Newfoundland to Cochin China
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The windings described by the Peiho are aggravating. The actual distance traversed, after a series of bends, being equal to about half a mile as the crow flies. Again and again we see the extraordinary phenomenon of a row of sails walking inland; and how picturesque these brown-patched sails look, as extended by the wind they glide in single file against the sky line. The wind is a subject of great anxiety on the Peiho, because if it is ahead one the crew make fast to the bank at once, and await a favourable change; and even if it is, as to-day, behind us, the river winds so much that we box every point of the compass, and so it is not always to our advantage. We watch our progress with great interest; and now we are scudding gaily before a lovely fresh breeze, with the pleasant sound of rushing water under the keel, whilst the big sail overhead balloons out and swells hopefully. To this succeeds a calm, when a little punting with the long poles is necessary, or a deep bend when the wind and stream are ahead of us, and which means a painful slow bit of tacking, when the men strain the whole weight of their bodies against the tow line, to progress at all. Again a pleasant rush, the puff of wind catching our ponderous sail, and we scud merrily past the banks. And how our coolies enjoy this; stretching themselves out, and, sunning on the deck, smoke their pipes. So it goes on all day.
We passed several gaily-decorated junks belonging to a great mandarin with the peacock's feather over the door, generally accompanied by another with the household; also the ex-French Chargé d'Affaires, Monsieur Ristelhueber, and his family, returning to France from Peking, and with whom we afterwards had the pleasure of travelling homewards for a month on the French mail.
The approach to Peking, which signifies the "Gate of Heaven," is indeed synonymous with the biblical definition in one particular, for it is narrow. This morning the Peiho has dwindled into a ditch between extensive mud flats, and we are constantly aground, our five brown coolies struggling and sweating in the quagmire of soft mud under a broiling sun. It is weary, weary work this slow progress, and we chafe at all the delays of crossing the tow line from one bank to another, to avoid the now continuous succession of sampans, many of which are in worse condition than ourselves, for the men have to get out into the water to push the boat along; for should we not arrive at Tungchau by noon, we must abandon all hope of reaching Peking to-night, as the gates close at sunset. There is a head wind, with a strong current racing down the narrow channel against us, and we sadly mark how crawling is our progress by the landmarks on the bank. And so the long hours of morning pass, and, just as we are losing hope, we see the blue tower of the pagoda at Tungchau, rising up from the plain, and there are only seven miles more with an hour to do it in, and we shall be at our journey's end. We afterwards found that, favoured by the wind, we had made almost, if not quite, a record passage of forty-six hours, and that many boats take from four to five days in coming up from Tientsin.
We find an anchorage at Tungchau among fleets of sampans, and in half an hour our boy has procured three carts, packed in our luggage, and we are ready to begin the fifteen miles journey to Peking. Let me describe these carts. The body is formed of a few planks of wood, with a hood covered in blue or black stuff. The wheels are of circular pieces of wood, they are guiltless of springs, and are drawn by mules. They resemble an old mediæval chariot, and indeed they date from and are exactly the same as were in use in the tenth century. There is no seat inside, and instead of sitting on the floor, it is easiest to ride on the shaft, with your legs hanging over; but I did not know this in time. Before you have been half an hour in this vehicle you cry out for mercy—for an instant's cessation of this agonizing mode of progression, from the unbearable bumping and concussion. And when at length you become numbed by the pain and discomfort, the intense weariness that succeeds, makes you sure that another jolt will be unbearable, until at last you close your eyes, feeling that nothing but the end of the journey is of the remotest consequence. The roads are somewhat softened by the loose dust. Still, when you tumble into a ditch on one side, with a jar that is felt to your most internal depths, and are then run up on to a bank on the other, you can have some idea of what we suffered during that journey from Tungchau to Peking. What must have been the agonies endured by Sir Harry Parkes, and our old friend Sir Henry Loch, as they journeyed in these same springless carts to Peking, but with their hands bound behind them and over the stone road that takes a more circuitous route!
We passed through the outskirts of Tungchau, through some blind lanes of mud walls, with doors in them leading to the courts, round which the houses are built. Soon we are out on the road—no, it is not a road, but a rough track with several trails, and made of millions of tons of dust, that rise in impenetrable clouds by the passing of a single donkey—dust that smells and tastes of the garbage of China proper, that envelops everything in a white mist, that, easily raised, subsides as lingeringly. The embankments are crumbling into dust, as are the numerous walls of these hideous earth villages which line the road, and are perched on the top of them. The whole face of the land is parched and burnt. The willows are streamers of dust, and the other trees are coated grey with the same. And the road: it is a succession of deep gutters, of holes, of upheavals of sandbanks, running in the middle or across the road, scarcely defined from the surrounding fields—and this is the great highway to the Great City of the unknown Emperor.
We pass cavalcades of carts, and the gaudily-dressed and painted Chinese women inside peer out curiously at us; bullock carts laden with merchandise, parties of horsemen, a caravan of camels, and endless strings of donkeys, bearing away the last of the students from the late annual examinations at the capital. Many of these wear goggle spectacles, the glasses of which are at least four inches in diameter, and enclosed in broad tortoiseshell rims. With their loose coats they tower over and bulge out above their tiny quadrupeds, but these sleek, good-looking little donkeys go cheerfully jig-jogging along, with their blue-coated owners urging them from behind. In the oasis of a few trees, the mules are occasionally watered from the tubs that stand ready filled, for the traffic along this highway is ceaseless.
The sun, as it got lower, scorched mercilessly into the hood, and the dust in its parching aridity became still more trying. The mule began to tire, and the driver cruelly flogged it, while the monotonous waste seems endless.
Absolute indifference, with a deadly weariness, had long since taken possession of me. The clammy chill of sunset was of no consequence, though I tried to huddle something round me. I was only roused by the sight, over some tree tops, of a little bit of black crenellated wall. The approach to Peking is thus an absolute disappointment, for, instead of seeing the grand walls from afar standing up out of the yellow plain, here we were creeping round a corner to them. In a few minutes we were under the gloom and darkness of this vast mass of stones, piled up on high centuries ago. But, alas! that at such a moment imagination and sentiment, increased by the difficulties and tediousness of the journey, should succumb before an increased ordeal of pain, as we now join the stone road, and jar over the great crevasses the paved way. At last, turning the corner, we enter under the massive arch or gateway, deep with many feet of thickness, called by the poetical name of Hatamen, or the "Gate of Sublime Learning." We are within the outer walls of The Forbidden City.
Then we find ourselves in a sandy waste, bordered by the wall of the Tartar City on one side and the canal on the other. Little clouds of dust rising in the distance tell of some cart or donkey, and we ourselves continue enveloped in the same as we choose any track we please, for there is, of course, again no road for another weary mile or so. Some flag-poles in the distance bring a ray of comfort, for I shrewdly hope that they mean the quarter of the Legations. Nor is my hope ill-founded, for, passing through a dirty passage, we emerge into the moving streets and are soon in Legation Street, so called from the lion-guarded entrances of the various legations, for the French, the American, the German, and the Russian Envoys are grouped here. We find accommodation in one of the numerous courts of the French hotel in this aristocratic street. The sense of comfort of sitting still and not momentarily expecting a concussion is simply delicious. We are full of admiration for the physical bravery and endurance of the many travellers, who for two days or for eighty miles go in these carts from Tungchau to Peking, through such a prolonged torture.
The British Legation is over the bridge with an entrance off the Yu-ho canal. And here, the next morning, Sir John and Lady Walsham sent for us and received us most hospitably.
This beautiful Legation was formerly a Palace belonging to a member of the Imperial Family, as is shown by its green roof. The approach to the entrance is through an aisle and raised pavement, formed by two magnificent open gateways supported by pillars, and gorgeously decorated in gold, scarlet, green, and blue. The palace wanders round the spacious enclosure of a courtyard; and the reception-rooms, with their lofty ceilings inlaid like a temple in green and gold squares, with their hanging screens of that beautiful Chinese black oak carving, are magnificent. The walls are of open work filled in with dull gold papers, and furnished, as these rooms are, with handsome brocades, soft carpets, and rich hangings, chosen to harmonize with the surroundings, the whole is truly regal.
The compound is large, and contains the bungalows and houses of the Legation Staff, and the separate apartments of the Student Interpreters, of whom there are six. And a very happy little community of twenty-two persons they appear to be, led by Lady Walsham, who is most hospitably inclined, and living their life within the four walls of the compound, which they rarely leave, except for social duties, to pass into the outside filth and dust.
From the windows of our rooms, overshadowed by the deep eaves supported on enormous red wooden pillars, we look out on a succession of peaked roofs, inlaid with green tiles and blue decorations, with rows of pretty little green dragons perched on the ridges, whilst crescent-shaped ornaments depending from the roof, wave with each breath of wind.
CHAPTER IX.
THE CELESTIAL CITY
A curious difficulty arises in The Celestial City. It is that of locomotion. How are we to get about with no carriages, and only those abominable agonizing carts to drive in? We end by taking refuge on the humble donkey, and every time we went out messengers had to be sent to the walls to charter the best attainable animals.
Great mandarins and ministers-plenipotentiary go in chairs, but smaller fry are not allowed to use them, besides which they are prohibitorily expensive. Even the late Marquis Tsêng, when he returned from his embassy to Europe, was at first denied the privilege of a chair, that he might understand that, although great in England, he was small in China. For the Secretaries, ponies are the chosen mode of locomotion by day, and fifty ponies stand in the Legation stables. At night all must walk, lantern in hand, or go in a cart. So it is with the ladies. Carriages are unknown and impossible, with the result that the majority make, as I have said, a sweet prison of the compound, and lawn tennis has votaries among all ages.
The sky is clear and blue, with a north wind bringing a deliciously crisp feeling into the air, suitable to this October month. The climate of Peking offers a redeeming feature to the Europeans who are isolated here. For the next six months this cloudless sky is uninterrupted. Rain is unknown for nine months together, from July to April, and the worst season is the rainy one of May and June, when the steamy heat is most trying. The winter is perfect—cold, but with warm sun in the middle of the day, and the snow that falls, but occasionally, is soon dispersed by the wind.
Moreover, Peking is fortunate in having a summer resort close at hand in the Western Hills, some fifteen miles distant. Here the Legation lives for the hot months, in a privately-rented group of Temples. The dust storms are the scourge of the town; from the crumbling "loess" and alkaline nature of the soil, they sweep in blinding clouds over the plain, and are most irritating in their fortnightly recurrence. The air is so intensely bracing and dry, as to unpleasantly affect the skin.
The first thing to do is to grasp the topography of the Celestial Metropolis, with its city within city, and wall within wall. We return to the Gate of Sublime Learning, and ascend by it on to the great Tartar Wall.
Peking is spread out at our feet. We can trace out the four Walls, each containing a separate town. The outer and lower ramparts surround the Chinese city. The next exclude the abodes of the conquered from those of the Conqueror. Here upon the higher ground were assigned, two hundred and fifty years ago, spacious residences for the Tartar Bannermen. Within the Tartar town again, and surrounded by its defenders, is the Imperial city, and enclosed again, securely inside this, with further moats and guard-houses, is the Wall of the Forbidden City itself.
These Walls are from fifty feet high, to forty and sixty feet wide. They are built on massive stone foundations, but the walls themselves are of brick, filled in with mud. How have these common black bricks survived the crumbling of ages? But, except where the base has been marauded for the saké of the yellow clay of the mortar, they are as solid as the day they were constructed. At intervals of three hundred yards there are massive flying buttresses, and a crenellated parapet crowns the summit. They are pierced with many gateways, for there are nine to the Tartar city, and eight for the Chinese. Each gate is surmounted by a square tower of many storeys, loopholed for archers and musketeers, and with quaint heavy black roofs, decorated often in gay colours.
Poetical names mark these Gates, such as "The Eastern Straight Gate," "The Gate of Peace and Tranquillity," "Of Attained Victory," "The Gate of Just Law," "The Western and Eastern Gate of Expediency." These vast fortifications extend for twenty miles, and enclose an area of twenty-five square miles. They are all that you see from whichever side you approach the city, for they are loftier than the loftiest interior pagoda or tower. They are the most impressive and venerable sight, and alone would be worth coming to see.
We are walking on the top of this Wall of the Tartar city—over the ancient grass-grown pavement—commanding a splendid view of the Chinese capital, in the early morning light. The pale grey haze over the Western Mountains points the direction where lie the ruins of that beautiful Summer Palace, magnificent even in its decaying fragments, standing for ever as a reproach to the allies, but fit judgment on the barbarous cruelty of a civilized nation. From this bird's-eye view, Peking appears so buried in trees, that it is hard to believe that its teeming streets, with a population variously estimated at from 400,000 to 800,000, is immediately below. We are so far above it, that even the street cries and calls come up in a softened murmur.
We can distinguish the black roofs of several temples, and the bright green-tiled ones that denote the abode of a Prince of the Blood, called the First or the Tenth Prince, in gradation of propinquity. Over there now the sun is shining and gleaming from the many yellow-tiled roofs of the Imperial palaces of that Forbidden City, where shrouded in mystery, unseen by his people, dwells the Emperor who holds sway over a fourth of the human race.
For about two miles we walk upon the ramparts, which would make a splendid promenade, turning the corner of the square by the Eastern Straight Gate, which is beautiful with its pagoda newly-decorated for the recent passage of the Sovereign. The roof is formed of dark crenellated tiles, with deep outward curving lines, underneath which is a lovely inlaid mosaic in vivid blue and green tiles, whilst the green bronze dragons with twisted tails are perched in single file along the curving sweep. From point to point of the gracefully arched line, suspend crescent-shaped eyes, that tremble in the breeze. And each of the numerous gates have equally fine pagodas, so that in our wanderings we were always coming back to one of these familiar features.
But a difficulty occurs. We wish to descend from the wall. There is a ramp; but at the bottom a locked and spiked gate. We call for a ladder, without result. Pulled by the guide, pushed from below, we scramble up and over a nine-foot wall. It was not dignified, and the crowd was amused at our quandary.
We are making our way towards the Tower which leans against the City Wall, belonging to the observatory.
We pass into a shady courtyard to gaze upon the very instruments whereat Marco Polo wondered in his famous travels. There are two planispheres, an Astrolabe of great size, cast in bronze, and supported on twisted dragons of exquisite workmanship, and which are probably the best specimens of bronze work in Eastern Asia. Ascending up some damp stone steps, we find ourselves on the top of the Tower, and inside a finely wrought iron railing, where there is a gigantic Globe of the Heavens, with the planets yet marked in relief on the surface. Also a quadrant, sextant, and sundial; while the large Azimuth instrument in the corner was a present to the Emperor Kanghai from Louis XIV.
And these instruments are as perfect as they were when placed here 300 years ago. Indeed, some of these are still used by the Astronomical Board for their observations. It brings home to us the fact that we must never ignore for a moment, whilst living in China, that in the earliest centuries she was far ahead in civilization of any country in the world. But while the West has gone rapidly onward, overtaking and outstripping the East, China, self-contained and shut off from contact with all other nations, has remained stationary, so that much we see around us dates from that era. The Chinese are under the impression that there is no nation equal to theirs. They suppose themselves the centre of civilization for the last 2000 years, and claim that China knew the art of printing, invented gunpowder, and was learned in astronomy, long before us. They consider that China is the middle of the Universe, as is shown by the name, which, in their language, signifies "The Middle Kingdom." They look upon themselves as superior to us, as we think ourselves to them, calling us Barbarians, and considering all European nations as such. As a nation they never travel, and are down-trodden by the conservatism of the Mandarins, who, risen from the people, wish to retain their superiority by keeping the lower classes under.
The real interest of Peking lies in its intense age. The city is 4000 years old. Conquered by the Mongols, or the "Golden Horde," who, in their turn were overthrown by the Tartars, Peking of the present day is built, like Rome, upon the ruins of many cities. The description of the famous Venetian traveller is as true to-day as it was when written in the thirteenth century. It is in this wondrously preserved life of the middle ages that the curiosity remains; it is because we see the streets under their primitive conditions of dirt, before ideas of sanitation were dreamt of, because we can look on the carts that were in use at a period corresponding with our conquest by the Norman—on the wheelbarrows with the single wheel, which creaks as loudly now as it did then, on the wells with their Eastern earthenware jars, and the water drawn as in the pictures of Isaac and Rebecca—on those great Walls, then necessary for protection from the wild hordes that scoured the plains, and where the gates are still closed, in accordance with the ancient custom, at sundown. It is all the same. We might have fallen into a Rip Van Winkle sleep at Tientsin, and awoke in the streets of the Celestial Capital in the middle of the dark ages.
There is one thing which impresses itself indelibly on the mind, and is called to remembrance with the first mention of Peking. It is the dirt! the dirt! the dirt!
It is impossible to conceive of such awful filth, and, unless you have seen it, I defy anyone to have the faintest idea of the sights and smells of this city of the Flowery Land. The condition of the streets is the same as it was B.C. If they were described faithfully and in detail, common decencies would be violated, even as they are but too openly. Let it suffice to say that they reek with refuse, garbage, and decaying matter of every description; that the houses throw out into dry pits, dug anywhere in the road, their pig's wash and offal, and that the putrefaction and decay fills the air with noisome smells that overpower you at every turn. Filth and refuse you soon grow hardened to in Peking, but occasionally some particularly nauseous sight, such as a dead dog in a far advanced stage of decomposition, or a cat with the entrails protruding, unnerves you again.
Wherever there is water you may be sure that it is a stagnant pool of liquid filth, covered with green slime, and containing untold horrors if stirred up. Also, if you pass down even the comparatively clean Legation Street, in the wake of the watering-cart, the stench from the stirred-up dust is unbearable. Men are seen going along with baskets on their backs, carefully collecting with a bamboo pronged fork every morsel of manure, for this is the only kind that the Chinese use, chemical fertilizers being unknown. Fortunately, too, there are hundreds of pariah dogs, many evil-looking beasts, who, with their sharp noses, are busy turning over the most unsavoury heaps, or lie asleep gorged in the middle of the narrow roads. Also the pigs, great coarse-haired masses of fat (the Chinese pig is a peculiarly revolting species) wallowing in the foul slush. Enough! In every place and corner are revolting sights, unfit for a civilized community.
Then there is the dust. It adds to the unpleasantness of going about. Such dust as it is, all-pervading, all-penetrating, leaving a pungent smell in your clothes, so that I soon found out that it is necessary to keep a special costume to face it. Once outside the Compound, you find yourself in the jostle and crowd, the shouts and disorder of the streets, and as a cart or horseman passes, a cloud is raised that obscures everything for the moment; and so it is that, for half the time you are out you see nothing for the dust, and for the other half only through a dim veil of the same. At sundown the state of affairs is made worse by the succession of mules, purposely loosened to roll over and over.
Lastly there is the incredible state of the roads, with their deep holes in the very middle of the busiest thoroughfares, with huge stones lying across, or a steep embankment, round which you must diverge. There is this excuse, that the soil, owing to its light and porous nature, aided by the extreme dryness of many months of the year, easily shifts with the wind. If the dust is intolerable, what must it be in winter, when it is turned into a quagmire of black mud or sludge? It is no uncommon thing for a mule to be drowned in the streets. He falls into this soft morass and, unable to get a footing, perishes within sight of the bystanders.
There is yet another and a more unpleasant drawback to be met with, in going about the streets of Peking. The Chinese, but particularly the Tartar and Manchu part of the population, dislike Europeans, and openly insult us as we pass along, jeering and laughing in a most offensive manner, and obviously making the rudest observations. Even the little children come out and call us foul names, of which Barbarian and Foreign or Red-Haired Devils are the mildest terms—language which they must have become familiar with by hearing it used by their parents. There are several places where Europeans are almost invariably stoned, and public feeling has been intensified by these late unfortunate riots on the Yangtze.