One pleasant morning in the early part of last April I had just landed
in Macao. Having no idea that I was acquainted with any person in Asia,
you can imagine that I was not a little surprised to hear an exultant
shout burst forth behind me, and the familiar old college cry. "Rah!
rah! rah! Y--a--l--e! 26 South College, or there is no faith in the
blue! Well, Well, if this isn't glorious!"
With the first sound a hand came down vigorously on my shoulder,
swinging me around in a way that reminded me of past experiences, and
lo! Jack Merriman had hold of me in earnest.
"What a splendid fellow you have grown to be, Tom!--six feet, if you are
an inch. Look at me--five feet six; never could amount to anything, you
know."
"But how come you here, Jack? What are you doing?"
"In tea, my boy, in tea. And not a bad thing, now, tea is, when you take
it in the right way. But for yourself--whence and whither bound?"
"From London last, by Suez, Bombay, and Calcutta; to Canton to-morrow,
and then up the coast."
"Very good; then we will make the most of our time to-day. Here we are
at my office, and this is, of course, your head-quarters. Three o'clock
now. I'll just send around and tell old Man Lok to be ready for us, for
I am going to give you something you never had--a regular Chinese
dinner. The old fellow has some of the best nests I have seen in months,
and you shall have trial of the same. Would you like a few fins too, or
perhaps a pacu-qui? But I forget; you are not yet up in our style of
rations. Never mind; I will show you what we can do."
The rest of the afternoon Jack and I talked about old times. Then we
repaired to the restaurant, which he told me was noted for the
excellence of Chinese dishes served up in their own peculiar style.
"Up to the chopsticks, Tom? I suppose not, and we must make allowance
for you. Man Lok has doubtless provided, for I told him you were a poor
Mellican man who did not know much yet. He will have a knife and fork
for you."
On the table at my place were a knife and fork, as Jack had promised; at
his were the chopsticks, the use of which was a mystery to me then,
though subsequently I became expert in managing them. The dinner was a
most elaborate one, course succeeding course in great number and
variety, all very elegantly served. Many of them were such articles of
food as I had never seen, and as to the nature of some I could not even
hazard a guess. But I will not describe them at present, excepting a
single one.
This was a soup, which made its appearance at, I think, the fifth
course. It was rather thick, and having a decidedly gelatinous look and
feeling, it might almost have been called a diluted jelly rather than a
soup. It was served very hot, and the flavor was excellent. With it were
brought small dishes of very peculiar preserves, which I thought the
most delicious things in their way that I had ever tasted. Jack said
nothing until some little progress had been made with the soup.
"How do you like it, my boy? A twang of Asia clear through, is not
there? Recalls all your memories of Lalla Rookh and Sindbad the Sailor,
and those other worthies of ancient history, eh?"
"It is certainly delightful," said I; "unlike anything I ever tasted."
"I should think it might be. Precious little of it you ever see outside
the Flowery Land. And what is more, there is not, as I believe, another
man even in all China who can match old Man Lok in serving it. This is
the famous bird's-nest soup, about as much a peculiarity and a glory of
China as the Great Wall, and I was determined that you should make your
acquaintance with it under the auspices of Man Lok, the great
high-priest, the Soyer, of bird's nest."
"But what is it, Jack? What are you talking about? How can you eat
grass, and sticks, and feathers, and leaves, to say nothing of mud? for
those make up birds' nests in general. I must say I never heard of their
being used for food."
"Well done, old fellow! Hurrah for Yale! Here is education for you!--a
graduate of high standing who never even heard of bird's-nest soup. Why,
Tom, you are all adrift, man. I learned more than that in the course of
my college life, though I did graduate in the second term of Sophomore
year. But I see how it was; classics, mathematics, and boating were all
you studied, instead of taking to something useful."
"All right, Jack, I acknowledge your wisdom; only I wish it would
enlighten my ignorance."
"So I will, Tom--so I will; but we will wait till evening, and do it at
my lodgings, for I have some of the nests there, as well as the birds
which build them, and you shall see for yourself. For the present we
will do honor to Man Lok." Full honor was done to Man Lok, and evening
found me in Jack's rooms.
"Now, Tom, if you will sit down and behave yourself properly, I will
give you a practical lecture on ornithology viewed as a science which
relates to soup. And that we may start right, I will show you in the
first place the origin of the soup."
As he spoke, Jack opened a drawer, from which he took five or six
stuffed skins of small dark-colored birds, and after them three
curious-looking objects, which he gravely placed on the table before me
by the side of the skins. These queer things were irregularly circular,
rather broader than my hand, an inch and a half or two inches thick on
one side, thinning out almost to an edge on the opposite side. The
thickened side was flat, as though it had been formed against some hard
substance, from which it had been subsequently torn away.
The one which Jack had placed nearest my hand was dark and dirty, had
feathers and filth of all kinds mixed in with its upper surface, and as,
like the others, it was sufficiently hollowed out above for such a
purpose. I could easily see that it might have been a nest in which a
brood of young birds had been hatched and reared. The one next to it was
cleaner, free from feathers, and showed no signs of having been used as
a nest; but it was of a dingy brown color, and looked generally _dirty_.
The third, however, was really beautiful. It was clean, clear as though
its fibres were of pure gelatine, and so brilliant that it looked almost
white.
"What in the world are these things?"
"Soup," said Jack, with great gravity--"undeveloped soup."
"Do, for pity's sake, talk sense, Jack. Do you mean to tell me that I
have been eating such stuff as this?" pointing to the one nearest me.
"Such are not my intentions. You dined, I think, at the establishment of
my friend Man Lok, and that sort of article never comes under his hand.
This light one is like what you caused to become part of you, and I
believe that even your prejudiced appetite can not fail to admit that it
was good. But come, Tom, let's commence with the birds, and we will take
up the nests afterward. Look at this little fellow, now; dull-colored
beggar, is not he? Do you recognize him? Or rather did you ever know any
bird which he resembles?"
"No, none that I can remember."
"Look again. Would he look natural whirling down into a chimney just at
evening?"
"What! Do you mean a chimney-swallow, Jack?"
"That is precisely what I mean. Yes, Tom, these nests, which are such a
peculiar delicacy to Chinese palates, are all made by swallows, and
there are, as far as I can trace them, four species which build nests of
this sort. They belong to a division of the swallows which are sometimes
called swifts, our common chimney-swallow of the United States being
included among the swifts. Those which build the edible nests are found
only on the islands of this Asiatic region, and mostly on the coasts of
the islands, though sometimes they go forty or fifty miles inland. They
are all of one genus, _Collocalia_, and this one in my hand, which I
shot myself, is the _Collocalia fuciphaga_.
"Four years ago I made a run down to the north coast of Java, and it was
there I obtained these, the nests and the birds. The coast on that part
of the island is very rocky, and large caves exist in some places,
penetrating the rocks quite deeply. I knew that these caves were said to
be specially frequented by the swallows, and I found that the report was
true, for I visited five or six of them. The birds were very abundant,
and I had opportunity to see their nests in every stage of their
history. I brought away these three as fair representatives. You can see
how they were placed, and this engraving gives you a correct idea of
it. They were actually _stuck_ against the perpendicular or sloping wall
of rock, precisely as a chimney-swallow sticks his nest against the side
of a chimney, his, however, consisting only of a worthless mass of
twigs. The Chinamen gather them from these places in boat-loads, and
bring them to market. Most of those which are brought here come, I
think, from Java and Borneo, though a good supply is obtained also in
Ceylon, the species which is found there being the _Collocalia
nidifica_. The nests, however, of the different species are sold
together, the only distinction being in quality as to cleanness and
color.
"Of course the value of the nests, as with all other goods, depends upon
the quality. This dirty fellow here, which has evidently done its work,
and furnished board and lodging to a rising family, is of small value;
and yet even such as these Chinese patience and ingenuity can clean and
clear so perfectly that they are fit for use, though never becoming of
first class. This next one had not been used for rearing a brood, but it
was soiled in some way in the building, and is of about middle grade.
But this is what we call a prime article, this light one, and the whiter
it is the better price it commands. The best are worth more than their
weight in silver."
"But of what do the birds build them, Jack? Where do they get any such
material? It is a strange-looking substance."
"No more strange than honey, Tom, and made in the same way. It used to
be thought that it was something which the birds gathered from the
surface of the sea, but we know now that that is all foolishness. I saw
the swallows catching flies as industriously as I ever watched the
barn-swallows doing it over the Green in New Haven, and I opened the
stomachs of many specimens which I shot, and found them always filled
with insects, and with nothing else, so that we know that their food is
the same as that of other birds of their tribe.
"But they have a set of glands, corresponding to the salivary glands at
the sides of the mouth, which form this peculiar gelatinous material
used by them in building their nests. You know the song says, 'Little by
little the bird builds its best,' and that is the way they deposit these
fine fibres. When first placed they are always clear and nearly white,
and of course nests gathered in that condition are highly prized; few,
however, are obtained that have not been more or less soiled. I do not
understand the mystery of Man Lok's art, but I know that bird's-nest
soup is made very much as any other form of such material--say isinglass
or gelatine--would be prepared for the table."