AT CANTON.
[Illustration]
A PASSENGER-BOAT conveyed our little travellers, and their parents, in
three days, from Hong-Kong to Macao, a pretty little sea-side place at
the entrance of the Bocca Tigris, a little gulf, to the head of which is
the city of Canton.
Macao was not as full now as it had been during the summer months, when
many people resort thither from Canton for change of air and to enjoy
the fresh sea-breezes. A beautiful walk, called the Grand Parade,
surrounds its picturesque bay.
As Macao belongs to the Portuguese, a great many of the inhabitants
speak that language.
Mr. and Mrs. Graham and their children stayed, whilst at Macao, at the
Grand Hotel, which was situated on the Parade, where was also a very
pretty jetty, on which Sybil and Leonard liked very much to walk. Here,
again, the houses were painted. In a pretty street close by the Grand
Parade, protected on both sides by walls, the Grahams were shown houses
whose windows used to have barriers of iron. These houses, they were
told, were a kind of prison, called Emigration Agencies, but where in
reality poor coolies were kept for sale. This traffic had, happily, now
been done away with.
Some of the houses in Macao seemed to be painted all colours, and many
of the windows were bordered with red, the favourite colour. Most of the
houses could boast of large rooms. Not very much commerce seemed to be
carried on here. Leonard was one day taken to pay the European troops a
visit in their garrison.
At four o'clock in the afternoon many people walked upon the Parade.
Most of the Christians here were Roman Catholics, which was natural,
considering that the place belonged to the Portuguese. Bells, calling
people to church, rang two or three times a day, and these, and the
bugle-call from the garrison, were the principal sounds heard. It was
interesting to visit Macao, because here, in its quiet prettiness, the
poet Camoens, when banished, spent some of his lonely years, and wrote a
great part of his epic poem "Lusiad;" and here also a French painter,
named Chinnery, had produced some of his pretty paintings and sketches.
Sybil was old enough to care about such things, and to find both
pleasure and interest in visiting any places once made memorable by the
footprints left there of either good or great men; and when she had
heard the poet's story, she was very sorry for him!
[Illustration: MACAO.]
Camoens, who was the epic poet of Portugal, was born in Lisbon in 1524.
An epic poet is one who writes narratives, or stories, which often
relate heroic deeds. When banished by royal authority to Santarem,
Camoens joined the expedition of John III. against Morocco, and lost his
right eye in an engagement with the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar.
People in Lisbon, who would not admire his poetry, now thought nothing
of his bravery. Sad and disappointed, he went to India in 1553; but
being offended by what he saw the Portuguese authorities doing in India,
he wrote a satire about them, called "Follies in India," and made fun of
the Viceroy. For doing this, he was banished to Macao in 1556, where he
lived for six years, writing "The Lusiad." On being recalled, he was
shipwrecked, and lost everything that he had in the world but this epic
poem, which he held in one hand above the waves, while he swam to shore
with the other; and after suffering many misfortunes, he arrived in
Lisbon in 1569, possessed of nothing else. He dedicated his poem to the
young king Sebastian, who allowed him to stay at the court, and gave him
a pension. But when Sebastian died he had nothing at all, and a faithful
Indian servant begged for him in the streets. At last he died in the
hospital at Lisbon, in 1579. Sixteen years later Camoens was
appreciated, and people hunted for his grave, to erect a monument to his
memory, but had much difficulty even in finding it.
The "Lusiad" celebrates the chief events in Portugal's history, and has
been called "a gallery of epic pictures, in which all the great
achievements of Portuguese heroism are represented." The poem has been
translated into English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Polish.
After a short, but pleasant, stay at Macao, the Grahams went on to
Canton.
"The last place but one," Sybil could not help whispering to Leonard on
board. "When we next arrive--" she went on, but tears starting into her
eyes seemed to drown the rest of the sentence. However, as some very
happy weeks had yet to be passed at Canton, neither she nor we must
anticipate. A long visit of two months was to be spent here at the
residence of a personal friend of Mr. Graham, the English consul of the
place.
A servant was stationed on the steps leading round to the Consulate, or
Yamen, to await the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Graham and their children.
This house was situated on a height, and occupied the site of an ancient
palace. It consisted of a suite of buildings, surrounded on one side by
a pretty garden, and on the other by a park, in which deer grazed. Both
Sybil and Leonard thought the deer very pretty; and quite near to the
Yamen was a pagoda of nine storeys, which the Emperor Wong-Ti, who
reigned about the middle of the sixteenth century, is supposed first to
have constructed.
"How little," Sybil and Leonard said to one another, "we ever thought,
when we examined our little ornamental pagodas at home, that we should
ever live quite near to a real one!"
A story relating to this pagoda, being told to Leonard, interested him a
good deal.
[Illustration: THE ENGLISH CONSULATE AT CANTON.]
In 1859 some English sailors climbed up the old building, which was then
in so tottering a condition that it was a really perilous ascent, and
when they reached the top the Chinese were dreadfully angry, for two
reasons: first, because they looked upon it as sacrilege; and secondly,
because from the height the sailors could look down upon their houses,
and the Chinese dislike very much indeed to be overlooked, especially by
"barbarians."
The consul and Leonard were soon very good friends, and the elder friend
very kindly did not weary of answering questions put to him by the
little boy.
"Why is your house called a yamen?"
"This word means the same as does consulate, the official residence of
the consul."
"What are you here for?"
The consul smiled. "To protect your interests and those, commercial and
otherwise, of every English citizen resident here."
"Who is that Jui-Lin of whom you have a picture? and is he alive now?"
"He died a few years ago, and was viceroy of Canton. He made so good a
governor that those provinces over which he ruled generally prospered
under his administration. It is in a great measure through his influence
that peaceable relations have, for some time, been established between
China and foreign countries. The Emperor Tau-Kwang, who came to the
throne in 1820, thought so well of him that he made him one of his
ministers. Later he became general of the Tartar garrison at Canton, and
soon after he was made viceroy. He established order in a very
troublesome district, where he made the clan villagers at last
acknowledge some authority, and so put the people and their property in
much greater security."
[Illustration: JUI-LIN, LATE VICEROY OF CANTON.]
Leonard said Canton was the place for him, for here he saw ships and
fishing to perfection. In Canton alone, the consul told him, it was
estimated that 300,000 persons had their homes on the water. One
Canton boat-woman, in whose passenger-boat they travelled, said that her
husband went on shore during the day to work, whilst she looked after
the passengers; but he seemed to be rather an exception, for most of the
boat population never went on shore at all, and as people on land go to
market to buy vegetables and other food, so everything in this line,
that they required, was brought, by boat, to them. Then, besides boats,
there were floating islands, on which people lived, and these consisted
of rafts of bamboos fastened together, with a thick bed of vegetable
soil covering the rafts. Here the owners set up houses, cultivated
rice-fields, and kept tame cattle and hogs. Swallows and pigeons here
built their nests in pretty surrounding gardens. Sails were put up on
the houses, and oars were often used to propel the islands along. Women
worked them frequently, with their babies fastened to their backs; and
little boys and girls would here also play together, having smaller
brothers and sisters thus attached to them. These floating islands,
Sybil and Leonard were told, were to be seen on almost all Chinese
lakes. Many floating houses were moored to one another.
Sometimes the boat population made such a noise. They seemed a
good-natured set of people, but every now and then they quarrelled, and
this was done very noisily. Then if a storm came on, they would call out
with fear. Those people who lived in river streets, where their houses
were close against the river, often complained of the noise that they
heard during the night. The boat population are often looked down upon
by the Chinese who live on land, and may not go in for the literary
examinations.
There were very many fishing villages about, and nothing made Leonard
happier than to be taken to one or another of them; he was so fond of
boats of all kinds. Fishing-boats in China had to obtain a license from
Government. Some of these sailed two and two abreast, at a distance,
from one another, of about three hundred feet, when a net was stretched
from ship to ship to enclose the fish. Names cut in the boats had
generally reference to good fortune. The name on one, which Leonard had
interpreted for him, was "Good Success."
[Illustration: CHINESE BOAT-WOMAN.]
[Illustration: A FISHING VILLAGE ON THE CANTON RIVER.]
In fishing as well as in other villages men go about hawking things for
sale, and carrying them, by ship, from one village to another. In the
bows of fishing vessels are large pairs of shears, which can be either
raised or lowered. A large dip-net, fastened to the shears, is drawn up
after remaining some time in the water, when the fish it contains are
emptied into a little hole in the middle of the ship, like a large
cistern, into which fresh water flows. The fishermen anchor their boats,
and then lower their dip-nets into the water by means of these shears,
which are made of bamboo, and attached to wooden platforms, resting on
posts. Huts are sometimes erected near the dip-nets, so that the
fishermen can shelter themselves from the hot sun. A great deal of
fishing with birds called cormorants is also carried on in China, when
one man will, perhaps, take out a hundred birds to fish for him,
fastening something to their throats to prevent them from swallowing the
fish when caught. As they return with them, they are given a little
piece that they can swallow.
After young fish are caught, they are fed with paste in the tanks, or
wells, into which they are put, and when they grow older little ponds
are made for them.
Sybil and Leonard were taken very often on the Canton river in all kinds
of boats, both large and small. In the stern of very many was an altar,
concealed generally behind a sliding door, but which, night and morning,
was drawn aside to admit the altar to view, and display the images of
household gods that were upon it.
Here were also small ancestral tablets, which were regularly worshipped,
and offerings of fruit and flowers were constantly offered to the
guardian god of the boat and the tablets when they were worshipped.
Tien-How, Queen of Heaven, also called Ma-chu, and other names, is much
worshipped by sailors, but each boat has its special guardian god.
Incense is burnt night and morning at the bow of the boat. The Grahams
very often travelled in a small ship called a sampan, which had a mat
roofing over the centre, and was driven forward, very frequently by
women, with two oars and a scull.
[Illustration: CHINESE FISHING.]
"I have seen just the sort of thing for you to sketch, mother," Sybil
said one day. Like her mother, she greatly admired what was beautiful,
and now, with her fellow-excursionists, the consul, her father, and
brother, returned home, from a ramble, very tired; "a dear little
pagoda, seven storeys high, very near to the banks of the river, with
mountains at the back and trees near to it, and a little village in the
distance; and on the opposite side of the river we saw two men and a
boy: the boy seemed to have a kite, but we thought it belonged to one of
the men, and he was just carrying it for him."
Mrs. Graham sometimes did not feel equal to long expeditions, of which
her children never grew tired, so then she would remain at home, or walk
through the pretty gardens and park.
The Canton, Chu-kiang, or Pearl River, has a great many names and
branches. The great western branch is called Kan-kiang, the northern
branch Pe-kiang, or Pearl River, and the eastern one Tong-kiang. On the
western branch the children found themselves surrounded by lovely
mountain scenery. From Canton to Whampoa it was called the Pearl River;
from Whampoa to Bocca Tigris, or Tiger's Mouth, Foo-mon; and beyond
Shek-moon towards Canton, the Covetous River. The passage to Macao was
the Wild Goose River. It was some time before Sybil and Leonard could
understand anything at all about these divisions.
One day, on the Pearl River, they came to a very pretty spot, where the
water was almost entirely land-locked by high ranges of hills, and here
they asked to be allowed to remain stationary, for a little while, to
look about them.
Another day they went very far indeed with their father and mother,
crossing the Fatchan River, where Leonard heard, with interest, that
Commodore Keppel engaged in a memorable battle in 1857. The river
divides the town of Fatchan into two equal parts. Then again they went
so far that they could not even think of returning home the same day,
and stayed the night on the road to a village called Wong-tong, which
was very countrified and pretty.
[Illustration: PAGODA ON THE BANKS OF THE CANTON RIVER.]
And once more they went--father, mother, and all--to a place quite
different from anything that they had yet seen, which was the village of
Polo-Hang. Here they found themselves in the midst of vast plains, on
the outskirts of which were to be seen lovely-looking hills of limestone
and rows of wonderfully-shaped mountains. Standing on one of these
mountains, they had a capital view of the Temple of Polo-Hang and its
surroundings, consisting of bare fields traversed by canals; and, at the
foot of the mountains of thickets of bamboo, whose light, feathery
branches swayed gently to and fro. Bamboo was very largely cultivated
here, and Sybil thought it such a fairy-like growth. Must not this scene
have been very lovely? Sybil was so glad that her mother had come to
see it. Then other hills appeared, covered with trees, and dotted here
and there with temples.
"Where _did_ they all come from?" Leonard asked.
Mr. Graham was looking very serious. This was a scene calculated to
leave a deep impression upon the beholders.
[Illustration: ON THE CANTON RIVER]
"From the hand of God," he said very quietly.
[Illustration: VILLAGE OF POLO-HANG IN CANTON.]
A week later, Sybil wrote again to her friend.
"_Canton, January, 1881._
"MY DEAREST LILY,--We saw such a strange sight
yesterday; and we could not help liking to see it,
although, of course, it was very dreadful. We went
inside a Buddhist temple at Canton. These
temples are often called joss-houses; this one was
the Temple of Five Hundred Gods. Fancy five
hundred gods! and these idols were all there,
arranged in different lines. They all seemed to
look different, and some were dreadfully ugly. I
saw beards on a few of their faces. In the part of
the temple where, in a church, our altar would be,
there was a terrible-looking thing: I suppose a
very special god.
"We saw one of the priests. He had his beads in
one hand, and a fan in the other. Some of the
priests are men who have committed great crimes,
and have escaped to a monastery and had their
heads shaved, so as not to be caught and punished.
"Some of the idols were as large as if they were
alive, and they had their arms in all sorts of
different positions. Some held beads, and a few
wore crowns; I think they were disciples of
Buddha. The buildings of the temple, and the
houses of the priests, were surrounded by lakes
and gardens.
"We have been able to get you a picture of part of
the inside of the temple, so I send it to you; but
Leonard says that he thinks as you'll have the
picture (and he considers it a very good one) that
you ought to know that this temple is said to have
been founded about 520 years A.D., and to have
been rebuilt in 1755. Fancy people wasting prayers
before these images! Isn't it a pity that they
don't know better? There are more than 120
temples, or joss-houses, in Canton.
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GODS, CANTON.]
"The Chinese never eat with knives and forks, but
with chop-sticks. These are generally small square
pieces of bamboo, as large as a penholder, which
they hold between the thumb and first finger of
the right hand. I can't eat with them at all,
nor can mother; and the other day, when she went
out to lunch with some Chinese ladies, they sent
for a knife and fork for her.
"Chinese ladies in Canton never seem to be with
their husbands in public, and they never walk in
the streets with them. Some of them think us such
barbarous people because we are so different from
what they are.
"The Chinese have such a funny way of paying
formal visits, that I think I must tell you about
it. They often go in sedan-chairs. Officers of the
highest rank may have eight bearers, people of
less rank have four, and ordinary people two. The
state sedan-chair of an official is covered with
green cloth, and the fringe on the roof and
window-curtains has to be green too. So much seems
to go by rank in China. For the first three ranks,
the tips of poles may be of brass, in the form of
a dragon's head; the fourth and fifth rank would
have a lion's head. On the top of these chairs is
a ball of tin. Leonard and I can tell the chairs
very well now. Private gentlemen have blue cloth,
and the ends of their poles are tipped with plain
brass.
[Illustration: AN OFFICIAL'S PALANQUIN.]
"Father says when an official calls upon another
official in Peking, his servant sends in his
visiting card. The official who is being called
upon then sends out to know how his visitor is
dressed, and if he hears that it is in full
costume, he dresses himself in the same way, and
then goes to the entrance of the house, and asks
his visitor to get out of his carriage or chair,
and come in. As they pass through a door of the
gate, the gentleman, to whom the house belongs
asks the visitor to go first, but he always says
'No' until he has been asked three times, and
then he walks first to the reception-hall, when
the two stop again, and ask one another to go
first. When they have come into the hall, father
says, they kneel down, and knock their heads on
the ground six times. This is performing the
kow-tow. When they get up from this performance,
the host arranges a chair for the other, and asks
him to sit down, but he must not do this even till
he has bowed again. I am sure I should forget when
I had to make all these bows, and should be sure
to do them at the wrong times.
"After they have had a little talk, a servant is
told to make some tea. I suppose the host would
then say 'Yam-cha' to the other, for this means
'Drink tea.' Before either gentleman drinks, both
bow again, and soon afterwards the visitor gets
up, and says, 'I want to take my leave.' They walk
together to the grand entrance, but at every
door-way the visitor has to bow, and ask his
friend not to come any farther, although of course
he must go, or it would not be polite. And then he
stands at the entrance door till the carriage has
driven off. The Chinese do bow so often, and
little children have to do it too.
"The consul told Leonard that when school-boys go
to see their masters, they have to arrange the
chair-cushions for their masters and themselves.
The boy has to stand outside the visitor's hall
till his master comes, and when he has been asked
to go in, he gives him for a present a tael of
silver, about 2s. 8d., which he holds up with both
his hands. Then he looks towards the north,
kneels, and knocks his head twice upon the ground,
when the master bows. The boy asks how his
teacher's parents are, who also asks after the
boy's. He then invites his little guest to sit
down; but every time the boy is asked a question
by his teacher he has to stand up to answer it.
When he leaves, he goes to the entrance door by
himself. At school, the boys have to make a bow to
the schoolmaster whenever they go in and out of
the room.
"You asked me in your letter if people have very
many servants in China. Some have a very great
number. Ordinary Chinese gentlemen might have a
porter, two or three footmen, coolies for
house-work, sedan-chair bearers, and a cook. Women
servants are often bought by their masters. A rich
man will have sometimes twenty or thirty slaves.
People called 'go-betweens' generally buy them for
the masters. We have very few servants of our own
now, as we are on a visit. Mother's maid shows
dear little Chu what to do. Female slaves attend
upon the ladies and children, and we have often
seen them carrying their mistresses with small
feet. It does look so funny. In good families,
father says, they are very well treated, but some
maid-of-all-work slaves often run away because
they are so unhappy.
"Children are sometimes stolen to be slaves.
Great-grandsons of slaves can buy their freedom. I
am so glad I have my little Chu, because she
cannot be bought or sold now: father made that
agreement. I should not know nearly so much about
the servants and slaves if I had not wanted to
know what might have become of little Chu if we
had not had her. Sometimes servants stand in the
streets to be hired.
"In a suburb of Canton, in a street called the
Taiping Kai, we saw one morning a number of
bricklayers, journeymen, and carpenters, waiting
to be hired. The carpenters stand in a line on one
side, and bricklayers on the other. Father said
they had been there since five o'clock.
"Another day we saw men carrying baskets, in which
they were collecting every bit of paper they could
find about the streets, which had been written
upon. The Chinese have such respect for every
little piece of paper, on which have been any
Chinese characters, that they will not allow any
parcels even to be wrapped up in them. When all
these scraps have been collected, they are burnt
in a furnace, and the ashes are put into baskets,
carried in procession, and emptied into a stream.
Slips of paper are pasted on walls, telling people
to reverence lettered paper. Chinese characters
are called 'eyes of the sage;' and some people
think that if they are irreverent to the paper,
they are so to the sages who invented them, and
they will perhaps, for a punishment, be born blind
in the next world.
"Men become famous in China when they write very
beautifully. They write with a brush and Indian
ink. Father's teacher says there are three styles
of writing Chinese characters, and that the
literature of China is the first in Asia. A
Chinaman writes from right to left, and all the
writing consists of signs or characters. I cannot
think how Chinese people understand either their
writing or their conversation. One word will mean
a number of things, and you know which word they
mean by the sound of the voice and the stress on
the word. Leonard asked the teacher one day what
soldier was in Chinese, and he said, 'ping;' but
he also told him that 'ping' meant ice, pancake,
and other words too. 'Fu' is father, and 'Mu'
mother. They think we have no written language.
"Canton is entered by twelve outer, and four
inner, gates. The name means 'City of Perfection.'
Leonard and I are now going for a walk, with
father, to the Street of Apothecaries, and
to-morrow we are to see a bridal procession.
[Illustration: WAITING TO BE HIRED.]
"There are such a number of narrow streets in
Canton, and religious worship is carried on in the
open streets, in front of shrines; and before the
shops lighted sticks, called 'joss-sticks,' are
put at dawn and sunset. The natives live in the
narrow streets. Those in the European settlement,
where we are, are larger.
"The ports, which are open to foreign commerce,
have European parts where the European inhabitants
live.
"Always your affectionate
"SYBIL GRAHAM."
[Illustration: A CHINESE WRITER ]
[Illustration]