a gigantic failure, isn’t it? not a two-storied house in the whole
place, eh?” To Lord Stanley’s practical eye, no doubt, it might be a
failure, but an artist would find much to admire and put on paper.
Pe-king, which means the northern capital, as Nan-king means the
southern, consists of two cities, the Chinese and the Tartar, and
within this latter, again, is the Imperial city, which contains the
palace and precincts of the court. Both cities are surrounded by walls
of dark-gray brick; those of the Tartar city are fifty feet high, forty
feet wide at the top, and about sixty feet below; the walls of the
Chinese city are less important, being only thirty feet high. These
walls have battlements and loop-holes for guns. That of the Chinese
city has fallen into decay, but that of the Tartar is more carefully
repaired. At intervals are lofty watch-towers standing out against
the sky. High towers stand also above the gates, which are closed at
sunset, after which time ingress and egress are forbidden.
The streets are broad roads, in most cases unpaved, and in all uncared
for. They are flanked on each side by shops and low houses, but their
breadth is lessened by the countless stalls and stands of hucksters of
all sorts that take them up often in quadruple rows. In this region of
dust and dirt the streets are equally filthy summer and winter. Both in
the Chinese and Tartar cities there are large open spaces and buildings
standing in their own grounds, covering areas of many acres. In the
former city these are the temples of the Buddhist and Taoist religions,
in the latter they are the palaces of the Emperor and persons of
distinction. These grounds, planted as they are with lofty trees, give
a great beauty to the town, and often in the heart of either city
there are spots which are pictures of village life. Standing among
these groves of trees the brilliant colours and fantastic designs
of the Chinese architecture have a wonderfully pleasing effect. The
wall of the imperial palace, covered with highly glazed yellow tiles,
with towers at the corners shining like gold in the sun, is especially
striking. Whichever way one turns there is something grotesque and
barbarous to be seen, and the signs of decay and rot do not detract
from the picture. In fact Peking is like a vast curiosity shop, with
all the dust and dirt which are among the conditions of bric-à-brac. It
would be pleasant-looking and admiring were it not for the difficulties
of riding through the city owing to the enormous crowds which block
the way—carts, porters, camels, chairs, pedlars, beggars, lamas,
muleteers, horse-copers from Mongolia, archers on horseback, mandarins
with their suites, small-footed women, great ladies in carts, closely
veiled to keep off the gaze of the profane vulgar. In short, every
variety of yellow and brown humanity, not to speak of dogs and pigs,
get into one’s path at every moment, and raise clouds of dust, which
fill eyes, ears, hair, mouth, and nose, and temporarily destroy every
sense save that of touch. It is as if the dust of all the Derby days
since the institution of that race (by the bye I wonder what horse
has won it this year) had been borne by the winds to find a permanent
home here. A dust-storm in the north of China is a natural phenomenon.
Clouds draw over the sky as if a thunderstorm was going to burst. In
my inexperience the first time I saw this I expected rain to fall, but
instead of rain there came a fine dust penetrating everything and not
to be shut out by door or window. This nuisance, which comes to us from
the great Mongolian deserts, besides hurting the eyes as common dust
by filling them with extraneous matter, has chemical properties which
produce a smarting and burning pain. Dust-storms are sometimes so thick
that men lose their way as in a London fog. It is indeed “a darkness
that may be felt.”
The distance round the walls of Peking is something like twenty-three
miles, of which fifteen must be given to the Tartar city, which is
square in shape and lies to the north of the oblong Chinese city.
Tradition, and the mystery which for so many years hung over the
capital, have assigned to it an exaggerated population. The Chinese
affected to believe it contained two million souls, and that no
capital in the world could compete with it. This may have been the case
in the time of the Emperor Chien-Lung, who reigned from 1736 to 1795
a.d. But nowadays, judging from the enormous empty spaces, and from
the gardens and courtyards, which no gentleman’s residence is without,
and even allowing for the dense crowding of some quarters, it probably
does not reach a million. It is impossible to form any precise estimate
of the numbers of the “Doors and Mouths.” Doctors disagree, and I
have heard the people of Peking reckoned at various figures, from six
hundred thousand to a million and a half. Until Peking was opened to
Europeans the southern Chinese used to stick at no lie about it. For
instance, if they were told of some great scientific invention such as
railways, the electric telegraph, or the like, they would say at once
with the utmost coolness, “Have seen! Have seen! Have got plenty Peking
side!” And in like manner they lied about its size and population.
The country round about Peking seems to be very thickly peopled. I
was prepared to find it so, but nevertheless I had hardly expected
to see so many human beings and their traces, which are often very
unpleasant, especially in China.
Our Legation is situated in the southern part of the Tartar city.
We occupy a most picturesque palace called the Liang Kung Fu, or
Palace of the Duke of Liang, which, like all Chinese buildings of
importance, covers an immense space of ground. There are courtyards
upon courtyards, huge empty buildings with red pillars, used as covered
courts, state approaches guarded by two great marble lions, and a
number of houses with only a ground floor, each of us inhabiting one
to himself. When the Legation first came to live here the whole place
was put into repair, and redecorated in the Chinese fashion with fluted
roofs of many colours, carved woodwork, kylins of stone and pottery,
and all the thousand and one fancies with which the Chinese cover their
buildings. Unfortunately the repairs were badly executed, and nothing
further has been done to keep matters straight, so the Legation, which
ought to be as pretty as possible, is really a disgrace to us. The
gardens are a wilderness, the paving of the courts is broken, the
walls are tumbling down, and the beautiful place is going to rack
and ruin. In this climate of extreme heat and cold a stitch in time
saves ninety-nine.[6] Fancy a residence in the heart of a great and
populous city where foxes, scorpions, polecats, weasels, magpies, and
other creatures that one expects to find in the wild country, abound.
That will give you an idea of how space is wasted in Peking. The great
drawback to our palace is its situation. We have more than an hour’s
ride before we can escape from the city and its stinks, to breathe a
breath of fresh air. It requires an immense exercise of energy to face
an hour’s ride through the streets of Peking in order to get a canter
in the open; and I am often half tempted to sell my pony and dismiss
my groom, but this would be tantamount to shutting myself up for good
in the Legation, for walking at Peking is even more disagreeable than
riding.
His Imperial Highness the Prince of Kung, President of the Council,
Chief of the Board of Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister, and what not
besides, sent his card yesterday to announce to Wade that he would pay
him an official visit. I enclose you his visiting card.
The Prince of Kung is the brother of the late Emperor, and in 1860 was
entrusted by him with the negotiations with Lord Elgin and Baron Gros.
During the minority of the present Emperor, who is about twelve years
old, the two Empresses-dowager[7] are nominally regents; but the Prince
has the care of the Emperor’s education, and is virtually the regent of
the empire. He was very nearly meeting with the fate of Humpty-Dumpty
a little while back, for he was accused of selling places, abuse of
patronage, and insolence in the Presence. His accuser was supposed to
have been instigated by one of the Empresses who is hostile to him,
and to have been made cat’s-paw of by a court intrigue. However that
may be, the Empresses issued an edict in the style of the chorus in
the _Agamemnon_ which shows how prosperity leads to insolence, and
insolence to retribution, and the Prince was deprived of all his
offices and glories. For a few days he remained in disgrace, but his
brothers came to the rescue, a Grand Council was held, and the Prince
was reinstated in the office of Foreign Affairs in consideration of
his great services. This, however, did not look well for the Prince,
as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs carries with it such unpopularity
that its possession alone might be esteemed a doubtful pleasure; and it
was not until his former honours were one by one restored to him that
he could be said to be reinstated in court favour. The charges against
him were declared unfounded, and it was agreed that the question of
insolence was a family matter, and should not interfere with public
affairs. Meanwhile his accuser goes about at large, but about as free
as a mouse that a cat lets slip out of her claws for a second or two. I
would not be in his skin for something.
A little before the hour fixed for the Prince’s visit, Hêng-Chi and
Tung, two of the Board of Foreign Affairs, arrived to meet him.
Hêng-Chi is the man whose name became known in Europe during the war in
1860, and during Parke’s and Loch’s captivity. He is a little thin old
man very like Mr. Meadows, the actor at the Princesses’ Theatre, and a
great dandy. He wore a pearl gray silk dress turned up with blue. His
fan-case, chopstick-case, and other knick-knacks which he wears at
his girdle, are richly embroidered, and mounted with seed pearls and a
peculiar clouded pink coral which the Chinese call baby-face coral. His
snuff-bottle is of the finest Fei Tsui, or emerald green jade, which is
worth its weight in diamonds here, but of all his possessions none is
in his eyes more charming than a large silver Geneva turnip watch which
he displays with much pride. In his boot, which is of black satin, he
carries his pipe with its tiny silver bowl, and a gorgeous Fei Tsui
mouthpiece, together with sweetmeats, pills, and other trifles. His
white cap with the red tassel of office hanging all round it, has a
pink coral button (Hêng-Chi is a mandarin of the first button), and the
peacock’s feather which falls from it is mounted in more Fei Tsui. To
crown all, he wears a pair of spectacles as big as saucers, with broad
silver rims. Never was a little old man so pleased with himself; his
little airs and graces and _petit-maître_ ways are very funny. Tung is
a jolly, fat, old mandarin and a great contrast to Hêng-Chi. He is a
great man of letters, and has translated Longfellow’s “Psalm of Life”
into Chinese verse. That is, Wade gave him a literal version of the
English, and he made a poem of it, which is said to have great merit.
In due course of time the Prince arrived in his chair attended by a
number of running footmen, and an escort mounted on ponies. Wade and
I received him, and I was presented to him as Mi-ta-jên, the official
name by which my arrival was announced to the Chinese Foreign Office—we
are all obliged to have monosyllabic names for our intercourse with the
Chinese. Sir F. Bruce was Pu-ta-jên (the Chinese cannot pronounce an
R, so they rendered his name as Pu-lu-su), Wade is Wei-ta-jên. Ta-jên,
literally “great man,” is a title denoting official rank, and is that
which is borne by the mandarins.
The Prince is a young man about 28 years of age, judging by
appearances. He is pockmarked, as indeed is almost every Chinaman
I have seen. He is very shortsighted, and has the same trick of
screwing up his eyes that I have, and I could not help thinking what
a caricature we should have made as we sat opposite each other making
faces. As soon as the Prince had taken his seat he drew his pipe out of
his boot, and one of his own attendants brought him fire, serving him
kneeling on one knee. Tea was brought as a matter of course, and then
the conversation began. The great man had a short, flippant manner,
and this it was that so nearly brought him to grief. He was immensely
amused by an English bell-pull, and a mother-of-pearl paper-knife which
lay on the table. My single eyeglass was a real boon to the Prince.
Whenever he was getting the worst of an argument, and was at a loss
for an answer, he would stop short, throw up his hands in amazement,
and pointing at me cry out, “A single eyeglass! marvellous!” By thus
creating a diversion at my expense he gave himself time to consider
his reply. He seemed very friendly with Wade, and full of jokes and
fun—of course I could not understand a word of what was said, but I
took refuge behind a big cigar, and looked on vastly amused by our
guest’s ways. I thought I detected a cruel, cunning look behind all his
affectation of good-humour.
When the Prince had gone, Hêng-Chi, who, besides being part-Minister
for Foreign Affairs, is also a general officer, and many other things,
for pluralism is the order of the day, invited us to a review and
breakfast afterwards on the 3rd of June, at six in the morning.
It may be a calumny, but I strongly suspect Hêng-Chi of dyeing his tail.
_Note._—The senior Empress-dowager, who had been the first wife
of the Emperor Hsien Fêng, appears to have been more or less a
cypher. The real power was wielded by the Empress-mother Tsu Hsi.
This remarkable lady was according to some accounts a slave girl,
according to others the daughter of a member of the imperial family.
Nor are the two statements incompatible in a country where adoption
of children holds good. The Emperor wishing to raise a girl in his
harem to the highest position would only need to command one of his
relations to adopt her, and she would at once be an imperial princess
as much as if she had been born in the purple, or rather in the
yellow.
The senior Empress-dowager, or Eastern Empress as she was called,
died on 18th April 1881, and the power was then absolutely and solely
in the hands of the Empress-mother. The latter’s son, the Emperor
Tung Chi, had died without issue in 1875, and his cousin, a child of
four, was raised to the Lung Wei or Dragon’s throne in his stead. The
regency remained as before with the two Dowager-empresses.
Dr. Wells Williams, in his _Middle Kingdom_, a perfect encyclopædia
on all Chinese matters, says, “The Empress-dowager is the most
important subject within the palace, and His Majesty does homage
at frequent intervals, by making the highest ceremony of nine
prostrations before her. When the widow of Kia King reached the age
of sixty in 1836 many honours were conferred by the Emperor. An
extract from the ordinance issued on this festival will exhibit the
regard paid her by the Sovereign:—
“Our extensive dominions have enjoyed the utmost prosperity under
the shelter of a glorious and enduring state of felicity—our
exalted race has become most illustrious under the protection of
that honoured relative to whom the whole court looks up. To her
happiness, already unalloyed, the highest degree of felicity has
been super-added, causing joy and gladness to every inmate of the
Six Palaces. The grand ceremonies of the occasion shall exceed in
splendour the utmost requirements of the ancients in regard to the
human relations, calling forth the gratulation of the whole Empire.
It is indispensable that the observances of the occasion should be
of an exceedingly unusual nature, in order that our reverence for
our august parent and care of her may both be equally and gloriously
displayed.... In the first month of the present winter occurs the
sixtieth anniversary of Her Majesty’s sacred natal day. At the
opening of the happy period the sun and the moon shed their united
genial influences on it. When commencing anew the revolution of the
sexagenary cycle the honour thereof adds increase to her felicity.
Looking upward and beholding her glory, we repeat our gratulations,
and announce the event to heaven, to earth, to our ancestors, and
to the patron-gods of the empire. On the nineteenth day of the
tenth moon, in the fifteenth year of Tao Kwang, we will conduct
the princes, the nobles, and all the high officers, both civil
and military, into the presence of the great Empress, benign and
dignified, universally placid, thoroughly virtuous, tranquil, and
self-collected, in favours unbounded; and we will then present our
congratulations on the glad occasion, the anniversary of her natal
day. The occasion yields a happiness equal to what is enjoyed by
goddesses in heaven, and while announcing it to the gods and to our
people, we will tender to her blessings unbounded.”—_Middle Kingdom_,
vol. i. p. 410.
Rations to soldiers, honours, promotions, pardons, etc., were
ordered in honour of the day—“Every perfectly filial son or obedient
grandson, every upright husband or chaste wife, upon proofs being
brought forward, shall have a monument erected with an inscription
in his or her honour.” Soldiers who had reached the age of ninety
or one hundred received money to erect an honorary portal, and
tombs, temples, and bridges were ordered to be repaired; but, as Dr.
Williams slily remarks, “how many of these exceedingly great and
special favours were actually carried into effect cannot be stated.”
This edict of the Emperor Tao Kwang is of high interest at this
moment (1900), as illustrating the position of the present
Dowager-empress Tsu Hsi, which has seemed so incomprehensible to us
Westerns. An ambitious woman, with the master mind of an Elizabeth or
a Catherine, would, it is easy to perceive, find opportunities which
she has certainly turned to the best, or worst, advantage.
_4th June._
I wished my friend General Hêng-Chi with all his soldiers a long way
off when my boy came to pull me out of bed at daybreak yesterday
morning. We had had a great storm the night before, so the dust was
laid, but _en revanche_ the streets were a sea of mud, and many of
them regular rivers, and we had to flounder on, our horses putting
their feet in holes at every step. It took us nearly an hour and a
half of this work to get to the parade ground on the Anting plain.
The ground was kept by means of sticks and red string, with a soldier
at each stick. We were shown straight to a small blue tent, where the
general received us with much ceremony. When we had drunk tea the three
generals, the Russian Embassy, and ourselves left the tent and took
up our place on a small mound. Our appearance was the signal for the
military music to strike up. The band was composed of about twelve
Chinamen, and their instruments were large sea shells or conches, out
of which they produced the most dismal and distressing and continuous
howl that it ever was my bad luck to listen to. I hardly know what to
compare it to. You have heard the noise in a shell—it was like that,
but magnified a million times. As soon as we had taken our position,
a soldier in front of us waved a huge flag, and the business of the
day began. There were about two thousand soldiers, and they were to
exercise, not with the swords, and bows, and shields of “the Braves,”
but according to our drill book, which Wade has translated for them,
and with rifles and guns given them by the Russians. They went through
their evolutions respectably, so said Wade, who is an old soldier and a
first-rate drill; but I own that when they advanced close up to us and
delivered a volley bang in our faces, I felt that it was not unlikely
that, as at our Volunteer reviews, a stray ramrod might have been left
in a rifle. However, no accident occurred, barring the bursting of the
powder box of one of the big guns, by which four men were severely
scorched and five put _hors de combat_, for the lieutenant in charge
of the gun was then and there collared and summarily bambooed, _coram
populo_, for carelessness in giving the word to fire before the powder
box was closed. Such is discipline!
The sun was beginning to be very powerful, so it was a great relief
when the review was declared to be over, and it was announced that each
of the men was to receive three halfpence for his good conduct that day
in the field. Upon the hearing of this joyful intelligence, the army to
a man went down on one knee, in token of gratitude, though they knew
perfectly well that they never would see the money. Poor devils!
Breakfast was served in a temple hard by. When we sat down Hêng-Chi was
not to be found. It turned out that, with a thoughtfulness which would
have done credit to many a more civilised host, he had gone to see that
the men of our and the Russian escorts were well cared for.
A Chinese meal exactly reverses the order of the things which is
practised in Europe. First came cups of tea, and when these were all
cleared away two tiny saucers were placed before each person. Then the
dessert and sweets were put upon the table; oranges, apples, candied
walnuts, sweets of all kinds, hemp seed done up with flour and sugar,
apricot kernels preserved in oil and dried, and other delicacies. Next
came the savoury meats—of these the most remarkable were sea-slugs,
like turtle-soup in taste, bamboo sprouts, sharks’ fins, and deers’
sinews—all gelatinous dishes are the most highly prized; the famous
bird’s-nest soup is just like isinglass not quite boiled down. Finally
came a sort of soup of rice. I found it very difficult at first to
eat with chopsticks. The manner of eating is to dip your chopsticks
into any one of the bowls, and transfer a morsel to your own saucers,
which are not changed, neither are the chopsticks wiped, during the
whole proceeding. If you wish to pay a person a compliment, you select
a tit-bit with your own chopsticks and put it on your neighbour’s
plate, and he does the same in return. This gives the entertainment
the appearance of an indecorous scramble, for one is continually
leaning across two or three people to repay some civility. The dishes
are very rich, and I should think unwholesome in the extreme. There
were upwards of sixty different eatables put upon the table, and I
must own that although my chopsticks went into nearly every little
bowl, there was not one which did not please my taste. Native wine was
served to us in little cups of the size of our liqueur glasses; it
had rather a pleasant taste, and was very dry. As soon as breakfast
was over the Chinese gentlemen produced out of their boots—which seem
an inexhaustible receptacle for everything, from tobacco to state
papers—small pieces of paper, with which they wiped their mouths and
ivory chopsticks, and then came a piece of Chinese politeness which
is very offensive to Europeans; for it is good manners here, out of
compliment to the host, and in token of having eaten well and been
satisfied, to produce the longest and loudest eructations, and Hêng-Chi
and the two generals left nothing to be desired in that respect, making
a great display of good breeding. Tea and conversation in the court of
the temple brought my first Chinese entertainment to a close. I can’t
tell you how strange it seemed to me to begin with dessert and end
with soup!
LETTER VI
PEKING, _23rd June 1865_.
Since I wrote to you last I have neither seen nor done anything worth
recording. The thermometer has been standing at from 95° to 107° in our
courtyard, so there is not much temptation to go sight-seeing, or even
to move outside the Legation; inside, the days are as like as twins.
However, there is a bag going to-day, so I must try and patch up a
letter.
We are thinking of making a move to the hills next Monday; we have
almost decided on a temple called Pi Yün Ssŭ, about 12½ miles from
this. I shall be very glad to go, for the town is becoming abominably
stuffy and hot, and the dust is something beyond belief. We shall
probably stay six weeks or two months, coming into Peking on mail days.
We are forced to take our whole establishment with us, so it is not
worth while going for a shorter time.