petards, maroons, bombs, cannon, and all manner of fireworks, that I
rubbed my eyes and was half inclined to fancy that some good fairy
had transported me back to England, where Guy Fawkes’ day was being
celebrated on a scale of unprecedented splendour. Not, however, that
fireworks are a matter of astonishment here—they are going on at all
hours of the day and night; our opposite neighbour, the Prince of Su,
is continually letting off pieces which, to judge from the noise they
make, would make the bouquet at Cremorne look very foolish. Fireworks
and sweetmeats are the favourite dissipation of the Pekingese; the
ladies especially take great delight in them, burning and sucking away
immense sums. To-day Peking out-heroded itself: never was heard such
a fizzing, cracking, popping, and banging; for this is the seventeenth
day of the ninth moon, and although the Gunpowder Plot was never heard
of here, and if it had been would not have produced any extraordinary
sensation, still it is an occasion upon which every devout and proper
Chinaman is bound to burn as many squibs as he can afford, or more;
for the seventeenth day of the ninth moon is the birthday of a certain
little pousa or god, by name Tsai-shên. Now this little god is a
very great little god, being intimately connected with tradespeople,
and especially with their profits; and as tradespeople here are very
numerous, and all have a natural weakness for profits, a great many
crackers and squibs are expended to do this little god honour and
service—of course _à titre de revanche_; moreover, scraps of paper
upon which are written or printed characters of good omen are burnt
and scattered to the winds. Furthermore, this little god having been
during his lifetime on earth connected with the Mohammedan religion,
it is also a matter of decency to eat and invite him to eat mutton
all day, for pork would evidently be an insult to him, while beef
would be a deep personal affront to Buddha, but mutton satisfies all
parties, including the eaters, provided that they have enough of it. I
have mentioned this because it seemed to me noteworthy that at the two
ends of our hemisphere the same day should this year be from different
causes celebrated somewhat in the same way.
The little Emperor leaves Peking to-day for the Tung-Ling, the tombs of
the emperors of this dynasty. He goes to place his father’s coffin in
the tomb which has been prepared for it, and which has taken four years
to build. It is a great state occasion. The Emperor will be accompanied
by the Prince of Kung, and all the court and chief ministers, with
the exception of Wen Hsiang, who is the real Minister for Foreign
Affairs. He remains to take charge of the capital. I shall be able
to tell you nothing about the procession, for on these occasions the
members of the Legations receive an official notification not to show
themselves in certain streets between certain hours. Indeed, the whole
thing is conducted within the city with as much secrecy and mystery as
the Princess Badroulbadour’s procession to the bath in the _Arabian
Nights_; shops are closed and shutters put up, and the streets are
cleared along the line of march, for there is no saying what harm might
happen to the state if a citizen of Peking were to catch a glimpse of
the outside of the chair in which his Emperor is being carried. The
consistency of the Chinese in this as in other matters is remarkable,
for once the cavalcade is outside the city walls any lout may go
and gape at it. The public gains one advantage from these Imperial
progresses. The roads over which His Majesty is to pass are repaired,
for it would never do for Imperial bones to be shaken and Imperial
eyes offended by such roads as are good enough for “the hundred names”
(which is the Chinese expression for the common people).
The Chinese-Mesopotamian treaty was signed on the 2nd instant, and
I must say that the Chinese come uncommonly well out of the affair.
They had already concluded a treaty with Mesopotamia at Shanghai,
and had received no notification that the King of that country had
refused to ratify it, when all of a sudden a gentleman appeared this
summer announcing himself as plenipotentiary sent by the King to
conclude a treaty, nothing being said of the former one. The Chinese,
after some discussion, named two plenipotentiaries, and offered M.
T—— his choice of any existing treaty. He, however, said, “A quoi bon
envoyer un négociateur s’il ne doit pas négocier,” and sat down to
compose a treaty on the principle of an amateur opera, out of four
others. However, as the history of the treaty would not amuse you,
it is enough to say that the Mesopotamian showed himself to be _plus
Chinois que les Chinois_, while the Chinese exhibited a pliability and
a willingness to accept innovations which took us all by surprise. The
treaty is an affair of very small consideration; there has occasionally
been a Mesopotamian ship seen in the Chinese seas, and there is one
Mesopotamian subject in China who was declared bankrupt during the
negotiations. But the conduct of the Chinese, as showing a desire to
amend in their foreign policy, is of the last importance to us. They
have shown in these negotiations that they have read their translation
of Wheaton’s _International Law_ with profit, and they have departed
from old precedents in a way which was enough to make the old
conservatives’ tails stand on end.
The great difficulty with the Chinese has been their foreign policy.
Their internal affairs would right themselves if they would accept our
civilisation and our standard of official probity. But if they are to
preserve their independence they must learn to keep faith with foreign
nations and meet honesty with honesty.
Although in our recent dealings with the Chinese they have shown
better faith and more loyalty than before, we have still many crows to
pick with them. Breaches of treaty are endless. One of the articles
upon which we insist the most is that which provides that a British
subject offending against the Chinese law shall be handed over for
punishment to the nearest consul. The Taeping rebellion has attracted
to its ranks a vast number of rowdies, many of them deserters from the
Imperialist army. If these men were caught and left to the mercy of the
native authorities, it is fearful to think what their fate would be.
We are at this moment trying to rescue one man from their clutches,
and investigating the case of another whom they reported to have died
a natural death while being taken to Shanghai; but as the report was
not made until six weeks after his death, we suspect treachery. The
central Government shows every disposition to help us, but governors of
provinces are strong, and they know it. No stone, of course, will be
left unturned to get back the living man (if indeed he be still alive),
nor to exact retribution for the death of the other, if there should be
proved to have been foul play. It is not yet all rose-colour, you see.
_13th November._
We have no news yet of the mail of 10th September, which brings out
our new chief, Sir Rutherford Alcock. I was to have gone to Tientsing
to meet him, but I fancied the river journey would be rather cold;
and I am very glad I did not go, as I should have been dangling about
Tientsing all these days, not knowing what to do with myself. In the
meanwhile we are busy preparing for his reception. I am already in my
new house, which is rather pretty, with a great deal of Chinese carved
woodwork, but eminently adapted for catching rheumatism. It will cost
me something to make it wind-tight. I hope, however, by degrees to make
it comfortable and cosy.
I am in a state of philological orphanage. My first teacher, Ku, left
me to go into some small office—office, however small, being dear to
every Chinaman; my second, a most charming person, was caught stealing
a dollar off my table. The man was really such a pleasant companion
and such a good master that I rather wished to ignore the whole
thing; but my servant Chang-Hsi represented that if Hsü Hsien Shêng
remained he could be responsible for nothing that was lost, and so I
had to pack off poor Hsü. He was a perfectly inexhaustible fund of
anecdotes, proverbs, folk-lore, and Chinese small talk, so different
from the ordinary run of Chinese teachers, whose only idea of broaching
a conversation is to ask some preposterous question about one’s
“honourable country.” If he could but have kept his hands from picking
and stealing!
LETTER XVII
PEKING, _25th November 1865_.
We are sending off a mail to-day in the hopes that it will yet be able
to leave Tientsing for Shanghai before we are finally shut out by the
frost from communication with the outer world. After this our posts
will be rare and uncertain, going by land to Chihfu and thence on.
The winter has well set in; we have had several sharp frosts, which,
although they are child’s play to what I have seen in Russia, are
aggravated by cutting winds which blow clouds of dust, pricking one’s
face like flights of needles. Nothing can be more bare and desolate
than this city, now that it is stripped of its leaves. Everything looks
gray and black, and the Chinese houses have a poor, pinched appearance
that to English eyes, accustomed to see a cheerful fire blazing in
even the poorest cottages, is very shivery. The natives are already
swaddled up in furs and wadding, and commend me to a cold Chinaman for
looking wretched. Their yellow-brown faces get perfectly livid and
corpse-like under the effect of the cold winds, a great contrast to the
tanned and sturdy Mongols who are beginning to flock into the city.
The life in the streets is changed too by the innumerable droves of
Bactrian camels with double humps that are pouring in long streams of
merchandise.
One great advantage of this time of year is in the improvement of our
larder. In summer we are obliged to ring the changes on tough beef and
stringy mutton; now we have plenty of game—hares, several sorts of
pheasants, wild duck, teal, snipes, and other birds innumerable. Soon
we shall have varieties of venison, amongst them that of an antelope of
Mongolia which the Chinese call Hwang-Yang, “yellow sheep,” said to be
the daintiest venison in the world. Of fruit we have plenty; there is a
certain small apple-shaped pear, by far the best I ever tasted. Grapes
we have every day in the year, so that nature does as much for us as
Mr. S——’s gardener does for him. To be sure, the gardener beats nature
hollow as to quality.
The _Peking Gazette_ has just announced an appointment in the Chinese
Foreign Office (the Tsung-Li Yamên), which is said to be the most
important event, as far as foreign relations are concerned, that has
taken place since the signature of Lord Elgin’s treaty. A mandarin
of the name of Hsü has been named one of the high Ministers of the
Office. This man some years ago was in high office in the province
of Fohkien, and while there, he, with the help of certain American
missionaries, wrote a work on the geography of the world, in which
he examined foreign institutions and men with an interest which no
Chinaman had ever before shown. His two favourite heroes were Napoleon
and Washington. The book was written in a popular form, and had a large
sale. After he had been in office three years he came to Peking to
pay his respects to the Emperor, and during his visit was degraded on
the plea that he had not conducted his government well, but really on
account of the new views put forward in his book, and of his admiration
and intelligence of foreign affairs. Now, for the very qualities
which before brought him into disgrace, he is raised to the dignity
of a red button of the third rank, and appointed to a vacancy in the
Board of Foreign Ministers, which was made this spring by the dismissal
of a mandarin named Hsüeh, who was degraded on account of his being
suspected of attempts to bribe the Prince of Kung at the same time
that His Imperial Highness was also out of favour. Hsü’s acceptance of
office is looked upon as the beginning of a new era in our intercourse
with the Chinese.
Sir Rutherford Alcock has reached Tientsing after a series of
disasters. He came in a man-of-war from Shanghai, disdaining the
regular steamers, and the consequence is that everything has gone
wrong, the last mishap being the loss of the Legation treasure outside
the bar at Taku, with 18,000 dollars. The sailors managed to upset
the chest into the sea as they were transhipping it into the little
steamer which was to bring it up the Peiho. There is a rumour that
divers have recovered the chest; if it is true, I think they deserve
all its contents for their pains. The weather is not exactly suited for
diving. Meanwhile the Legation courtyards are being flooded with carts
and packing-cases containing furniture, pianos, harmoniums, and games
of croquet; the latter will be hard to use, for there is not a blade of
grass nearer than the park round the Temple of Heaven.
LETTER XVIII
PEKING, _4th December 1865_.
The messenger who brought us in the welcome mail of the 26th September
also told us that there was still a chance of catching a vessel at
Taku, before the final freezing of the Gulf of Pechili—the river, of
course, is long since closed—so here goes for the last account of us
before we are shut up.
Sir Rutherford Alcock arrived here last Wednesday with his family.
They had a terrible journey of it; three days from Tientsing in sedan
chairs, sleeping in inns without fires, and only paper windows in
different degrees of bad repair.
We are enjoying the _beau idéal_ of winter weather. We have had one
fall of snow, which has left its traces in the shade and on the north
side of the house-roofs; everywhere else it has disappeared under a sun
which at mid-day is always genial; the sharp frosts of the night and
early morning keep the ground as hard as iron; the air is perfectly
delicious, and for many days we have not been visited by our chief
curse, the wind, which comes tearing down from Mongolia to choke and
blind us with dust. This weather, fine as it is, comes very hard on the
beggars, who go about stark naked, livid with cold. The filth of the
furs which the poorer Chinese wear surpasses belief. It is a common
sight to see the sunny side of a wall occupied by half a dozen of the
natives who have deliberately stripped themselves and are eagerly
hunting after the vermin with which they swarm. The principal streets
are crowded with sellers of cast-off clothes, rags that would be
rejected by a respectable paper factory. They toss these about, singing
a sort of monotonous rhythmical chant all the time, after the manner of
Chinese hucksters, and they do a thriving trade in filth.
We had an offer the other day of purchasing a plant that would make a
man immortal if he ate it; as we had no desire any of us to undergo
the fate of Tithonus at the price of 5000 taels, nearly £2000, we let
it slip through our hands. It was brought to us by a drug merchant,
who said that he had found it in the mountains of Manchuria, and he
produced a Chinese botanical work in support of his statements. The
plant was a small black toad-stool; he called it the “tree of life,”
and said that it was only found once in a thousand years. We asked him
why he did not sell his treasure to the Emperor; he replied that he
would do so were it not for the way in which he would be bled by the
palace officials. When, however, we asked where the last man who had
eaten of the tree of life was to be heard of, he left in high disgust
at our unbelief. The Chinese ideas of natural history are always very
curious. Some days ago one of the wandering curio-sellers came to me
with a beautiful little crystal snuff-bottle of what they call hair
crystal, from the black veins like hair which run through it, and he
thought it necessary to explain how the hair got into the crystal. “You
see,” said he, “as your Excellency knows, we Chinese did not always
shave our heads as we do now. In the time of the Ming dynasty our
people used to wear their hair long, but when the Tartars usurped the
throne our people were all forced to shave their heads. Accordingly
they threw their hair which they had cut off into the sea. There the
waves and the rays of the sun, combining their influences, acted upon
this hair and produced the effect which your Excellency admires. But it
was only in rare instances that the influences happened to coincide,
and no man could of his own will, and by cutting off his hair, depend
on its being turned into hair crystal.”
The Emperor’s journey to bury his father has been made the opportunity
of rescinding all the decrees disgracing the Prince of Kung last
spring. They are to be blotted out from the records of the Empire, so
that future ages may know nothing about them.
LETTER XIX
PEKING, _1st January 1866_.
The arrival of the mail last night brought the old year to a happy
termination, but, alas! Saurin is to leave us for a German post. My
batch of letters was doubly welcome, it was so long since I had heard
from home, and may be such an age before another mail comes up from
Chefoo; as for the newspapers, they bring such stale news now that they
are hardly worth plodding through. We get the pith of the news by the
Russian post and telegraph to Kiachta, so reading the _Times_ is like
being gifted in a small way with the power of prophecy, and shows what
a very tame affair life would be if we could foresee the future. Our
papers are still speculating on Lord Palmerston’s actions next session,
and three weeks ago we heard the news of his death.
This morning I was awakened by a procession of all the Chinamen about
the Legation, who came to bend the knee before me and wish me joy for
the New Year. I hope all their good wishes, with mine into the bargain,
may be realised for You.
Although it is a long time since I last wrote to you, I have little
enough to say. Sir Rutherford and Lady Alcock have settled down in
their new quarters. I think they are rather disappointed, and no
wonder; but they seem determined to make the best of everything, and to
try and make every one comfortable about them. Sir Rutherford’s first
interview with the Prince of Kung passed off very well. I never saw the
Prince so gracious. The Chinese Foreign Office, the Tsung-Li Yamên, is
almost as bad a place for receiving in as our old building in Downing
Street.[9] In order to be met at the great gates, which on grand
occasions is _de rigueur_, we have to pass into the reception-room
through the back kitchen, where we see all the little dainties which
we are to eat being cooked by very dirty natives. The reception-room
is a sort of octagonal glass pavilion in the middle of the courtyard,
a wretchedly cold place. However, the Chinese are independent of cold
rooms, for they don’t take off their furs (the fur of foxes’ legs is
the official dress), and they wear boots so thick that they cannot feel
the cold stones of the floor. Of course a building so exposed is as hot
in summer as it is cold in winter, so in this climate of extremes a
visit to the Chinese Foreign Office is never very pleasant.
I should tell you that the Tsung-Li Yamên is really a board of high
officials, all of whom hold other functions, which was created after
the treaties of 1860 for the conduct of foreign affairs. There is no
titular Foreign Minister.
One bright cold morning, about a fortnight ago, three of us witnessed
a Chinese execution. The place of execution is at the opening of the
vegetable market in the Chinese city. The market is held in a broadish
street, into which a number of large thoroughfares, at right angles
to it, lead. All these inlets were fenced off, and the street itself
filled with soldiery and officials; such a tatterdemalion crowd! with
nothing resembling uniformity of dress except the Tartar cap, and
that, in many cases, was torn and battered, and tassel-less. The men
were as heterogeneous as their clothes. Old and young, strong and
decrepit, half blind or whole deaf, none seemed too miserable objects
for service. I saw one effective soldier on crutches; hunchbacks and
cripples were in plenty. We left our horses in charge of some of these
poor devils, and walked through the lines, no one opposing us, but,
on the contrary, every one showing us the utmost civility. The whole
of the shops in the street were closed, but the flat, low roofs were
crowded with spectators; among them not a single woman or child was to
be seen.