Emperor ascended the great jade palanquin, the sedan with
its eight bearers still followed him. Beside the palanquin walked two
of the Chief Equerries to support it.
"Ahead of this stately procession rolled the five gigantic cars,
ordinarily drawn by elephants, which animals were this year absent
from the fête by permission of the Emperor, to whom the danger of
their suddenly getting ungovernable had been pointed out.
"Behind the Imperial palanquin were marching ten men armed with spears
hung with leopards' tails, ten men with swords, and a dozen men
carrying bows and arrows, all representatives of the Tartar corps of
the Body-guard.
"Behind them came walking about a hundred of the highest Manchu
nobility, Princes, Emirs, sons of Emirs, Dukes, Marquises, and Earls,
Assistant Chamberlains (who command in turn the Palace Guard), General
Officers of the Brigade of Imperial Guards, the Comptroller of the
Household, and the Prince of the Imperial blood who, as President of
the Clan Court, preserves the Genealogical Record or Family Roll of
the Ta Tsing Dynasty, all armed either with bows and arrows or with
large swords. As soon as this noble company arrived outside of the
Middle Gate, they all mounted their chargers, having before that been
obliged to walk on foot.
"The rear was brought up by two Assistant Chamberlains, with their
suite, bearing two immense yellow dragon standards.
"Outside the Mid-day Gate were kneeling a great number of civil and
military mandarins in Court dresses, who may not accompany the
procession, being not of sufficiently high rank, and so pay their
respects to it thus as it defiles past.
"The stone road to the Temple of Heaven, which is about two and a half
miles long, although not yet mended with stones as intended, looked
neat, with all its inequalities hidden under a uniform covering of
yellow soil. At the mouth of every road or street, whether within the
wall of Peking or outside it, which ran into the route of the
procession at right angles to its course, were mat sheds, draped
outside with blue cloth, serving as tents for Chinese infantry (Green
Standard), who mounted guard at each corner, armed with whips, to
keep order and silence amongst the people in these streets. At every
five paces of the road along which the procession passed stood a
guardsman of the vanguard, in full uniform, sword by his side and whip
in hand. The gates and doors of every house and shop were closed, and
red silk decorations hung in festoons in front of them, all along the
route; and in front of every sentry station were displayed bows and
arrows, swords and spears, arranged in symmetrical order, with
decorative lanterns and satin hangings. The Emperor, having arrived at
the left gate of the brick wall of the Temple, exchanged his great
jade palanquin for a sedan-chair with eight bearers only, and, on
entering the west side of the sacred path inside the Left Gate of
Prayers for the Year, descended, and on foot walked up to the Chamber
of Imperial Heaven, holding a stick of incense burning in his hand in
the prescribed manner, after which he inspected the victims (oxen,
etc.) laid out there, the sacrificial vessels of bamboo and wood, and,
returning to the west side of the sacred road, got into his
sedan-chair again, went out at the Gate of Prayers for the Year, and
repaired to the Hall of Abstinence, to pass a season in holy
contemplation in the Immeasurable Chamber.
"The duty of patrolling the Temple of Heaven, etc., devolves upon the
Princes of the Blood on these occasions. But Princes descended from
chiefs of the Manchu Dynasty before their conquest of China,
accompanied by the Emperor's aide-de-camp, the Chief of the Eunuchs,
and other officers, kept patrol outside the apartment, when the
Emperor, in the Immeasurable Chamber of his Hall of Abstinence, at
four o'clock in the morning, commanded supper, which was duly served
by the gentlemen-in-waiting, whilst the bronze statue bearing on its
head the inscription 'Abstinence' was set up, fronting his Majesty as
he sat.
"The Chief of the Court of Sacrifice, already mentioned, had arranged
a prayer-mat on the ground outside the Chamber of Prayers for the
Year, and had set up the Tablet of Shang Ti (the Supreme God) in the
interior of the Chamber, facing south, with, on the right and left,
the Tablets of the Emperor's Ancestors, facing east and west
respectively. A great curtain had been hung up outside the door of the
Chamber.
"The Emperor, in his sacrificial vestments embroidered with the golden
dragon, a Court cap of white ermine on his head, surmounted with an
immense pearl set in a gold ornament representing nine dragons, and a
necklace of one hundred and eight precious pearls round his neck,
issued from the Hall of Abstinence at the appointed hour, riding in a
summer sedan-chair borne by eight men, entered the Temple, and reached
the Left Gate of Prayers for the Year through the west gate of the
brick wall of the Temple. Here alighting, he walked into the Chamber
of Prayers for the Year, and adored Shang Ti (Supreme Ruler) and his
own august ancestors. The animal victims and the sacrificial vessels
of various sorts were here already laid out in the prescribed order.
"The Reader of Prayers knelt in front of his Majesty, holding up the
prayer-scroll in both hands, and reverentially recited the prayer. As
it was still dark inside the building, another official of the Court
of Sacrifice knelt beside him with a candle to throw a clear light on
the written words of the prayer. When the prayer had been read, the
Emperor knelt three times, nine times _kʽotowing_, then rose again to
his feet. The incense-bearer brought the incense, the winecup-bearer
brought the cup, the silk-bearer the silk, and the official with the
cushion spread it on the floor. The Master of the Ceremonies then
ushered his Majesty to his place. The Emperor knelt again thrice, and
_kʽotowed_ nine times, and when he rose again the musicians played
three antique airs.
"The paper ingots and the offerings of food from the carcases of the
animal victims were held up and presented, as prescribed by ancient
forms. Officers of the Board of Ceremonies, of the Court of
Sacrificial Worship, and of the Court of Imperial Entertainments,
holding respectively in both hands the prayer-scroll, the silken
prayer-scrolls, and the incense-case, advanced to the great
incense-burner, and solemnly burned all these objects to ashes. The
Chief of the Court of Sacrificial Worship then knelt, and announced to
the Emperor that the ceremony was finished.
"His Majesty, ascending the summer sedan-chair, returned to his
chamber in the Hall of Abstinence, to change his attire and have some
repose. Then getting into his palanquin again, he was carried through
the inner and the outer gates of the Temple, the State musicians
performing an ancient melody. The _cortège_, in the same order as
before, passed through the Cheng Yang Gate, and the Emperor burned
incense in the Buddhist Temple and the Temple of Kwan Ti (the God of
War). There Taoist priests in full attire knelt to receive him at the
left of the entrance. When this ceremony was finished, the Emperor
passed through the Ta Tsing Gate, the music ceasing as the bell tolled
out from over the Mid-day Gate. Passing through the Tʽien Ngan Gate,
the Tuan Gate, the Mid-day and the Tʽai Hwo Gates, and the Chien Tsing
Gate, he returned to his Palace in Peking, and the procession
dispersed.
"The Emperor entered the Palace, paid his respects to the aged
Empress, and went to his Cabinet.
"The knowledge that our Emperor thus worships the gods and reveres his
ancestors so devoutly, and prays for the people that they may be fed
and clothed, well protected, and happy all over the land, must surely
fill us with loyalty and admiration for his august person."
[Illustration: LATE VICEROY TSO TSUNG-TANG.]
On March 2nd of the same year it is recorded that "the Emperor went at
2.20 p.m. in a sedan-chair to the Pavilion of Purple Light, where,
seated under a yellow silken canopy, he enjoyed the sight of the
Mongol Princes partaking of the banquet which had been laid out for
them by his orders, including milk-wine (_koumis_) and milk-tea. Eight
champion wrestlers then had a few bouts at this sport, the winners
obtaining prizes of silk and meats and wine. The soldiers' trained
horses and camels then were put through some circus tricks, and there
was fencing with sword and spear. After this the visitors were
entertained with Mahomedan songs by the Mahomedan camp, and with an
exhibition of pole-climbing and tightrope-walking, music by a trained
band, horseraces, and singing-boys, concluding with a fine display of
fireworks. The Mongol Princes, rising from their places at the end,
respectfully thanked his Majesty for his kindness to them, and the
Emperor returned to his Palace in his chair at about a quarter to
five.
"When the Mongol Princes come to Court at Peking from their country
every year, they are presented by the Emperor with several hundreds of
rolls of silk, and also with a sum of about £685 for travelling
expenses, issued from the Board of Revenue through the Colonial
Office. In case the Board of Revenue does not issue this money in
time for the strangers to receive it before they start, the Colonial
Office is empowered to issue it in advance, sending in an account to
the Board of how it was distributed, as a mark of consideration for
men from afar."
In 1891 a Chinese paper gives us a list of the china sent from the
great porcelain works at King-teh-chen, near Kiukiang, for the
Imperial household: "The usual supply for the year comprised 80 pieces
of the finest quality and 1,204 round articles of a high-class kind.
In addition to this there was a special indent for 1,414 plates,
dishes, cups, and vases, to be distributed as presents on the occasion
of the Emperor's birthday. The total cost amounted to £4,000; and as
the yearly allowance is £1,500, there is a debit balance of £2,500,
which will be deducted from the surplus remaining over from previous
years."
In 1890 the _Peking Gazette_ tells us that "Yu Hsiu, the director of
the Imperial silk factories at Nanking, etc., applies for an extension
of the time originally allowed him wherein to execute a special order
for certain goods which the Emperor intends to distribute as presents.
He states that in the eighth moon he received an order through the
Office of Supernumeraries for embroidered robes, large and small rolls
of satin and silk gauze, amounting in all to 4,183 pieces, to be ready
for delivery in two months' time. As these are intended for presents,
he naturally must devote all his time and attention thereto, and
endeavour to have them ready as soon as possible; but he would point
out that, of the embroidered robes, there are 210 requiring very
careful fine work, and of the other articles 3,970 pieces of different
patterns, forming a very large total, to complete which his machinery
is inadequate. Under these circumstances, and considering that the
appointed time for delivery is close at hand, he is afraid he will be
unable to execute the order by the end of the tenth moon.
"The necessary funds for carrying on the work he estimates at £19,500,
and he will, in concert with the Governor of the province, take
measures to have this amount collected as soon as possible. He
proposes, in the first instance, to raise the sum of £10,000, and at
once set to work on the ceremonial robes; and some of the satin,
together with the silk, he hopes to be able to deliver within the year
as a first instalment. The remainder of the order he trusts will be
ready by the spring. By this means he will have adequate funds to
carry on the work as required, and greater care can be devoted to the
finish of the various articles. As, however, he dare not do this on
his own responsibility, he would ask the Imperial sanction to execute
the order in the manner proposed.--_Granted. Let the Yamen concerned
take note._"
In 1891 it is again the _Peking Gazette_ that tells us on May 1st: "Of
the one hundred and thirteen Manchu ladies presented to the
Empress-Dowager to be selected as maids of honour, thirty-three were
chosen and distributed about the Palace to learn their duties. Thirty
were ordered to be placed on the list of expectants. The rest were
sent back to their families, carrying with them gifts of much value."
Again the _Peking Gazette_ tells us in 1891: "It is a long-standing
custom of China in the spring of each year for the Emperor to perform
the ceremony of offering a sacrifice to the Patron Saint of
Agriculture, and for the Empress to offer a similar one to the Patron
Saint of Silkworms. By these means it is intended to encourage
agriculture and sericulture in the empire. The first sacrifice to the
Patron Saint of Agriculture since the death of the Emperor Tung Chih
was offered last spring by the present Emperor, who had not until that
time taken over the reins of government. The fourth day of the third
moon of the present year was appointed for offering a sacrifice to the
Patron Saint of Sericulture. As her Majesty was wearing mourning for
the late Prince Chʽün, two maids of honour of the first grade were
ordered to act on her behalf."
Prince Chʽün was the father of the Emperor, a man held in high esteem;
and of him the _Peking Gazette_ says in 1891: "His innate humility and
modesty made him receive such favours with ever-increasing awe and
respect. He never once availed himself of the privilege which we
granted him of using an apricot-yellow chair and, quoting the
precedent established in the case of the Palace of Perpetual Harmony,
he reverentially begged that his Palace, which had the good fortune to
be the birthplace of an Emperor, should be reclaimed by the State."
In the photographs extant it may be noticed the youthful Emperor
greatly resembles his father in appearance.
As giving a little further insight into the mediæval usages still
observed in the Court at Peking, it may be interesting to notice that
in 1891, "after the Clear-Bright Festival, the Court of Feasting, in
accordance with the usual custom, presented forty different kinds of
vegetables, such as cucumbers, French beans, cabbages, etc., to the
Throne, for the use of the Imperial tables"; whilst the following
extracts from different Chinese newspapers show some of the troubles
of the Palace.
In 1891 the _Hupao_ records: "The Imperial hunting preserves are
outside the Yungting Gate of Peking. The park is twelve miles in
extent, and contains trees of great size, hundreds of years old. It is
stocked with wild animals of varied descriptions; predominating among
them is the red-deer. As for the last twenty years no hunt has been
organised [poor young Emperor never allowed to go out!], the game have
greatly increased in numbers. The soldiers who keep guard over the
place daily poach on the preserves, and of late the inhabitants round
about the place have managed somehow to get within the walls and trap
the deer. The market is full of red-deer meat, which the dealers term
donkey flesh or beef, to evade inquiries on the part of the police.
The authorities have finally got wind of the matter, and by strict
watching caught three poachers, who have been handed over to the Board
of Punishments. The guards have received a severe reprimand and
stringent orders to prevent further poaching."
In old days the Manchus were a great hunting race, but they seem to
have lost all manliness, all the men now vegetating upon the pensions
assigned them since the conquest of China. But the Empress-Dowager,
whom Chang-chih-tung, the incorruptible Viceroy of Hupeh, has openly
accused of intercepting and appropriating to her own uses the money
voted for the army and navy, continues to enjoy herself. And again a
Chinese newspaper records: "The Empress-Dowager lately paid a visit to
the garden built for her by the present Emperor, and took a trip on
the Kun-ming Lake in a steam-launch." Whilst the _Shenpao_ relates:
"More than twenty large firms have taken over contracts for finishing
the Eho Palace gardens, which have been built by the Emperor as a
place of recreation for the Empress-Dowager, after her retirement from
managing the arduous affairs of State. Her Majesty prefers to visit
and stay in them during the summer, and the time appointed to have the
gardens in a complete state for her reception is very near. More than
ten thousand workmen have been engaged to hasten the work. Of these,
three thousand or more are carvers, who have caused much trouble while
working in other portions of the Imperial Palace ere this. Knowing
that the date for completing the gardens was near at hand, they struck
for higher wages, and in this demand all the carpenters joined. They
were receiving individually three meals and about eightpence per
diem. They demanded half a crown a day. On their employers refusing to
comply with this exorbitant request, a signal gun, previously agreed
upon, was fired, and thousands of workmen, carvers, carpenters, and
masons began to make threatening demonstrations. The officials on
guard, finding the police unable to cope with the multitude,
especially as the carpenters were armed with axes, quickly sounded the
alarm, calling on the rifle brigade, Yuen-ming-yuen guards, and
cavalry for assistance. These came with all speed and surrounded the
strikers. The officials and the head firms now began to negotiate, and
all parties were satisfied with an increase of 8_d._ a day for each
man."
Strikes and riots, indeed, it seems of late years have not been
infrequent in Peking; and this account of Tientsin workmen may well
follow here, as showing what has to be contended with:
"The Tientsin workmen engaged in the manufacture of iron rice-pans
are, as a rule, desperate and lawless characters. They are divided
into clans, and fighting seems to be their only pastime. When a row or
a fire occurs, they are the first to be on the spot, quarrelling and
fighting. Laws are inadequate to restrain them. Their motto is 'Death
before cowardice,' and to their credit it must be said that even under
the most harrowing tortures none of them have ever been known to cry
for mercy. Any one showing weakness under physical suffering is
boycotted by the rest of the gang; and he being a rowdy, and knowing
no better, feels abjectly humiliated thereby, and considers life but
a void when burdened by the curses of his sworn brethren. The
authorities take great pains in putting down such lawlessness, but
their efforts so far have not resulted in much success, as will be
seen from the following occurrence. Some time during last winter a
quarrel broke out between the patrolmen on one side and the rice-pan
workmen on the other or east side of the river. The quarrel did not at
first produce a fight, but sowed the seeds of hatred and thought of
vengeance on the part of the rowdies. The New Year festivities seemed
to reconcile all parties; but soon mistrust and suspicion again
revived, and both sides prepared for battle. Great vigilance was
observed, and they slept, as it were, with swords and spears ready by
their sides. Such a state of things could not continue long. About a
week ago, one cold and stormy night, about twelve o'clock, a band of
rowdies five hundred strong, fully equipped, marched by stealth to the
quarters of the guards, who were then all out on duty. The rowdies had
the whole place to themselves. They tore down the barracks, seized the
arms, and destroyed all personal effects. Leaving ruin and devastation
in their wake, they turned their steps homewards, but were pursued and
overtaken by the guards, who gathered to the number of several
hundreds. A skirmish followed, resulting in the utter rout of the
rowdies. Two of them were captured and several were wounded. The
guards suffered also to some extent. When the soldiers from the
garrison camps came upon the scene, both parties had disappeared."
The Tientsin men throughout the empire are known as rowdies, but the
rowdies of the streets of Peking (possibly originally from Tientsin)
are certainly the worst.
There are only two other men, who can be compared in position with the
Emperor of China. One is the Emperor of Russia, also now a young man;
the other is the Dalai Lama, popularly reputed to be never allowed to
live beyond a certain very youthful age. The _Peking Gazette_ of July
5th, 1891, says: "Sheng-tai, the Resident in Tibet, reports the fact
that on the fifth day of the first moon of the present year the Dalai
Lama did, in accordance with immemorial usage, descend from the
mountain, and, accompanied by a large body of priests, proceed to the
great shrine and offer up prayers for the welfare of the nation.
Memorialist furnished him with a body-guard for his protection. The
Dalai Lama appears to be able to keep his men well under control, and
it is satisfactory to be able to report that throughout Tibet
everything is in a peaceful condition."
Considering the case of these exalted personages, we may easily
indulge in the somewhat hackneyed thankfulness that our lot has placed
us in some humbler sphere. But just as it often seems to me in
England, the poor rich get left out by all teachers, preachers, or
other apostles of glad tidings; so let us at least not pass by on the
other side, like the Pharisee of old, but pause to breathe a prayer
for the three young men appointed, not by themselves, Emperor of
Russia, Emperor of China, and Dalai Lama of Tibet!
CHAPTER II.
_THE EMPRESS, THE EMPEROR, AND THE AUDIENCE._
A Concubine no Empress.--Sudden
Deaths.--Suspicions.--Prince Chʽün.--Emperor's
Education.--His Sadness.--His Features.--Foreign
Ministers' Audience.--Another Audience.--Crowding of the
Rabble.--Peking's Effect on Foreign Representatives.
According to Chinese usage or unwritten law, the concubine of an
Emperor can never become Empress-Dowager; yet Tze Hsi, the concubine
of the Emperor Hien Fêng, and mother of the late Emperor Tung Chih,
has ruled over China in this capacity since 1871. For a time she
nominally shared the power with Tze An, the childless widow of the
Emperor Hien Fêng. In like manner for a while the youthful Kwang-shü,
her step-sister's son, has been nominal Emperor. But the ease with
which she resumed the reins in September, 1898, sufficiently shows
that she had never really let go of them. Tze, which was also the name
of the late Empress Tze An, means "parental love," whilst An means
"peace." Hsi, the second name of the present Empress, means "joy," and
is pronounced _she_. Tze Hsi is undoubtedly a remarkable woman.
Besides having directed the destinies of China for twenty-seven
years, without being in the least entitled to do so, she is said to be
a brilliant artist, often giving away her pictures; and she also
writes poetry, having even presented six hundred stanzas of her poetry
to the Hanlin College. Some people suspect her of having been
instrumental in causing the death of the Emperor Hien Fêng, as also of
his and her son Tung Chih. She is more than suspected of having caused
the death of her sister, the mother of the Emperor Kwang-shü. The two
ladies had a violent altercation about the upbringing of the child,
and two days after his mother died--of pent-up anger in the heart, it
was announced. The beautiful Aleute, widow of her son Tung Chih,
certainly died by her own hand, which is considered a very righteous
act on the part of a widow; but had her mother-in-law, the Empress Tze
Hsi, not thought that she might become a dangerous rival, probably
Aleute would not have killed herself.
[Illustration: EMPEROR KWANG-SHÜ, 1875.
_Lent by Society for Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge in
China._]
It is of course well known that Kwang-shü was not the natural
successor to Tung Chih. He was simply chosen as Emperor by his
ambitious aunt because he was the very youngest person who had any
claim, and she thus secured to herself a longer lease of power. Her
sister was notoriously averse to it, and the little Kwang-shü was
stolen by the Empress Tze Hsi from his cradle to bear the burden of an
honour unto which he was not born. The child is reported to have
cried. He was then four years old. His father was the poetical Prince
Chʽün, who made one great tour, and wrote a collection of poems on the
novel objects he saw during his travels. An Englishman, who knew him,
describes him as rather jovial than otherwise, but his portrait hardly
confirms this description. He was certainly respected during his
lifetime, and after his death, as before mentioned, he was extolled in
the _Peking Gazette_ for the meekness with which he had abstained from
arrogating to himself high place, in spite of being the father of an
Emperor. Probably, however, his life would have ended sooner if he
had, and he knew it. As it was, there were suspicious circumstances
about his death, as some people thought there were about that of the
Marquis Tseng, a former Chinese Minister very popular in England,
whilst he resided here. Dr. Dudgeon, years ago a member of the London
Mission, was his medical adviser, and he himself relates how Li
Hung-chang, celebrated for his abrupt speeches, accosted him with,
"Well, and how much did you get for poisoning the Marquis Tseng?" "I
poison the Marquis Tseng! That was very foolish of me, considering he
was my best-paying patient." Then, after a pause, "But if I did, how
much was it your Excellency paid me to put him out of the way?" Li
Hung-chang lay back in his chair and chuckled, not offended but
delighted with the retort. But although the Marquis Tseng, there is
every reason to suppose, died of illness, it seems impossible to say
so of Prince Kung, who opposed the policy of the Empress Tze Hsi, and
died almost directly afterwards, as was again said, of pent-up anger.
The quarrel between the Empress and her sister was about the method of
education of the youthful Kwang-shü. The former is openly accused of
having taught him to play cards and drink wine. And the marvel is, not
that Kwang-shü is a young man of weak physique, and lacking in the
characteristics of a Cromwell or a Bismarck, but that he is, in spite
of all, a young man with aspirations and a real wish for his country's
good. During all my stay in China I have never heard one single story
to his disadvantage, except that at one time people had an idea he was
subject to epileptic fits, which seems not to have been true, and that
ten or twelve years ago I have heard it said that at times he had
ungovernable fits of rage, during which he would throw anything that
came handy at the heads of those who opposed him. This may have been
true--he was but a boy at the time--but the story has never been
confirmed, nor were those who told it the least confident that it was
true. From Chinese I have heard but one account: "The Emperor is good.
But what can he do?" Of the Empress, on the other hand, there seems
but one opinion--that she loves money. Sometimes people add that she
has taken with ardour to gambling. But never have I heard any
Chinaman suggest that she had the least care of any sort for the
interests of China or the Chinese. They do not speak of her as clever.
They speak of her generally in connection with Li Hung-chang, the
unscrupulous; and they shake their heads over them both. According to
report, she has a piercing eye. But a lady, who had been some years in
the Palace embroidering, seemed surprised at hearing this, and implied
that she had never noticed it.
I have heard many descriptions of the young Kwang-shü. They all agree
on one point--that he looks sorrowful. "Very sorrowful?" I asked the
other day of an Englishman, who had seen him just before his
deposition. "Yes, very sorrowful." "Sick and sorrowful? or more
sorrowful than sick?" "More sorrowful than sick." A private letter I
once saw, written by a man fresh from being present at an audience,
gave the impression of his being altogether overcome by the youthful
Emperor's sadness, which, as far as I remember, was described as a
cloud, that seemed to envelop him, and remove him from the rest of the
world. This sadness seemed to be heightened by an extreme sweetness of
disposition. The youthful Emperor smiled on seeing the beautifully
illuminated book in which the German address of congratulation was
presented, looked at it for a moment, then laid it down, and once more
was so full of sorrow it was impossible to contemplate him without
emotion. If my memory serves me, the writer used stronger, more
high-flown expressions than I am daring to make use of. Repeating
them at the time to the Secretary who had accompanied the British
Minister, I asked him if the Emperor had made at all the same
impression upon him. He paused a moment, looking grave; then said
firmly, "Yes, I think quite the same."
Here is an extract from an account written on the occasion of the
audience of the Diplomatic Corps in 1891:
"All interest, however, centred in the Emperor himself. He looks
younger even than he is, not more than sixteen or seventeen. Although
his features are essentially Chinese, or rather Manchu, they wear a
particular air of personal distinction. Rather pale and dark, with a
well-shaped forehead, long, black, arched eyebrows, large, mournful,
dark eyes, a sensitive mouth, and an unusually long chin, the young
Emperor, together with an air of great gentleness and intelligence,
wore an expression of melancholy, due, naturally enough, to the
deprivation of nearly all the pleasures of his age and to the strict
life which the hard and complicated duties of his high position force
him to lead. As he sat cross-legged, the table in front hid the lower
part of his person. In addressing Prince Ch´ün, he spoke in Manchu
rather low and rapidly, being perhaps a little nervous."
And now it may be well to give a translation of the best account I
know, that of the _Ost Asiatische Lloyd_, of the audience of the
Foreign Ministers in Peking at the celebration of the sixtieth
birthday of the Empress-Dowager.
"Early in the present month the Representatives of the Treaty Powers
in Peking were officially informed by Prince Kung, the new President
of the Tsung-li Yamen, that the Emperor desired to receive the Foreign
Ministers in audience in celebration of the sixtieth birthday of the
Empress ex-Regent; and, further, that, as a special mark of good-will,
the audience would be held within the precincts of the Inner
Palace--_i.e._ in the so-called 'Forbidden City.' This audience took
place on Monday, November 12th.
"The theatre of this solemn function of State was the Hall of Blooming
Literature, a somewhat ancient building in the south-east quarter of
the Palace, which is used for the annual Festival of Literature, held
in the second month, on which occasion the Emperor receives addresses
on the Classics from distinguished members of the Hanlin College.
According to a Japanese work, entitled _A Description of Famous Places
in the Land of Tang_ (_i.e._ China), which gives an illustrated
description of the ceremony, all the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of
the different Ministries in Peking, as well as high office-bearers,
have then to be present.
"On the present occasion the Representatives of the Foreign Powers and
their suites entered by the Eastern Flowery Gate, which is the sole
entrance in the east wall of the Inner Palace. The sedans were left
there, and the visitors proceeded on foot through a wide walled-in
courtyard, past the Palace garden, to the Hall of Manifested
Benevolence, a smaller threefold building in which formerly offerings
were made to the mythical Emperors and to the ancient worthies, and
which was utilised on this occasion as waiting-room for the
Ambassadors. These were now received by the Princes and Ministers of
the Tsung-li Yamen, and thence conducted, after a short delay, through
the Wen-hua pavilion. From there the Envoys and their suites were
conducted to the audience chamber by two Palace officials, and then
led to the throne by two Ministers of the Tsung-li Yamen. At twenty
minutes before twelve o'clock the _doyen_ of the Diplomatic Corps, the
Ambassador of the United States, was presented, while the others
followed in order of seniority. The remainder of the ceremony was
carried out as at previous audiences. The Ambassador, followed by his
suite, approached the dais with three bows, and saluted the Emperor
seated thereon at the top of a flight of steps: he then spoke a few
words commemorating the solemn occasion. The letter of felicitation
from his sovereign was then handed in, after each respective Embassy
interpreter had translated it into Chinese; it was then taken by
Prince Kung or Prince Chʽing, who stood at the Emperor's side and
acted alternately with each presentation, and translated by them into
Manchu. The Prince in question then laid the letter on a table covered
with yellow silk before the Emperor. The monarch inclined his head as
he received it, then spoke a few sentences in an audible tone to the
Prince kneeling at his left, in which he expressed his delight and
satisfaction. The Prince, after leaving the dais, repeated the
Emperor's words in Chinese to the interpreter, who again repeated
them in the language of his country to the Ambassador.
"This completed the audience: the Ambassador left the hall bowing,
with the same ceremonies, and conducted as on entering. Oriental
ceremonial was thus conspicuously and worthily maintained.
"The Wen-hua-tien has three entrances in its southern wall, led up to
by three flights of stone steps: as long as the Ambassador was the
bearer of the Imperial handwriting, he was given the most honoured way
of approach, that is, the great central staircase and the centre door,
which otherwise are only made use of by the Emperor in person; the
exits were made through the side door on the left.
"The proceedings were characterised by a distinct majesty of
demeanour. As mentioned above, the Emperor was seated on a raised
dais at a table hung with yellow silk; behind him were the customary
paraphernalia--the screen and the peacock fan; at his right stood two
Princes of the Imperial House; at his left the Prince of Ke Chin and
Prince Kung or Prince Chʽing. In the hall itself two lines of guards
carrying swords were formed up, behind which stood eunuchs and Palace
officers. The most interesting feature in the whole ceremony was of
course the person of the youthful monarch, clad in a sable robe and
wearing the hat of State. His unusually large brilliant black eyes
gave a wonderfully sympathetic aspect to his mild, almost childish
countenance, increased, if anything, by the pallor due to a recent
fever.
"Upon leaving the hall of audience, a strikingly picturesque scene
disclosed itself. On either side (_i.e._ east and west, from the open
staircase leading south) were displayed the long rows of the Palace
gardens in form of a hollow bow. In front and rear swarms of officials
were moving about, clad in long robes, with the square, many-coloured
emblems of their respective ranks embroidered on them behind and
before; with all their air of business no haste or hurry could be
perceived. Everything was being done in the solemn and majestic manner
characteristic of the Chinese official style. Turning to the right,
one noticed, at the extreme edge of the wide court, the high wall
covered with glazed yellow tiles which encloses the long row of the
central halls of the Palace, and again to the south of these the
threefold Tso-yi-men, or 'Left Gate of Righteousness,' and beyond
that, but towering far above it, the mighty construction of the Tai-ho
Hall, which by its architectural features is the most conspicuous
building in the whole Imperial City. As in everything Chinese, the
effect was produced not so much by the execution of the details as by
the vastness of the proportions and the majesty of the surroundings.
"The Wen-hua-tien itself is an old building, sixty or more feet in
width and of almost the same depth, which had been arranged as well as
might be for the occasion. The entrance was adorned with silken
hangings and rosettes, and pillars had been erected on the stone
staircases adorned with dragons, with yellow silk wound round them;
the centre steps and the floor were carpeted. It cannot, however, be
denied that the Wen-hua-tien is not comparable either with the
Cheng-kuang-tien or the Tze-kuang-ko, the two halls in which the
former audiences were held, either in size or in its internal
arrangements. On the other hand, we cannot sufficiently congratulate
ourselves on the fact of the Chinese Court having at last resolved to
open the door of the 'Inner Palace' to the Foreign Representatives.
These doors have been so long and anxiously guarded, that it was a
hard matter for the Court to give way in the weary discussions over
the audience question--how hard may be inferred from the number of
years it has taken to bring about this final solution."
[Illustration: PRINCE KUNG.
_By Mr. J. Thomson._]
An account of another audience, given at the time in the _Chinese
Times_, since defunct, but then published at Tientsin, the nearest
Treaty Port to Peking, gives a few details that are perhaps the more
interesting from their contrast with the very careful account above
quoted, obviously written by a gentleman connected with Diplomacy:
"When the procession reached the North Gate, leading into the garden
near the Marble Bridge, the Ministers and others left their chairs and
proceeded on foot to a kind of small pavilion, where a collation was
served, and where the party waited an hour surrounded by mandarins and
a crowd of roughs--chair-coolies (not those of the Legations, who had
been left outside), workmen, gardeners, porters, and coolies--who
peered in at the windows, and even allowed themselves to make digital
examination of the uniforms and decorations of the Ministers. After a
lapse of an hour the party were conducted into three tents erected at
the foot of the steps of the Tze-kuang-ko, where, divided into three
groups--Ministers, attachés, and interpreters--they remained half an
hour. Then the Emperor arrived, and M. Von Brandt was the first to
enter the presence, where he remained exactly five minutes, all
ceremonies included. He was followed by the other Ministers in turn,
the audience occupying barely five minutes for each. Then the suites
of the Ministers entered, in three ranks. Three salvoes were given on
entrance and three on retiring, backwards.
"The audience itself was conducted as follows: M. Von Brandt, the
German Minister, delivered a very short speech in English, which M.
Popoff, Russian, translated into Chinese; Prince Chʽing repeated it,
kneeling, in Manchu, at the foot of the throne. The Emperor said a few
prepared words in reply, which were translated in the reverse order,
and the Ministers retired. The Emperor was at a distance of seven or
eight yards from the Europeans, raised on a dais with a table in front
of him. Behind him stood the Pao-wang and the Ko-wang; at the foot of
the dais Prince Chʽing; and on either side soldiers with side arms.
The hall was not a large one; the Europeans were placed near the
centre, between two pillars. The rabble crowded up the steps of the
Tze-kuang-ko, and no order was kept."
This crowding of the rabble is eminently Chinese, as also that no
steps were taken to save the Representatives of the various countries
of Europe from the impertinent and dirty hands of workmen and coolies.
It is extraordinary to think of European diplomatists submitting to
it. Of course they would not have done so, but for the mutual
jealousies among themselves. It is this that always gives China her
advantage. It is also remarkable that Herr von Brandt should have
spoken in English, a fact ignored in German newspapers, although it
must have been prearranged, and doubtless after much consideration.
But the fact that all this assemblage of Ministers Plenipotentiary
with attendant secretaries allowed a Chinese rabble thus to insult
them in their official capacity will perhaps make intelligible in
England, why our hearts often grow hot within us, while sojourning in
China, and our cheeks sometimes burn with shame for our country,
which we know to be so strong, and which allows itself at times to be
so humiliated by a nation, that naturally becomes more arrogant,
seeing itself allowed thus to act. I do not know who the writer of the
following poem is; but he expresses my feelings with more calm and
dignity than I could myself; therefore I hope he will not be
displeased by my quoting it.
[Illustration: THE GREAT WALL.
_By Mr. Stratford Dugdale._]
"SIC TRANSIT."
_March 6th, 1897._
I.
'Tis said it was the spirit of the land
That grew upon them--they were mostly men
Of birth and culture, whom their native states
Had chosen to send forth, ambassadors!
From many a favoured shore where truth and light
Had made their home, where peaceful arts had shed
Their brightest rays; from fields of classic song
Whose softening accents ring from age to age,
They came to far Cathay--a little band
Prepared to bear the torch of progress on
And carry it throughout that heathen land.
'Twas with the noblest purpose they had left
Such shores as none could leave without regret,
Where every passing day can stir the pulse
With throbs unknown to Oriental sloth:
So all their peers had bade them speed and give
Fair promise of the deeds that they should do;
How, like their forbears, they should help to clear
A way through ignorance and vicious pride
To harmony--and better thus the world.
II.
But to each one it fell (we know not how;
'Tis said it was the spirit of that land)
That soon his pristine ardour died away;
It seemed almost as if the mouldering walls
Of that Peking, which typifies decay,
Shut out all purpose, shutting in the man--
As if each roof, in that foul street, where lodge
The envoys of proud states, had thrown the shade
Of apathy on those, who dwelt below,
To rob them of their power and their will.
It was as though o'er all the city's gates all hope
Of fruitful work left those, who entered there;
It was a piteous thing to see the ebb
Of energy and zeal, to mark the growth
Of passive rust on minds, that once were keen.
As pebbles taken from the running brook
Lose all their brightness 'neath th' insidious moss,
So, 'neath the flagstaffs of the greatest powers,
In men (who loved these flags for all they told
Of chivalry and honour, right and truth)
Grew up a tolerance of ways Chinese,
A certain toying with the flight of Time,
With jugglery of words, and willingness
To let things right themselves; then later still
It seemed as if the mind of petty trade,
Haggling and bargains (which be as the breath
Of China's nostrils), crept into their souls,
So that, forgetting all their nobler aims,
Each sought to introduce cheap cloth and iron nails.
III.
'Twas to this weak, ignoble end they lost
Their unity, competing one and all,
While Chinese "diplomats" were still and smiled,
And China's monarch held them all to be
Barbarians, unfit to see his face.
'Twas pitiful to see the highest aims
Give way before base purposes of greed,
To watch the little path, that had been won
By sturdy valour of the foremost few,
Grow thick and tangled by the many weeds
Of late diplomacy: to see the loss
Of early treaties in these latter days.
IV.
Meanwhile, the people of that heathen land,
Like sparrows that have found a blinded hawk,
Grew insolent apace, and year by year
Respect and wholesome fear gave way to scorn.
The common herd, not slow to ape the moods
Of those above them, met with sullen looks,
Hustlings, and jeers the strangers in their midst;
Then, as it seemed, the passive spirit grew
With every insult, words gave place to deeds,
Till fire and plunder were the common lot
Of unprotected merchants and their wares.
And still their leaders slept; at times it seemed
(When some new outrage made the country ring)
As if the spell must break and wrath be roused
With strength to crush all China at a blow.
But well the wily Mongol played his game
With honeyed speech and temporising gifts:
And ever came the necessary sop--
Some contract, loan, monopoly, or pact--
At sight of which all wrongs were laid aside,
And men who had "full powers" used them not,
Forgetting the traditions of their race.
And thus things went from bad to worse, while men
Sat sadly wondering what the end would be,
And at their parlous state, of which no cause
They knew, except the spirit of the land.
But of those latter days, and what befell
Leaders and led, not mine to-day to tell.
Q.
[Illustration: INCENSE-BURNER.]
CHAPTER III.
_SOLIDARITY, CO-OPERATION, AND IMPERIAL FEDERATION._
Everybody Guaranteed by Somebody Else.--Buying back
Office.--Family Responsibilities.--Guilds.--All Employés
Partners.--Antiquity of Chinese Reforms.--To each
Province so many Posts.--Laotze's Protest against
Unnecessary Laws.--Experiment in Socialism.--College of
Censors.--Tribunal of History.--Ideal in Theory.
Possibly that state of society in which the individual is the unit is
a more advanced form of civilisation; but it is impossible to
understand China unless it be first realised that the individual life
is nothing there, and that the family is the unit; and yet further,
that no one stands alone in China, as is so painfully the case in
England, but that every one is responsible for some one else,
guaranteed by some one else. And here, to those who wish to read a
really exact, circumstantial account of the Chinese and their ways,
let me recommend _John Chinaman_, by the Rev. George Cockburn, quite
the best book I have read on the subject, and one that deserves a
wider circulation than it has attained, being written in terse,
epigrammatic English, with a flavour of Tacitus about it. Alas! the
writer is no more,--a silent, reserved, black-browed Scotchman, with a
fervour of missionary zeal glowing under a most impassive exterior.
The riot, in which all our own worldly goods in China were destroyed,
wrecked for ever the nervous system of his strong, handsome, brave
young wife. And what with that and the details of daily life, all laid
upon the shoulders of a man by nature a student and a visionary, he
left China, and soon after passed away beyond the veil, where, if we
share the Chinese belief, let us trust his spirit is gladdened by
words of appreciation of the one little volume in which he embodied
the fruits of years of work and thought in China, dying, as far as I
remember, almost as it appeared. The wreckage of missionary lives and
hopes is one of the tragedies of European life in China, and one which
a little more understanding and sympathy on the part of missionary
boards at home might often, it would seem, avert.