The Canton Chinese, or the American's sojourn in the Celestial Empire

Preface

. This book has not been written as a history of the Chinese, or as an elaborate essay on that great nation. In May, 1844, I sailed in the barque Pioneer for Can ton, and after a tedious passage arrived at Macao on the 22d of September following. It was uncertain how long we should remain, but thought at first that our stay would occupy a very few days. We at once went to Canton, and as I had little or nothing to do connected with the vessel, my time was my own, and I soon found that it was amply employed. Desirous of studying, as far as lay in my power, the aspect, manners, customs, habits, and ranks of Chinese life, I determined to come in actual contact with the people, instead of remaining in the hongs and obtaining all my information from the numerous books which had been written on the Celestials.

In this spirit, day after day, I went about the streets, into all kinds of shops, passed much time on the densely peopled river, and made acquaintance, as far as lay in my power, with the various ranks of the inhabitants.

PREFACE.

. I studied intently all that passed before me, and was rewarded for any trouble undertaken by the knowledge gained of the most extraordinary people, the only un changed representatives of antiquity to be found among civilized beings. The observation of one day was care fully compared with that of the next, and the result of my researches submitted to the decision of gentlemen, who had lived years in China, with the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with the natives. Finally, I referred to works of established merit, and adopted nothing until I was fully borne out by unques tionable authority. In this manner (our stay being pro tracted for several months) I became intimately acquainted with the inhabitants of Canton, who differ only in slight peculiarities from the great mass of their countrymen.

But as I visited no other great city in the empire, I have called my book the " Canton Chinese." I determined before engaging in this work to treat of nothing that did not come under my own observation, and so my range of subjects is limited. But the reader may rely on the truth of the volume. I had several reasons for adopt ing the course that I have pursued. I considered the Chi nese so wonderful a people, and so unjustly underrated, that I was desirous of bringing them to the more intimate knowledge of my countrymen, as far as could be effected by my feeble efforts. Thus I preferred to work out carefully a cabinet picture, rather than attempt a great histori cal painting. In the second place, my stay in China was limited, and

PREFACE.

. IX though ample time elapsed to glean all that is contained in the following pages, yet it was not sufficient to study Chinese history and polity. Therefore I have said nothing of dynasties, governments, laws, language or literature. Nothing that I could have written on these heads would have possessed the least interest or weight, and would have been mere plagiarisms. Lastly, my utter ignorance of the Chinese language, without which no one can of himself study Chinese his tory, held me firm in the course I had chosen. A few of the leading chapters were originally published in the Baltimore American, but they have been much en larged, and are now presented to the public in an improved form. I shall be happy if my humble efforts are the means of inducing my readers to turn a portion of their attention towards the Celestial Empire ; and the further they pursue their researches, the more will they find to praise in the peaceful energy, industry and ingenuity of the most en lightened of orientals. Baltimore, Md., August, 1849. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. The Voyage Java The China Sea

Voyages are proverbially tedious, even from the days of Columbus, and every commercial traveller who now-a-days embarks in a Liverpool packet, never fails to inform his friends or the reading world in general, how long the passage seemed, how often the sails of the ship flapped wearily, who composed the party in the after cabin, when he cast his bait for a shark, saw a suspicious sail, and threaded a deal of seaweed. Tiresome as all such experience is to the voyager, his ennui cannot equal that of his readers, from the simple fact that like long yarns have been heard a thousand times before, and the devoted victim, who has piously made up his mind to wade through "A foreign tour," because he is expected to feel the deep est interest in its author, cannot help wishing that the first chapter, written "at sea," had never been per mitted to appear on dry land.

I will merely say, that we had flown through the Indian ocean, with all the sail that a strong south east trade wind had permitted us to carry, and one fine afternoon in August, 1844, we heard the first mate sing out " Land ! " as Java Head loomed majes tically over the dark gray waters. We deemed it prudent to lay to that night, as no one on board knew the perils of the Straits of Sunda, and we had good reason to hope, that the morning would see us safe past Angier Point, and hurrying for the Java Sea. But we were not so fortunate. The morning dawned and the sun rose almost simultaneously, for the brilliant equatorial climes know not the romance of the twilight hour, the wind blew, we made sail, came abreast of Princes Island, caught a glimpse of the noble scenery of the straits, when the clouds gathered in quick as a storm among the Alps.

The wind chopped round, the tide turned strong against us, and thus in the face of sea and sky did beat for seven days, along the great headlands of Western Java, and at length, weary with reverses and ill luck, anchored in Anjier roads. It was pleasant to ride at quiet anchor after tossing for months upon the ocean, to hear the soothing sound of waves break with a distant roar upon the shining beach, and to look upon scenery as beautiful as that around us. On one side the length of Java extended for many miles, its headlands and mighty mountains towering into cloud, while its rich valleys shone in the sun light as green as emerald. Vast trees, thick grown along the shores, gave deep shade to the huts of the natives, whose long narrow boats with latteen sails, dotted the sparkling bay, and the bungalows of the Dutch residents, and the white walled fort glistened brightly.

To the left, the magnificent peaks of scattered islands rose from the waters, covered to their sharp summits with the dense quick vegetation of the sunny tropic, and dim in distance on the southernmost point of Sumatra, upreared the mighty Rajah Bassa, half veiled in shade, like the majesty of an eastern despot. Scarce had we been anchored five minutes, when we saw a long proa full of men, pulling directly for us. We had heard from childhood awful stories of Malay pirates, fellows who cut your throat more readily than your purse-strings, and we had had all our armament ready, ever since we entered the Straits of Sunda. Our two six pounders were run out of their port holes, our muskets loaded for the crew, and the supercargo and I had put our Colt's revolvers into our pockets, firmly determined to astonish the natives only as a dernier resort, when pacific measures should be totally unavailing.

But we took courage, as we saw that there was no long gun in the bow of the boat, and actually smiled when we could not detect small arms among her crew ; she carried a Dutch flag, and only bore a peaceful envoy. He was a Malay mail agent, sent out by the Resident, to ask us accidentally on purpose if we had any opium on board, and to take our letters for far distant America. He bore a capacious leather bag, and it was a pleasure for a quarter of an hour to tumble its con tents about on the cabin table, to spell out the high and low Dutch directions, for "Amsterdam, Rotter dam, Schiedam, and all the other dams," and to place our own bulletins among them. Malays may be children of the Sun, but a more wretched looking set I had never dreamed of. The post-office factotum's crew were probably picked men.

Fancy twenty fellows each about four feet and a half high, some with a hat and coat, minus panta loons, and others with only a waistband ; imagine their long strait hair utterly uncombed, their sinister and cunning countenances, their teeth filed down to the sixteenth of an inch from their gums, and black as ebony from chewing betel nut, their lips and tongues of the brightest scarlet from the same cause, and several of the party deprived of one organ of vision ; and you have as good an idea of a boat's crew of Malays as I can furnish. In a few moments we had the deck full of traders, with cocoanuts, bananas, shells, rice, and curry; the opulent of the party had large bags of paddy and yams, while the needy could offer only perhaps a parrot, or a Sumatran monkey. After months of salt provisions, after our pigs had all been slaughtered, and our sheep become so thin, that we thought it cruel to kill them, we congratu lated ourselves on the forthcoming day's prospects, of fried chickens and vegetables, and at once fell to bartering in the most approved fashion, albeit it was the Sabbath day.

A scantily clad fellow, took a fancy to an old blue calico coat of mine that I had brought with me, and which was soaking in a wash tub at the moment of his visit. A bargain was struck for a hat of out landish fashion, and an eastern umbrella ; the garment was taken possession of and instantly donned by the fortunate darky, on whose back it clung most affectionately. Two individuals of the party deserve especial notice; the first clad in an old naval coat given him by an officer of the St. Louis sloop of war, was a native of portentous consideration, who universally styled himself Mr. Penn. The other was a taciturn being, who had obtained the cognomen of Muddy Sam, and who, in the sim plicity of his heart, exhibited certificates of his own good name, written by waggish voyagers, and which were about as apt as the lucubrations in the travel lers' books at the Falls of Niagara.

Penn seemed to wish it understood, that he was very wealthy, and desirous of testing the truth of his assertions, I questioned Muddy Sam, who replied with something between a sneer and a leer ; " No very rich, he hab got sixteen or seventeen dollar." On one point, however, I found Penn quite a phi losopher. Though polygamy is sanctioned in Java, he clung affectionately to his only wife, and said that two women " makee too muchee bobbery." Every English or American traveller must notice the universality, among all these people, of his native tongue. Rude as it may seem spoken by the debased peo ple of these glorious isles, yet it conjures up a vision Iof friends and fireside joys, like the sound of familiar bells, which legends say are sometimes musical in the ear of the mariner, though half the wide Atlantic is spreading between him and his village home.

Though the keels of many nation's ships have tracked these waters, though France's and mighty Russia's savans, have sounded their depths and noted their dangers, though Holland's frigates scour them ceaselessly, and Holland's people bear absolute sway over the Malay, though the bold Portuguese first braved and doubled the Cape of Storms, yet the language of none of these is heard, and English, only English, greets the ear. It is an eloquent tribute to the might of Britain, that in far reaching territories, hers is the only foreign tongue known to the unlettered savages; that in Hindostan, her gothic graft of speech has flourished widely with the parent stem; that so in China, all the sons of that vast enlightened empire, who through commerce come in contact with a paler race, have in some degree studied to syllable their words, and here in Java, long after English domination has vol untarily yielded again to the Hollander, the pliant Asiatic still clings to the Anglo Saxon, and will not be taught his taskmaster's tongue.

The morning after we anchored, the wind was still adverse, and much to my joy we determined to go on shore. We dived to the bottom of our sea chests, to find wherewithal to decorate our persons, and having accomplished a satisfactory toilet, pulled ashore. The boat was rowed around Anjier Point, and pulled into a beautiful little cove, into which a stream from the mountains found its way. On one side of this rivulet was the fort, with a Malay guard at its entrance ; a little bridge crossed the stream and touched a path that led to the resi dent's house on the other. The day was blazing hot ; and we found a native servant appropriately clad in a heavy black and orange livery, with a sword girded on, sent to receive us at the bridge. Long extending avenues, lined with the huts of the Malays, and bordered with enormous trees, and thick grown with luxuriant grass, led from the land ing place in various directions, and our sable guide, after making a low salaam, showed us along one of them a few steps, when he turned into the resident's garden.

The most splendid flowers were in full bloom ; we saw gigantic specimens of palms, whose sickly growth we had known in our own hot-houses, and the whole atmosphere seemed laden with the warmth, the perfume, the almost overpowering odors of a conservatory. The resident's bungalow was of a single story, with a long deep porch in front, and walking thereon, we saw a gentleman of about fifty years of age, in a military uniform, and with an orange colored complexion. This was the High Comp troller of Finance, an officer of distinguished birth and station, who had lived nearly thirty years in Java, and who was visiting Anjier, and about to return to his native country. He was very gracious, more so when he found us Americans; and we could see that he bore no great liking to the English, from his distant manner towards a party of them from another ship.

The servant in the uncomfortable livery obeyed his nod instanter, and summoned the proprietors of the mansion, a very large, good-natured lady, and her thin, wiry, choleric husband. The porch, owing to the heat of the season, was used as a parlor ; there were mats and couches spread about, a swinging lamp hung from the ceil ing, a coil of perfumed cocoanut fibres burned slowly on the table, the servants placed chairs, and I tried to fancy myself surrounded with oriental splendors. The lady resident was quite alone in the little village, save her nervous husband, and an officer com manding the fifty Malay soldiers of the fort, but she had no female friend. She wished to hear the latest news from America, and told how much she had been amused, a few weeks previous, by hearing a genuine down-easter repeat some of his queer Yankee yarns.

We sent orf board for our spare books, for which she was very grateful. We were seated a few moments, when the En glish party aforementioned came up, ladies and gentlemen, some ten in number. The Londoner is the same unvarying individual all over the world ; one of the number was a fat man perspiring freely, but not sufficiently to smooth out the creases of his tight city dress coat ; his rubi cund countenance was relieved by his enormous shirt collar, in one hand he bore "James's last" the other inclosed two numbers of his favorite Punch. There were two missionaries from Oxford, going to enlighten the Chinese on the thirty-nine articles, and two or three young merchants, going to win golden opinions among the Hongs of Canton. The captain of the ship was a sine specimen of an English sailor, who had a pretty widow in tow, going to the Hong Kong market.

We were seated — the resident with true Dutch hospitality had silled up each a brimming rummer, though the hour was early, when we suddenly heard a noise of gongs, drums, fifes, and shrill voices, and the lady resident told us that we would have the pleasure of seeing something of a Malay wedding. A troop of some fifty men, and the like number of women, making the horrible noise and surrounding a gaudy palanquin, wherein reclined the bride, and a caparisoned poney bestrode by the groom, stopped for a moment at the gate, till the happy pair dis mounted, and then the whole troop, male and female, approached the verandah, singing not in Rubini's most approved manner. The retinue halted at the porch, and led by a dusky lady manager, who had herself been married at ten, and withered in her teens, the youthful pair ascended the steps, and kneeling for a moment, the resident gave each a little piece of money, and said a few words as in ratification of their proceedings.

They then in perfect silence occupied two chairs for the space of five minutes, during which I had time to study their dress, and learn a little of Malay marriages. The state costume in Java is quite au nalurel, for the groom was naked to his waist, and his garments consisted in nothing but a pair of bright pantaloons, and a gaudy vestment resembling a petticoat, into which was stuck a handsome creese. The bride was rather more fully clad, and the heads of both were greased to the last degree, and decorated with wreaths of powerful fragrance ; their faces were smeared with the brightest yellow wash, even to the tips of their eyelids, and on the fingers of the girl were displayed several splendid brilliants, which I learned were handed about from bride to bride, and probably belonged to some of the moun tain chiefs.

This noise of drums and shrieks, this painting, this junketting, continues for three entire days, and then the fortunate man is not put to the expense of taking a house in a fashionable square, and furnishing his parlor with the French lounge and the glittering mirror ; but he packs up bag and baggage, reverses the order of things, and quarters from the date of his honeymoon, to his last sigh, or his second marriage, on the partner of his pleasures. I thought of writing, and do now recommend to all the spendthrifts of my beloved city, to all those fine gentlemen, whom, having dissipated handsome fortunes, are too delicate for exertion, too proud for beggary, and generously force their wives to open the select school or the exclusive boarding house, to betake themselves with all due speed, to the hospitable caresses of the Anjier ladies.

We went on board ship to dinner, and towards the sunset hour returned to the shore. We sound his orange-colored highness smoking in the verandah, and accompanied by a deferential sec retary in blue and silver uniform ; the comptroller clapped his hands, and the ubiquitous servant appeared with wondrous speed; his master murmured, " Casi Manco," and the slave, with the rapidity of thought, brought the delicious tea. We declared it excellent, and found none better afterwards in China itself, and indeed that of Java is to a great extent cultivated by runaway Chinese, of whom there are some thousands scattered over the island. After the meal, his excellency invited us to take a walk with him. The way led through one of the beautiful roads, green under foot, and lined with luxuriant hedges ; all the plantations were in a state of the highest cultivation.

We paused a moment at the apology for the Anjier hotel, its sign-board was the stern carving of some dismantled or plundered ship, and a ruinous billiard table stood before its door. We looked in, descried some familiar prints, purchased a few little articles, and scraped acquaintance with a shrewd Malay boy of six years of age, who offered us bottled porter for a consideration, and knew but two English words ; one was beer, and the other, of course, was — money. That most active of all servants, the indefatigable fellow in variegated regimentals, trotted on behind, with a coil of cocoanut lighted, for the convenience of cheroot smokers. The comptroller was very polite and communica tive, spoke English and Malay as fluently as his own Dutch, showed us beautiful plantations of coffee, tobacco, cocoanuts, nutmegs, &c. and led us several miles over those blooming hills and valleys.

We wound along by an aqueduct leading to the mountain springs, and were regaled with some of the luscious fruits pulled from the trees. In various spots, we saw clumps of spontaneous palms, those most graceful and significant types of orientalism; and as the sun went down, beheld troops of laborers returning from the fields, and each and every one made low obeisance to his powerful excellency. We passed the monument erected to the memory of Earl Cathcart, who died in the Straits of Sunda, while on his embassadorial way to the Celestial Empire, and returned to the resident's house, just as the full moon was rising, and had shed its silvery splendor over the dancing waves We kept company for many days with the English ship, and the tedious passage up the China Sea occupied us nearly thirty days.

Occasionally we varied the monotony of our ex istence, by visiting the beautiful vessel, where we were most kindly received, and in return invited some of her passengers to dine with us. We rum maged the small stores, and brought to light our long treasured preserves and brandy fruits, we boiled our best ham, cooked our yams in the most approved fashion, offered a Maryland dish of chickens, un corked our finest wines, and spent a few hours delightfully. We compared notes as to the voyage, and com forted each other with the prospect of an approaching typhoon. Indeed, the weather boded it; it was hot, clear, dead calm most of the time, and the helm, that con science of a vessel, could no more sway ours ; the ship went spinning round and round, in crossing cur rents, beneath the blue glare of the overarching firmament, and the pitchy seams of the decks, even beneath the spreading awning, yawned as if with thirst.

The sun would wheel flashing up the sky, and pour upon our little speck of a bark, lying supine upon the waters, the fiery strength of his beams, and as the hour of observation came, it seemed as if we could read in his merciless splendor, that day after day brought no change, and that we were still pow erless, motionless, battened down upon the same burning spot of the salt sea, without a handbreadth of friendly vapor visible, wherein to look for a breath of air, save near the horizon, dead, windless, cop pery clouds, as stagnant as the still element below ; — and in such an hour, giving no sign of his com ing, save by the faithful glass, rushes the avenging typhoon on the mariner, who, but an hour before, had cursed the calm, and invoked the tempest, and it smites with the rapidity and malignancy of Smyrna's plague.

But at last the gentle breeze came, and blew us happily along the smooth sea, and in a few days we saw at a distance the strange sails of China's junks. That night the wind freshened ; we made the land at early light, took a wild Chinese half naked pilot, passed the Lema and Ladrone Islands, and were requited at last for all the idle hours in the China Sea, by being obliged to shorten sail, and thus, with stretching canvass, we went flying into Macao Roads, and into anchorage.

Chapter II. The River Population

We were anchored; the good wind that had brought us into haven had not died away; but we could not use the ship's cutter as a sail-boat, fearful that if we took the men ashore, they would celebrate their hour of liberty by getting drunk. So we deter mined to accept the services of one of the little naugh ty boat women, who were paddling their sampans about the bay. A boat of the larger class was tossing under the vessel's quarter ; a bargain was struck with its disin terested owner, who assured us that we would get " wet tocking " if we ventured with any one but himself, we tumbled into his queer craft; he hoisted sail, and we steered for the old curious city of Macao. Up to this moment I had not seen the Chinaman proper. The pilot taken outside the harbor was an outlandish specimen of human nature, who did not at all give a fair specimen of the Celestial ; but on the deck of this little boat were congregated a crew of genuine sons of the middle kingdom.

Their dresses consisted mostly of blue cotton; an upper garment resembling a wide shirt, and enormous pantaloons disclosing a good portion of muscular calves, completed the equipment of the elite of the party. Some few had divested themselves of their togas, and, as their heads are always exposed to sun and storm, and their backs only about half the time, by consequence their faces were baked much browner than their bodies. For the first time, too, I noticed the peculiar fea tures of the Mongol race ; their long narrow eyes, their brows turning upwards to the outer extremity and the nose a little flattened. Their shaven heads were kept in as truly orthodox a manner, according to Chinese fashion, as the old regulations enforced upon the pumpkin heads under the blue laws of Connecticut. The skipper of the passage boat was somewhat better off.

He possessed a wife, a spyglass and a chart of the river, all of Avhich were kept on board forever. He wore blue cotton stockings and good shoes; and having secured his queue from the influ ence of the wind, by sitting down upon it, he entered into conversation. His better half was unable to make herself in telligible, excepting by signs, so she could not look indignant, when we asked her husband her age. Rude as this crew was, I could not but notice their kind manner towards the woman; and living as they did with her in this little boat year after year, she had in a manner softened them, and extorted more than I had looked for of that respectful deference, regarded as a female's due in polished nations, and so generally denied in China. The water grew shallow, and we could proceed no further in the passage boat; so we hailed a dozen of sampans, and instantly a commotion arose among them.

Each lady owner of one of these little boats put forth her strength and pulled for us with all her might, shrieking at the same time, "Come in my boaty," "come in my boaty." The little girls were mostly quite pretty, and had taken care to arrange their heads in the most fasci nating manner possible. Down their backs their hair appeared braided into a queue, which is never gathered into a knot, until the nuptial knot is also fastened. ■ On their foreheads a little portion of their hair was brought down nearly to a level with their eyebrows, and cut off square at the end, after the fashion of some tribes of our far distant Indians. A sampan is more like a child's old fashioned covered cradle than any thing else that I know of. It is propelled usually by two women. One pulls an oar at the bow, and the other works the heavy scull at the "stern, nicely balanced on a single iron pivot, and their joint labors drive it through the water with considerable velocity.

And so with one mighty twirl of the scull Miss Aming Hoy, or whatever her name was, sent us high and dry on the beach, and we stood on Chinese ground. Macao in general characteristics resembles Naples. The same beautiful bay studded with green islands, the same gently curving beach, the same rising hills on either side, and the houses and buildings of every description towering up the slope that stretches from the pier; but it wants the lovely Villa Reale and the 2* gay equipages of the European city. But in the views, the aspect of the whole place, the sense at once of mysterious decay and romance, with which this paradise of the China-Portuguese fills the mind, there is nothing of common-place life or activity. There is romance connected with its history and its situation, with its growth under the once powerful Portuguese, now dwindled to a despised and feeble maniple of people, with its former condition as the sole foothold for Europeans during centuries of barely tolerated existence, with the banishment, the songs and the glory of Camoens, with the Catholic and silvery sound of convent bells, and even yet with the half forbidding half enticing wide garden courts of the old family residences, and their dark green latticed verandahs.

But reserving Macao for a future visit, our great object was to obtain a pilot for the river, and proceed to Whampoa as fast as possible. We were stared at in the most ferocious manner by the Portuguese custom-house guard in the little four gun battery in the middle of the pier ; so much so that we wondered if Americans were included in their protective tariff, and only admitted upon payment of heavy duty. But finding that we had no trunks with us, and were not stuffed corpulently with contraband goods, they allowed us to proceed, and even ventured to point out the way to the gentleman's house we were seek ing. The Chinese bear no very good-will to these fellows, who, mostly transplanted from Goa, have evidently brought a spirit of the Inquisition with them. One of our party some time after, about the period of the American Presidential election, asking Shinqua if he knew what a Locofoco was, the vin dictive native answered, "I speck he one Portuguese soldier at Macao."