Hong-kong seem to follow me on my travels. Here again I have been
received with the warmest welcome by Mr. D., a junior partner of C.’s,
and I am assured of the same at Tientsing. If all the travellers and
officers stationed in China, whom I have met, did not tell me that this
hospitality is the universal rule, I should be almost shy of accepting
so much kindness.
I have little enough to tell you about Shanghai. The city is ugly and
unattractive, the river dingy, and the country a dead level plain.
From the top of the club-house the view in every direction is utterly
unbroken, there is not a mound the height of dear old Salt Hill. Then,
commercially speaking, the town at the time of my visit was a blank.
The crisis of which I have spoken to you before has told here more
than elsewhere; to my eye the harbour seems full enough of shipping,
but I am told that there are not more than a third of the vessels that
used to be seen in former years. One of the causes which has brought
about this effect has been the speculation in land. When the rebellion
panic was upon the Chinese they were only too glad to flock into the
settlement for shelter; land rose in value, and was bought up in every
direction. Now that the revolt has been put down in this part of the
empire the natives have gone home to their own abodes, and of course
landed property has fallen, so that those speculators who did not sell
in time have their money hopelessly tied up. This, and the competition
system practised by the Europeans in contrast to the Chinese, who do
everything by combination, together with “hard times,” have brought
Shanghai very low. In short, morally as well as physically, it is, for
the present, flat.
I have had a good deal of conversation with Sir Harry Parkes, our
consul here. You will recollect him as famous for the pluck he showed
when he and Loch were taken prisoners in Peking; he is one of the great
authorities in China, and one of our ablest officers in the East. He
tells me that he considers the state of feeling between the Chinese and
Europeans in this part as on the whole satisfactory; that the natives
have begun to accept us and our trade as a necessity; to use his own
expression, it is a sort of husband and wife arrangement, with slight
incompatibilities of temper on both sides. Sir Harry Parkes is a man of
extraordinary determination and energy; his knowledge of the Chinese
language, customs, and character have given him an immense influence
over the natives. He is in every way a remarkable man, and great things
are expected of him, even by those who differ from him in opinion. It
is only fair to say, that there are many men of judgment and experience
out here who do not agree with him in holding that our trade with China
stands on a solid footing. They consider that the unwilling spirit with
which the natives first received us has by no means died out, and that
little by little, always by fair means and without violence,[4] for
they know our strength, the Chinese will endeavour to oust us from our
position, and return to their traditional conservatism. Perhaps this is
a pessimist creed, but still it is largely professed. At any rate the
Chinese will find it a hard matter to get rid of us, for no Government
will give up a matter of nearly six millions of revenue without a
struggle. For the present the British are welcome here. The Ta̔i Pi̔ngs
have been driven out of this part of China, and the rebellion has
dwindled down to comparative unimportance. The Chinese may be given
credit for so much of gratitude as looks upon past benefits as earnests
of future favours. We can still be useful, so we are still courted. It
remains to be seen whether, when we shall have played our part out, our
friends will try to cast us on one side.
When Sir Rutherford Alcock was in authority here he established a
municipal system which so long as Shanghai was prosperous answered very
well; of course, however, this being Chinese territory, subscription
to the authority of the municipality could not be compulsory, nor were
its enactments binding; but it suited the interests of the public to
accept it, and so it was supported by all the respectable part of the
community. Now the failures have told upon this as upon every other
institution, and unless better times come, it will fall to the ground
for want of funds and strength. It would be a great pity that this
should be the case, for there are many improvements needed here; above
all, gas-lighting. It is really to be hoped that things will take a
better turn soon, for they seem to be quite at their worst.
I must tell you of rather a funny offer of service that I received the
other day. R.’s Chinese boy came into me, and after playing nervously
with his tail for a little while, said, “My massa talkee my too muchee
fooloo; my thinkee more better my walkee Peking side long you.” I felt
half-inclined to engage the man for his simplicity, especially as he is
a good servant, though certainly not over bright.
_11th May._
I have just been to see my berth on board the _Yuen-tse-Fee_, a private
steamer. She is to stop at Chihfu. I have a cabin to myself, a piece of
good luck which I have enjoyed ever since Galle. In about a week hence
I expect to be at Peking. We sail at three in the morning to-morrow,
so I must go on board this evening. The _Yuen-tse-Fee_ is a very tiny
craft; nothing big can get up the Peiho, so if it blows at all shan’t
we just pitch about!
We are expecting the mail in hourly, but I hope to reach Peking before
it.
LETTER III
Ship _Yuen-tse-Fee_,
In the Gulf of Pechili,
_15th May 1865_.
I daresay you will understand that I was rather melancholy at leaving
Shanghai. For the first time on all this long journey I was to set out
alone, and my hosts, although they were only recent acquaintances, had
been so kind to me that I felt as if I were leaving old friends. I took
leave of them at half-past eleven on Thursday night, 11th May, for as
the ship was to sail at three in the morning I had to sleep on board.
The harbour was dark and gloomy, and it was as much as I could do to
steer the six-oared gig by the dim light of the lanterns at the various
masts’ heads. In short, everything looked black and dismal, and I felt
very much like going back to school after the holidays; but it don’t
do to give in, and very soon after I got on board I was sleeping as
sound as the rats in my cabin and bed, and an army of mosquitoes which
had flocked on board, would let me. When I woke next morning we were
hard and fast aground in the estuary; a thick fog had come on in the
night, and the captain, missing his course, had run upon one of the
many treacherous shoals of the great river. The tide took us off again
at about eleven, and we went on without further accident.
I had one fellow-passenger, an officer of the purveyor’s department of
the army, on his road to Peking to seek employment under the Imperial
Government.
We had a strong head wind against us at first and very dirty weather
on Friday night. But in spite of wind and weather the little
_Yuen-tse-Fee_ justified her name, which a Chinaman interpreted for me
as “walkee all the same Fly,” and she kept up a good average of eight
knots and a half.
On Sunday morning we were off the Shantung promontory, a fine broad
headland with a rough, jagged outline. Notwithstanding the haziness
of the atmosphere we had a good view of the coast and of the Rocky
Islands which make this sea so dangerous. Passing Cape Cod, we left
to the westward the spot where the unlucky _Race Horse_ was lost, and
arrived at Chihfu at about five o’clock the same evening.
For a town which really has some little commercial importance, Chihfu
is certainly one of the most wretched dens I ever saw. It consists
of one long narrow street of untidy stone and brick houses, the
peculiarity of which is that they have no apparent front or back, so
that it is a mystery how the inhabitants get into or out of them. Two
or three European houses, the office of the Chinese officer of Customs,
a few godowns more or less empty, and here and there a hovel built
up of mud, seaweed, and bamboo matting, complete the town. Its only
ornaments are the flags of the consul and of the Chinese officer. It
is prettily situated at the foot of a range of low, but picturesquely
tossed-about hills, and the harbour with its fleet of junks and
ships looks very well from the town. The type of the inhabitants is
different from that of the southern Chinese, the Tartar features are
very prominent among them, and it seemed to me that they were stronger
and finer men. I certainly never saw a better boat’s crew than the
six men who rowed me on shore. Whether they would have the pluck to
“stay” against an English crew I cannot say, but their short spurt was
admirable.
In spite of its mean appearance there is sufficient trade carried
on at Chihfu to induce some seventy Europeans to reside there. It
is, moreover, likely to become popular as a sea-bathing resort and
sanatorium.
In former days it was a great port for the junks, and there are still
many of them running there; but the junk trade has been very much
knocked on the head by foreign ships and steamers, which the Chinese
see the advantage of chartering, although they continue to build their
own clumsy and unwieldy craft. The principal exports of Chihfu are peas
and bean cake, and a little manufactured silk; there is besides a small
import trade of shirtings and opium.
_17th May._
The best part of Monday was occupied in discharging our cargo, and we
did not get up steam until five o’clock. A strong wind had sprung
up from the north-west, and the harbour, which is very much exposed
on that side, gave signs and tokens which led us to expect a very
squally night outside; however, the wind dropped suddenly and gave
place to a thick fog, so we escaped being tossed about, at the expense
of a few alarms of running on to the rocks; which is not at all a
pleasant look-out, for even if our lives would not have been in actual
danger, there was the certainty that if we had struck a rock we should
have lost all our baggage, and passed a very uncomfortable night.
We took up another passenger at Chihfu, an interpreter, bound for
Tientsing—apparently a very popular gentleman, for the captain had to
turn out neck and crop a company of friends who had come to see him
off, and who were inclined to prolong that ceremony, which involves
much sherry and brandy drinking, until long past the hour fixed for our
departure.
On Tuesday morning we took up our pilot for the Peiho River. He
reported having come across a junk wrecked and without masts—all
hands had evidently been lost; and on fishing about the cabin with a
boat-hook in order to get the papers if possible, he found two or three
dead bodies in a fearful state of decomposition. It is supposed that
she must have been wrecked more than a month ago.
We are absolutely suffering from cold here. The thermometer is 55°
in my cabin—a serious contrast after the 90° and 95° I have been
accustomed to. My warmer clothes are in the hold, so I am forced to
wear a greatcoat. We expect to find it warmer at Tientsing.
It was late in the afternoon on Tuesday when we arrived at the entrance
of the River Peiho.
Here are the famous Taku Forts, the scene of the disaster of 1859,
when Sir Frederick Bruce went up to get the treaty ratified, and our
vessels were beaten back with the loss of two gunboats, which were
sunk. The two forts stand on either side of the mouth of the river, and
are occupied—that on the north by the French, and that on the south by
the English. A company of infantry suffices to garrison each. They are
about to be evacuated. A little to the east of the British Fort there
still lies one of our sunken gunboats; the Chinese have recovered and
appropriated her guns. I cannot conceive a more dismal lot than that
of garrisoning Taku. Besides the forts, which in themselves are dreary
enough, there are but a few Chinese mud huts and an hotel, principally
patronised by pilots; and the French are cut off even from these by the
Peiho, than which no more filthy little stream ever defiled a sea. Its
banks at the mouth are vast plains of mud, lying flush with the water,
and so bleak and sad-looking that one almost wonders that the very
wild-fowl should be induced to stop there. Mud forts, mud houses, mud
fields, and muddy river—everything is mud.
Higher up stream, although the banks are very flat and uninteresting,
there is no lack of verdure. The trees are insignificant, but there are
green fields and gardens cultivated with vegetables and fruit-trees.
The neighbourhood of Tientsing is said to be the garden of China, and
in the season a peach only fetches three cash, of which one thousand or
more, according to the exchange, go to make up the dollar.
We soon had an experience of the difficulty of navigating the Peiho,
which is no broader than the Thames at Eton, and as tortuous as Cuckoo
weir. Over and over again we were on the point of running aground, and
when on one occasion we did stick, it was a labour of great difficulty
to get off again. A boat’s crew had to be landed, and a line fastened
to a stout tree on the bank, by which means and by backing with all our
force we floated off, the sailors on shore improving the occasion by
stealing onions and vegetables from the gardens on the bank. Nor was
the shallowness of the water our only impediment, for we did not reach
Tientsing without several brushes and collisions with junks, in one of
which our screw was broken.
I found Tientsing in a great state of excitement. It was the last day
of the races, and to my great joy I found my colleague Saurin staying
at the Russian consulate. Of course we agreed to make the journey
to Peking together, and the Russian consul, by way of making things
pleasant, most kindly volunteered to put me up.
The races really showed some very good sport. Tientsing cannot boast
of such a meeting as those of Hong-kong and Shanghai, where English
thoroughbreds are run, and for which such horses as “Buckstone,” since
dead, and “Sir William” are imported; the horses are but Mongol ponies,
the _bona fide_ hacks of their owners and riders, yet they accomplished
the three-mile race in seven minutes and forty seconds. They are very
plucky, strong little beasts, and run till they drop. The races were
an additional stroke of luck for me, for I was able at the end of the
day to buy a capital pony for fifty dollars. The Chinese crowd showed
the greatest possible interest in all the proceedings, and the course
had to be kept _vi et flagellis_, which latter were not spared by
the native police. Perhaps they feared spoiling the Chinaman, who is
proverbially a child.
_19th May._
I must own that I was agreeably disappointed in Tientsing. So many
travellers have abused it, and inveighed against its filth and its
beggarly crowd, that I expected to be shocked in one or other of my
senses at every step. It certainly is very dirty, but not much more so
than other Chinese towns, or, for that matter, than many in Europe;
and who that has travelled in the sunny South has not seen rags and
tatters, vermin, foul diseases, and deformities paraded as stimulants
to charity? There is one drawback to Tientsing which is really
insufferable. All the wells are salt, and the inhabitants are obliged
to drink the loathsome water of the river. In order to cleanse it, it
is first placed in large jars that the impurities may settle at the
bottom, and then filtered. But nothing can purge it so as to convince
one that the disgusting matter, which forces itself upon one as one
sails up the stream, has been entirely got rid of.
We went to see some of the curiosity shops. There was a great deal
of porcelain to which the dealers and local connoisseurs assigned
wonderful dates and fine titles, but nothing that would be cared for
in England; and the prices were simply outrageous, for the merchants
will pay any mad sum that is asked by the rascally dealers. There were
some very fine specimens of cloisonné enamel, but if the sums demanded
for the porcelain were high, the enamels were ten times dearer. I saw a
quantity of Chinese picture-books; they were not fit to buy, although
some had great merit for delicacy of drawing. They each represented
a story, generally the “Harlot’s Progress,” from a Chinese point of
view, very coarse, and without Hogarth’s grim retribution at the end.
Of course, where such drawings are openly exposed for sale there is
no great strictness of morals, and Tientsing is famous, or rather
infamous, even in China, for every bestial and degrading vice.
The European settlement of Tientsing is about two miles distant from
the Chinese city. There are some fairly good houses built by the side
of a broad bund or quay, and they command fabulous rents. The same
municipal system which obtains at Shanghai has been established here;
and, on the whole, the community shows signs of prosperity, although
the port has been a disappointment to those who expected that it would
reach an importance such as to crush Shanghai and its other rivals, or,
at all events, to divert a considerable portion of their trade. For the
first year or two after its establishment the business done was very
great, and large fortunes were made; one merchant, for example, is just
retiring with a fortune of £5000 a year, accumulated since 1861. But
the Chinese, cunning in trade, very soon found out that it answered
their purpose better to charter steamers, and have consignments made
to themselves directly, than to buy from the agents of the great
houses; consequently, as the trade is entirely import, the Europeans
are finding less and less to do. The _Yuen-tse-Fee_, although she hails
from Glasgow, and is nominally owned by Messrs. Trautmann and Co., a
German firm, is in reality chiefly, if not entirely, the property of a
dirty little Chinese comprador, whom I saw, and to whom the whole of
her cargo was consigned.
LETTER IV
PEKING, _23rd May 1865_.
We left Tientsing early on Friday morning the 19th, by which means we
had the tide in our favour, and were able to get quicker clear of the
hideous sights and smells of the river as it runs through the town. We
each had a boat; Saurin’s was the drawing-room, mine the dining-room,
and his servant occupied the third as kitchen. They were capital roomy
boats, covered in with hoods of bamboo and rattan matting, and with a
sort of dresser in each upon which we spread our beds. Each had a crew
of three men, and in Saurin’s, which was the biggest, there was a boy
besides. They were very cheery, hard-working fellows, and indeed they
had no sinecure, for although the wind was ostensibly in our favour,
still the river winds round such sharp twists and elbows that in every
other reach it was dead against us, and we had to proceed laboriously
by dint of towing and punting. But the harder they worked the better
humoured the crew seemed to be, and the boy especially distinguished
himself by zeal equalling that of an unpaid attaché. The shoals are
innumerable, and we were constantly crossing the river backwards and
forwards, along a course marked out by twigs stuck in the mud. There
is no scenery to enjoy, nothing but interminable fields of millet, and
here and there a little wood. There is not a hillock to be seen, and
we were lucky in being as short a time as possible over what must be
a very dull journey. We reached Tungchou at three o’clock on Sunday
afternoon. Here we found our horses, with an escort which had been sent
down with them to meet us.
Tungchou was very busy. A fleet of junks had come in with grain, and
the quay was alive with crowds of coolies, many of them as naked as
they were born, discharging cargo, sifting corn, and carrying it into
granaries. Our appearance produced some astonishment, for “foreign
devils” are hardly yet quite familiar objects so far north. Tungchou
was the place where the unfortunate English prisoners were taken
in 1860, and where Wade and Crealock, carrying a flag of truce and
demanding to parley with the commander, were fired upon and narrowly
escaped with their lives. It is fortified, as all the northern cities
are, but its walls would only be a security against native warriors.
The roads in this part of the world are miracles of badness, and it
is not difficult to conceive the tortures that the English prisoners
must have suffered when they were conveyed along them in native carts
without springs, and having their hands and heels tied together behind
them with cords tightened by water. Every inch of the road to Peking
is famous from the events of that time. Some way outside Tungchou we
rode over the bridge of Palikao,[5] where the Chinese crossed their
spears with the French bayonets, and held their own for half an hour.
From this bridge the Général de Montauban takes his title. Its kylins
and stone flags still bear traces of shot and shell. Riding through
dust over one’s pony’s hocks, and raising a cloud at every step, is
very dry work, and I was glad when we struck off the main road, and,
coming upon a tea-house in a shady nook, stopped to rest and refresh.
The people received us with the utmost _bonhomie_ and civility, and
brought us delicious tea, without milk or sugar, in bowls, hard-boiled
eggs, and a sort of roll-twist fried instead of baked. We soon had
ten or twelve yellow gentlemen round us, eagerly asking all sorts of
questions about ourselves, our ages, and belongings. Murray talks
Chinese fluently, and Saurin has also some knowledge of it, so we got
on capitally. Our ages always puzzle Chinamen. They neither wear beard
nor moustache until they have reached the age of forty, so they think
that all Europeans who wear such appendages must have passed that age.
A single eye-glass is, however, the possession which commands the most
astonishment. They are familiar with spectacles and double eye-glasses,
for they themselves wear them of portentous size, and mounted in thick
brass or tortoise-shell rims. But a single glass is indeed a marvel,
and provokes much laughter. Though the peculiarities of foreigners
amuse the Chinese as much as theirs do us, it is singular how their
natural courtesy prevents their showing it in the offensive manner
that every Englishman has experienced in some foreign countries. I
had expected to find the country on this side of Peking flat, ugly,
and barren. Flat it certainly is, but there are plenty of trees and
rich fields, and it cannot be called ugly. The villages and graves
argue an immense population. It is not till one is under the very
walls of the town that one sees Peking. The walls are high, ruinous,
battlemented, and picturesque, of a fine deep gray colour. They are
capped at intervals by towers of fantastic Chinese architecture, and,
with their lofty gates, make a strange and striking picture. As a means
of defence against modern artillery the walls of Peking are probably
absurd. However, before I tell you anything about Peking I had better
know something myself. At present I only know that I was very hot, very
tired, and as dusty as the oldest press in the Record office, when I
rode into the court of Her Majesty’s Legation, where I received the
warmest welcome from Wade, the _chargé d’affaires_.
We have received bad Chinese news. Sangkolinsin, the Mongol chief
who commanded at the Peiho in 1859, and was temporarily disgraced for
not being able to beat off the allies in 1860, has been killed by
the rebels in the province of Shantung, some 400 miles hence. He was
reputed a brave soldier and an honest man. Although the Chinese affect
to disregard the importance of the intelligence, there is no doubt that
it is very serious. The fire is burning everywhere, and they cannot or
will not take the proper means to put it out.
_Note._—I should wish to add here one word of admiration and respect
for the memory of Sir Thomas Wade, my first chief in China. He had
been Lord Clyde’s adjutant, but gave up the army for diplomacy. A
great student and master of many languages, his Chinese scholarship
won the admiration even of the learned mandarins with whom he had
to deal. During the two Chinese Wars he distinguished himself, not
only by his great abilities as a negotiator, but also by the most
dauntless courage. Generous and self-sacrificing to a fault, he was
one of the greatest gentlemen I ever met.—1900.
LETTER V
PEKING, _1st June 1865_.