Wanderings in China

Front matter

X- fi&4MUL

WANDERINGS IN CHINA e t/&i*hJ> V&ly OuUy

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY W. CROOKE 103 PRINCES ST EDINBURGH.

Contents

CHAP.

I. A MEMORABLE CHRISTMAS, II. FROM HONG-KONG TO CANTON,

III. A VERY STRANGE CITY,

Chapter I. A Memorable Christmas

A glimpse of Shanghai — On board the Pei-ho — " Earth -laden waters " — Hong-Kong — A beautiful city — Christmas-day — Cathedral service — Walk through the city — A hospitable welcome — A terrible conflagration.

On Board the Pei-ho, Messageries Maritimes, Nearing Hong-Kong,

Christmas- Eve, 1878.

You will wonder when you receive this letter posted in Hong- Kong, where I hope to arrive to-morrow !

It is not that my four months in Japan have by any means exhausted its fascination, — on the contrary, I purpose returning there in spring, when the double cherry-blossoms are in their glory ; but meanwhile the hills are white with snow, and I have been nearly frozen, living in paper houses, without fires — only such warmth as we could extract from ornamental little charcoal braziers. So I have fled southward with the swallows, and sailed from Nagasaki, intending to spend Christmas at Shanghai. There, however, I only stayed three days, for the horrid river of yellow mud and the hideousness of the flat country round, and, above all, notwithstanding the genuine kindness of several residents, the oppressive dreariness of finding myself alone in a great dull hotel, where there was not a creature to be seen except Chinese servants, depressed me to such a pitch, that I resolved to risk spending Christmas-day at sea rather than remain there.

A

Besides, Hong-Kong lies about nine hundred miles farther south, which means journeying towards warmth and sunlight, and of course mid-winter is the very best time to arrive there, whereas even at Shanghai it was cold, and seemed quite in keeping with the real holly, stag's-horn moss, &c. (all brought from afar), with which the ladies of the congregation were preparing to decorate the cathedral. This is by far the finest Christian church I have seen in any Eastern land, and would of itself have been a very strong inducement to remain for its Christmas services. It is a large red brick building, cruciform, and very lofty, with well-proportioned short transept and good glass, the reredos simple, but all harmonious. The design is Gilbert Scott's ; but the whole creation of the building — the choir, and all that combines to produce so excellent a whole — is the work of Dean Butcher, a man greatly beloved by all classes of the community, and to whose personal influence alone is attributed the existence of a church so very superior to those of other English settlements. The services are in every detail those of a very well-appointed church in England.

The American Episcopal chapel for the Chinese was also in full course of decoration by Chinese women, and seemed to me almost the only clean spot in the foully filthy, old, native Availed city, in which I spent two afternoons, under the kind escort of old residents. I confess that, notwithstanding all testimony on that point, the reality of its filth quite surpassed my worst expectations ! Never could I have conceived the possibility of such varied combinations of bad smells ! and even the eye remains unsatisfied, for the streets are all narrow and crowded ; and though the multitude of quaint figures, open shops, strange sign-boards, and occasional curly roofs cannot but be somewhat picturesque, the marvel is that they produce so little effect. Even the temples are mean and disgusting — a marvellous contrast to those of clean, delightful Japan.

Dirt — foulest dirt — is the one impression which remains indelibly stamped on my mind : however, as I shall have to return to Shanghai later, I may possibly see it in a rosier tone. Much as I generally delight in oriental cities, I felt it a relief to pass from this one, back to the handsome European settlement of large clean houses, of which a most imposing row stretch along the embankment of the fine crescent-shaped harbour. I confess I do not envy the 125,000 persons who are crowded inside the walls of that native city ! 1

1 The total population of Shanghai is estimated at 156,000. In addition to the

YELLOW WATERS. 6

Nor do I envy the Europeans who have to keep themselves alive by a weekly or bi-weekly paper-chase across the dreary level waste which lies beyond the city ! And yet I believe that, on account of its social advantages, and also the good sport (chiefly in the way of pheasant-shooting), which is to be had within a moderate distance, Shanghai is the favourite station in China.

For my own part, I was glad to be afloat again, even on the turbid yellow waters of the dirty Woo-Sung river, though we seemed literally to be ploughing through liquid yellow mud, till we had passed the new Woo-Sung Fort — in other words, the junction of the tributary stream with the great Yang-tse-Kiang, which, although at all times emphatically a Yellow River, had been less affected by local causes ; and so when we reached the mouth of the river, which is fully twelve miles in width, the mud was so far diluted that the waters were only of a yellowish grey, and by the time we were fairly afloat on the " Hoang-Ho," — i.e., the Yellow Sea, — we rejoiced to find ourselves on a clear ocean changing from blue to green.

But we fully realised how well this sea might deserve its name, when after prolonged rains the flooded Yang-tse (which ranks third of the world's greatest rivers) pours down its vast volume of earth-laden waters (accumulated in its long and busy life-journey of 3000 miles, from its crystalline source amid the mountains of Thibet) to discolour the ocean for a distance of 200 miles or more. Still more must this have been the case when the real Yellow River, the Hoang-Ho, emptied itself into this sea, only about 150 miles to the north of the Yang-tse, instead of, as now, flowing north into the Gulf of Peh-chi-li, a change of course which was a freak of quite recent years.

Now the repellent yellow mud lies far behind us, and we are steaming swiftly south, but as yet there is no sensible improvement in climate. On the contrary, we all feel it intensely cold, and are sitting with our warm wraps on, huddled round two wretched stoves in the large, dark, uncomfortable cabin, which at night is dimly lighted only by a few candles, — no lamps ! Altogether it is a dreary ship, quite unlike my previous experience of " Messageries " vessels.

above, the boat population is reckoned at 11,000, while foreigners and their retainers muster 73,000 in the English settlement, 22,500 in Hong-Kew, and 50,000 in the French settlement.

Note — "Earth-laden Waters." — These Chinese rivers deposit such quantities of soil, that they are continually raising their channels higher and higher above the level of the surrounding plain ; consequently it is not only necessary to construct stupendous embankments to keep the water-floods in their self-chosen beds, but also to continue ceaselessly raising and strengthening them. These cyclopean banks of mud, or of basket-work full of small boulders and faced with brick and stone, extend for hundreds of miles, and at some points are so high that to reach the summit one has to ascend sixty or seventy granite steps, above the level of the boundless plain, to find one's self standing on the brink of a swift mighty river, perhaps half a mile in width. Such banks have to be built so as to allow for the river's natural rise of fully 20 feet in the rainy season.

It is evident that only by ceaseless vigilance can these enormous earthworks be kept in thorough repair, and Government officials are enjoined to bestow the utmost attention to this subject. Needful repairs are executed in winter and spring, when the waters are at the lowest, and enormous sums are thus expended even in ordinary years.

But no amount of human care can always avail against the might of such a stream as the Great Yellow River, when, in autumn, it pours down from the mountains with about ten times its winter volume, flowing rapidly for a distance of about 2000 miles, its waters charged with sand and yellow earth, which it deposits all along its course, raising its bed and forming shallows, till at length the flood either overflows the channel or forces a passage through embankments, soddened by weeks of rain. Then follow appalling inundations, transforming whole counties into gigantic lakes, drowning all living creatures, and covering the land with a deposit which, for one season at least, is fatal to all agriculture, and often leaves great tracts transformed into feverish swamps.

When the waters subside, the river is certain to create for itself a totally new channel, so a legion of workers must immediately construct new embankments, which, like those now abandoned by the stream, must be heightened year by year, as the deposit of silt raises the river-bed. Nine distinct channels have thus been occupied by this fickle stream within the last 2500 years; but for the five centuries prior to 1852 the Hoang-Ho proved wonderfully constant to the course it had last selected, pouring its waters into those of the Yellow Sea about 150 miles to the north of Shanghai.

The present generation has, however, had full experience of the

AN ERRATIC RIVER. O

erratic tendencies of these unstable waters, for in 1852 they suddenly burst the northern bank near the city of Kaifung, about 250 miles inland, flooding the country, and spreading ruin and desolation as they swept onward in a north-easterly direction, their course being guided by the rocky range which borders the huge promontory dividing the Yellow Sea from the Gulf of Peh-chi-li. Thus the river was compelled to flow northward till it reached the latter sea, at a distance of fully 500 miles from its old mouth, leaving its former bed a level plain of dust, only to be fertilised by toilsome irrigation.

Strange to say, so little did foreigners even then know of anything that occurred beyond the limits of the treaty ports, that five years elapsed ere the Europeans living in Shanghai had any inkling of the tremendous catastrophe which had occurred scarcely so far from their homes as Edinburgh is from London ! Two years later, though it was then known beyond a doubt that the great river had vanished from its accustomed bed, no foreigners knew what had become of it !

One thing we do now know — namely, that although the stream has for the last thirty years traversed the very same part of the country as it did 500 years previously, yet it nowhere flows in exactly the same channel, where the strong ready-made embankments would have been so helpful. It selected for its bed the channel of a much smaller stream, and only by the construction of stupendous new embankments have these turbulent vagrant waters been prevented from overflowing their boundaries at every rainy season. Notwithstanding all vigilance, they have repeatedly burst these banks, flooding large tracts of country and drowning the luckless cultivators.

In 1885, " China's Sorrow " (as this Bohemian river is poetically called) inundated a large tract of the province of Shansi, destroying two important towns, and occasioning great loss of life. Eut this was as nothing compared with its playful freaks in the autumn of 1887, when prolonged rains had so swollen the waters that the embanked portion resembled a gigantic reservoir, 500 miles in length and about one in width. This raging river, driven by a fierce wind, and rushing down at headlong speed, bore with unwonted violence against a bend in the embankment, forty miles to the west of Kaifung, which was the scene of the disaster in 1852.

At last, on the night of September 28, a breach was effected, and then, with awful resistless rush, the escaped torrent poured forth in a deluge, forming a mass of water about 20 feet deep in the centre and about 30 miles wide, and thus overs wept the province of Honan (which, by reason of its fertility and admirable cultivation, is commonly called " The Garden of China "), flooding an area of about 10,000 square miles. In other words, a denselypeopled plain about half the size of Scotland, dotted over with about three thousand large villages and cities, inhabited by millions of the most industrious people on the face of the earth, was suddenly overwhelmed by this awful flood and transformed into a raging sea.

Imagination can scarcely picture a scene so appalling — the great peaceful plain where at eventide several millions of prosperous people lay down to rest in safety and comfort, without one thought of danger, only to be awakened by the crashing of falling walls and houses collapsing on every side, and the deafening roar as the wild flood of raging waters, rushing on through the darkness of night, overwhelmed one city or village after another.

When morning broke, in place of a vast expanse of richly cultivated fields, there was only to be seen a boundless waste of surging waters, sportively tossing thousands of corpses of men, women, and children, buffaloes, oxen, and other animals, together with wreckage of every description. The three thousand villages lay buried — some 10, some 30 feet — beneath the waters, and of their inhabitants, incalculable multitudes must have found a grave beneath their own roofs. In China it is almost impossible to obtain anything like definite statistics on such subjects, but it is generally believed that at least two million persons perished on that dread night.

As an example of the danger incurred even by those who are awake and on guard, I may mention that some days later, when all hands were summoned to endeavour to construct a breakwater to arrest the further progress of the flood, it sportively swept away four thousand of these vigilant workmen.

For several months the immense volume of the waters of the Great Yellow River continued to pour down from the mountains on to the inhabited lands, ever enlarging the boundaries of the recreated great inland sea, which has thus once more reclaimed the lands drained by the Emperor Yii. (He receives divine honours as the mightiest of engineers, because it is believed that prior to his reign, the whole province of Honan was a vast lake, covering an area of 65,000 square miles, till he devised means for the construction of such stupendous embankments that the waters of the Hoang-Ho were therein captured, and this most fertile province was created.) Whether the river will again submit to imprisonment, and to be once more guided to that Yellow Sea which it forsook in 1852, is a problem still unsolved.

HONG-KONG.

Care of Mrs Snowden, City of Victoria, Isle of Hong-Kong,

Christmas- Day.

Certainly fortune has favoured me, for we reached this most lovely city early this morning, and have had a most enjoyable Christmas-day. I had not the remotest conception that I was coming to anything so beautiful ; so, when with the earliest light of dawn, we slowly — very slowly — steamed into this exquisite harbour, its beauty, so suddenly revealed, left me mute with delight. Perhaps the contrast between these encircling ranges of shapely hills and the dead level of the Shanghai coast, help to make these seem more impressive. Certainly I have seen no harbour to compare with this, though I suppose Rio Janeiro claims the palm of beauty above all others.

This is like a great inland lake, so entirely do the jagged mountain-ranges of the mainland and the island of Kowlung seem to close around this rocky isle, whose great city bears the name of England's Queen, and from whose crowning peak floats the unionjack. The said peak is really only 1825 feet in height. Though it looks so imposing, it is simply the termination of the ridge which forms the backbone of the isle, and along whose base extends the city — a granite city, hewn from the granite mountains, with granite fortifications, granite drains to provide for the rush of the summer rains ; everything seems to be granitic, but yet there is nothing cold in its appearance, for all is gilded by the mellow sunlight. All the principal houses have lovely shrubberies, with fine ornamental trees, which soften the effect, and make each terraced road seem delightful.

There is so very little, if any, level ground, save what has been reclaimed artificially, that steep streets of stairs lead from the business quarters on the sea embankment, right up the face of the hill, the lower spurs of which are all dotted over with most luxurious houses and shady gardens, now gay with camellias and roses and scarlet poinsettias. And in the midst of it all is the loveliest Botanical Garden, beautifully laid out, and where all rich and rare forms of foliage, from tropical or temperate climes, combine to produce a garden of delight, whence you look down upon the emerald green and dazzling blue of this beautiful harbour, where a thousand vessels, and boats and junks without number, can ride in absolute safety.

I had a glimpse of it all this afternoon, but indeed it would be difficult to obtain a more entrancing view than from this house itself, which really "belongs to Sir John Small, the Chief-Justice,1 but, in his absence, is tenanted by Mr Snowden, the acting Chief- Justice, who, on the strength of a letter from Sir Harry Parkes (one of the many acts of kindness for which I am indebted to him), came to offer me a welcome to Hong-Kong and to this lovely home.

But I must tell you first of our arrival. My fellow-passenger from Japan, Miss Shervinton, had come to rejoin her father, and we waited a little while expecting to see him appear. But being impatient to get ashore, we chartered a sampan — i.e., a covered boat, inhabited by a whole Chinese family, consisting of a long-tailed father, four funny little children, and a comely mother, with beautifully dressed glossy hair, a comfortable blouse, and very loose short trousers, showing neat firm feet and ankles. Not having previously been in a sampan, I was glad to begin the day with a new experience !

We met Colonel Shervinton almost as soon as we landed, and we all went together to breakfast at the principal hotel, and thence to the cathedral, which, though not to be compared in beauty with that at Shanghai, is a fine roomy church. There is a surpliced choir, but the Christmas decorations are of a severe type, beingconfined to flowers in pots on the chancel-steps and round the font. A full congregation, and a nice hearty service, with sermon by Bishop Burdon (the bishop of this diocese of Victoria), who, though still in the prime of life, is the fortunate possessor of such snow-white locks and beard as must surely be accounted a special episcopal endowment in a land where even grey hair commands such special honour as in China !

We returned to the hotel for luncheon, immediately after which, in prompt answer to letters from various friends in Japan, came several most kind residents, inviting me to their homes. Fortunately for me, the first to arrive was Mr Snowden (fortunately, I mean, because this house is so beautifully situated some way up the hill, overlooking the whole town and harbour, whereas the other quarters, so cordially offered to me, lay in the town itself).

Having despatched my luggage, Mr Snowden took me for a

i In case the address at the head of this letter should appear needlessly elaborate, I may quote a little conversation which I overheard soon after my return to England. Said a young barrister to the wife of an English M.P., — " Didn't Miss G. C. say she was staying with the Chief-Justice of Hong-Kong ? How do we come to have a Chief-Justice there ? Isn't it somewhere in Japan ? "

Said the lady, — " Well, really I never thought about it before, though we have relations there. But now you come to mention it, I think you are right" !

CITY OF VICTORIA. 9

turn through the crowded business parts of the city — the Chinese and the Portuguese quarters — all built in terraces along horizontal streets, but connected one with another by steep streets of stairs. There is a specially picturesque spot right below this house, where five Chinese and Portuguese streets meet.

From this crowded centre we went on to a very different scene, namely, the beautiful gardens, where we revelled in the fragrance of flowers bathed in sunlight, and as we wandered through shady bamboo-groves, or stood beneath the broad shadow of great banyan-trees, at every turn we caught glimpses of white sails floating on the calm blue harbour far below us, reflecting the cloudless blue of heaven — a scene of most perfect peace, with never a jarring sound to suggest the busy bustling life and all the noise of the city.

In short, I have already seen enough to convince me that it would be difficult to find more fascinating winter-quarters than this oft-abused city. As to climate, although in the same latitude as Calcutta, it is far cooler, and whatever it may be in June or July, to-day it is delicious and balmy, like the sweetest summer day in England ; and I am told that this is a fair sample of the whole winter at Hong-Kong, and that for five consecutive months there will probably not be even a shower ! Only think what a paradise for an artist ! Every day at the same hour the identical lights and shadows, and any number of willing and intelligent coolies read}'- to fetch and carry him and his goods, and save him all physical fatigue !

We arrived here in time to find Mrs Snowden waiting to welcome me to cosy five-o'clock tea in the pretty English drawing-room. In short, everything is so pleasant that already I have begun to feel myself quite at home in this British isle of Hong- Kong. Now it is time to dress for dinner. Every one here seems to have a dinner-party to-night.

Dec. 27th.

I seem to have lived many days since writing so far. I can hardly realise that it was only the night before last that my impressions of Hong-Kong were all so peaceful and so calm, for ever since we have been surrounded with so wild a turmoil, and a scene of such awful dread, that it feels as if we had been living in a dream.

Surely never before has Christmas so vividly exemplified the familiar words of its church service, which tell of the battle with " burning and fuel of fire " ! *

1 1st Lesson for Christmas-day — Isaiah ix. 5.

On Christmas night, just as the guests were preparing to leave at 11 p.m., suddenly a startling sound of sharp clanging rang through the night. The others knew well what it meant, and I was not long left in doubt. It was the fire-alarm ! We all ran to the verandah, which, as I have told you, overlooks the whole town and harbour. These lie outspread below, as it were, the base of a great amphitheatre.

We had, a few moments before, been noticing what a calm beautiful scene it was, with its thousand points of gleaming light, the reflections of the glittering stars overhead, blending with those of the vessels floating on the still waters, and all the lights of the city — stationary and locomotive, the latter indicating the paper lanterns carried by all wayfarers and chair-coolies.

Now a new feature was added to the scene. From the very point where the five streets met, rose a tall column of fiery smoke, with shooting tongues of flame. Another moment and the gentlemen had rushed off, some being members of the fire-brigade, and others having a very personal interest in the danger which might so quickly approach their own offices.

The alarm-bells rang on more and more wildly — sharp jangling bells, which once heard could never be forgotten, so unlike any other peal is that affrighted clanging, — no seasonable Christmas chimes, but an awful appeal; a far-reaching sound that should summon all the engines from every corner of the city, and all men enlisted in the brigades, from their festivities. These, as a rule, pride themselves on the extraordinary rapidity with which they respond to such a call, and many a fire has been quenched at the very outset, owing to the velocity with which its first indication has been smothered.

But, of course, on this night everything was a little lax. Many men had been dining with friends at some distance from the city, and it was near midnight ere they could get back. Others returned unsuspectingly to find the awful havoc that had taken place. So the bells tolled on in wild appeal, and those of the Eoman Catholic cathedral took up the alarm, while fire-drums beat in the streets to hasten the laggards, and meanwhile the smoke-clouds grew denser and more dense, and, to make matters worse, a sharp breeze sprang up from the north, fanning the flames, and carrying sparks and burning fragments to ignite new buildings at a distance.

There is little doubt that the fire was the work of an incendiary. It began in the store of a small general dealer — an Englishman. He was absent, and when the place was broken open, the whole

FIRE ! 1 1

was found saturated with kerosene. It is also believed that some men spread the fire to their own stores for the sake of the insurance money. Curiously enough, three fires broke out simultaneously on other parts of the isle ; but there really seems to have been no object to make it appear that these were incendiary, as there was no general attempt at looting. On the contrary, every one appeared half stupefied, as the flames rapidly gained the mastery, suddenly bursting from fresh houses here and there, where least suspected, and spreading from street to street.

That livelong night we stood or sat on the verandah watching this appallingly magnificent scene — the flames rising and falling, leaping and dancing, now bursting from some fresh house, shooting up in tongues of fire, now rolling in dense volumes of black smoke. Now it was a paraffin-store which blazed with fierce light, and, a moment later, a New- Year store of fireworks were all aflame, shooting and exploding all on their own account.

From house to house and from street to street the beautiful, terrible Fire Demon swept on its destroying path, for the flames, now fanned by a keen breeze, rushed hungrily on, sometimes sweepingright across a street to devour the opposite houses, — sometimes, for some reason utterly incomprehensible, working right round a block, and leaving one or two houses in the very heart of the conflagration utterly untouched (like the Three Children in the burning fiery furnace).

From our high post we looked down on the awful sea of fire, watching it work onward, — stealing under roofs — lighting in a rain of fire on distant houses where we could see sparks smouldering on some weak corner of a roof or an inflammable verandah : then would come a little puff of smoke, followed by a burst of flame, and then would come another outburst in quite a different part of the town, till so many places were blazing at once, that the firemen were utterly baffled.

Very soon it was evident that neither their numerical strength, their engines, nor their meagre water-supply could possibly master the fire — a very startling revelation to the colony, which prided itself on the perfect organisation of its fire-brigade. Whether the actual water-supply was insufficient, or whether the engines were not sufficiently powerful, seems uncertain ; but even when they were got to work, the puny jets failed to reach the top of the loftier houses, and where once the fire had fairly obtained a footing, any attempt at extinguishing it was so obviously hopeless, that the firemen's efforts were chiefly directed to saving the neighbouring or opposite buildings, by tearing down the verandahs and all the woodwork, and by covering the walls with carpets, curtains, or matting, and endeavouring to keep these saturated.

Among the houses thus saved is the Oriental Bank, in which I take a special interest, because, had Mr Snowden reached me five minutes later this afternoon, I should at this moment have been the guest of Mrs Crombie at the said bank, and instead of being safely housed here (we believe this house is now safe !) I should have been sharing her night of awful anxiety. The room which I should have occupied is now saturated with the water-jets thrown on, as a preventive means while houses close by were blazing. The ivlwle opposite side of the street was burnt, and only by superhuman efforts was the bank saved, the whole outside being hung as aforesaid, with mats and carpets, which were incessantly pumped upon. Of course preparations for the worst were made, and the wife, and other treasure, were sent to safe quarters on land and sea. I believe that all the banks sent their treasure and valuable papers on board one of the men-of-war lying in harbour.

A large force of blue-jackets and of military came to the assistance of the firemen, and did right hearty work, though perhaps with less success than would have been the case on any other night. Unfortunately many were on leave for their Christmas night, and not only was it difficult to collect these for organised work under any recognised leader, but a considerable number were none the steadier for their Christmas festivities, and so a good deal of British valour was misapplied.