and I shall return by way of the tombs of the emperors of the Ming
dynasty; so at any rate I shall not have to sing the eternal refrain,
“Peking is very dirty.” I shall be about eight days gone. The trip was
originally to have been undertaken with the Russian Minister, but he is
detained by business, so I go with Murray, and we accompany Saurin as
far as Ku-Pei-Ko̔u, whence he will travel into Mongolia, and Murray and
I shall come back.
One more word about the Beggar’s Bridge: often one of the poor
creatures will die at his post, and I have seen the corpse lie there
for two or three days hardly covered over by a piece of rotten matting.
His troubles and miseries are over. The beggars are, I am told, a sort
of guild with a recognised head, to whom it is not an infrequent custom
to pay a slight annual tribute, by which means their importunities,
such as taking up a position outside a man’s door or shop, and refusing
to “move on,” may be avoided, and their piteous cry, “Ko̔ Lien! Ko̔
Lien!” (Have mercy! have mercy!) no longer heard. Begging throughout
Asia is a fine art.
LETTER XIII
PEKING, _5th September 1865_.
I returned on Saturday from my trip to the Great Wall; I must try and
give you some account of it.
We started on the 25th August, as I told you before. Saurin and Frater,
one of the student interpreters, were going to make a journey in
Mongolia, and Murray and I accompanied them to the frontier.
Each party had three servants—a man to look after clothes, bedding, and
things in general, a cook, and a groom; but besides these our people
took with them _their_ servant, a queer little oddity of a Chinaman,
very dirty, in an old English sailor’s pea-jacket, much too big for
him, which earned him the name of the “Skipper.” I never saw such
a merry, willing little creature; he was always at work and always
laughing, as if everything he did were a capital joke, and the very
fact of his being in the world at all something so ridiculous that he
really couldn’t get over it.
I need tell you little of our first day’s journey, as far as regards
scenery. I had never seen that part of the plain which lies north-east
of Peking, but it is exactly like the rest, which I have often
described to you. We breakfasted at a place called Sun-Ho, about
thirteen miles hence; soon after that the country became prettier.
We passed some cosy villages with fine old willows; from these one
is called Ku-Lin-Shu, the “Old Willow Trees,” and here we stopped to
rest during the great heat of the day at the tea-shop. As usual, all
the people were very civil and talkative. One elderly man, whose name
was Ma, a Mohammedan, and evidently the village politician, was very
communicative; he was a great Tory, and _laudator temporis acti_,
abusing the present dynasty, and sighing over the “good old days” of
the Mings. I gave him a cigar, which he took with great delight, and
jumped up on to a little low wall, where he sat perched with his hams
on his heels like an old bird, and went on with his denunciation of
the Tartars. “Ugh!” said he, “they have not got a good officer among
all their mandarins. They brought us into the war with foreign powers,
and then when they saw the big men and the big horses, and heard the
poum-poum-poum of the cannon, what did they do? Why, they ran away and
left us to pay for it all.”
We slept at a place called Niu-Lan-Shan, near which there are some
marshes with herons and wild-fowl. A Chinese inn is very unlike our
notions of an inn. It is generally built round the four sides of
a courtyard; the guests’ house is at the bottom, facing north and
south. East and west are stalls for mules, horses, and donkeys; the
remaining side is occupied by the people of the house. The inn-yard
is very animated—carts, pigs, horses, mules, dogs, flocks of pigeons,
and poultry are crowded into it, besides poor travellers, Chinese and
Mongol. Then there are generally a travelling barber plying his trade
in one corner, a pedlar haggling for a few cash in another, and all the
idle vagabonds who seem to comprise the greater part of the population
of every place in Northern China, and who come in to loaf about and
make remarks about the foreigners. There is no great variety or
originality in these. There is always a fugleman, who makes a remark,
and then the crowd take it up in chorus. The following is really a fair
specimen of the sort of thing they say about us:—
_Fugleman_—“Those boots! They are made of scented cow’s leather”
(Russia leather).
_Chorus_—“Those boots! They are made of scented cow’s leather.”
_Fugleman_—“Those boots! He that wears them need not fear water.”
_Chorus_ (admiringly)—“Those boots! He that wears them,” etc.
_Fugleman_ (to one of us)—“Those boots! How much did they cost?”
_Englishman_—“They cost fourteen taels.”
_Fugleman_—“Those boots! They cost fourteen taels, and he speaks the
mandarin language.”
_Chorus_-“They cost fourteen taels, and he speaks the mandarin
language”—and so it goes on _ad infinitum_. If we are in a good humour
we give the fugleman a cigar, which he puffs at vigorously, and swears
“it is both strong and fragrant”; but it makes him cough violently,
and he passes it on to the next in the crowd, until the whole of them
retire, coughing and declaring that it is “both strong and fragrant,”
into a corner, from which every now and then we hear “those boots” all
over again.
The rooms of the inn are very bare indeed; the only furniture is a
table with two chairs, and the only _vaisselle_ provided is a teapot
and bowls, all guests being expected to bring their own bedding, food,
and comforts. On each door is pasted a print of a god in staring
colours. The lintels and posts of the inner doors are covered with
characters printed on red paper, which are generally moral reflections
from the works of Confucius, such as, “All happiness comes from
Heaven,” “To become wealthy you must have the principle of right.”
On the wall is generally hung a picture. I saw one of a sage with a
forehead like a misshapen pear, lecturing before two warriors upon
the Yang and Yin (the universal principle of nature); another of a
yellow elephant in spectacles, his body, legs, and trunk covered with
characters, with two gentlemen in blue eating their dinner comfortably
under his stomach, while a third was offering a stalk of millet to
a lady in pink, who modestly turned her head aside as she accepted
the present; this was a sort of Chinese farmer’s Moore’s almanack,
indicating the propitious times for sowing, reaping, etc. Besides the
centre picture, the walls are often covered with drawings by poor
travelling artists, who earn a night’s lodging by the skill of their
pencil. Some of their productions, when they don’t attempt figures or
beasts, are very clever. I have seen in the most out-of-the-way inns
sketches of bamboo, grasses, flowers, and birds, that were dashed
off in a way that would have done credit to well-known names. If
the traveller be a poor scholar, as such are always proud of their
caligraphy, he will, instead of a drawing, contribute quotations from
the philosophers or poets, or a few verses in praise of the landlord
and his honesty, and declaring how his (the poor scholar’s) heart had
laughed during the period of their intercourse. Every room has in it
a ka̔ng; this is a large stove about 2½ feet high, covered with a mat
or piece of felt, taking up all one side of the room, and serving as a
bed. In winter the Chinese, like the Russians, bake themselves every
time they go to sleep.
There came on a fearful thunderstorm in the night, with a deluge of
rain, which gave us some uneasiness, as we had several rivers ahead of
us which we feared might become unfordable, as indeed turned out to
be the case. However, the only inconvenience we suffered was in loss
of time, for when we arrived next morning at the first river we found
huge ferry-boats, worked by strapping Chinamen stark naked; it took us
nearly two hours to get our carts, mules, and horses across. We amused
ourselves the while in watching a swine-herd’s vain endeavours to make
his flock swim the stream, the opposition being led by a stubborn
little curly-tail, with a majority in his favour. The consumption of
pork at Peking must be something fabulous. The streets swarm with pigs,
and yet from every direction we saw large herds being driven into the
town. The Chinese who can afford it eat pork at nearly every meal. We
found an encampment of Mongols on the river-bank. They were on their
way homeward from Peking, where they had been selling horses. They
seemed very good-humoured, honest people, simple and primitive to a
degree, as amused as children with our watches, clothes, saddles, and
other belongings.
It is very strange, the farther one gets from the capital, to see
an improvement in everything. The fields are better cultivated, the
houses are better built, and the villages far cleaner than the town.
Fifteen miles out of Peking all the indecencies and filthiness which
are its characteristics disappear entirely; a man would be stoned if
he were to venture upon outraging decency as the Pekingese do; the
poor peasants are more polite and less inquisitive about us, although
foreigners so rarely appear among them, which makes one think that the
inquisitiveness is sometimes only studied impertinence. We saw several
farmhouses with pretty gardens and neat out-houses, which might have
stood in an English shire, so free were they from all stamp of China.
The people seemed well-to-do, and the farmers positively rich. We met
a lady going out to spend the day with her gossip, dressed as smart as
a new pin, and carrying her baby in her arms. She was riding a donkey,
which, as soon as one of our vicious little Mongol ponies set eyes on,
he made a dash at the ass and upset him and the lady and the baby,
happily on to a bank, for had she fallen in the muddy lane there would
have been an end to all her finery. As it was, she was let off for a
good fright. “Ai ya! what manners are these! what manners are these!”
she cried indignantly as she struggled on to her tiny goat’s feet. We,
of course, made all the apologies possible, and she bestrode her ass
and rode off pacified—more or less.
The principal place that we passed on this day (August 26) was
Mi-Yün-Hsien, a walled city. We did not enter the city, but skirted the
walls. Outside the gate there stands a guard-house, and near this there
is a tall blasted tree. It has neither leaf nor sprout, but from its
whitened branches there hang small wooden cages, and in each cage is a
human head, at which the carrion-birds are pecking. A ghastly fruit!
At a little place called Shi-ling I saw the prettiest woman I have ever
met in China. She was a widow, and really looked quite lovely in her
white dress and fillet, which she wore as weeds. She had a clear olive
complexion, abundance of black hair, dark eyes, and regular features.
Women’s dress in this country show nothing of the figure; but we all
agreed that she _must_ have had a good figure; alas! her feet had been
tortured and deformed. This is commonly supposed to be the difference
between pure Chinese women and Tartars. As a matter of fact, I am
assured that it is a question of family custom, some Tartar families
adopting it, while some Chinese families do not. The poor serving wench
who has her feet deformed must be sadly hampered in her work.
We slept at Mu-Chia-Yu. The next morning (August 27) we started in good
time, for we wished to reach Ku-Pei-Ko̔u early that day. Although the
ride of the day before had been very pretty, increasing in beauty as
we drew near to the mountains, I was hardly prepared for such glorious
scenery as we passed through on this day. The road lay over and between
hillocks and rocks covered with ferns, mosses, and wild-flowers, and
before us were the mountains with blue distances and fantastic outlines
for a landscape-painter to revel in. Over the tops of the highest hills
the Great Wall of China traced a zigzag course, like a distant chain.
Rich crops of millet and Indian corn, with undergrowths of beans or
buckwheat, bordered with the castor-oil plant, stood in the valleys
and in the plain. The cottages of the different villages had an air
of comfort and tidiness rare in China; almost every one had a little
flower-garden fenced in by a hedge of millet stalks, trailed over
with gourds, convolvulus, and vines. In some places the people were
gathering in the smaller sort of millet; they were cutting the ears
separately with a small knife, as a gardener would gather a dish of
fruit or vegetables.
The only instance of hostility towards a foreigner on the part of the
people I have met with hitherto happened on this day. Frater and I were
riding about 200 yards ahead of the party when, just as we arrived at
a crossroad, and were doubting which way to take, up came a party of
about a dozen Chinamen with a cart. We, according to good manners,
“borrowed the light of their intelligence,” and asked our way, which
they pointed out, paying us at the same time the compliment of asking
whether we had eaten our dinner. I think I told you that the common
salutation is, “Have you had your dinner?” The literal translation of
the phrase is, “Have you eaten rice.”[8] _Rice_ has passed into the
generic term for all meals. _Early rice_ is breakfast, _late rice_ is
dinner. _The rice is prepared_ is the equivalent of Mr. Bailey Junior’s
“the wittles is up.” In short, amenity and deportment could be pushed
no further. To our surprise a few moments after Saurin and Murray
rode up looking hot and angry, and asking us whether we had had any
difficulty with these same men. It appeared that, as Saurin was riding
past the cart, the man inside, in the most unprovoked way, struck him
in the chest with his brass pipe. Murray was riding just behind him
and saw the blow struck, and from their account of what took place I
doubt whether the man will ever insult a foreigner again. His friends
all took part against him, but interceded for him, crying, “Be calm, be
calm; he has had enough.” At any rate he got a good whipping.
The sun was scorching hot, and it was a great relief to come upon a
pretty village-green, at one end of which stood a small tea-shop,
shaded by a covering of millet-straw and by a broad-spreading tree: our
horses needed a rest as much as ourselves; they had been driven nearly
mad by the flies and by one venomous little insect in particular,
which must have been the original gadfly that persecuted Io. It has
a long sheath in its tail, out of which it shoots a sting into the
horses’ flanks, apparently out of pure mischief, for it never seems to
suck them, and it follows a horse or mule for miles. If one attacked
our horses, the only way to get rid of it was to dismount and kill it.
So sharp is its sting that every time it touched our beasts they jumped
up as if they had been shot. We were all glad of a friendly shelter.
We found a party of Chinamen playing dominoes. They were playing the
game more as we do cards than dominoes, but I could not make out the
principle of it. The landlord was a very jolly, burly fellow, the
picture of a host with whom everything prospered, although he must
have been poor enough, for instead of tea he was drinking an infusion
of dried leaves of jujube that is common on the hills. In some places
where there is no tea to be had the people drink a sort of barley
water, and very good it is. At these tea-shops guests are expected to
bring their own tea-leaves. The house supplies only the pot and the
boiling water.
Almost every man and woman (I am not exaggerating) that we met in
this part of the valley had goitres, not so bad as those one meets in
the Swiss valleys, but far more numerous. In one village we saw eight
fullgrown men and women only—out of the eight seven had goitres.
Overlooking the village-green I mentioned above is a fort commanding
the plain; and on one side of the fort the road has been cut through
the solid rock and arched over with strong masonry, so as to form a
gate, which bears the legend, “The Gate of the Southern Heavens.”
Through this gate there is a most gorgeous view of the different
ranges, the Great Wall, and the approach to Ku-Pei-Ko̔u.
Ku-Pei-Ko̔u is in its way one of the most strikingly beautiful places
that I have ever seen. The valley by which it is reached, with rocks,
ferns, mosses, gardens, and a little rivulet sparkling in the sunlight,
is a gem. The town itself stands in a little nest among the hills which
surround it; on one side of it runs a river, on the farther bank of
which, in a grove of trees, is the yamên or official residence of the
Ti-tu (the general officer commanding the district). There is not a
point in the whole place from which there is not something attractive
to rest one’s eyes on. The streets are clean, the houses well built,
and the shops seem to do a prosperous business. At one end of the town
is the frontier gate of China; it is strongly guarded, and ingress or
egress without passport is forbidden. Besides the walls of the city, as
a guard against Mongol tribes, on the river side are two little ditches
that a man might easily hop over, and two little pieces of cannon which
look more dangerous to friend than to foe. We walked outside the gate
to stand beyond the confines of China proper. The guard were extremely
civil, the sentry politely inviting us into the guard-room to drink
tea! The Chinese attach a great deal of importance to Ku-Pei-Ko̔u as a
border fortress. They keep up a garrison of two thousand men, of whom
ten per cent are Tartars and the rest Chinese.
The inn here is the largest I have been in yet. The enormous traffic
which passes through the town keeps its business brisk. The landlord
was a Tientsing man, and a man of letters, having taken the degree
equivalent to our B.A. Degrees in China are conferred by competitive
examination, only a certain number of candidates being elected each
time. The examinations are held at Peking, and people come from all
parts of the empire to compete. Some time back an old gentleman aged
100 presented himself from the south for examination. He received the
degree of B.A. by Imperial favour, and with it a present of 2 lbs. of
gin-seng, which is a powerful aphrodisiac and tonic. It is from the
successful candidates that the offices of the empire are filled, and
in former days it was the highest ambition of a Chinaman to pass the
schools in order to qualify himself for office. Now, however, a race
has sprung up of men who are indifferent to public honours, and prefer
their private advantage. Of these was our host. Why, he argued, should
he go through all the petty annoyances and humiliations which inferior
mandarins suffer at the hands of their superiors for the possible
chance of rising to distinction, when he could enjoy certain comfort
in trade? Many people deny the existence of this feeling among the
lettered class, but it exists nevertheless. Office, both civil and
military, can also be obtained by purchase.
As I was sitting smoking and reading an old number of a magazine
outside my room, the landlord came up and began asking me many
questions about what I was reading, and why we read from left to right
instead of in columns from right to left. About half an hour after I
heard him in the inn-yard delivering a lecture to an admiring audience
of grooms, muleteers, and riffraff, upon the English language, the
point of which was that we wrote exactly as the Manchus do, who write
in columns from left to right! Seeing me come he borrowed my book and
proceeded to give practical illustrations of what he had said, holding
it upside down. This exhibition of learning was received with awe by
the gaping crowd. He was a great character, this same landlord, a
confirmed opium smoker, and being a man of letters, which is something
more thought of here than being of good birth is in Europe, he had an
immense number of friends and acquaintances of good standing of whom
he was very proud. He took me into his own little house, which he had
papered completely with the crimson visiting-cards of his intimates.
Our first object at Ku-Pei-Ko̔u was to get the seal of the Ti-tu
affixed as a _visa_ to our passports. All over the provinces of China
the central authorities count as nothing in comparison with the local;
a small mandarin who would laugh to scorn the seal of the Imperial
Foreign Office will bow to the earth before that of his immediate
superior. Accordingly, on the evening of our arrival we sent our
Shao-To, the apostle, to the Yamên with our cards to beg the Ti-tu
to grant us his seal. He came back discomfited, not having been able
even to see an official of any rank. The next morning, however, he
proposed to return to the charge, and arraying himself in his best,
with his head shaven and his tail freshly plaited, he ordered out one
of the carts and called upon the skipper to attend him. Here arose a
difficulty: our servants all declared that the skipper must abandon
his old pea-jacket as unbefitting the dignity of the situation; he as
firmly stuck to wearing it, but public opinion was too strong for him,
and he was forced to give up his favourite garment and appear in a
dirty nankin jacket. In spite of the imposing splendour of this embassy
it was fruitless, the authorities declaring that they had received
no special instructions from Peking, and that without them they could
not grant the seal. This was very provoking; the seal was necessary to
us, we had a right to ask for it, and we were determined to have it,
the more especially as if we, holding an official position here, had
foregone our rights, other travellers would necessarily have had double
difficulty in obtaining it in future. Murray determined to go himself
and demand to see the Ti-tu. He was shown into a dirty room full of
soldiers, and the Chinese tried to foist a wretched white-buttoned
mandarin upon him as the Ti-tu. He of course was not to be taken in
by this childish piece of chicanery, and as soon as it became evident
that he knew what he was about the big doors were thrown open, and he
was ushered with due solemnity into the presence of the Ti-tu, who
made many apologies for having kept him waiting, and received him with
much ceremony. Murray had the satisfaction of being served with tea
and sweetmeats by the very impostor who had tried to pass himself off
as the great man! About the question of putting on the seal the Ti-tu
fenced for a long while. He had no orders. He might get into a scrape.
What right had we to ask it? Murray explained the treaty to him, and
he admitted our claim. But no sooner were the passports produced than
he raised another objection. The seal of the British Legation was
in the centre, that of the Imperial Foreign Office on the left, and
there was no more room on the left of that again for his seal—what
could be done? His rank was too high for his seal to be placed below.
“Well,” said Murray, “put your seal on the right of ours, and then we
shall be figuratively between the protection of the civil and military
authorities of China.” This little bit of nonsense was the very thing
to please the Chinese mind, and the seal was set without more delay,
Murray undertaking to explain the matter at Peking. “I know you’ll do
it,” said the Ti-tu, “for when an Englishman promises a thing he does
it.”
I mention this to show you how business is transacted in China.
The most important affairs are conducted with the same amount of
childishness and trickery as our little passport difficulty with the
Ti-tu of Ku-Pei-Ko̔u, who, be it recollected, is an officer of the
highest rank.