(Prince of Heaven), the chief of the Ta̔i Pi̔ng rebellion, poisoned
himself, his son fled carrying with him his father’s great seal, which,
on his capture, was carried to the Emperor at Peking. The seal was a
huge affair of massive gold with two dragons on the top. Its value
was about £600. When the Emperor had seen it, it was handed over to
the Prince of Kung and the Grand Council, and by them deposited under
lock and key in the council office, the watching of which by night
is confided to certain high officials. When the turn of night duty
fell to one Sa, a man of good family and a mandarin of the fourth
button, the seal was missing. There was a great hue and cry, and all
the wretched servants in the office were carried off to the Board of
Punishments, where they were tortured _secundum artem_, the real thief
Sa being quite above suspicion. Meanwhile he carried off the seal to a
goldsmith’s shop in the Chinese city, telling him that he had received
orders from the palace to have it melted down. The man undertook the
job and put the seal into the melting-pot; but the two dragons, being
harder than the rest of the metal, would not melt, so they were put
on one side to wait till a hotter fire could be prepared. As luck
would have it a friend of the goldsmith, who had heard of the loss of
the seal, came in, and seeing the two dragons, smelt a rat, and laid
an information. Sa was tried, found guilty, and strangled in the
vegetable market. He was a well-to-do man, and his family were rich
people, so the money was not needed. But a little peculation, however
small, is dear to a mandarin’s heart.
Sa was not a master of his craft; he had not sufficiently considered
the eleventh commandment,—most important to a Chinese official.
LETTER XXIII
PEKING, _7th March 1866_.
My last letter to you was dated 8th February, on which day the
festivities of the Chinese New Year began with the feast of Tsao, the
god of the hearth. This, of course, is inaugurated with popping of
fireworks and banging of cannon. Tsao is of all the spirits the one
most intimately connected with the family, and every year, eight days
before the New Year, he goes to heaven to make his report. Now as in
every family there must always be some little secrets which it is not
desirable should be known in heaven, it is essential that something
should be done to prevent Tsao’s tongue from wagging too freely, so
offerings are made to him of barley-sugar, that his mouth may be
sticky! At the same time, upon either side of his niche, which stands
in the kitchen, are pasted posters of red paper, the one bearing the
words “Go to heaven and make a good report,” the other “Come back to
your palace and bring good luck.” The niche is then burnt, and the god
rises to heaven to come back on New Year’s Day, against which time a
new niche is prepared for him.
As the New Year approaches, the principal amusement in the streets
is flying kites. These are admirably made, and represent all manner
of birds, beasts, and fishes. There are some which even represent
centipedes, but I have not seen those. In the tail of the kite is
placed a sort of Æolian harp, such as I once told you the Chinese
attach to their pigeons. I cannot tell you what a strange effect these
weird-looking monsters humming high up in the air present. The Street
of Lanterns, too, begins to make a great show. Lamps of every variety
of shape, from a bouquet of flowers to a fiery dragon, are exposed for
sale and bought in quantities.
On New Year’s Eve the houses are cleaned up and put in order.
Characters of good omen are pasted on all the door-posts; from the
window-sills little strips of red paper stamped like lace flutter
in the wind. An altar is erected in the courtyard with candles and
offerings, while crackers and fireworks are let off all night to chase
away all the evil Spirits that have been about during the year, and
especially the Spirit of Poverty.
The 15th of February was the Chinese New Year’s Day. It was a bright,
fine day, and the people were all figged out in the best raiment
available, either from their own wardrobes or those of the pawnbrokers,
whose chests must have been emptied of every article of smart clothing
for the occasion. All the shops were shut, but not empty; for from many
of them there issued the most infernal clatter that ever stunned human
ears. I looked into one, my curiosity getting the better of my manners,
and there I saw a number of respectable middle-aged _bourgeois_ sitting
in a circle, and each with a clapper, gong, cymbals, or drum, beating
for dear life with the gravest of faces. This was exorcising devils,
and, if devils have ears, ought to be a successful plan. The streets
are full of people paying complimentary visits to their friends, a
ceremony which is nowhere so universally observed as in China. Outside
the Chien Mên, one of the gates leading from the Tartar into the
Chinese city, is a small yellow-tiled Imperial temple to Kwan-Ti, the
god of war. This is crowded with worshippers on New Year’s Day. High
and low flock to pay their respects and draw their lot for the year.
Outside the temple were a couple of priests doing a brisk trade in
tracts and joss-sticks. Armed with a bundle of the latter, which are
whisked about in flames, to the great peril of European beards, the
devout advance and perform the ko̔to̔u before the altar with three
kneelings and nine knockings of the head. They then draw nearer to
the altar, and from a sort of cup which stands upon it draw at random
a slip of bamboo with certain characters upon it. This is exchanged
according to its inscription for a piece of paper which is handed to
the votary for a few cash by an attendant priest, and which contains
his fortune for the year. The people who took part in this ceremony
were excessively devout in their demeanour; there was no symptom
of levity or indifference; they were imploring the protection of a
divine being for the coming year, with superstition if not with piety.
The richer worshippers were making offerings of pigs and sheep as
sacrifice.
I don’t recollect whether I ever mentioned to you the Liu Li Chang,
a street of booksellers and curiosity shops, and one of my favourite
lounges here. It is one of the lions of the New Year. A very amusing
fair is held there. It is perfectly thronged with people, and a very
gay scene. Toys and artificial flowers are the best things sold; some
of the former are capital. Lifelike models of insects, tiny beasts and
birds, tops, kites of all shapes, and above all some little figures
of European soldiers and sailors—caricatures of the late war—that
were irresistibly comic. One man was selling a capital toy—two little
figures, jointed, and so contrived that by pulling a horsehair which is
not seen they begin to fight and go through every motion of desperate
wrestling. There were some jugglers, but rather a low lot. One man was
having bricks smashed on his head—a somewhat alarming performance,
for which, however, he seemed none the worse. Then there was a combat
between sword and spear, after the manner of Savile House in old days,
which ended in sword getting a kick in the stomach and a poke in the
ribs, which well earned a sixpence. A peep-show represented views
taken in China and Europe, of which the exhibitor was as ignorant as
his audience: he described St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Bay of Naples
as places of repute in the Lew Chew Islands; and I really should be
ashamed to tell you what was painted on the reverse of the view of
St. Paul’s. A temple of the Chinese Æsculapius in one corner of the
fair was crowded with visitors, who were pressing round the stall of
a venerable gentleman whose stock-in-trade was a bushel or two of
teeth and a picture representing the treatment of every variety of
disease in diagrams. The teeth he had extracted were mostly sound!
Fortune-tellers were casting up chances, and wise men reading destinies
in all the courts, which were piled high with votive tablets from
grateful patients. As to the walls, the tablets on them were three
deep. The crowd were uniformly civil to us, but oh, the garlic of them!
It was high jinks for the beggars, who were more than usually offensive
and pertinacious, especially the women with sick babies, who would
insist on wishing one a Happy New Year in every key. It’s no use being
pitiful, for if you give to one you will have a tail of a hundred at
your heels.
The New Year’s festivities last for a fortnight or so; it is an endless
succession of feasting and fireworks until the Feast of Lanterns,
twelve days after New Year’s Day. The latter is quite a bright scene
with all the lanterns and transparencies, but it sounds much more than
it is.
I must tell you something about the Chinese travellers who are
going to Europe, and whom you will see or hear about. Mr. Hart, the
Inspector-General of Customs, is going home on leave, and the Chinese
Government have ordered his Chinese secretary, with his son and three
young Chinamen, students of European languages, to accompany him. Pin
Chun, the gentleman in question, has been raised to the Clear Blue
Button, third grade, and made an honorary chief clerk in the Foreign
Office on the occasion. His son has been made a clerk in the Foreign
Office. It is a great pity that the Chinese did not choose a more
intelligent and younger man than Pin Chun, who is sixty-four years old,
and a shocking twaddle. He and his son are, from what I have seen and
heard of them, quite incapable of forming just appreciations of what
they will see. Then, for their first mission to Europe, although it
has no official character, they should have chosen a mandarin of more
importance than Pin, whose reports will have but little weight with the
lettered class of Chinese; indeed, these are jealous of his promotion,
and consider that his distinction is too cheaply earned. The reason of
Pin’s having been chosen is that he is a connection by marriage with
one of the ministers of the Chinese Foreign Office. He is said to be
very popular in Pekingese society, so at any rate, when he comes back,
what he has seen will be talked about in the “highest circles”; and
he is personally acquainted with the Prince of Kung, who proposed the
mission to him at a wedding breakfast. Pin has no official character
as envoy. He is told to travel and write down all about the “hills
and streams” of the countries he visits, and he will be trotted about
to every object of interest. I only hope that he will not be too much
lionised. It would be misinterpreted here, where people would say at
once, “See what great people we are; when a private traveller among us
goes to your country he is received with the respect which you know is
due to a superior intelligence, but your barbarian ministers even are
not received here,—of course our Emperor is great and powerful, and you
are only here on sufferance.”
I must leave off. I am just starting to Tientsing to see Saurin off,
alas! and when I come back it will be to almost entire solitude.
Perhaps I have spoken rather too slightingly of Pin Chun’s mission. It
is a small thing in itself, but we all look upon it as the first step
towards permanent missions in Europe and better relations here.
LETTER XXIV
PEKING, _12th April 1866_.
I am going to tell you about an entertainment at the house of a Chinese
mandarin. You will have gathered from my former letters to you that we
see nothing of the Chinese in their own houses; their life and habits
are a sealed book to us. We only see the mandarins in full dress and
with the mask they wear in conference. It was a great pleasure to me,
therefore, to make the acquaintance of a Chinese gentleman of good
position, who is so far enlightened above his fellows as to like and
even seek the society of Europeans, and learn what he can from them.
Yang Lao Yeh is a mandarin wearing a blue button of the third grade;
he is nominally on the staff of the officials of the Board of War, but
his private fortune of some ten or twelve thousand pounds a year makes
him independent of his office, except in so far as his social rank
is concerned (for, as you know, in China, to hold office is to be a
gentleman). I became acquainted with him through the Russian Legation,
with which he has had intercourse for some three years or more, and
he invited a party of us to his house at the time of the Feast of
Lanterns. He occupies a large house in the Chinese city. We went to
him at about eleven o’clock in the morning. As he had not expected us
quite so early we spent half an hour in going over the premises. I
had never before seen the interior of a Chinese gentleman’s home; I
imagined, however, that Yang’s would be a very favourable specimen of a
rich man’s house. It is very pretty, with innumerable courtyards round
which the dwelling-houses are built. The principal court surrounds
a small artificial pond, in the centre of which is a sort of glass
summer-house approached by two little miniature bridges with tiny white
lions of white marble guarding them at intervals. Rockeries, which are
a very favourite garden ornament, caves, grottoes, and turrets with
battlements, all on a Liliputian scale, are crammed wherever there is
room, in a most picturesque defiance of order and architecture. The
only attempts at flowers and shrubs are a few of the famous dwarfed
trees, trained so as to represent with their branches characters of
good omen, such as Happiness, Longevity, etc. A broad terrace walk
surmounts the whole. But besides having the most perfect luxury _à la
Chinoise_, Yang is a great amateur of all European inventions. He has
a room fitted up after our fashion, and his whole house is full of
guns, telescopes, clocks, barometers, thermometers, and other foreign
importations. He has even gone so far as to fit up a photographic
studio, and takes lessons in the art, which he practises with
considerable success. He gave us really capital portraits of himself
of his own execution. When we had wandered all over the house Yang led
us into the private apartments where breakfast had been prepared for
us. Here he presented to us his son, a very small boy of sixteen, but
a white-buttoned mandarin, nevertheless (of course the rank had been
purchased; in China both civil and military rank can be bought). The
ladies of the family, resplendent in silks and satins of many colours,
and painted so that not a particle of _themselves_ was visible, were
separated from us by a curtain through which they kept continually
peeping, anxious to see, and not unwilling to be seen. We were joined
by two mandarins, one from the Board of Punishments, the other from the
Board of Revenue, both very cheery and talkative. The breakfast was by
far the highest effort of Chinese culinary art that I have yet seen;
a certain marinade of venison, especially, was beyond praise. Being
asked to eat with chop-sticks always rather reminds me of the fable of
the fox who invited the stork to dinner, and makes me appreciate the
feelings of the stork on that occasion; but Yang had provided forks, so
we were able to eat on equal terms with our entertainer, who, apropos
of chopsticks, told us a story of a courtier who was so expert with
that utensil that when a grain of rice once fell from the Imperial lips
he caught it between his sticks as it fell, for which feat he was on
the spot promoted to high office and emoluments.
The only fault of the breakfast was that there was too much of it, and
as we were perpetually being pledged by our host and his friends in
warm wine of the headiest nature (no heeltaps), matters were beginning
to look serious, when happily the dishes were cleared away and tea
was brought. I thought the eating was all over, but not a bit of it:
it was only a pause in our labours; for in came a huge and delicious
tureen of bird’s-nest soup and pigeons’ eggs with cream of rice in
bowls to drink—excellent, but stodgy,—and so a Chinese feast goes on
all day without a halt. We witnessed an instance of the duty which a
Chinese son shows to his father; for not only did Yang’s son not sit
down to dinner with us, but he waited at table like a sort of upper
servant, handing his father’s pipe, and anticipating all our wants.
Amongst other things which he forced upon us was a bottle of Curaçoa,
which much delighted the Chinese guests. I ought to have mentioned that
before breakfast began, a company of acrobats made their appearance
to perform in the yard. The contortionists were two women and four
little girls. The band, which hardly stopped clashing during upwards
of three hours, consisted of a gong, two pair of cymbals, and a single
kettledrum, beaten by men. The performance was chiefly rope-dancing
and tumbling; the tricks were not in themselves as good as what we see
daily in the streets of European cities, but the difficulty of them
was enhanced by the performers all being small-footed. The elder woman
was amazingly strong. Lying on her back she balanced tables, chairs,
and other heavy objects on her feet as if they had been feathers, and
wound up by taking a large wine jar into which a little girl had been
put, like the forty thieves in the _Arabian Nights_, and tossing it
about on her tiny goat’s hoofs in the most alarming manner. Whenever a
trick was reaching its climax, the band, indefatigable and painfully
conscientious, beat away vigorously, making the morning hideous with
their _charivari_. To rest the women, who then took their places at
the musical instruments, the men began to show off some juggling
tricks. It was a mean performance, however, the tricks being all of
the commonest and most transparent—such as the production of bowls
of fishes, flower-pots, etc. The best trick was the waving of a sort
of whip of paper twelve yards long and four inches wide, attached to
a short stick. This the performer brandished and flourished in all
directions, making the paper assume all manner of graceful shapes:
now it was a snake crawling in huge coils along the ground, now a
spiral column like Donato the one-legged dancer’s scarf, now a series
of hoops through which the juggler skipped backwards and forwards.
This was a very exhausting exercise. During the performances a rather
amusing dialogue was carried on between the old man of the party and
a small boy who acted the part of Mr. Merryman, steadily refusing to
believe in the possibility of the tricks announced. The acrobats were
not paid their fee all at once, but instead of giving applause for
any particularly successful exertion, Yang would send them out money,
and as we, according to Chinese custom, did the same, they received a
plentiful largesse. One point of contrast between rope-dancing in China
and in Europe is its decency. The women all wore their heavy winter
trousers and loose jackets fastened at the waist by a sash—a costume
which shows no outline of the form.
We stayed with Yang until three in the afternoon. I believe he had
expected us to spend the night in his house; but the entertainment was
becoming wearisome; besides, the Chinese do not understand our ideas
of comfort—paper windows, thorough draughts, stone floors, and hard
benches explain why they wrap themselves up in wadding and furs, and
wear boots an inch thick in the soles. They are far behind the Turks in
these respects. I, for one, thought a night in the Chinese city rather
too much of a good thing, and was glad to make my bow. Our host, his
son, and his Chinese guests, who, by the bye, had at an early hour gone
off to a back room to enjoy a pipe of opium, came to the outer gate to
see us off, and we parted with many expressions of goodwill on both
sides.
I have had a deal of talk with Yang; he is certainly by far the most
advanced Chinaman I have met yet. Railways and telegraphs, which are
the bugbears of the Chinese ministers, are to him necessities which it
is foolish to stave off; indeed, he spoke to me about constructing a
tramway and telegraph over his property in Shantung for the convenience
of communicating with his tenants and agents. Any new European
invention which he hears of, instead of shaking his head and saying,
“Ai ya! it is very wonderful!” he sends for and tries to introduce
into the country. Indeed, more than this, if he is not called to high
office next year, he proposes visiting Europe, Russia, France, and
England; perhaps he will go home with me.
The Peking races came off on the 4th inst. They were a great success.
The course was made at a place called Wang-ho-lou, about three miles
outside the city. It is the bed of an old lake dried up; a pretty spot
surrounded by hillocks, and with the mountains in the background. Every
mound was covered with thousands of Chinese who had come to gape and
wonder at the barbarian sports. Two of the ministers of the Foreign
Office, Hêng and Chung, came to the grand stand. Old Chung had brought
with him his grandson, a smart little fellow of eight years old, as
dignified as a judge, and far graver than his grandfather. I made the
little fellow sit by me at breakfast, and plied him with good things,
of which he expressed his approbation with the solemnity of a Burleigh.
Wine I could not get him to touch, not even champagne. Altogether,
considering the means, or rather want of means, at our disposal, we
managed to have a capital day’s sport. Our little ponies are very
fast. An old pony that Saurin gave me, “Kwan-du,” won the half-mile
race, running it in one minute and five seconds, without training,
and with 11 stone on his back. Between our races the two ministers
made the officers of their escort show off their ponies; one, a small
gray pony of Hêng’s, was a regular little beauty, and would have been
much admired in Rotten Row. But I think that the prettiest pony on the
course was a little bay pony that I call “Hop-o’-my-thumb”—a little
fellow that I bought some time ago to replace my cob, which, according
to my usual luck, went lame in the shoulder without hope of cure. The
Chinese on the race day were not so civil as usual; we had much ado to
keep the course, and when we were going away they yelled, shouted, and
shrieked at us like a pack of wolfish fiends. They even went so far
as to throw a few stones, none of which struck any one; of course, in
such a crowd it was impossible to identify all the offenders; however,
one or two got well thrashed. A little while ago I was riding with Sir
Rutherford and a lady to the Temple of Heaven, when at the bottom of
the main street of the Chinese city we were mobbed and attacked with
stones and brickbats, one of which struck our escort. It is no use
complaining to the authorities—we get no redress. I have begun to
think for some time past that the _bonhomie_ of the Chinese, which was
so taking to me at first, is only a mask to cover hatred and disgust,
happily tempered by the most abject terror and cowardice. However that
may be, we are the masters for the present, and they know it—that is
all that is required.
We are enjoying lovely spring weather now, warm and genial, with a
little rain to remind one of home. The town is beginning to show a
little green from the wall, on which dog-violets and vetches, very
much dried up and sapless, are putting their noses out of the crannies
between the bricks.
_13th April._
Mail-day. No letters from home for a month past, and we hear that the
mail has broken down at Galle.
LETTER XXV
PEKING, _22nd April 1866_.
Since I last wrote I have done nothing and seen nothing that I have not
told you about over and over again. However, to-morrow morning I am off
for a three weeks’ trip into Mongolia with Dr. Pogojeff of the Russian
Legation. We shall go out of China by the Nan Ko̔u Pass, and come in
by my former route of Ku-Pei-Ko̔u. I am looking forward with immense
interest to seeing a little of Mongol life for the first time. It
will be a new experience. I am afraid that one mail must pass without
taking you any news of me; but when I return I hope to make amends.
We had a great field-day at the Tsung-Li Yamên last week. Railroads,
telegraphs, violation of treaties, etc., all the old stories that have
been trotted out a hundred times. The Prince of Kung was very nervous
and fidgety. He twisted, doubled, and dodged like a hare. At last
when Sir Rutherford had him, as he thought, fairly in a corner, I saw
a gleam of hope and joy come over the Prince’s face. He had caught a
sight of his old friend and refuge in trouble, my eyeglass. In a moment
he had pounced upon it, and there was an end of all business. The whole
pack of babies were playing with it, and our Chief, who was furious,
saw his sermons scattered to the wind. It does not signify, though, for
these tricksters will promise anything. It is the performance which
is lacking. By the bye, when the Prince of Kung calls at a Legation
he leaves a card in the shape of a slip of red paper with his name
and title upon it—Kung Chi̔n Wang.[13] But he never signs his name to
documents; he subscribes them, Wu ssŭ hsin—“No private heart,” _i.e._
“disinterested.”