had no sooner passed the gate and opened out the broad street, than a
very singular and novel appearance was exhibited. We saw before us a
line of buildings on each side of a wide street, consisting entirely of
shops and warehouses, the particular goods of which were brought out and
displayed in groupes in front of the houses. Before these were generally
erected large wooden pillars, whose tops were much higher than the eves
of the houses, bearing inscriptions in gilt characters, setting forth
the nature of the wares to be sold, and the honest reputation of the
seller; and, to attract the more notice, they were generally hung with
various coloured flags and streamers and ribbands from top to bottom,
exhibiting the appearance of a line of shipping dressed, as we sometimes
see them, in the colours of all the different nations in Europe. The
sides of the houses were not less brilliant in the several colours with
which they were painted, consisting generally of sky blue or green mixed
with gold: and what appeared to us singular enough, the articles for
sale that made the greatest show were coffins for the dead. The most
splendid of our coffin furniture would make but a poor figure if placed
beside that intended for a wealthy Chinese. These machines are seldom
less than three inches thick, and twice the bulk of ours. Next to those
our notice was attracted by the brilliant appearance of the funeral
biers and the marriage cars, both covered with ornamental canopies.
At the four points where the great streets intersect one another were
erected those singular buildings, sometimes of stone, but generally of
wood, which have been called triumphal arches, but which, in fact, are
monuments to the memory of those who had deserved well of the community,
or who had attained an unusual longevity. They consist invariably of a
large central gateway, with a smaller one on each side, all covered with
narrow roofs; and, like the houses, they are painted, varnished, and
gilt in the most splendid manner.
The multitude of moveable workshops of tinkers and barbers, coblers and
blacksmiths; the tents and booths where tea and fruit, rice and other
eatables were exposed for sale, with the wares and merchandize arrayed
before the doors, had contracted this spacious street to a narrow road
in the middle, just wide enough for two of our little vehicles to pass
each other. The cavalcade of officers and soldiers that preceded the
embassy, the processions of men in office attended by their numerous
retinues, bearing umbrellas and flags, painted lanterns, and a variety
of strange insignia of their rank and station, different trains that
were accompanying, with lamentable cries, corpses to their graves, and,
with squalling music, brides to their husbands, the troops of
dromedaries laden with coals from Tartary, the wheelbarrows and
hand-carts stuffed with vegetables, occupied nearly the whole of this
middle space in one continued line, leaving very little room for the
cavalcade of the embassy to pass. All was in motion. The sides of the
street were filled with an immense concourse of people, buying and
selling and bartering their different commodities. The buzz and confused
noises of this mixed multitude, proceeding from the loud bawling of
those who were crying their wares, the wrangling of others, with every
now and then a strange twanging noise like the jarring of a cracked
Jew's harp, the barber's signal made by his tweezers, the mirth and the
laughter that prevailed in every groupe, could scarcely be exceeded by
the brokers in the Bank rotunda, or by the Jews and old women in
_Rosemary-Lane_. Pedlars with their packs, and jugglers, and conjurers,
and fortune-tellers, mountebanks and quack-doctors, comedians and
musicians, left no space unoccupied. The Tartar soldiers, with their
whips, kept with difficulty a clear passage for the embassy to move
slowly forwards; so slow, indeed, that although we entered the eastern
gate at half-past nine, it was near twelve before we arrived at the
western.
Although an extraordinary crowd might be expected to assemble on such a
particular occasion, on the same principle of curiosity as could not
fail to attract a crowd of spectators in London, yet there was a most
remarkable and a striking difference observable between a London and a
Pekin populace. In the former the whole attention and soul of the
multitude would have been wrapt up in the novel spectacle; all would
have been idlers. In Pekin, the shew was but an accessary; every one
pursued his business, at the same time that he gratified his curiosity.
In fact, it appeared that, on every day throughout the whole year, there
was the same noise and bustle and crowd in the capital of China. I
scarcely ever passed the western gate, which happened twice, or oftener,
in the week, that I had not to wait a considerable time before the
passage was free, particularly in the morning, notwithstanding the
exertions of two or three soldiers with their whips to clear the way.
The crowd, however, was entirely confined to the great streets, which
are the only outlets of the city. In the cross lanes all was still and
quiet.
Women in Pekin were commonly seen among the crowd, or walking in the
narrow streets, or riding on horseback, which they crossed in the same
manner as the men, but they were all Tartars. They wore long silken
robes, reaching down to their feet; their shoes appeared to be as much
above the common size, as those of the Chinese are under it; the upper
part was generally of embroidered satin, the sole consisted of folds of
cloth or paper, about an inch thick; they were square in front, and a
little turned up. The hair smoothed up on all sides, not very different
from that of the Chinese; and though their faces were painted with white
lead and vermillion, it was evident their skins were much fairer than
those of the former. The Chinese women are more scrupulously confined to
the house in the capital than elsewhere. Young girls were sometimes seen
smoking their pipes in the doors of their houses, but they always
retired on the approach of men.
All the streets were covered with sand and dust: none had the least
pavement. The cross lanes were generally watered, which did not appear
to be the case in the main streets. A large sheet of water, several
acres in extent, within the northern wall, affords to that part of the
city, and to the palace an abundant supply of that element, as does also
a small stream which runs along the western wall to that neighbourhood.
There are besides abundance of wells; but the water of some of these is
so dreadfully nauseous, that we, who were unaccustomed to it, were under
the necessity of sending to a distance to obtain such as was free from
mineral or earthy impregnations. When mixed with tea, the well water was
particularly disgusting.
Although Pekin cannot boast, like ancient Rome, or modern London, of the
conveniences of common sewers to carry off the dirt and dregs that must
necessarily accumulate in large cities, yet it enjoys one important
advantage, which is rarely found in capitals out of England: no kind of
filth or nastiness, creating offensive smells is thrown out into the
streets, a piece of cleanliness that perhaps may be attributed rather to
the scarcity and value of manure, than to the exertions of the police
officers. Each family has a large earthen jar, into which is carefully
collected every thing that may be used as manure; when the jar is full,
there is no difficulty of converting its contents into money, or of
exchanging them for vegetables. The same small boxed carts with one
wheel, which supply the city with vegetables, invariably return to the
gardens with a load of this liquid manure. Between the palace of
_Yuen-min-yuen_ and Pekin, I have met many hundreds of these carts. They
are generally dragged by one person, and pushed on by another; and they
leave upon the road an odour that continues without intermission for
many miles. Thus, though the city is cleared of its filth, it seldom
loses its fragrance. In fact, a constant disgusting odour remains in and
about all the houses the whole day long, from the fermentation of the
heterogeneous mixtures kept above ground, which in our great cities are
carried off in drains.
The medical gentlemen of China are not quite so ingenious, as we are
told the faculty in Madrid were about the middle of the last century,
when the inhabitants were directed, by royal proclamation, to build
proper places of retirement to their houses, instead of emptying their
nocturnal machines out of the windows into the streets. The inhabitants
took it into their heads to consider this order as a great affront, and
a direct violation of the rights of man; but the doctors were the most
strenuous opposers of the measure, having no doubt very cogent reasons
for wishing the continuance of the practice. They assured the
inhabitants, that if human excrement was no longer to be accumulated in
the streets, to attract the putrescent particles floating in the air,
they would find their way into the human body, and a pestilential
sickness would be the inevitable consequence.
The police of the capital, as we afterwards found, is so well regulated,
that the safety and tranquillity of the inhabitants are seldom
disturbed. At the end of every cross street, and at certain distances in
it, are a kind of cross bars, with sentry boxes at each of which is
placed a soldier, and few of these streets are without a guard-house.
Besides, the proprietor or inhabitant of every tenth house, like the
ancient tythingmen of England, takes it in turn to keep the peace, and
be responsible for the good conduct of his nine neighbours. If any
riotous company should assemble, or any disturbances happen within his
district, he is to give immediate information thereof to the nearest
guard-house. The soldiers also go their rounds and instead of crying the
hour like our watchmen, strike upon a short tube of bamboo, which gives
a dull hollow sound, that for several nights prevented us from sleeping
until we were accustomed to it.
It took us full two hours, as I before observed, in passing from the
eastern to the western gate of Pekin. The clouds of dust raised by the
populace were here much denser than on the road, and the smothering heat
of the day, the thermometer in our little carts standing at 96°, was
almost insupportable. Except the great crowd on every side, we saw
little to engage the attention after the first five minutes. Indeed, a
single walk through one of the broad streets is quite sufficient to give
a stranger a competent idea of the whole city. He will immediately
perceive that every street is laid out in the same manner, and every
house built upon the same plan; and that their architecture is void of
taste, grandeur, beauty, solidity, or convenience; that the houses are
merely tents, and that there is nothing magnificent, even in the palace
of the Emperor;--but we shall have occasion to speak on this subject
hereafter. Ask a Chinese, however, what is to be seen that is curious or
great in the capital, and he will immediately enter upon a long history
of the beauties of the palace belonging to _Ta-whang-tee_, the mighty
Emperor. According to his notions, every thing within the palace walls
is gold and silver. He will tell you of gold and silver pillars, gold
and silver roofs, gold and silver vases, in which are swimming gold and
silver fishes. All, however, is not gold that glitters in China, more
than elsewhere. The Emperor, as I shall hereafter have occasion to
notice, has very little surplus revenue at his disposal, and is
frequently distressed for money to pay his army and other exigences of
the state. And, though China has of late years drawn from Europe a
considerable quantity of specie, yet when this is scattered over so vast
an extent of country, and divided among so many millions of people, it
becomes almost as a drop thrown into the sea. Most of the money,
besides, that enters China is melted down, and converted into articles
of luxury or convenience. Few nations are better acquainted with the
value of these precious metals than the Chinese; and few, if any, can
surpass their ingenuity in drawing out the one into thin leaves, and
the other into the finest wire.
We were not a little overjoyed in finding ourselves once more upon the
flagged causeway, and in an open country, after passing a small suburb
beyond the western gate of the city. They brought us to a villa which
was a kind of appendage to one of the Emperor's palaces, about eight
miles beyond Pekin. The buildings, consisting of a number of small
detached apartments, straggling over a surface of ground, about fifteen
acres in extent, were neither sufficiently numerous to lodge the suite,
nor to contain the presents and our baggage; and were moreover so
miserably out of repair and in so ruinous a condition, that the greater
part was wholly uninhabitable. The officers were accordingly told that
these were not accommodations suitable to the dignity of a British
Embassador, and that he would not on any consideration put up with them;
that it was a matter of indifference whether he was lodged in the city
or the country, but that the lodgings should be convenient and proper.
The superintending officers, upon this, caused a large temporary
building to be erected with poles and mats, which, as by magic, was
finished in the course of the night, hoping, by this exertion, to have
removed all objections to the place. His Lordship, however, being
determined not to remain where there was neither a decent room, nor any
kind of comfort or convenience, every building being entirely
unfurnished, and, as I said before, the greater number untenantable,
insisted upon being removed to Pekin, where accordingly it was very soon
announced there was a suitable house ready for his reception.
On returning to the capital we passed through the great street of a town
called _Hai-tien_ in which most of the houses were of two stories, and
before the upper of which was a kind of Véranda full of dwarf trees and
flower-pots. A great proportion of the houses were either butchers'
shops or coffin-makers. From the end of this street was a most extensive
view of Pekin and the surrounding country. The eye from hence took in
the whole length of the high straight wall with its two lofty gates and
numerous square towers. At each angle of the wall is a large square
building rising above the parapet to four heights or stories of
port-holes, and covered with two roofs. In each row of the four fronts
are fourteen windows or port-holes. These I understood to be the rice
magazines or public granaries. Near the north-west angle is a tall
pagoda, another high tower not unlike a glass-house, and towards the
higher western gate appeared the upper part of a pyramidal building that
terminated in a gilded flame, very like the summit of our Monument under
which, instead of a gallery, was a most magnificent canopy or umbrella,
painted and gilt with such brilliant colours, that from certain points
of view, when the rays of the sun played upon it, the glittering
appearance had a very good effect. It was said to be a temple, and
seemed to be of the same kind of architecture as the _Shoo-ma-doo_
described by Col. Symes in his embassy to Ava.
We found our new lodging sufficiently large, but the apartments were
shamefully dirty, having been uninhabited for some time; very much out
of repair, and totally unfurnished. This house, being considered be one
of the best in the whole city, I shall have occasion to take notice of
hereafter, in speaking of the state of their architecture. It was built
by the late _Ho-poo_, or Collector of the customs at Canton, from which
situation he was preferred to the collectorship of salt duties at
_Tien-sing_, where, it seems, he was detected in embezzling the public
revenues, thrown into jail, and his immense property confiscated to the
crown. The officers appointed to attend the embassy told us, that when
it was proposed to the Emperor for the English Embassador to occupy this
house, he immediately replied, "Most certainly, you cannot refuse the
temporary occupation of a house to the Embassador of that nation which
contributed so very amply towards the expense of building it." The
inference to be drawn from such a remark, is, that the court of Pekin is
well aware of the extortions committed against foreigners at Canton.
The Emperor being at this time in Tartary, where he meant to celebrate
the festival of the anniversary of his birth-day, had given orders that
the public introduction of the British Embassador should be fixed for
that day, and should take place at Gehol, a small town 136 miles from
Pekin, where he had a large palace, park, gardens, and a magnificent
_Poo-ta-la_ or temple of Budha. Accordingly a selection was made of such
presents as were the most portable, to be sent forwards into Tartary;
and the Embassador, with part of his suite, several officers of the
court, and their retinue, set out from Pekin on the second of September.
Some of the gentlemen, with part of the guard and of the servants,
remained in Pekin, and Dr. Dinwiddie and myself, with two mechanics, had
apartments allotted to us in the palace of _Yuen-min-yuen_, where the
largest and most valuable of the presents were to be fitted up for the
inspection of the old Emperor on his return from Tartary.
Having already acquired some little knowledge of the language on the
passage from England, by the assistance of two Chinese priests who had
been sent by their superiors to Naples, for the purpose of being
instructed in the Christian religion, I hoped to find this temporary
banishment less irksome, particularly as I had previously stipulated
with the officers belonging to that palace for an unconditional leave to
visit the capital whenever I should find it necessary or proper, during
the absence of the Embassador; and, it is but fair to say, they kept
faith to their engagement in the strictest sense. A horse and one of the
little covered carts were always at my disposal.
The gentlemen left in the city were less agreeably situated. At the
outer gate of their lodgings a guard was stationed with orders to allow
none of them to pass, and all their proceedings and movements were
closely watched. Sometimes they were a little relieved by occasional
visits from the European missionaries; but so suspicious were the
officers of government of any communication with these gentlemen that
they were invariably accompanied by some of them to act as spies,
notwithstanding they could not comprehend one single word that was
exchanged in the conversations they held together. A Chinese has no
knowledge whatsoever of any of the European languages. But he watches
the actions, and even the motions of the eye, and makes his report
accordingly. The courts of the house were constantly filled with the
inferior officers of government and their servants, all of whom had
some post or other assigned to them connected with the British Embassy.
One was the superintendant of the kitchen, another furnished tea, one
was appointed to supply us with fruit, another with vegetables, and
another with milk.
During the time I should be required to reside in _Yuen-min-yuen_, I
particularly wished to have none other than Chinese servants, that I
might be under the necessity of extending the little knowledge I had
already acquired of the spoken language. This is by no means difficult
to learn except in the nice intonations or inflexions of voice, but the
written character is, perhaps of all others, the most abstruse and most
perplexing both to the eye and to the memory. The length of time that is
usually required by the Chinese, together with the intense study and
stretch of the memory which they find necessary in order to obtain a
very small proportion of the characters that form the language, are
serious obstructions to the progress of the arts and sciences, but
favourable to the stability of the government of which indeed the
language may be considered as one of the great bulwarks. But the
observations I have to make on this subject will more properly be
reserved for a separate chapter.
On arriving at _Yuen-min-yuen_ I found a number of Chinese workmen
busily employed in breaking open the packages, some in one place and
some in another, to the no little danger of the globes, clocks, glass
lustres, and such like frangible articles, many of which must inevitably
have suffered under less careful and dexterous hands than those of the
Chinese. As it was intended they should be placed in one large room,
the great hall in which the Emperor gives audience to his ministers, the
first operation was to move them all thither, and carefully to unpack
them; and we had the satisfaction to find that not a single article was
either missing or injured.
We had not been long here, before a gentleman appeared who,
notwithstanding his Chinese dress, I soon perceived to be an European.
He introduced himself by saying, in the Latin language, that his name
was Deodato a Neapolitan missionary, and that the court had appointed
him to act as interpreter, hoped he might be useful to us, and offered
his services in the most handsome manner; and, I have great pleasure in
availing myself of this opportunity to acknowledge the friendly and
unremitting attention I received from him during a residence of five
weeks in this palace, and the very material assistance he afforded in
explaining the nature, value, and use of the several pieces of machinery
to those Chinese who were appointed to superintend them. Signor Deodato
was an excellent mechanic; and in this capacity was employed in the
palace to inspect and keep in order the numberless pieces of clock-work
that had found their way thither, chiefly from London.
The officer appointed to attend us wore a light blue button in his cap,
denoting the 4th degree of rank. When he shewed the apartments that were
designed for us, I could not forbear observing to him, that they seemed
fitter for hogs than for human creatures, and that rather than be
obliged to occupy those, or any other like them, I should for my own
part prefer coming down from the capital every morning, and return in
the evening. They consisted of three or four hovels in a small court,
surrounded with a wall as high as their roofs. Each room was about
twelve feet square, the walls completely naked, the ceiling broken in,
the rushes or stems of _boleus_, that held the plaister, hanging down
and strewed on the floor; the lattice work of the windows partially
covered with broken paper; the doors consisting of old bamboo skreens;
the floor covered with dust, and there was not the least furniture in
any of them, except an old table and two or three chairs in the one
which was intended, I suppose, for the dining-room. The rest had nothing
in them whatsoever but a little raised platform of brick-work, which
they told us was to sleep on, and that they should cover it with mats,
and order proper bedding to be brought upon it. Yet these miserable
hovels were not only within the palace wall, but scarcely two hundred
yards from the great hall of audience. The officer assured us that they
were the apartments of one of their _Ta-gin_ (great men) but that, as I
did not seem to like them, we should be accommodated with others. We
were then carried a little farther, where there was a number of
buildings upon a more extensive scale enclosed also by high walls. The
apartments were somewhat larger, but miserably dirty both within and
without, and wholly unfurnished; but as our attendant took care to tell
us they belonged to one of the _ministers of state_, and that he lodged
in them when the Emperor was at Yuen-min-yuen, we were precluded from
further complaint. Had we refused those that were considered sufficient
for a minister of state, the man might have thought that nothing less
than the Emperor's own would have satisfied us. If the menial servants
of his Britannic Majesty's Ministers were no better lodged than the
ministers themselves of his Chinese Majesty, they would be apt to think
themselves very ill used. We accepted them, however, such as they were,
and caused them to be swept out, an operation which had not been
performed for many months before; a table and chairs were brought in,
with mats, pillows, and silken mattresses; but for these we had no
occasion, having fortunately brought with us from the ships our own
cots.