'EN YEARS' TRAVELS, ADVENTURES AND RESIDENCE ABROAD LONDON: PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STUEET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET' fM, ,1ml Ife ^^§^>.- m HI .Ml •a____fiBBMr I_@S__«_£v;*7& jTtf »! SI !=-;MP^wl iM^ a«Wy n 1111 j iiii'i* w^ ' J___rm THE STRAITS OF MALACCA INDO-CHINA AND CHINA OR TEN YEARS' TRAVELS, ADVENTURES AND RESIDENCE ABROAD BY J. THOMSON, F.R.G.S. AUTHOR OF 'ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHINA AND ITS PEOPLE' ILLUSTRATED WITH UPWARDS OF SIXTY WOOD ENGRAVINGS BY J. D. COOPER FROM THE AUTHOR'S OWN SKETCHES AND PHOTOGRAPHS LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE CROWN BUILDINGS, 188 FLEET STREET 1875 All rights reserved PREFACE. The accompanying recollections of my travels are addressed to those readers— I believe there must be many — who feel an interest in the remote regions over which my journeys extended, and in that great section of the human family which peoples the vast area of China — a section which, through the agency of steam and telegraphy, is being brought clay by day into closer relationship with ourselves. I have endeavoured to impart to the reader some share in the pleasure which I myself experienced in my wanderings ; but, at the same time, it has been my care so to hold the mirror up to his gaze, that it may present to him, if not always an agreeable, yet at least a faithful, impression of China and its inhabitants ; and of the latter, not only as I found them at home on their native soil, but also as we see them in our own colonial possessions, and in other lands to which emigration has carried them. Since the days of the great Venetian traveller, perhaps no epoch in the history of that quarter of the vi PREFACE. globe has been more full of interest than the present. At last the light of civilisation seems indeed to have dawned in the distant East ; with its early rays gilding the little island-kingdom of Japan, and already pene trating to the edges of the great Chinese continent, where the gloom of ages still broods over the cities, a dark cloud that lifts but slowly, and yields unwillingly to the daylight that now floods the shore, but which soon, perhaps, may be rent and dissipated in the thun ders of now impending war. Certain it seems that China cannot much longer lie undisturbed in statu quo. Her deeply reverenced policy of inactivity and stagnation has brought floods, famine, pestilence, and civil wars in its train ; it cannot sink the toiling masses to yet lower depths of misery, or stay the clamours of multitudes wailing for susten ance while the rivers run riot over their fertile plains, and the roads have been converted into watercourses. The rulers meantime, with a blind pride, are arming a beggarly soldiery to fight for nothing that is worth defending, and Japan — in the vindication of her own rights, and in the interests of humanity — has planted a small but disciplined army on what is really an integral portion of the Chinese soil. To these few words let me add that, with a view to supply not merely a pleasant readable book, but infor mation as complete as it is trustworthy, I have in PREFACE. vii * the latter part of the present work reproduced and amplified some passages which I had already given to the world in my ' Illustrations of China and its People,' passages which I have thought to be of some importance, but yet which could not reach the great body of general readers in my larger and more costly work. J. T Brixton : Nov. 1874. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE The Straits of Malacca — The Dutch Operations at Acheen, in Sumatra — Penang; its Hills, Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit — The Klings, Malays, and Chinese of Penang — -Occupations of the Chinese — The Chinaman abroad — A Descendant of the early Portuguese — Hospitality — A Snake at a Ball i CHAPTER II. A Visit to Quedah — Miden missing — The Rajah's Garden — Province Wellesley — Sugar and Tapioca Planting — Field Labour — A baffled Tiger — Wild Men — An Adventure in Province Wellesley. . . 23 CHAPTER III. Chinese Guilds ; their Constitution and Influence1— Emigration from China — A Plea for unrestricted Female Emigration — The Perak Disturbances — Chinese Tin-mining — Malacca — Singapore — Its Commerce and People — Stuffing an Alligator — The Horse-breaker — Chinese Burglars — Inland Scenery — A Foreign Residence — Amusements — A Night in the Jungle — Casting Brazen Vessels — Jacoons. 44 CHAPTER IV. Siam — The Menam River — Bangkok — Buddhist Temples — The King, Defender of his Faith — Missions — Buddhist Priests — The Priest in his Cell— The first King's Visit to the Wats— The Court of the Dead — Chinese Speculator investing in a Corpse — The Krum-mun-alongkot — An Inventor wanted — Taking the King's Portrait — The King describes the Tonsure Ceremony — The King's Request — Mode of administering Justice — Gambling — Floating Houses — A Trip to Ayuthia — Creek Life — Visit to Petchiburee . 78 x CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGE An Expedition to Cambodia— Bang Phra-kong Creek— Prairie on fire— A Foreign Sailor — Wild River Scenery— Aquatic Birds — Kabin — Kut's Story to the Chief— A Storm in the Forest — The Cambodian Ruins — Their Magnitude — Siamrap— Nakhon Wat- Its Symbolism — The Bas-reliefs and Inscriptions — The Hydra- headed Snake — The Ancient Capital, Penompinh — The King of Cambodia — Dinner at the Palace — The whole Hog— Overland to Kamput — Pirates — Mahomet's Story — The Fossil Ship —The Voyage up the Gulf of Siam. . 118 ' CHAPTER VI. Saigon ; its Harbour — The Town — The Resident Foreign Com munity — Cholon, the Chinese Town — River Dwellings— Customs of the Cochin Chinese — Chinese Traders — The Cochin Chinese Village of Choquan — The Sorcerer — Plaine des Tombeaux— Petruski. ¦ . • .• .- .- . 164 CHAPTER VII. ' Hongkong — Description of the Island— The City of Victoria — Its present Condition — Its Foreign and Native Population — The Market-place — Hongkong Artists — Grog- shops — Tai-ping-shan— Expense of Living — A strange Adventurer — A Mormon Mis sionary. ........... 179 CHAPTER VIII. Snakes in Hongkong— A Typhoon— An Excursion up the North Branch of the Pearl River— Fatshan— The Fi lai-sz Monastery— The Mang-tsz-hap, or Blind Man's Pass— Rapids— Akum's Ambi tion— The Kwanyin Cave— Harvest— From San-Shui to Fatshan in a Canoe— Canton— Governor Yeh's Temple— A "Tea Factory- Spurious Tea— Making Tea— Shameen— Tea-tasting. . .212 CHAPTER IX. Canton— Its general Appearance— Its Population— Streets— Shops- Mode of transacting Business— Signboards — Work and Wages— The Willow-pattern Bridge— Juilin, Governor-General of the two Kwang— Clan Fights— Hak-kas— The Mystic Pills— Dwellings of the Poor— The Lo-hang- tang— Buddhist Monastic Life— On board a Junk 242 CONTENTS. , xi CHAPTER X. PAGE The Charitable Institutions of China — Macao -Description of the Town — Its Inhabitants — Swatow — Foreign Settlement — Chao- chow-fu — Swatow Fan-painters — Modellers — Chinese Art — Village Warfare — Amoy — The Native Quarter — Abodes of the Poor — In fanticide — ¦ Manure-pits — Human Remains in Jars — Lekin — Romantic Scenery — Ku-lang-su — The Foreign Settlement. . .271 CHAPTER XI. Takow Harbour, Formosa — La-mah-kai — Difficulties of Naviga tion — Tai-wan-fu — The Taotai — His Yamen — How to cancel a State Debt — The Dutch in 1661 — Sylvan Lanes — Medical Missions — A Journey to the Interior — Old Watercourses — Broken Land — Hak-ka Settlers — Poah-be — Pepohoan Village — Baksa Valley — The name 'Isla Formosa' — A Long March — The Central Mountains — Bamboo Bridges — ' Pau-ah-liau ' Village — The Phy sician at Work — Ka-san-po Village — A Wine-feast — Interior of a Hut — Pepohoan Dwellings — A Savage Dance — Savage Hunting- grounds — La-lung Village — Lakoli Village — Return Journey. . 300 CHAPTER XII. The Japanese in Formosa — Cause of the Invasion — The River Min — Foochow Arsenal — Chinese Gun-boats — Foochow City and great Bridge — A City of the Dead— Its Inhabitants — Beggars — Thieves — Lepers — Ku-shan Monastery — The Praying Bull — The Hermit — Tea Plantation on Paeling Hills — Voyage up the Min — Shui-kow — An Up-country Farm — Captain Cheng and his Spouse — Yen-ping City — Sacrificing to the Dead — Shooting the Yen-ping Rapids — A Native Passenger-boat. .... 345 CHAPTER XIII. Steam Traffic in the China Sea — In the Wake of a Typhoon — Shanghai — Notes of its Early History — Japanese Raids — Shanghai Foreign Settlement — Paul Sii, or ' Sii-kwang-ke ' — Shanghai City — Ningpoo Native Soldiers — Snowy Valley — The Mountains — Azaleas — The Monastery of the Snowy Crevice — The Thousand Fathom Precipice — Buddhist Monks — The Yangtsze Kiang — Hankow — The Upper Yangtsze — Ichang — The Gorges — The Great Tsing-tan Rapid — Mystic Mountain Lights — A Dangerous Disaster Kwei-fu — Our Return — Kiukiang — Nanking ; its Arsenal — The Death of Tsing-kwo-fan — Chinese Superstition .... 397 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIV. PAGE Chefoo— The Foreign Settlement— the Yellow River— Silk— Its Pro duction — Taku Forts— The Peiho River— Chinese Progress — ,;» Floods in Pei-chih-li— Their Effects— Tientsin— The Sisters Chapel Condition of the People— A Midnight Storm — Tung-chow— Peking jr — The Tartar and Chinese Divisions of the Metropolis— Its Roads, Shops, and People — The Foreign Hotel — Temple and Domestic Architecture — The Tsungli Yamen — Prince Kung, and the High Officers of the Empire — Literary Championship- -The Confucian Temple — The Observatory — Ancient Chinese Instruments — Yang's House — Habits of the Ladies — Peking Enamelling — Yuen-Ming- Yuen — Remarkable Cenotaph — A Chinese Army — Li-hung-chang The Inn of < Patriotic Perfection '—The Great Wall— The Ming Tombs. 469 J APPENDIX. The Aboriginal Dialects of Formosa 539 Diurnal Lepidoptera of Siam, Collected by the Author and Named by H. W. Bates, Esq. F.L.S. &c. . . 545 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. io.II. 12. 13- 14.IS- 16. 17- 18.19. 20.21. 22. 23- 24. 25. FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS. Chinese Merchants To face p. 56 86 90 144170172 214232 248; 254256 264 270282 386 422 424 454 456 4965i6520 The King of Siam's State Barge A Siamese Prince and Attendant . Ancient Cambodian Bas-relief, Nakhon Wat View of Cholon, Cochin China A Village Road, Cochin China . A Typhoon in Hongkong Harbour . Yeh's Temple, Canton .... A Street in Canton A Pavilion in Pun-ting-qua's Garden . The Willow-pattern Bridge . . . Temple of the Five Hundred Gods . Deck of a Chinese Junk .... Children at Play. (From a Chinese Drawing) Shui-Kow The Dream. (Chinese Drawing) Sung-Ing-Day Fall, Snowy Valley . The Mi-Tan Gorge, Upper Yangtsze . A Mining Village, Hunan Province One of the Inner Gates of Peking . Great Gateway, Temple of Confucius . Chinese Gentleman's Garden .... Cantonese Boatwoman, Ningpo Woman, Pepohoan, Tartar Making Enamel, Peking Wan-Show-Shan 522 524 526 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. ENGRAVINGS IN TEXT. PAGE i. Malays Selling Durians . . . , . . • .9 2. Malay Boy n 3. Chinese Coolie 14 4. A Chinese Contractor 18 5. A New Type of Man 19 6. Malay Hut 32 7. Pursued by a Tiger 36 8. Chinese Labo'urers fiCom The KwaStgtung Province . 49 9. Chinese Tailors ' 63 10. Jacoons. ...'.... ... 76 11. Siamese Buddhist Priest 82 12. Siamese LadY ' . " 92 13. Dancing GirlS . ' 110 14. Interior of'WeSTer>. Gallery, Nakhon Wat . . 142 15. cambodtan female' hea.d-df.ess." ancient sculpture . 1 43 16. Ancient Arch at K__w-_-ung-kwan; Nankow Pass . 147 17. Unfinished PIllaRs, Nakhon Wat 149 18. Sculptured ' Tower in Nakhon Thom, the Ancient Capital -of Cambodia 151 19. Honkong, from -Kellet's-Isla-nd 181 20. A Family -Party, Kowloon 184 21. Looking North from the Po-lo-Hatstg Temple, kwang-tung 225 22. Chess-playing in a Buddhist Monastery . . . 266 23. Lalung Village, Interior of Formosa . . . .335 24. Upper Bridge, Foochow . 3^6 25. The King of the Beggars . 359 26. An Unfortunate Thief.— Punishment of the Cangue 364 27. Foochow Lepers 365 28. Two of the Guardians of Buddha, Kushan Monastery 375 29. The Kushan Hermit .377 30. The Island Temple, River Min 379 31. A Travelling Blacksmith at a Farmhouse . . .385 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv PAGE 32. Chinese Plough, Fukien Province 387 33. The Shanghai Wheelbarrow 408 34. Our Native Boat 434 35. Szechuan Boat, Upper Yangtsze 448 36. The Great Rapid, Met an Gorge 452 37. Natives of Szechuan 457 38. Taku Forts 476 39. Corean 504 40. Chinese Horse-shoeing, Peking 505 41. Peking Observatory. Jesuit Instruments . . .516 42. Ancient Chinese Astronomical Instrument . . 518 43. Tartar Ladies 523 MAPS. 1. Sketch-Map, showing Author's Route . To face p. 1 2. Section of a Map taken from ' Lin's Geo graphy,' or 'Hae-kwS Too-che' . . „ 131 3. Fig. 1. Plan of Inner Temple of Nakhow, from a survey by the Author. Fig. 2. Plan of area enclosed by outer wall, Nakhow Wat ?? j37 4. South- Western Formosa .... „ 344 Tofacefage i. SKETCH-MAP SHOWING THE AUTHOR'S ROUTE. THE STRAITS OF MALACCA, INDOCHINA AND CHINA. CHAPTER I. The Straits of Malacca — The Dutch Operations at Acheen, in Sumatra — Penang; its Hills, Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit — The Klings, Malays, and Chinese of Penang — Occupations of the Chinese — The Chinaman abroad — A Descendant of the early Portuguese — Hospitality — A Snake at a Ball. In 1862 the Suez Canal was yet unfinished, and esti mated by many a more than doubtful undertaking. The j'oining of the two seas by a navigable channel, cut through a vast desert of shifting sand, people set down as the fond scheme of a visionary enthusiast ; .and so when I first quitted England I had to leave M. de Lesseps still carving out his fame in the sands of Egypt, and to follow the old route overland. But I need not pause to detail my experiences over one of the beaten tracks of modern tourists ; nor can I even venture to describe Galle, with its hills and palms, and its cinnamon groves, as this part of Ceylon is on the highway to India, and therefore already well known. Had health per mitted me, on first returning to England in 1865, it was my intention to have penetrated to the centre of the island, in order to explore its ancient Hindoo or Buddhist stone buildings, and to compare them with the magnifi- > 1/) B 2 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. cent remains of the cities, temples, and palaces I had j'ust visited in the heart of Cambodia. This project I was unable to carry out, so that my experiences in Ceylon are confined to the narrow limits of Galle harbour and to the adjacent hills — such indeed as fall to the lot of all who travel by the steamers of the Peninsular and Orien tal line. I must therefore invite my reader to accom pany me still further eastward, to the Malayan Islands and the mainland of Indo-China, where I spent some years of my life, before I can hope to introduce him to people or places with which he may be still unfamiliar. A voyage to a distant land, even under the most favourable circumstances, has always seemed to me long and tedious. Weary of watching the expanse of placid sea, and -the fun and flirtation carried on beneath the white awning of one of the finest steamers afloat, the words ' Land on the starboard bow ! ' fell gratefully on the ears of the outward-bound passengers. Novels ¦ were thrown down, and games of cards, chess, and quoits abandoned ; while a dozen telescopes and field- glasses scanned a faint and disappointing line on the southern horizon ; that is Acheen Head, and (it may be only in fancy) the breeze off the land comes laden with a tropic perfume from the rich Sumatran coast. Acheen is the point where the Dutch, with their pon derous and sluggish movements, have struck a new blow at the power of the Malays. They have left the wound open and lacerated, but will no doubt return to lop off a fresh slice of territory at a more convenient season. That Dutch rule in Java has been productive of mutual benefit to the island and to Holland more es pecially to the latter— no one will be inclined to dispute ; THE STRAITS OF MALACCA. 3 nor need we doubt that the same desirable result will follow the occupation of the recently subdued provinces which are being added, slowly but surely, to the Dutch dominions in the Malayan islands. At the same time, unless our treaty rights in these regions are carefully guarded, our peaceful and profitable trading relations with those islands may suffer, as they have done, more than once, during the earlier period of our intercourse with the native states in this quarter of the globe. One would imagine too, that Acheen was a most important point to fall into the hands of a foreign power, standing as it does at the north-western extremity of Sumatra, and forming, so to speak, one of the pillars of the west ern gate of the Straits of Malacca. I therefore doubt whether any power, more formidable and less friendly than the Dutch, would have been permitted or en couraged to annex this territory. Steaming eastward through the Straits, we are soon within view of Penang : a very small, but at the same time, important and productive island, and the first British possession we reach in the Straits. A strikingly picturesque place is Penang, with its belt of bright yellow sand and its crown of luxuriant tropical vegetation ; forming, too, a sort of sanitorium for our settlements in this quarter, and having a rich alluvial plain which, not many years ago, was an im penetrable jungle, but now is a perfect garden of cultivation. The shaded paths on the wooded hills, which rise over 2,000 feet above the sea, lead to the most charming retreats in the world; to bungalows nestling among rocks and foliage, and to cascades where clear cool water falls into natural basins of granite beneath., There residents may bathe beneath B 2 4 INDOCHINA AND CHINA. canopies of palms and tree-ferns ; while, so balmy is the climate amid these hill-dwellings, that the lightest costumes may be at all times worn. Many of the lower spurs of the Penang hills, and the valleys which divide them, have been cleared, and planted with cocoa, areca palms, nutmegs, and a great variety of fruit-trees ; small patches of the siri vine and sugar-cane are also to be found. In such places there is a deeper and richer soil than on the plains below, while on the summit of the highest hill the temperature is low enough to allow the cultivation of European vegetables and flowers. On ascending the hill to the government bungalow, nothing amid the profusion and variety of palms, flowering shrubs, or tangled jungle, so much impressed me as the stately beauty of the tree-ferns, growing to perfection about 1,600 feet above the plain. This tree-fern rears its bare, finely-marked stem from 15 to 20 feet high above the underwood, and then curling its delicate fronds upward, outward, and in graceful arches, spreads a leafy canopy of the most tender green foliage, which it drops in a multitude of quivering points at a distance of eight or ten feet round the parent stalk. It will hardly be credited, by those who have never visited a hill country in the tropics, that soon after sunrise the noise of awakening beetles and tree-loving insects is so great as to drown the bellowing of a bull, or the roar of a tiger a few paces off. The sound re sembles most nearly the metallic whirr of a hundred Bradford looms. One beetle in particular, known to the natives as the ' trumpeter,' busies himself all day long in producing a booming noise with his wings. I have cautiously approached a tree on which I knew a PENANG. 5 number of these trumpeter-beetles to have settled, when suddenly the sound stopped, the alarm was spread from tree to tree, and there was a lull in the forest music, which only recommenced when I had returned to the beaten track. One of the most curious insects to be found, on the hills so closely resembles the small branch of a shrub, that once, when following a narrow path, I picked up what I thought was a dried twig, but which wriggled and twisted in my hands, and when dropped at last, disappeared in the underwood with wonderful celerity, and a curious jerking motion. Its legs shot out from the stem just like smaller branches, but I searched in vain for this animated plant, which possibly was within eyeshot all the while. I have also seen the leaf insect on the Penang hills, which in its mimicry so imitates the leaf of a plant as to most effectually protect it from harm. The twig and the leaf insect belong to the order Orthoptera. The former resembled, most of its kind, the Bacteria Sarmentosa, although it seemed to me to be longer, more slender, and of a darker colour. Dried twig insects are species of Phasma, and the leaf insect is, I believe, the Phyllium siccifolium* Butterflies and moths in every variety and hue are also to be found in abundance, fluttering among the trees and flowering shrubs in the sunshine, where the forest opens. They vary in dimensions from a fraction of an inch to 10 inches or 1 2 inches across the wings, which is the size. attained by the Atlas moth, ' Saturnia Atlas.' Flowers and flowering shrubs or trees are by no means abun dant, nor are their hues so attractive, in any . part of the island,, as to come up to one's preconceived ideas respecting the wild luxuriance of tropical colouring in 6 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. which scene-painters revel when depicting an Eastern forest or jungle. It is in the gardens of the foreign residents, on the hot plain, that we meet with the greatest variety of indigenous flowers, glowing, most of them, with the brilliant primary colours which seem to me to characterise the flora of tropic regions. I should single out red and yellow as predominating, while all those secondary or mixed colours (excepting green) which exhibit so many tender touches of nature in our home gardens, are conspicuous by their absence from these sunny climes. Perhaps our men of science might be able to as sign a cause for this, and to tell us whether the heat of the oriental sun develops in flowering plants a craving for the absorption of certain colours of the solar spec trum, and for the reflection of others ; whether, indeed, the elective affinities of plants in this way are affected by temperature. Can we, in the same way, account for the brilliant plumage of tropical birds, in which homogeneous red, yellow, and blue, "are very con spicuous, and also for the liking which uncultured eastern races show for the reds, blues, and yellows.: Even in China we find red a token of rejoicing (the bridal costume), while over India and China, and all Buddhist countries, the sacred priestly robes are yellow ; and with a number of the races of India and Indo- China the yellow golden skin is esteemed the highest attribute of female beauty. In China, again, blue betokens slight mourning, and white or the absence of colour the deepest sorrow. Be that as it may, I believe that the flowers of our European gardens and woods, can boast a greater variety and delicacy of colouring than those to be found in any tropical lands THE FOLIAGE OF PENANG. 7 I ever visited. The hues are not only much more varied, but in temperate latitudes Dame Nature seems to exhaust her resources in producing an infinite diversity of tints, blended together with such mar vellous delicacy and beauty, as to appeal to the ten- derest feelings of the most cultured races of mankind. The foliage of the island of Penang, like that of the majority of the islands of the Malayan Archipelago, is dense and luxuriant, and remarkable more for its variety of form than for its different shades of green. The growth of grasses and jungle in this region is so rapid as to entail the constant labour of the husbandman to prevent their overrunning his oldest clearings. I have seen a sugar-field on Province Wellesley, which had been abandoned for little over twelve months, com pletely overspread with jungle ; and were Penang for saken by the British to-morrow, or rather by its Chinese cultivators, it would relapse in an incredibly short space of time, into the impenetrable jungle island which Captain Light found when he landed there in 1786. An amusing story is still told of the plan hit upon by Captain Light, to get this jungle growth in part cleared away. He loaded his guns, so the tale goes, with silver coins, and fired them into the thick bush, that the Malays might be tempted to make clearings in their search after the dollars.1 The rapidity with which plants will grow in Penang is truly surprising. I have myself watched young stems of the bamboo shoot up over a quarter of an inch in a single night, so that their growth is all but visible to the naked eye. The trailing vines and jungle 1 Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India. Cameron. 8 INDO- CHINA AND CHINA. foliage hang over the rocks in long festoons, and creep along the yellow beach to crown old Neptune with a thousand evergreen wreaths. Many of these plants will thrive without a grain of soil. Orchids, of course, feed on air, but I have seen forest trees rooted on a bare rock, and flourishing there as vigorously as if planted in some rich alluvial earth. Many of the woods found on the Penang hills are exceedingly hard and durable ; their specific gravity is great, as they will readily sink in water. Woods of this sort are used by the Malays and Chinese in making anchors for their praus and junks, while the bamboo and ratan furnish material for ropes, or not unfre- quently ready-made cordage. There are about a hundred different sorts of fruit grown in Penang, but the Durian and Mangosteen are by far the most famous among, them and may indeed be considered the two most delicious fruits of Malayan India. The pine-apple, custard-apple, mango and pome granate, and some of the other varieties, are also too well known to require description here. Of the Pisang or plantain — probably the most useful and widely distributed of all tropical fruits — there are over thirty kinds, of which, the Pisang-mas, or golden plan tain, so named from its colour, though one of the . smallest, is nevertheless most deservedly prized. During the ten months I spent in Penang and Province Wellesley, I was chiefly engaged in photo graphy—a congenial, profitable, and instructive occupa tion, enabling me to gratify my taste for travel and to fill my portfolio, as I wandered over Penang settlement and the mainland hard by, with an attractive series PHOTOGRAPHY. 9 of characteristic scenes and types, which were in con stant demand among the resident European population. I trained two Madras men, or boys as they were called here, to act as my printers and assistants, the Chinese having, at that time, refused to lend themselves to such MALAYS SELLING DURIANS. devilry as taking likenesses of objects without the touch of human hands. Moreover they, as ' Orang puti ' or ' White men,' shrunk from having their fingers and much-prized long nails stained black, like those of the blackest of ' Orang etam ' or black men. My io INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. Klings, on the other hand, were of the colour of a well- sunned nitrate of silver stain all over ; and had they, who even pride themselves on their fairness of skin, objected to the discoloration of their fingers, I should have had no difficulty in obtaining negroes of an ivory black in this small island, as a wonderful mixture of races is to be found, and ' phases of faith ' as multiform as the nationalities are diverse. Besides the English residents, who comprise the government officials, professional men, and merchants, there are descendants of the early Portuguese voyagers, Chinese, Malays, Parsees, Arabs, Armenians, Klings, Bengalees, and negroes from Africa. Besides these, the European merchants comprise men of different nation alities. On landing from the steamer it is difficult to discover that one is actually on a Malayan island. We meet one or two Malays squatted beneath the trees selling sugar-cane or ' Penang lawyers ' (a polished cane with a large heavy, egg-shaped root), but there are also a host of Klings in charge of boats and gharries (cabs). Dark, sharp and active are these Klings, without a trace of calf on their straight limbs, and yet able to run for a whole day alongside their diminutive ponies without showing a token of fatigue. These men oil themselves all over till they look like varnished bronze, and this oiling may account for their suppleness. All of them speak Malay, and some know a little English. I remember one, who, in his eagerness for a hire offered to drive me to the devil for a dollar. - From his appearance I declined the offer, almost fancy ing myself in the presence of his sable majesty, or his washerman, already. At Georgetown, on the north-west, opposite the THE NATIVES. n mainland, there is a Kling bazaar where all sorts of foreign commodities are sold, and at prices which rarely exceed the sums they can be bought for, in the countries where they are manufactured. There are also a number of grog-shops and lodging-houses. The town contains, besides, a large Chinese population, made up of mer chants, shopkeepers, and handicraftsmen, immigrants MALAY BOY. from the island of Hainan, Kwangtung, and from the several districts of the Fukien province. These men are the most successful traders and patient toilers in the East. We could not do without them in our Malayan posses sions, and yet they are difficult members of society to manage. To convey some idea of their usefulness, I need only say, that they can make anything required by j 2 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. a European; and in trade they are indispensable to us, as they have established connections in almost all the islands to which our foreign commodities are carried..^ Their agents reside in Sumatra, Borneo, and on the Indo-Chinese mainland, collecting produce by barter with the natives, to whom they are not unfrequently related by social, as well as by commercial ties. In this way much of the produce shipped from Penang to England and other foreign countries, passes through the hands of Chinese middle-men. Then again, the European merchant at almost all the Eastern ports finds it indispensable to have in his employment a Chinese comprador, or treasurer, who not only pays for produce, and receives and collects moneys on behalf of the firm, but is also responsible for the weight and purity of the silver in which pay ments have been made. Under him he has assistants called schroffs, trained to detect spurious coin, and who display in this matter a keenness of perception which is puzzling to a European ; for the schroff sees readily at a single glance, and picks out from among the heap of dollars, some doubtful coin which he himself, however expert, would have failed to discover. But as we shall see hereafter, some of these schroffs have received their education at the hands of the counterfeit coiners and doctors of dollars in China. The com prador hires the labourers who load and discharge ships, and also with the aid of his staff frequently acts as broker in buying and selling for the firm. He is also useful in discovering the standing of Chinese firms, and in procuring for his employer office and domestic servants, for whose good conduct he will hold himself personally responsible. He has seldom any trouble on CHINESE IMMIGRANTS. 13 this score, as the men he has about him and employs are of his own clan, and are most loyal to their chief. I have no doubt, however, that this loyalty is as often due to the dread influence of the congsees, or secret societies to which comprador and men belong, as to the strong ties of kindred which are also esteemed by the Chinese. It will be conceded, then, that the comprador must be a man endowed with an undoubted capacity for business. He is indeed, in his way, the model trader of the East, and to such men as he, we owe much of our commercial success in these islands. He is, as a rule, thoroughly to be relied upon. He lives temper ately, and at all times has his trading wits about him. Yet he never appears other than a leisure- loving, fat, prosperous personage, who, as Mr. Wal lace truly remarks, 'grows richer and fatter every year.' A walk through the streets of George Town will dis close still further the important position which Chinese labour occupies in Penang. There we find carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors, and indeed artisans of every kind, busily plying their handicrafts in open shops, or be neath the shade of wayside trees. All over the island, too, Chinese are scattered as planters, squatters, and tillers of the soil ; some of them, who have long been settled in the place, and who have wedded native wives, dwell in large and elegant houses environed with fruit and flower-gardens, while their humble toiling brethren live in rude huts, built of bamboo and palm leaves, in the centre of their small vegetable gardens or pepper plantations ; and to outward ap pearance the latter are the most patient, industrious, 14 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. and contented cultivators, to be met with on the surface of the earth. But they are not without ambition, as we shall see by-and-by. The Chinaman out of his own country, enjoying the security and prosperity which a more liberal administration confers, seems to develop into something like a new being. No longer chained to the soil by the iron fetters of a despotic government he finds wide scope for his energies, and high rewards for his industry. But the love of combinations, of the guilds and unions in which all Chinamen delight, tempts them too far. They first combine among them selves to get as much out of each other as they possibly can, and when practicable to monopolise trade and rule the markets ; and then, feeling the strength of their CHINESE CLANS AND GUILDS. 15 own organisation, the societies set up laws for the rule and protection of their members, and in defiance of the local government. The congsee, or guild, thus drifts from a purely commercial into a semi-mercantile semi- political league, and more than once has menaced the power of petty states, by making efforts to throw off the yoke which rested so lightly on its shoulders. The disturbances at Perak are the latest development of this tendency, and we have had many previous in stances of the same insubordination in Penang, and elsewhere. Nor are these the only dangers : the feuds of the immigrants are imported with them, and break out again as soon as they have set foot on foreign soil. Thus, in Penang not long ago there were two Chinese societies, known as, if I remember aright, the Hilum and Hokien congsees, that is the Hainan and Fukien societies. The members of the one were all men from the island of Hainan in Kwangtung, and the others men from the Fukien province. The two provinces are said, at an early period in Chinese history, to have formed independent states, and the dialects spoken are still so widely different, that natives of Kwang tung are looked upon by the lower orders in the Fukien country as foreigners. I was present on one occasion in Penang at a village which, on the previous night, had been sacked and burned by the members of an opposing clan, and it required strong measures on the part of' the government to put down these faction fights. This is the sort of village warfare which, as we shall see when we reach the ' Flowery Land,' the im perial government in the south of China has at times been either unable or unwilling to suppress. In the 16 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. neighbourhood of Swatow, for example, the village clans were brought into subjection to the authorities only about three years ago, by a process of wholesale slaughter, recalling the summary dealings in 1663 (Java nese era), when the Chinese attempted to overthrow the power of the Dutch government in Java. A Javanese native historian says of the Chinese : 1 ' Their hearts swell as they grow richer, and quarrels ensue.' It has therefore always been a difficult matter in these islands to deal with the Chinese immigrants. Sir Stamford Raffles found it so during the period of his enlightened administration ; and the recent disturbances, which I propose to notice in another chapter, only confirm his remark that ' The ascendancy of the Chinese requires to be cautiously guarded against and restrained.' 2 This is a question which, of late years, has been forcing itself upon the attention of the United States government. They must either restrain the tide of Chinese emigration which has set in upon their shores, or amend their constitutional laws, and adopt some less liberal, though perhaps more enlightened form of special administration, enabling them to deal satisfactorily with a people who bring to their doors habits of toiling industry, the cheapest and most efficient labour, but import at the same time turbulent tempers, an ob jectionable religion, and some of the grossest vices that can stain the human race. In Penang, where there are few, or almost no competitors in the various occupations in which the Chinese engage, and where their vices break out in a milder form, the difficulty presses more lightly. There the Chinese, when pro- 1 Raffles' History of Java, ii. 233. Ibid. i. 253. CHINESE LABOUR. 17 perly restrained, are the most useful and most indispen sable members of society. True, they smoke opium, they lie without restraint, and whenever opportunity offers are dishonest, cunning, and treacherous ; but for all that, those of them who have risen to positions of trust forsake their vices altogether, or — what is more probable — conceal them with Chinese artfulness. Should you, my reader, ever settle in Penang, you will there be introduced to a Chinese contractor, who will sign a document to do anything. His costume will tell you that he is a man of inexpensive, yet cleanly habits. He will build you a house after any design you choose, and within so many days, subject to a fine should he exceed the stipulated time. He will furnish you with a minute specification, in which everything, to the last nail, will be included. He has a brother who will contract to make every article of furniture you require, either from drawings or from models. He has another brother who will fit you and your good lady with all sorts of clothing, and y&t a third relative who will find servants, and contract to supply you with all the native and European delicacies in the market, upon condition that his monthly bills are regularly honoured. It is indeed to Chinamen that the foreign resident is indebted for almost all his comforts, and for the profusion of luxuries which surround his wonderfully European-looking home on this distant island. At the fiat of his master, Ahong, the Chinese butler, daily spreads the table with substantial fare, with choice fruits and pleasant flowers — the attributes of that lavish hospitality which is the pride of our merchants in that quarter of the globe. 18 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. There is a large Malay population on the island, greater than the Chinese. It is, however, a much more difficult task to point out how they are all occu pied, as they do not practise any trades or professions, and there are no merchants among them. Some are employed on plantations catching beetles, pruning the trees, and tilling the soil ; but, on the whole, the Malays do as little work as possible ; some own small A CHINESE CONTRACTOE. gardens, and rear fruit ; others are sailors, and have sea-going prahus, in which Chinese trade. But I do not recollect ever seeing a single genuine Malay mer chant. There are Malay campongs (villages) scattered over the island, made up of a few rude bamboo huts, and two or three clusters of fruit-trees. But many of these settlements are by the sea shore, and there they dwell, fishing a little, sleeping a great deal, but always, A NEW TYPE OF MAN. 19 awake or asleep, as I believe, chewing a mixture of betel-nut, lime, and siri, which distends the mouth, reddens the lips, and encases the teeth with a crust of solid black. There are still another class of inhabitants who are the direct or mixed descendants of Europeans. Some A NEW TYPE OF MAN. of these, though claiming European descent, are darker, and I should say in every way inferior to the natives themselves. Not many days after setting foot in the island I was accosted by a pigmy specimen of, the human race, who declared himself to be of Portuguese c 2 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. extraction. His features were remarkable for the absence of any bad expression, and there were at the same time no good traits lurking anywhere in his dark physiognomy. His dress presented a strange but cha racteristic compromise between that of the European, the Chinese, and the Malay ; his head was surmounted by a chimney-pot beaver hat, only prevented from acting as an extinguisher by a wedge formed of red cotton cloth. As I was a stranger, he politely offered to introduce me to his circle of acquaintances, who, he said, were all Europeans like himself. I felt puzzled to determine what constituted him a European, and was . forced to the conclusion that it was the beaver hat. Naturalists tell us that long residence in a certain region is apt to transform the physical appearance of an animal or insect, but when found it is at once recog nised by certain attributes of its family ; and so it seemed to me in this case ; the transforming influence of long residence had left not a semblance of the original Portuguese parent save the uncompromisingly ; respectable hat. The only other relic of the civilising influence of the early Portuguese voyagers I discovered ' in the name ' Da Costa,' which turned out to be that borne by my little friend. Da Costa has been de scribed as a type of men constantly to be met with in the islands, and at points on the Indo-Chinese and Chinese mainland— the result of a complicated mixture of Asiatic and European blood. On the other hand, at all these places there exists a large and highly respectable community, the educated descendants of Europeans. Among them are govern ment servants, merchants, and professional men, justly proud of the position they occupy ; and whose wives A SNAKE AT A BALL. 21 and daughters are, many of them, ornaments to society, and boast a beauty which would be prized in any part of the world. This beauty, however, is swift to decay ; like garden flowers which shoot up into early maturity, and throw all their vitality into one brilliant effort of glorious colouring, suddenly it bursts forth and suddenly it languishes and passes away. The men are frequently of very sallow complexion. I have a lively recollection of one who made an unfair impression on me. He had been educated in Calcutta. I was green at the time. This self-introduced gentle man extended his hospitality so far as to invite me to a dinner at the baths, which lie at the foot of the Penang hills. One or two of his friends, of equally sallow and pasty skins, and appalling gastronomic powers, were included in the convivial party. The entertainment on the whole was enjoyable, and te me new ; but the reader may judge of my surprise when, two or three days subsequently, I received a bill for the entire feast. The introduction of a snake fifteen feet long into a room full of dancers was perhaps the most extraor dinary experience I ever had on any festive gathering. The event happened at a ball given by Mr. C, a gentleman who had been educated in Scotland, and fell out in this wise. My friend lived on a small plantation, and had for some time past been troubled by the noc turnal raids of this snake, which had swallowed a pig, and was gradually clearing his fowl-house. A number of natives had been on the watch, and had just captured the reptile, coiled up in a comatose state among the shrubs. The Malays, rarely excited, unless when fight ing, or ' running Amok,' and knowing there was no 22 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. danger, as the snake was overcome by the process of digesting a savoury meal, determined, in a fit of frantic joy, to lay the trophy at their master's feet. They had it by the tail, and dragging it to the sound of quadrille music thump, thump, up the wide staircase, rushed into the drawing-room and laid the monster down. Motionless it gazed around upon the strange scene, and probably speculated on the prospect of still more sumptuous fare, could it only command its wonted energy and crush its entertainers in its slimy coil. Some of the gentlemen retired with strange celerity ; others displayed their gallantry and daring behind a barricade of chairs ; while a few stood their ground, supporting their terror-stricken partners, as the unwel come intruder was hauled off to expiate his crime in the court below. 23 CHAPTER II. A Visit to Quedah — Miden missing — The Rajah's Garden — Province Wellesley — Sugar and Tapioca Planting — Field Labour — A baffled Tiger — Wild Men — An Adventure in Province Wellesley. An officer in Penang being about to visit the Rajah of Quedah, and to hand over to that sovereign's tender care a number of objectionable fugitives, who, quitting his dominions, had taken shelter beneath the British flag, and sought a precarious livelihood by murder and pillage, invited me to accompany his mission in a small government steamer. It was but a short run across the Straits, and about sixty miles to the north of Penang along the coast ; and on the way we touched at ' Pulo Tulure,' or Egg Island, one of a group of islets, and the one which the turtles have chosen, in preference to all the others, as a repository for their eggs. On Pulo Tulure is a single hut, and close to the sea beach dwell two Malays, set there to look after the turtles and to collect in sackloads the eggs which they deposit at certain seasons of the year. A single deal table and a few sacks appeared to make up the entire furniture of the hut ; and the Malays solemnly declared, as faith ful children of Islam, that there was no stopping the turtles when they did commence to lay. That they first covered the beach, which shone like a pearl with their eggs, and that then the two inmates of the hut 24 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. had to squat on the table, in order that the turtles might lay the residue of their offerings beneath its square wooden legs ; the whole process being carried through, so they represented, in a quiet business-like manner by these strange creatures of the deep. They even went so far as to say that a sort of mutual ac quaintance had sprung up, and that the turtles would strike to a turtle, and refuse to deposit a single egg, if any stranger were to settle upon the island, in hope of robbing their faithful Rajah of this deep-sea tribute. ' Banyak pandie, orang Malaiu ' (cunning Malays !) said my Kling servant. They sold us a sackload of the eggs, which are esteemed a great delicacy by the natives. They are globose in form, equal in bulk to a large duck's-egg, and are covered by a tough opalescent whitish-blue skin. It seems strange that the turtle should always show so marked a preference for this island. Although the eggs are removed in great quantities, they never desert it for another. The occupation of collecting turtle-eggs is one pre eminently suited to the Malay, for in them they have genuine marketable articles deposited at their feet, without any trouble at all, free of charge. Rice requires labour for its cultivation, it is a long time in growing, and after that it still has to be reaped ; even the cocoa- nut palm, which supplies food and fuel, takes years to rear its stately head and drop its treasures into its owner's lap. But the turtle (and no one need wonder) is held in veneration by the leisure-loving Asiatic, as it brings food to his table ready-made. At the time of our visit to Pulo Tulure we saw a number of turtles swimming about. The sea was of a A VILLAGE GAMBLING-HOUSE. 25 pure pale green hue, so clear and so placid that we could discern the marine plants and variously-tinted corals, on the rocks some fathoms below — a scene only rivalled in brilliancy by the vivid colours of a tropical flower-garden. A Malay boy caught a huge turtle for us. The capture was simply and deftly effected. He quietly slipped into the water, and swam round until fairly behind his unsuspecting prize. Then . seizing it by the shell he turned it over on its back, and in this position floated it quite powerless on to the beach. One morning at Quedah my boy Miden disappeared. He had gone ashore early, and for some hours I anxiously awaited his return, but all in vain ; until at last, my patience being fairly exhausted, I landed with my friend, and after long search discovered the absentee in a village gambling-house, engaged in a violent alter cation. I dragged him at once out of the den, but not with out encountering considerable opposition, for the place was filled with Malays, and they, excited by their gains or losses, clutched their krises (daggers) and made ready to resist this sudden interference. However a quiet explanation, backed by the appearance of my friend, and a party of men from the boat, restored order. I then found that Miden, with a few touches of fancy, not altogether _ foreign to the Indian mind, had been passing himself off as a man of considerable importance, in fact as a Hindoo of very high caste. The Malays, who are usually gentlemen in points of honour, at once conceded that, under the circumstances, I had a perfect right to intervene ; and harmony being thus secured, they displayed sundry tokens of their good-will by 26 IND O- CHINA AND CHINA. entering freely into conversation, and exhibiting their krises for my inspection. These krises many of them. have beautifully carved handles,while the blades, formed of iron and steel welded together, spring from the hafts in waved edges, and terminate in poisoned points. My readers doubtless know that ' Amok running ' is not uncommon among the Malay tribes, but I am thankful to say that I never actually witnessed this bloodthirsty revenge, which a single frantic Malay will sometimes wreak on society. I can conceive of nothing in human shape more formidable, nothing more fiend-like, than a Malay, trained to the fatal use of the kris, in his last outbreak of passion, dealing out indiscriminate slaughter. Yet the Malay, in his normal condition, is the most social, placid, and .tender-hearted of Asiatics. The Rajah of Quedah is a young man, a fine speci men of his race ; his looks are full of intelligence ; and indeed, since the date of my visit, he has proved him self to be a wise and careful ruler, and has earned the good opinion both of his own subjects and his foreign allies. Thus it was only the other day, when the Laroot troubles threatened to spread, that he adopted the most prompt and successful measures for the sup pression of piracy, at any rate, in the dominions under his own control. The . palace where he resides is a brick edifice of modest proportions ; and there is an excellent road, some miles in extent, which leads from the Rajah's quarters to his pleasure-gardens. These gardens, though covering a small area, boasted a variety of products and elegance of horticultural de sign, unsurpassed by any which I have seen in the East. THE RAJAH OF QUEDAH. 27 In one orange-grove the trees were so laden with fruit that the boughs would have broken unless sup ported by strong bamboo stakes, and the balmy air was steeped in the aroma of the oranges and sweet perfume of the lotus in full bloom. The Rajah had tried in vain to cultivate the grape-vine. His vines grew, but the grapes never reached maturity. We were driven to this beautiful retreat in a handsome carriage of European make. When steaming down the Quedah river we noticed a score of young alligators swimming in line upstream, and we also had the good fortune of a passing shot at as many more full-grown monsters, as they lay out in the sun on a long spit of sand. Muddy in colour, they, with their long jagged spines, were only to be distinguished from the withered leaves of the cocoa- palm, imbedded in the bank, by a very close inspec tion. Province Wellesley lies opposite to Penang, on the mainland of the Malayan peninsula. It is about thirty miles long, and from five to eleven miles in breadth, This district is, at present, the most productive in the Straits, exporting annually a very large quantity of sugar, tapioca, and rice. It adjoins Quedah, and was formerly included in the Rajah's dominions, and was purchased by the British government in 1800. It con tains a large Malayan population, but most of the hard work is done by Chinese labourers, or by Klings from the coast of Coromandel. The Chinese planters were the first who reared the cane, and refined the sugar in quantities sufficient to make it a leading article of export; but European science has long superseded the rude refining pro- 28 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. cesses of the less expert Chinese, and European capital has been invested to such an enormous extent in estab lishing plantations, as practically to shut out all but the most skilful and wealthy competitors. The sugar plantations of the Europeans are spread over a wide area ; indeed, they cover the major portion of the cultivated lands of the province. Each planta tion occupies some square miles of tilled land, and in some part of the estate there is usually a steam crush ing-mill, and a refinery, where an efficient staff of European engineers are kept constantly employed. Canes of many different varieties have been im ported into the Province, but (those from the Mauritius excepted) none are found to thrive so well, or yield so high a percentage of juice, as the reputed indigenous species. Of these there are reported to be six different kinds, and one or two of them I have found growing wild in the jungle. The sugar-cane takes many months to mature after it has been planted ; but the crops, whenever possible, are so timed as to come in in rotation, so that the mills may be kept constantly at work. A quantity of cane is also raised by the Malays and Chinese, and this the growers sell at the mills for a stipulated price per acre. When I was in Province Wellesley, many of the planters and engineers were big brawny men from the lowlands of Scotland. I spent altogether six weeks in their company, and I still look back with pleasure to a visit which introduced me to a constant variety of adventure and sport, and to so much of the warm hospitality for which my countrymen have always been famed. SUGAR AND TAPIOCA. 29 In addition to sugar-growing, the planters have brought many of the less fertile tracts of land under cultivation for tapioca — a hardy plant capable of grow ing in almost any soil, and requiring less trenching and manuring than sugar. In some places they alternate the crops, or rather plant tapioca after sugar, and then allow the land to lie fallow for a time. The plant throws up a few long woody stems and large bright-green leaves, but it is from the root that the tapioca is obtained. This root resembles most the Indian yam, or a huge potato, and in outward appearance is as unlike the snow-white delicate food it produces as coal to the flame it feeds, or tar to the brilliant dyes it yields. The roots are dug up when ripe, and conveyed to the wash ing-house to be brushed and rinsed in water by machinery. This process completed, they are passed by an ingenious contrivance into a grating machine, which reduces them to a brown watery pulp, and this pulp is then removed by ducts into troughs, where the fibrous matter and skin are separated from the flour, and the tapioca is next passed into tanks of water. Workmen go bodily into these tanks, stirring up the solution with their limbs. At the end of this operation the flour is allowed to precipitate to the bottom of the tank ; the water is then drained off, and the cakes of tapioca, after sundry washings, precipita tions, and cleansings, are dried in iron pans, much in the same way as tea, and finally prepared for market. The planters in Province Wellesley lead rough and arduous lives. They have many troubles to contend against, not merely in managing their estates, but in 3o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. dealing with the labour which they are forced to import. They pass through periods of great anxiety, too, when the crops are approaching maturity, and when a sudden downfall of rain might cause the canes to burst into flower — a sight most lovely to the beholder, but deeply deplored by the proprietor of the estate, for it blights his prospect of an abundant harvest. But after all, care sits lightly on the bronzed faces and broad shoulders of these sugar planters ; and they, one and all, find a real enjoyment in the vicissitudes of their adventurous lot. The most agreeable months in the year to them, and indeed to their guests as well, are probably those when the young canes are showing their vivid green blades above the high-banked furrows • of the fields, when early morning reveals the heavy night-dews sparkling on every leaf, or glistening like hoar-frost on the webs of the field-spiders, over the low-lying wayside shrub. Then the dawn with rosy fingers lifts the misty veil from off the inland mountain sides, and the air comes laden with a chill and bracing breeze. Armed with a fowling-piece, the planter now sallies forth to his accustomed sport ; and so plentiful are the snipe at this season that a fair marksman is certain to secure a dozen brace, at least, before he returns to his breakfast. I have been out of a morning with my friend T., a well-known shot, and I never saw him miss his bird ; indeed he never fired unless he could bring down a brace, one bird to each barrel. At times, more formidable game will cross the sportsman's path. Thus, Mr. B., a big powerful fellow, had an un expected and disagreeable encounter with a wild boar. B. was insufficiently armed. He wounded the brute A WILD BOAR. 31 and it then charged with overpowering fury, and caught its antagonist by the hand. After a terrific struggle B. at last dragged the beast to a deep pool, forced its head under water, and so compelled its drowning jaws to- release his own mutilated hand, but not until the boar's tusk had made a huge hole through his palm. Elephants in former days afforded good sport, but they were fast disappearing as their haunts in the jungle and forest made way for gardens and cultivated fields. In the wildest and more northerly portions of this section of the peninsula, elephants, tigers, rhino ceroses, deer, hogs, and other wild animals, may still be found, more especially in places where only small Chinese clearings have been effected, or where Malay hamlets are ^scattered at wide intervals amid virgin forests or jungle. In these sparse settlements of Malays and Chinese, Roman Catholic missionaries are at work. I once fell in with one of these priests, shod with straw sandals, and walking alone towards ' Bukit Mer-tagrim ' (the pointed hill), to visit a sick convert who had a clearing upon the mountain side. His path lay through a region infested with wild animals ; and when I enquired if he had no dread of tigers, he pointed to his Chinese umbrella, his only weapon, and assured me that with a similar instrument a friend of his had driven off the attack of a tiger, not very far from where we stood. But the nervous shock which followed that triumph had cost the courageous mis sionary his life. I gathered from my friend that he had lived for years among the natives, stooping him self, as it were, to lift them up, and he had grown old in this obscure but useful toil. I. have encountered 32 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. many such men in my travels, and though I do not sympathise with the religion which they preach, I have always admired their self-sacrificing devotion. Protes tant missionaries one meets with nearly everywhere, many of them of equal zeal with their Roman Catholic fellow-labourers, but their chief spheres of action are situ ated at the ports and places of European resort, more MALAY HUT. frequently than in the hearts of the countries they have set themselves to convert. As I have already stated, the supplies of labour employed in tilling the fields, and in the various pro cesses connected with the cultivation and manufacture:,; of sugar, are chiefly obtained from the Coromandel coast in the Madras presidency, where agreements are usually drawn up whereby the men engage to KLING COOLIES. 33 serve on the estates for a certain term, at a fixed monthly wage. On the expiration of the original term of agreement, the coolies are at liberty either to renew the contract or return to their native province. Many of them choose to remain upon the plantations — a fact which speaks well for the treatment they receive at the hands of their employers. Chinese are also used by the planters, although more sparingly, as the gangs of coolies are imported by Chinese capitalists, and. only to be hired through a headman, who contracts to do a certain amount of tillage at a price fixed according to area. The Chinese are stronger, healthier, and better workmen, although they require better food, and do not perhaps stand prolonged exposure to the hot sun so well as the natives of India, and the price of. their labour is consequently too high to enable them to compete successfully with the Klings:; and moreover, planters are not always in a position to have their work done by the piece,, nor are the guild-ridden Chinese so easily dealt with as their darker brothers in the field. - - There are many Malays in Province Wellesley, but they do not work on the plantations, and indeed it is almost Impossible to say how one-twentieth part of the Malay population occupies Itself. As Mahometans they practise circumcision, and recite frequent prayers. The rest of their lives they seem to spend in rearing large families to follow their fathers' example, and to wait lazily for such subsistence as the bounty of nature may provide. The male Malay, in his own country, is a sort of gentleman, who keeps aloof from trade, whose pride is in his ever-ready kris, with its finely polished handle, and its pointed poisoned blade. His D 34 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. ancestors, some of them, knew well how to use that kris both on land and sea. There are a few timid woolly-haired races on the mountains inland, who can tell something of Malayan raids, and who still look down with longing eyes on the plains from, which their own forefathers were expelled. As to these hill tribes — ' Orang Bukit,' ' Orang Outan,' ' Orang Anto,' mountain men, men of the wilds, spirit men — such people, the Malays solemnly assure us, carry tails, whose tufted ends they dip in damar oil and ignite, and thereupon rushing all ablaze into the Malayan campongs, spread fire and destruction around. In this fable it is evident that the Malays have got hold of the exploits of the ape god in the Hindoo ' Ramayana.' I may take this opportunity of assuring my readers, that the aboriginal tribes referred to, have nothing to show in the shape of a tail ; not even the rudiments, so far as I know, to support the theory of progression of species, or of natural and spontaneous development of the human race. I would also ask (even supposing the progenitors of these tribes had tails) why the march of progress should deprive their descendants of such an. ornament. If we are to credit the stories which some missionaries penned about two centuries ago, apes in these localities used to find the tail a highly useful appendage.1 Thus, these ingenious apes are. reported to have caught crabs by thrusting their tails into the crab-holes, and dragging out their luck less victims clinging all unwittingly to this monkey fishing-tackle. 1 The Oriental Islands, by Herman Moll, j. 415. I THE TALE OF THE BAFFLED TIGER. 35 Wild animals, as I remarked, have in a great measure been driven from the province, and were therefore by no means so abundant, as I had been led to expect. One might reside on a plantation for years, and never once be pursued by a tiger, like the fortunate Mr. MacNab. Planters of necessity live far apart, but their custom was to meet about once a week at each other's houses in rotation. This festive gathering was known as ' Mutton night,' as a sheep, when they could get one, was slaughtered for the repast. In former days planters were all bachelors, but the meet ings were none the less convivial on that account. Many of them had to travel long distances for their dinner, and on one occasion, when feasting was over, when they had chatted and sung until the night was far spent, a ' dock and dorack ' of Scotch whiskey was dispensed at parting to keep out the cold, and brace the nerves against the attack of a stray rhinoceros, an ' orang-outan,' or a tiger. It was rather dark, and verging on the small hours of morning, when MacNab, mounting on his trusty steed, set his face towards home. Feeling at peace with all men, and even with the beasts of prey, he cantered along a road bordered with man groves, admiring the fitful gleams of the fireflies that were lighting their midnight lamps among the trees. But soon the road became darker, and Donald, the pony, pricked his ears uneasily as he turned into a jungle-path which led towards a stream. Donald sniffed the air, and soon redoubled his pace; with ears set close back, nostrils dilated, and bristling mane. Onward he sped, and at last the angry growl of a tiger, in full chase behind, roused MacNab to the full peril of his position, and chilled his blood with the thought D 2 36 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. that his pursuer was fast gaining ground, and. that at any moment he might feel the clutch of his hungry relentless claws. Here was a dilemma ; the cold creek before him, and the hot breath of the tiger in the rear. A moment or two were gained by tossing his hat be hind him, then Donald cleared the stream at a bound, the tiger lost his scent, and MacNab reached home in safety,- by what he delighted to describe as a miraculous PURSUED BY A TIGER. escape. How frequently a man lives to discover his worst enemies in those who profess themselves his truest friends! MacNab's associates, with wicked incredulity, refused to believe in his tale of the baffled. tiger; indeed, they attributed the pony's terror and the frantic headlong rush for home to the presence of a httle bit of prickly bamboo which had accidentally got fixed beneath the saddle-girths. During- my visit to one of the plantations a tiger TRAVELLING IN PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 37 and her cub were lurking in the jungle, not far from the house. They had been committing depreciations among the cattle at a neighbouring village, and could be heard at intervals during the night. My only unfortunate adventure in Province Wel lesley occurred during a storm, when on my way to the plantation of Mr. Cain, which chanced to be the most, remote in the settlement. Mr. Cain's estate lay at the foot of a range of hills, where it was said that a certain wild tribe dwelt, and my boy Talep, as. he was anxious to see the ' orang-outan,' or men of the woods,- was allowed to accompany me on my journey. Flaving; selected a calm morning, we crossed from Penang in a Malay boat, and landed at a native village at the point most convenient for reaching our destination. In the village we hired two waggons, each drawn by a pair of black water-buffaloes, and set out to accomplish the twelve or fifteen miles which still separated us from, my friend's plantation. Talep and the baggage were stowed in the leading waggon. I followed in the other, and occupied myself for the first mile or two in admiring the beauty of the forest and jungle along the road. Our route at the outset took us through a man grove swamp, which extended over an area of land that had, at no distant period, been covered by the sea. The tortuous roots of the mangrove plants rising, in a complete net-work, seemed to have caught and retained the deposits of successive tides, till at last was formed the solid ground along which we were then making our way. We soon left the swamp, and took to the main road, here and there passing some Malay hamlet embowered in rich tropical foliage, and shaded 38 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. with groves of banana and the broad leaves of the; -cocoa and areca palms. Suddenly the sky became overcast with heavy, masses of threatening cloud. The bright glare was transformed into dark twilight. The palms rocked uneasily in the breeze, the forest moaned and whispered of approaching storm, while flocks of water-fowl shot * across the sky, shrieking from out of the darkness. Hereupon Talep stopped his men and ordered them to put an extra covering of leaves over the waggons. ' Now,' he said, ' the storm will be on us in a few minutes, and we have done our best to keep the rain out.' We soon discovered, however, that the palm-thatched roofs of our conveyances were by no means watertight. The road grew darker until night seemed to have ,losed in, and soon flash after flash of lightning kindled a hundred unearthly hues amid the foliage ; peals of thunder shook the ground, and rolled away in echoes through the forest ; a strong earthy odour an nounced the approach of rain, which swept with a dull sound along the road, so that for one moment we could mark its drawing near, and the next it was upon us, like a solid sheet of tepid water. The covering of my cart was useless ; the water came through like a steady shower-bath. As for the large buffaloes, they plodded along heedless of the storm ; but I kept shouting to the men to mind the ditches, as the road was now com pletely flooded over, and the carts were dragging through mud up to the axles. As long as we had a line of trees to guide us, the men kept the middle of the road ; but when once we left these stately sign posts in the rear, we were forced to flounder through THE STORM. 39 the mud with ditches six feet wide and as many deep on either side. It was too dark to see far ahead, and the turbid red water was lashed into foam by the bickering rain. The interior of my cart became soaked and slippery, and I was helplessly shunted about from side to side, as the vehicle plunged into the pitfalls of the submerged road. Just as I was making a desperate effort to wedge myself into a corner, I heard a splash and a drowning cry. Talep, waggon, baggage and all, had disappeared into the ditch. I hastened through the slough of mud and water to the scene of the disaster. The driver had dived to extricate the drowning Talep, and brought him up looking little the worse. He next proceeded to unharness his buffaloes, after which he swam them off down the ditch, and was fol lowed by his companion and their other pair of beasts, before I had even time to remonstrate. Quite unpre pared for such a piece of cool audacity, I would have fired over the heads of the vagabonds to bring them to reason, but my firearms were under water. They were off to the nearest campong, to spend the night. The Malays believe in a bountiful Providence, and wait most patiently for its gifts. They believe in fate too. It was ' Tuan Alia poonia krajah,' the work of the Almighty, the carts upsetting in the ditch ; and so these men would go comfortably to sleep, believing that it was no use kicking against fate. Feeling it impossible to sustain the gravity the situation demanded, I laughed outright, much to the dismay of the unhappy Talep, who was certain that the evil influences of the ' anto ' (ghosts) were on him. Something was to be done. We could not wait 4o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. until Providence should disperse the deluge, or draw the cart out of the ditch. It was equally clear we could not of ourselves accomplish either task, nor drag the remaining waggon to my friend's plantation. To make matters worse, my note-book and direc tions were under water, and neither of us felt inclined for a descent into the ditch. It was growing dark, night was evidently coming on, so we made ourselves hoarse with shouting, and at length were answered by a responsive voice ; and pushing on in the direction of the sound, followed by Talep, we reached a cane-field where I again paused to shout, and had not long to wait for a reply, as my friend the planter had come out to meet us, and enjoyed a hearty laugh at our disasters. As to our ruffianly drivers, they knew well enough, he said, where they were, but fearing his wrath, they decamped for the night. Settled at last beneath his hospitable roof, I quickly forgot the day's adventure in the agreeable society of my host. Home and the old country were what we talked of most, and midnight had already gone by, when we be took ourselves to rest. Mr. Cain lit a lamp, showed me to my apartment, and opening a chest of drawers in one corner of the chamber, produced a revolver and sword, gravely handing the weapons to me, with a re quest that I would stow the one beneath my pillow, and keep the other close at hand. He added con fidentially, 'that he never felt quite at ease at night unless his arms were ready, for his predecessor and wife had been murdered in this very house by a neigh bouring hill tribe.' Here was comforting reflection for a weary man ! and with a sensation as new as it, was un- THE MALA Y RAID. 41 expected, I lay down like a warrior to my rest 'with mar tial cloak around me.' Soon falling fast asleep, I dreamt of savage tribes. A prisoner in their hands I was to choose one of two alternative deaths. If I objected to being eaten while still alive, I had the liberal option of being cooked, a limb at a time. The cannibals were on the point of seizing their victim, when I suddenly awoke, and found Cain himself standing over me with a drawn sword, flashing in the feeble lamplight. The next moment he had dragged me out of bed. ' Follow me ! follow me,' he cried, • with revolver and sword, just as you are. The hill men are on us.' I slipped on my shoes, and plunged into the darkness, where I soon lost sight of my leader. I could still hear his voice calling ' Make for the fires ! make for the fires ! my God, they are burning the coolie houses ! ' I shaped my way as straight as I could towards the light of the nearest fire, plunging and floundering as I progressed now over fields, and now through swampy ground. At last I reached a house, and could distinguish the moans of some one in pain. I found that the building had fallen down, and was aflame at one end. Hailing the sufferer, he replied in Malay that he was killed. In my effort to get at him I stumbled over a huge warm body, and the next moment received a poke in the ribs, which warned me that I had narrowly es caped being impaled on the horns of a huge water buffalo stretched out in the shed. As to the man who declared himself killed, he had been slightly bruised by a falling rafter ; and we found that we were the victims of a false alarm, for the storm, which burst forth with renewed violence during the night, had blown down the coolie houses and these had somehow 42 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. taken fire. We were none the worse for the adven* ture. I certainly suffered some inconvenience from a number of leeches which I had to pick off my body, but next day I slept none the less soundly on this account. Before leaving this strange out-of-the-way place, I was shown a huge man-eating alligator which had been trapped in an adjoining stream. It appeared that a labourer on the bank was bathing his child, when the monster caught the babe between its jaws, and disappeared. The alarm spread ; the entire gang of coolies assembled, dammed the stream at two places, and finally secured the reptile with a baited hook. In another part of the province I fell in with a planter who proved a rather eccentric sort of cha racter, and whom I shall call Mr. Berry. He lived quite alone, and we made up a party to pay a visit to his plantation. The roads through the fields were everywhere bad, but became more especially so as we neared the house, and we kept falling into deep holes filled up with wood and rubbish. Mr. Berry admitted on each occasion that the hole was a bad one, perhaps as bad as any to be found on his estate, ' but hearing you were coming,' said he, ' I had just put a cart-load of fire-wood into the cavity to make it good.' Mr. Berry was a man of middle age, wearing a sad but not unpleasant expression on his face, and spoke in an accent of broad Scotch. He informed us, amongst other things, in languid tones of regret, that he had just been doctoring the fire-bars of his engine, as he had no engineer to help him. He then invited us to his house, which had an air of solitude and desolation. Berry, however, as he stepped on to his balcony said, TAME BIRDS. 43 ' Wait a bit, and I will introduce you to some of my friends.' We therefore held back, and allowed our host to walk to the front verandah alone. There we saw him stretch out his hand and, whistling gently and soothingly, a bird came fluttering from the foliage, and perched upon his finger. ' This wee birdie,' said Berry to us, ' had once a mate, and the twa used to come at my whistle and take their meals beside me ; but now the hen's gone, I've not seen her for some months. She's dead, and left this lad to my care, and I feed the bonny wee thing every morning.' The scene was strange and touching ; and although Berry was good- naturedly chaffed for his isolation, it was useless to endeavour to force him into freer and healthier habits. He was plainly a man of gentle and very retiring dis position, but still it was puzzling to make out by what means he had managed to tame the birds which found a home among the weeds and fruit-trees of his garden. 44 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. CHAPTER III. Chinese Guilds ; their Constitution and Influence— Emigration from China — A Plea for unrestricted Female Emigration — The Perak Dis turbances — Chinese Tin-mining — Malacca — Singapore— Its Commerce and People — Stuffing an Alligator — The Horse-breaker— Chinese Burglars— Inland Scenery — A Foreign Residence — Amusements— A Night in the Jungle — Casting Brazen Vessels — Jacoons. Guilds and secret societies would seem almost indis pensable to the individual existence and social cohesion of the Chinese who settle themselves in foreign lands. If this were not really the case, it would be hard to say why we tolerate native institutions of this sort in the Straits Settlements at all, for they have proved themselves, and still continue to be, the cause of con stant trouble to the government. Avowedly estab lished to aid the Chinese in holding their own, not in commercial circles only, but politically against the authorities, and to set our laws, if need be, at defiance, it can nevertheless hardly be doubted that some of the rules laid down for the guidance of their members are good ones, and embody precepts of the highest moral excellence ; but other most objectionable instructions are to be met with, of which the following affords a good example ; and from it we may perceive the reason why our officials, both in the Straits and in China, are so often baffled in detecting crime.1 ' If a brother 1 Our Tropical Possessions in Malayan India. Cameron. POLITICAL GUILDS. 45 commits murder or robbery, you shall not inform against him, but you shall not assist him to escape, nor prevent the officers of justice from arresting him.' In connection with the foregoing, let us take another of their regulations. ' If you do wrong, or break these laws, you shall come to the society to be punished, and not go to the authorities of the country.' From the two specimens here given, we can get some insight into the obstacles which the Chinese secret societies manage to raise up to shield offenders from justice. So far as my half-score of years' experience goes, I believe that under the rule first quoted a Chinaman is clearly enjoined to conceal the facts of a brother's crime even in a court of law ; and as perjury on. behalf of a friend is esteemed an undoubted sign of high moral rectitude, and as in our courts a false witness has no torture to dread, no rack nor thumbscrews, the successful disclosers of secrets in China, he lies without let or hindrance, and thus the all-powerful society so effectually conceals a member's guilt as to render Chinese testimony practically useless. These societies are imitations of similar institutions in every province of the Chinese empire, where the gentry combine to resist the oppression of a despotic government, and the peasantry unite in clans and guilds to limit the power of local officials and of the gentry, and to promote their own commercial and social interests. The Chinaman, however poor he may be, has great faith in. the infinite superiority of his own country, government and people, over all others ; and when he emigrates to some foreign land he at once unites in solemn league with his clansmen to resist what he honestly deems its barbarous laws and 46 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. usages. He has no belief in a liberal and pure form of administration. After years spent, it may be, in some English colony or in America, he will yet be unable to shake off the feeling, that he, in a great measure, owes his success abroad to the protecting influence of some powerful clan or guild. Such societies were at the bottom of the disturb ances that threatened Singapore in 1872, and the prin cipal rioters concerned on that occasion were of the class described as the ' Sam-sings ' or fighting men, whereof each society has always a certain number in its pay. The immediate cause of these riots was the en forcement for the first time of a new ordinance, designed to regulate or ' suppress,' as the Chinese chose to believe, a certain class of street hawkers, These hawkers, always useful, if not always innocent members of a Chinese community in Singapore and elsewhere in the East, naturally felt aggrieved at having the prospects of their livelihood curtailed. Some of them went so far as to resist the rough interference of the police. Their case was taken up by the fighting men in various quarters of the town, the Sam-sings, whom Mr. Whampoa (an old Chinese gentleman for many years resident in Singapore) thus describes : ' They live by looting, and are on the watch for any excuse for exercising their talents. Each hoey, or society, must have so many of them, but I don't know any means of ascertaining their number. I suppose they are paid by the hoeys and brothels. They are regular fight ing people, and are paid so much a month. If there is any disturbance, these people go out in looting parties ; whether ordered by the head men or not, CHINESE VILLAGE FEUDS. 47 I cannot say ; perhaps they do it on their own account' From the same report I gather that such characters are at the present time plentiful, as they have been driven out of the neighbourhood of Swatow, in the south of China. In a previous work 1 1 have noticed the disturbed state of a part of the province of ' Kwang-tung,' and the strong measures taken by 'Juilin,' the present governor- general of the two Kwang, for the restoration of order. But some of the lawless vagabonds who escaped the vengeance of Juilin have settled in Singapore and other British possessions, and there under the protect ing wings of their guilds they obtain frequent and lucrative employment in the shape of pillage or per haps murder. At first sight it seems strange that the Sam-sings should find scope for their villanies in a British colony ; even greater scope, one would be apt to imagine, than they find under the corrupt govern ment of their own disorganised land. But any disinterested observer who has travelled through China -will agree with me in this, that how ever far behind in other respects, , the Tartar rulers, when it suits their convenience, (except when the popu lation is in actual revolt), know very well how to deal with and keep down marauders with a very strong hand ; so much so is this the case, indeed, that the scum of the population is frequently driven to seek refuge in emigration to more congenial climes. One element which operates successfully in maintaining order in China, is the superstitious reverence which the Chinese have for their parents. Should a son commit a crime and abscond, his parents are liable to be punished in his stead, This law, even supposing it 1 Illustrations of China and its people. 48 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. were put in force in a foreign land, would not affect the immigrants, as they seldom bring their wives or parents with them ; and to this fact alone — the ab sence, that is, of the strong family ties held so sacred by the race— we may attribute much of the difficulty encountered by our authorities in dealing with the crime and vice of this section of the population. It must also be borne in mind that a Chinese ruffian, who would soon be brought to justice (unless he could pur chase immunity) if he were practising, on his country men in a Chinese city, enjoys, on the contrary, the coun tenance and support of his compatriots in a town such as Singapore. For there he commits his depredations on men of foreign extraction ; and the avenger of blood from whom he is hidden away is after all only an officer of those 'white devils,' whom it is the China man's delight anywhere and everywhere to oppose, -v A few of the Chinese immigrants marry Malay women, and settle permanently in the Straits ; but the; majority remain bachelors. If any one , perchance, is unable to realise the hope of returning to his native village, if he should die on foreign soil, his friends ex pend the savings of the deceased in sending his body back to mingle with the dust of his forefathers in China. Thus we find a steady stream of the living and the dead passing to and fro between the Straits Settlements and the southern provinces of this ' Flowery Land.' Surely something might be done, in framing our treaties, to alter all this, and to improve the social and moral condition of the Chinese immigrants who land in our tropical possessions. In certain districts of China the women are so greatly in excess of the CHINESE FEMALE EMIGRATION. 49 men, that many girls are still sacrificed in their infancy by their parents. A small proportion of this surplus female popula tion is annually drawn off by native agents, who pur chase them for a few dollars and ship them, often as involuntary emigrants, to foreign ports where their CHINESE LABOURERS FROM THE KWANGTUNG PROVINCE. countrymen abound, and where they are imprisoned in opium-dens, and brothels, until their price and passage- money have been redeemed by years of prostitution. This vile type of emigration, like everything in Chinese hands, has long been systematised, and is protected by native hoeys established at different ports. I have no doubt that the coolies, who frequently leave their 50 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. wives and families behind in China, would gladly bring their partners with them if permitted by government to do so, and if they themselves felt that degree of security in their prospects abroad which the laws of a Christian country ought to inspire. The free immigra- tion of women should also be encouraged, for Chinese girls not only make excellent domestic servants, but are useful field labourers, and they would soon find industrious partners among their countrymen. This plan would also tend to check female infanticide in those regions of China from which the tide of emigra tion mainly flows I have already drawn attention to the Chinese faction fights in Perak. Perak is a Malayan state to the south of Quedah, and with a coast line which adjoins Province Wellesley. The tin mines there have long been famous, and have attracted a large Chinese mining population. Hence it would appear that the Chinese owners ot these mines found themselves strong enough to get the upper hand, and to do pretty well what they chose with the local authorities. The original scene of the recent disturbances was a small stream at the Laroot mines. One Chinese society took upon itself to divert the stream from its old course, and thus deprive the mines, on a lower level, of its use in washing the tin. The aggrieved hoey applied to the native rulers of Perak against their rival countrymen ; but the Muntrie, or inferior Rajah, proving unable to settle the dispute, either by arbitration or by force, the Chinese proceeded to drive him from the country, and, settle the matter between themselves by the free use of arms. PERAK AND LAROOT. 51 In addition to the claims of our own commercial interests, we are bound under a treaty to protect the Sultan of Perak and the Rajah Muntrie of Laroot in the event of domestic disturbance. Accordingly Sir Andrew Clarke, the present Governor of the Straits, adopted measures to restore order in the disquieted pro vince, where one of the contending parties had been ex pelled by its rivals, and had taken temporarily to piracy for a living. Peace has at length been re-established, and the country placed under the direct protection of the British flag. A provisional treaty has been drawn up, and a resident English officer is to act conjointly with the Rajah Muntrie of Laroot in the administration of the country. All this appears to be satisfactory ; and I only hope that the decisive steps taken by the Governor of the Straits will meet with approval and confirmation at home, for the suppression of piracy and riot is of vital importance to trade ; and the metallic wealth of the country, which passes through the hands of our merchants in Penang, is in itself something worth guarding. A small strip of the Perak coast, with a depth of five miles inland, has now been ceded to our authorities, and I hope to see the same trans formation take place there which has happened in Province Wellesley, where foreign capital and ma chinery are busy in the production of sugar. In Perak the tin mines are entirely in the hands of the Chinese, but there is a wide field for the intro duction of modern mining appliances. We may form some notion of the methods of Chinese mining from what a recent writer in the ' Penang Gazette ' tells us on the subject. A China man, when he is prospecting for the metal, fills half a E 2 52 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. cocoa-nut shell with the earth ; and when he has washed this, if he finds that the residue of metal will fill a space equal in capacity to two fingers, he concludes it will pay him to work the mine. But when he opens his mine, he will sink a shaft no more than a few feet deep, fifteen or twenty at the most; indeed, he can never be prevailed on to go down to a depth where he is no longer able to raise the water that gathers in the hole by means of his simple but ingenious chain-pump. When the shaft has become too deep for the power of this machine, he abandons it, and never dreams of tunnelling. The wage of the common Chinese miner is about one shilling a day, and the profit per cwt. of the pure metal laid down free of all charge in Periang, is sup posed fo be about three pounds ten shillings. I paid a passing visit to Malacca, but finding it neither an interesting nor a profitable field, I made but a short stay in the place. Malacca is a quaint, dreamy, Dutch-looking old town, where one may enjoy good fruit, and the fellowship and hospitality of the descendants of the early Portuguese and Dutch colo nists. Should any warm-hearted bachelor wish, he might furnish himself with a 'pretty and attractive-looking wife from among the daughters of that sunny clime ; but let him make no long stay there- if indisposed to marry, unless he can defy the witchery of soft dark eyes, of raven tresses, and of sylph-like forms. It is a spot where leisure seems to sit at every man's door way ; drowsy as the placid sea, and idle as the huge palms, whose broad leaves nod above the old weather- beaten smug-looking houses. Here nature comes laden MALACCA. 53 at each recurring season with ripe and luscious fruits, dropping them from her lap into the very streets, and bestrewing the bye-ways with glorious ananas, on which even the fat listless porkers in their wayside walks will hardly deign to feed. It is withal a place where one might loiter away a life dreamily, pleasantly, and uselessly. These are but passing impressions, and Malacca may yet, after all, develop into something in every way worthy of the Straits which bear its name. Malacca is doubtless interesting from a purely historical point of view, for it was once the seat of a Malayan monarchy, powerful probably in the thirteenth century, when the Cambodian Empire was already on the de cline. At a later date, the city became one of the chief commercial centres established by the early Portuguese. Singapore, so far as we know, has no ancient and engrossing history. I gather, from old Chinese and European maps, that the original 'Singapura' was a section of territory on the mainland of the Malayan peninsula, and not the island which now bears its name and usurps its place in ancient history. It has risen, as my readers are aware, since its annexation by Sir Stamford Raffles, to a position of great commercial and political importance. Not many years ago it was a mere desolate jungle- clad island, like hundreds of others in the Eastern seas, with a few fisher huts dotted here and there along its coast. But there is no need for me to dwell on the recent history of the place. When I first saw the settlement in 1861 I was startled by the appear ance of the European town, and since that time it has been yearly registering its substantial progress in 54 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. steadily increasing rows of splendid docks, in bridges, in warehouses, and in government edifices. During these few years it has passed through strange vicissi tudes of fortune. At one time the harbour and roads were crowded with square-rigged ships, Chinese junks,. and Malay prahus. Now, were we to take these as the true indications of the trade of the port, we should at once conclude that its commerce had rapidly de clined, for comparatively few sailing craft are to be. seen there at any season of the year. But we must bear in mind that within that period the march of pro gress (though almost imperceptible to those who have dwelt continuously in these distant regions) has been rapid and startling in its results. A submarine cable has brought Singapore within a few hours of London, while the opening of the Suez Canal, and the establishment of new steam navigation companies engaged in the China trade, have, to a great extent, done away with the fleets of clipper-built ships that formerly carried the produce from China and Singapore, by the long Cape route, to England. In the same way the absence of Chinese junks may be accounted for by increased facilities afforded to native, as well as foreign trade, through steam navigation in the China seas. The Chinese and the Japanese too, for that matter, are gradually learning to take the full benefit of the advantages which have thus been brought to their doors. - They travel as passengers, and ship their goods by European steamers. This is not all ; they are now themselves organising steam navigation companies of their own. The trade of Singapore, save in times of unusual depression, continues steadily to advance, and SINGAPORE. 55 since the transfer of the Straits Settlements to the Colonial Office, their commerce is reported to have in creased twenty-five per cent. In Commercial Square— the business centre of Singapore, where buyers and sellers most do congre gate — the visitor will find men of widely different types, and a great variety of nationalities ; among them all, perhaps, the most conspicuous is the dark statuesque- looking Kling from the Malabar coast, motionless beside his gharry, or darting out from the deep shade of the trees to present his active little pony and neat conveyance before some warehouse, which he has long been watching with a hawk's eye in the hope of a hire. Half-a-dozen at least of his fellow-countrymen crowd up as quickly to the spot as he, and vent their disap pointment in noisy gabble, when one more lucky than they rattles down the road with the prize ; a pleasure party, perhaps, arrayed in white, and making the most of the short time at their command in a survey of the beauties of the island, which are neither few nor far between. Let us imagine ourselves on the spot. The square rings with that babel of sounds which quarrelling Klings alone know how to raise. Baulked in their hopes, these gharry-men have it out among themselves, and deafen the passers-by with a jargon of most unmusical sounds. These Klings seldom if ever resort to blows, but their language leaves nothing for the most vindictive spirit to desire. Once, at one of the landing-places, I observed a British Tar come ashore for a holiday. He was forthwith beset by a group of Kling gharry-drivers ; and finding that a volley of British oaths was as nothing when pitted against the Kling vocabulary, and that no half-dozen of them would 56 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. stand up like men against his huge iron fists, he seized the nearest man, and hurled him into the sea. It was the most harmless way of disposing of his enemy, who swam to a boat, and it left Jack in undisturbed and immediate possession of the field. Commercial Square is made up of buildings both old and new. There are the shops, the stores, the banking-houses, and the merchants' offices. There Europeans and Chinese pursue their various occupa tions. But the rows of new buildings, with their colossal proportions, cast a cool shade over the less assuming, antique, green-venetianed structures, erected in 'the good old days,' in times when the residents might hear once in six months from home, and when two or three successful shipments of produce from the ' spice islands ' might bring a princely fortune to their proprietor. ' Those were good times indeed,' said a worthy but unfortunate old merchant to me. ' We lived then above our offices, a small but a very happy community. Now we might almost as well live in London as here ; steam and telegraph bring us daily into communication with the old world. Our Sundays are not our own. By night and by day we are at work, writing for the mail.' His words fell little short of the truth. If we follow the long, cool alleys which separate the blocks of buildings, fragrant odours of spices meet us on every side. Then suddenly we come upon an open court or warehouse, with piles of block tin glistening in the dim light, and with ship loads of pepper, tapioca, sago, gutta-percha, ratans, and other oriental products, awaiting exportation, or being carried busily by Chinese coolies to the ships. The lifting power of these Herculean coolies is startling CHINESE MERCHANTS CCMMERCIAL SQUARE. 57 even to those who have grown familiar with the scene. We next enter the office, where we may be able to ex change a few hurried words with the ' Tuan-busar,' or chief ; but there is a mail signalled, expected, or going out, and dapper-looking clerks sit at their various desks engrossed with the correspondence. We retire, there fore, in haste,, not without feeling that our society, how ever entertaining, creates an undesirable interruption there. Let us return for a stroll round the square, peeping as we pass through the open doors of the bank. Here our ears are almost deafened by the interminable jingle of dollars as they are rung and weighed, or counted by practised Chinese schroffs. Further on is a huge store, and the name of its proprietor, ' Boon Eng,' painted on an imposing array of signboards. Boon Eng himself accosts you, and invites you to inspect his varied assortment of the choicest European wares. He suggests that you should be good enough to sample his sherry, or ' eau-de vie,' as they are of number one ' brands,' while his stationery, hosiery, and saddlery, are, as he assures you, by the best English manufacturers. A fine specimen of the Anglo-Chinese shopkeeper is Boon ; tall, and portly withal ; but while he courts your patronage, you find yourself instinctively, turned towards the splendid carriage and pair which has just drawn up at his door ; and your surprise is great when Boon Eng himself — for it is just closing time — lights a cigar, steps into the vehicle, and is driven swiftly off by his Malay coachman to some pleasant villa in the country. The coolies by this time are leaving their work, and even among them one sees many who, 58 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. naked as they are, do not despair of one day wearing a silken jacket and riding in a carriage like Boon. But now the tinkle of a bell summons us across the square, and we there find that a horse sale is about to commence. The merchants and their assistants, freed for the day, are scattered about in groups, and assume, some of them, as horsey airs as any votary of Tatter- sail's famous mart. An Australian ship has just brought a full consignment of horses. There they are, tethered beneath the trees, some of them likely-looking beasts, but somewhat stale after the voyage. One by one they are trotted out by Malays, or Kling grooms, and sold for, from twenty to two hundred dollars a- piece. I remember Mr. Rarey, formerly a magistrate on one of these islands, investing, at an auction of this sort, in what was little more than the animated framework and leather of an animal. He, however, undertook, with characteristic pluck, to make a horse of his pur chase in about three months, and had a small circus made near his stables, in which Rosinante was carefully exercised. He wished to prove how much good living and kindness would do to build up and beautify a jaded, worn-out animal. A few weeks afterwards my sanguine and enthusiastic friend invited me once more to ex amine the brute, as he thought it was now filling up. Its head and stomach seemed indeed to have become larger ; its powers of eating were enormous ; but I was constrained to confess that it was even less like a horse than on the day when it had changed proprietors. Ultimately, I believe, it -died of a fit of indigestion. Rarey had strange fancies about animals. I found him on one occasion stuffing an alligator over twelve feet STUFFING AN ALLIGATOR. 59 long. I had returned from a trip to the interior, and dropped from idle curiosity into the magistrate's court. Rarey descried me from his seat on the bench, and beckoned me to a place beside him. ' Now,' he said, ' I have been here for a mortal hour, moving heaven and earth to get that prevaricating Kling rascal to tell the truth. He is a witness in rather an important case, and I really believe that for the last half hour he has been struggling against a heaven-born impulse to make a clean breast of it, and feel for once the novel sensation of honesty. But his efforts, mental and physical, have reduced him to hopeless imbecile confusion, and the wretch is perspiring so freely that he has quite vitiated the air. ' Burgoman, throw open that door ! ' My friend had evidently been waiting with impatience for a gleam of light from the dusky witness, and he had covered the paper on his desk with clever, but by no means flattering delineations, of his oily, shining countenance. The case had to be adjourned, and we retired to an open space in the rear of the court. There, stretched out upon tressels, and with its capacious full- fanged jaws at their widest, lay the largest alligator I have ever seen. ' I am stuffing this monster,' said Rarey, ' and shall send it to my brother to set up in his hall ; for he, like myself, is fond of curiosities which cannot be picked up every day. He has been a man- eater, this fellow ; no mistake about it ; but there's no stuffing the brute. I wish one or two of my peons (native polipe) would crawl down his throat. They would never be missed. But lend me your cane ; the last lot of stuff I put in is not yet crammed down.' I 60 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. lent my cane accordingly, but I never recovered it, for it stuck fast where many a daintier morsel had van ished in former days, and Rarey, in an effort to get hold of it, only pushed it further out of his reach, and in the end it was associated with the stuffing. As I have already mentioned, some of the Aus tralian horses are very fair specimens ; but others, and those the majority, are Roman-nosed, unsightly vicious beasts ; and one which I bought and tried to break for the saddle— a full-chested, fine-limbed animal — had a nasty habit of showing the white of his eyes, and used to buck until his back was like a camel's. Mr. Kugleman, a horse-breaker, undertook to cure him of this trick. Mr. Kugleman was a very powerful man ; it was his boast he had never been thrown in his life. I have seen him lift a horse by the fore-legs, and back it into a carriage. Making light of the caution I was careful to administer, he proceeded without delay to mount my steed ; and after about half an hour's labour, which covered the horse with a lather of foam, he got him to leave the stable and start down the road freely, at a canter, as if quite subdued. In about another half-hour they returned, the rider with his coat ripped up the back, his face cut, and bearing all the marks of a heavy fall. It turned out that the horse took fright at a stream where Ben- gallee washermen were beating clothes on the rocks, reared, fell backwards, rolled over, and finally got up again with his rider still on his back. So, after all, Kugleman could still continue to brag that all his life through he had never been thrown. I must own that I was invariably unfortunate in my dealings with Australian horses'. Once I had SUMATRAN PONIES. 61 a young chestnut cob, not quite broken for the saddle, and as I rode him along the esplanade, a buggy, at a furious pace, rounded a sudden bend in the road, and one of the shafts of the buggy cut deep into his haunch. However, I had the wound sewn up, and in a few weeks' time he was well and fit for the road again. By far the prettiest specimens of horse-flesh to be seen in the Straits are the native Sumatran ponies. These are the perfection of symmetry ; with small well-formed heads, full tender eyes, and necks that arch gracefully beneath a profusion of mane. Their chests are broad, their limbs fine, their hoofs round and compact ; and so full of spirit are these fiery little animals that many of them, if given the rein, would keep their pace up until they dropped down. But let me now bring my reader back to Commer cial Square, and pilot him along Battery Road to the Creek, where Malay sampans and Chinese lighters abound. Crossing this creek hy the newly-built iron bridge, we next reach Beach Road and the Esplanade, and may see a number of well kept European hotels peeping out amid the trees of the gardens in which they stand. The esplanade runs round a large en closure of fine green turf — a convenient cricket-field and recreation ground — while the road itself forms a fashionable resort where in the cool of the evening, and in a double row of carriages, the wives and families of the residents move continuously in opposite directions for one or two hours at a time. In these daily circumgyrations -we not only meet our acquaint ances, and exchange nods of recognition, but enjoy the gentle exercise and the fresh sea breeze, which are so essential to good health in the tropics. The number 62 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. of equipages is surprising, and so is the nature of their occupants. It appears to have become necessary nowadays for every resident of standing to keep his " carriage, and this because the dwelling-houses are fre quently a considerable distance apart. Fashion also demands that the carriage should be as costly a one, and the house as showy, as the owner's means will admit. After all, judging from the luxurious style in which the foreign residents live, we may discover, in some measure, how it comes that times are altered, and why magnificent fortunes are not piled up so easily nor so speedily as in former days. Perhaps the change is in no way to be regretted, for I question whether it is possible, in any part of the world, to find a prettier home. The residents, therefore, take the common sense view of the case. They are likely to remain long on the island, and determine accordingly to spend the time as pleasantly as they can. Their fine equipages must, of course, create a spirit of rivalry and a feeling of vanity, but it would be a dull and matter-of-fact world without these two instincts working everywhere around. Starting from the square again. in another direction, we enter the native quarter, or Kling bazaar, where the shopkeepers sell cotton and woollen goods, cutlery and all sorts of glass and hardware. On the opposite side of_ the street dwell Chinese mechanics and shopkeepers, and there you may get almost" anything made which you choose. These Chinamen are most unsightly to behold. Many of them are as nearly naked as possible, and if at all stout, they delight to expose their piggish pro- CHINESE ATTRIBUTES OF GREATNESS. 63 portions to what they believe to be'an admiring public gaze. ' A large facie man ' and ' large belly man ' is looked upon by the Chinese as a very high type of the human race. He is sure to be good-hearted and wealthy, endowed with wisdom, and blessed with length of days. He is therefore careful to exhibit his CHINESE TAILORS. unrobed corporation to his admiring countrymen. Thus at mid-day his dress will consist of a pair of straw slippers, and cotton trowsers about six inches long; while if the weather is cool, his shoulders are covered with a white cotton jacket unfastened in front. But let us stop and take a look into this tailor's shop. A long table, covered with a white straw mat, runs up 64 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. the centre of the apartment, and at it squat a dozen or more men, busy stitching various articles of attire. These industrious tailors are as naked as our fat friend who employs them. They make garments for others, and go themselves uncovered. Their needles are of English manufacture, although similar ones are made in China, and they stitch away from instead of to themselves, as is the practice, with us. In Singapore the Chinese far outnumber the Malays, and therefore they hold a more important position than in Penang, where the Malayan population is in excess. Were any serious outbreak to occur among the Singapore Chinese, I believe it could be suppressed most easily by arming the Malays, for they make first-class fighting men, or else by setting the members of one Chinese faction against the members of another. There are at the present time a number of Chinamen who fill responsible positions. One is an unofficial member of the Legislative Council, others are justices of the peace, and others again hold the opium and spirit farms. Many more own extensive tracts of cultivated land, or have large capital invested . in commerce, and it is obviously the interest of such personages as these to promote peaceful and indus trious habits among the lower orders of their country men. If we knew nothing of Chinese clanship and Chinese guilds, we should think it strange that the wealthier Chinamen are rarely made the victims of the great gang robberies that, during my time, used frequently to occur. These robberies are perpetrated by bands of ruffians numbering at times as many as a hundred strong, who surround and pillage a house that CHINESE THIEVES. 65 is always the residence of a foreigner. Chinese thieves are thorough experts at their profession, adopting the most ingenious devices to attain their infamous ends. I recollect a burglary which once took place at a friend's house, when the thief found his way into the principal bedroom, and deliberately used up half a box of matches before he could get the candle to light. His patience being rewarded at last, he proceeded with equal coolness in the plunder of the apartment, not forgetting to search beneath the pillow, where he secured a revolver and watch. These Chinese robbers are reported to be able to stupify their victims by using some narcotic known only to themselves. I have no doubt this was done in the case just referred to, by the agency of the Chinese house-servants, who perhaps in troduced the drug to my friend's bed. Chinese, when it suits their purpose, do not stick at trifles, as may be gathered from the fact that a China man, esteemed a respectable member of society, at tempted, on one occasion, to poison the whole foreign community of Hongkong with the bread he supplied. The Malays have told me of cases where, as they averred, the cunning Chinese thief passes the door way of the house to be pillaged, and tosses in a handful of rice impregnated with some aromatic drug. This drug soon sends the inmates off into a deep repose, from which they will seldom awaken till long after the robber has finished his undertaking, and that in the complete and deliberate style which suits the taste of the Chinese. For I must tell you that they at all times object to vulgar haste, whatever be the business they are pursuing ; and they prefer, if possible, to avoid sudden surprises and unexpected attacks. The slightest sound F 66 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. will make them take to cowardly flight, dropping their booty, and their nether garments, if any, in order to facilitate escape. But when they have a daring burglary on hand, they go quite naked, with the body oiled all over, and the queue coiled up into a knob at the back of the head, and stuck full of needles on every side. The following adventure with a Chinese burglar befel a friend of mine. About midnight, as he lay awake in his bed, with the lamp extinguished and the windows opened to admit the air, he saw a dark figure clamber over his window-sill and enter the apartment. He kept himself motionless, till the thief, believing all to be safe, had stolen into the centre of the room, and then sprang out of bed and seized the intruder. Both were powerful men, and a furious struggle consequently ensued ; but the robber had the advantage, for his only covering was a coat of oil ; so that at last, slipping like an eel from the grasp of his antagonist, he made a plunge at the window, and was about to drop into the garden beneath when his pursuer, with a final effort, managed to catch him by the tail. The tail, stuck full of needles, and alas ! a false one too, came away by the weight of the fall, and was left a worthless trophy in the hands of the European whom its proprietor had vainly tried to rob. The interior of the island of Singapore is less bold in outline than Penang, its highest peak, ' Buket Timor,' being only 500 feet above the level of the sea. Yet Singapore has beauties of its own such as few other lands can boast, A number of low hills lend variety to the landscape, and high-roads are carried in broad even lines along the intervening plains. Not SINGAPORE SCENERY. 67 unfrequently we may travel by these roads for miles through unbroken avenues of fruit-trees, or beneath an over-arching canopy of ever-green palms, while from the same sylvan thoroughfares we may descry the red- tiled roofs of the foreign houses, on the slopes and crowns of the hills. The long and well kept approaches to these European dwellings never fail to win the praise of strangers. In them may be discovered the same lavish profusion of overhanging foliage which we see around us on every side, besides that there are often hedges of wild heliotrope cropped as square as if built up of stone, and forming compact barriers of green leaves which yet blossom with gold and purple flowers. Behind these fences broad bananas nod their bend ing leaves, and fan the hot path beneath, while cooler breezes gently ripple among the palm-trees high above our heads. A choice flower-garden, a close-shaven lawn, and a green for croquet, are not uncommonly the surroundings of the residence. If it be early morning, there is an unspeakable charm about the spot. The air is cool, even bracing ; and beneath the shade of a group of forest-trees which the axe has purposely spared, we see the rich blossoms of orchids depending from the boughs, and breathe an atmosphere saturated with the perfume which these strangely beautiful plants diffuse. Songless bird's twitter or croak among the foliage above, or else beneath shrubs which the convolvulus has decked with a hundred variegated flowers. Here and there the slender stem of the aloe, rising from an armoury of' spiked leaves, lifts its cone of white bells on high, or the F 2 68 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. deep orange pine-apple peeps out from a green belt of fleshy foliage, and breathes its ripe fragrance around. Having turned the last bend of the path, we come at length upon a wide flight of steps in front of the house. The tiled roof and wide eaves cover a spacious verandah, which runs round the building on all sides. This verandah is supported by a row of plastered brick pillars of classic proportions, and is enclosed by a carved railing of hard polished wood. It has rattan blinds to shade it, and these may be let down, or rolled up beneath the eaves, as the position of the sun may require. Flowers in China vases orna ment the steps, and stand at intervals on the gravel drive in front. On one side a wall of dark foliage casts its cool shade over the dwelling, and from the other we can see through some leafy spaces the rising sun, casting long shadows athwart hill and dale, or mark its faint pencillings of golden light on the distant palm-crowned islands that are gradually emerging from the morning mists in the far-off waters of the Straits. If perfect peace can steal through the senses into the soul — if it can be distilled like some subtle ether from all that is beautiful in nature — surely, in such an island as this, we shall find that supreme happiness which we . all know to be unattainable elsewhere. But here, as in other quarters of the globe — although the residents, many of them, live in princely style, although the air is balmy, and nature bountiful — cares and bitter experi ences still make their presence felt. In my own time I have had friends, who, buoyant with high hopes, and in the flush of youth, have left their dear old homes to seek fortune on this distant island, and who have passed away, far from the tender hands that could DOMESTIC SERVANTS. 69 smooth their pillows, gazing vacantly upon the darken ing palms outside their windows, or dreaming of the sweet music of familiar voices. But there are other special drawbacks to life in Singapore. The heat, for example, is great, and must tell on the European constitution at last. The ther mometer shows an average in the shade, all the year round, of between 850 and 950 Fahrenheit, and this high temperature tends with other influences to pro duce a variety of the most serious disorders which flesh is heir to in the tropics, and a multitude of minor annoyances, of which prickly heat is by no means the least troublesome. The Chinese, as they stand heat well, ought to enjoy life to the full in such a place as this. Stepping round to the servants' quarters, built on a slip of land in the rear of the house, and hidden away among the trees, we find that ' Ah-Sin,' the cook, has been gambling overnight, and is not yet astir. There he lies, stretched on the Malay mat which he has spread for himself over a bench, and his head pillowed not un comfortably upon a billet of wood. A decided smell of opium pervades the room; but, after all, that must only be our own fancy, as no Chinese domestic ever smoked the vile drug, according to his own account. Here, too, is a long brick oven and fireplace, flanked by the usual array of pots and pans. The latter all look clean. This evidence of cleanliness in the Chinese cook is no small advantage, as I once actually found a Kling cook boiling a pudding in one end of the narrow cloth which formed his only covering, the other ex tremity being wound round his loins. The cook's mate, or larn ' pidgin,' as they call them in Hong- 7o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. kong, has already lit the fires, and is making his toilet, He must feel cool, for he wears no other apparel except his tail, and we see him busily engaged in rubbing himself down with a hot, moist cloth. At our approach he rapidly resumes his clothes, and puts on a merry look. Perhaps he has been early astir to see the sun rise. We enquire, and the answer is ' No,' he never saw the sun rise. He evidently thinks we are. chaffing him, as he adds, . ' he never knew any man who did.' Perhaps he admires the scenery. No! but he would like, if we could tell him how, to make one dollar into two, and two into four, and it will probably not be long before he discovers the secret. The servants' quarters are well built, and kept clean and comfortable ; for, with the exception of the groom and gardener, who are ' Bugis,' the domestics are all Chinese of the same clan from Hainan. The house-boys are now up and at work ; one soothes his friends by playing a native air on a Chinese fiddle, fashioned by drawing a snake- skin tightly over about two-thirds of a cocoa-nut shell fastened on to a long handle and tail-piece, and then the strings are stretched lute-fashion outside the whole apparatus. Our friend, the owner of the bungalow, has been out for a morning ride, and has just returned to give us a hearty welcome, and to invite us to break fast when we have completed our inspection of his abode. The house is floored throughout with polished planks of hard wood. In the centre of the building stand the drawing- and dining-rooms, which we entered from the verandah, and which are separated from each other by siken screens, reaching half way up to the ceiling. To the right and left are the bedrooms, SINGAPORE RESIDENCES. 71 approached through arched doorways, and shut off by similar screens, opening on hinges, and so constructed as to secure complete privacy, while they yet admit the air. In one the bed is enclosed in a huge muslin cage propped on a framework of wood, and large enough to contain also a table and reading-lamp, and an easy chair. This cage is entered by a tight-fitting doorway, and is des'gned as a protection against the moschettos, for even one of these troublesome insects is sufficient to banish sleep for a whole night through. There are long punkahs in the public rooms, and that luxury is not excluded even from this airy bedroom, for on hot nights a native sits up all night long fanning his lord and master to sleep. It is, doubtless, a great luxury to have a man servant in constant attendance upon one in such a place as Singapore ; but at the same time I have no hesitation in saying that it, and Other evils consequent upon contact- with an inferior race, has a debasing effect on weak natures. Youths who have been accustomed to none of these things, having once acquired the noble science of concocting claret-cup and cocktails, their tropical education rapidly extends to requiring the most contemptible services from long-suffering domestics. When they have acquired a smattering of the Malay ( patois,' they indulge in vulgar abuse, or assume a tone of injured forbearance ; and the keynote of their complaints is ' Boy ! what have I done that you neglect to relieve me of my boots and coat, prepare my bath, or help me to bed, administer a sherry and bitters when I seem languid, or a cocktail (an American drink) at seasons of prostration ? * The hot climate renders some natures extremely 72 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. irritable, and I have known really good-hearted men always in a ferment with their servants ; either paying them off in a moment of passion, or praying that they might return to their duties. Thus, some residents are despised by the humblest of Chinese dependents, as in their own country an ungovernable temper is accounted one of the lowest attributes of humanity. The Singapore residents have devised many amusements for themselves. They have their clubs, their bowling-alleys and fives' courts, and their race course. Picnics are numerous, and the frequent gatherings at private houses are pleasantly diversified by performances at the Theatre, and concerts in the Town Hall. There used also to be a sporting club, and more than once I have been out tiger-hunting with its mem bers, but I never encountered anything more formidable than a deer. Singapore has a great name for tigers ; however, I never saw but one in its native jungle, during three years' residence on the island. I have fre quently heard them roaring at night round my house at ' Bendulia,' a plantation in which I held a share. It may be safely said that tigers do not nowadays destroy a man per diem, as they are reported to have done in former times, Nor is the Singapore tiger an animal at all likely to attack a man face to face. What they usually do is to pounce upon a single unfortunate victim as he bends over his work in some lonely field. The natives say that the tiger almost always attacks from behind, and I once saw the body of a coolie who had come thus to his end. Though only slightly muti lated, it had been thoroughly drained of its blood, and showed deep ragged incisions along the back and AN ADVENTURE IN THE JUNGLE. 73 behind the head. Herds of pigs roam wild in the jungle, the pests of the Chinese squatters, whose sweet potatoes and other produce they ravenously devour. They afford good sport to Europeans. I once went out pig-shooting with a party, to spend the night in the jungle. We put up in a small watch- house, one of many such which are elevated in the jungle, standing on posts of bamboo about ten feet above the ground, and with a platform or flooring not more than six feet square ; above is a thatched roof of palm-leaves. We were a party of four, one of us an American gentleman, the finest shot in the Straits — or supposed to be, by many. Having proceeded to a clearing close to the jungle, we entered on the business of laying in wait — a ceremony by no means the most en joyable among those incident to the sport. These wild pigs feed in herds by night ; so we spread a store of pine-apples on the ground, and then, with such patience as we could muster, we tarried to see what fortune would send us. Our clothes were of the thinnest ; the stinging ants never tired of their attacks ; while the bloodthirsty mosquitos buzzing about our heads, and diving into our ears, supported the invading armies of ants by light incursions, which harried our necks and heads, so that it became most difficult to maintain the silence essential to the success of our expedition. At length, after three protracted hours of weary, watching and unreproachful agony, we heard the distant snorts and grunts that heralded the approach of the swine. As turtle to aldermen, so are dainty pine-apples to these denizens of the jungle. They, had got scent of our bait, and were moving in our direction. They came on, but not incautiously. Now they come 74 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. on in bristling phalanx, and snort for the encounter, and now they grunt a signal to halt. Swift and agile I already knew them to be ; but now, too, I discovered in them such a happy combination of boldness and pru dence that I thought if undomesticated pigs could but overcome their greediness, they might rank among the noblest creatures of the forest. But, alas ! in this case as in too many unhappy instances of the past, the prospect of a rich feast was a temptation too great for their grovelling nature ! On they came crashing towards us, through the jungle in front. We grasped our rifles so as to sweep the clearing, and awaited the charge of the foe ; but unhappily preferring American to English in stitutions, they swept suddenly round to the field com manded by the doughty sportsman from the United States. Then a rifle report, a yelling and a grunting, fol lowed by the hasty pattering of the feet of our enemies, as they turned their trotters in full flight ; and lo ! when we hurried to the spot, expecting to find at least one victim to the trusty weapon of our friend, we, to our dismay, discovered him seated on the ground nursing one leg, and threatening in most unparliamentary language Baboo his native servant, who laughed, and lurked behind a tree. It appeared that the leader of the herd, a huge hog, had charged our friend before he could take aim, had ran through between his legs and toppled him over in the act of firing, and carried his followers into the jungle unscathed. Disappointed, but not discouraged, we determined to keep watch, in the hope that the pigs would return. So we fixed Baboo as a sentinel on the bamboo ladder of the hut, in such a way that he would fall off if he went to sleep, MALA Y BRAZIER. 75 and then ourselves retired to rest. When we awoke the hot sun was shining brightly. Baboo, coiled round the ladder like a snake, was still fast asleep, and the pigs, undisturbed, had feasted upon the pine-apples beneath our feet. There are a few Malay workmen in Singapore. One of these, a certain ' Tukang Timbago,' or worker in brass, whose shop I used to visit, was a maker of rice- bowls, teapots, and spirit-flasks. His mode of casting the brass was most ingenious, differing from any plan which I have seen employed elsewhere. His patterns were minutely made on an instrument resembling a potter's wheel ; on this he placed a ball of beeswax, which, in a few minutes, he spun up with his fingers into the form of the vessel he was about to cast ; by this time the material had become exceedingly thin. If the vessel was to have a narrow mouth, he made his wax model in two halves, which he afterwards joined together. This done, he next fixed on small cylinders of wax, designed to form ducts for the molten metal. After completing the wax model, he proceeded to cover it with a coating inside and outside of fine soft clay, which he followed up with a second coating when the first was dry, and by continuing this process the whole was at length enveloped in a mass of clay, which was then baked hard in an oven, and the whole of the melted wax model allowed to flow out of the ducts, leaving a most perfect mould inside the clay. A vessel cast by this method presents a wonderfully smooth surface, and is quite true, and ready for the wheel on which it is turned for use. The extreme thinness, trueness, and smoothness of the casting sur passed anything I had ever seen before. 76 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. Johore is, in many respects, the most interesting Malayan province on the mainland. It is separated from Singapore by a narrow strip of water, and it is in its wild forests and inland mountains that we meet with a type of man by far the most primitive that these JACOONS. regions have to show. These are the Jacoons, who, like the Orang-outan, or Mias of Borneo, are reported to dwell in trees ; and yet this poor remnant of an aboriginal people has at times proved of more use to the ruler of the state than the Malays themselves. JACOONS. 77 The Tumongong, who is the Malayan chief of Johore, has steadily sought the friendly intercourse and council of his English neighbours ; and in place of spending all his leisure in the time-honoured science of gambling, in cock-fighting, and in his harem, he has set himself to the task of developing the resources of his country. He has planted steam saw-mills at the point opposite Singapore, this being the place most con venient for the exportation of timber ; and he has run a line of rails up to his forests, where giant specimens of the finest timber in the world are to be found. While thus making clearings on new soil, and offering facilities for the industrious Chinese pioneer to settle in his dominions, he is steadily adding to his resources by the export of wood which grows in unlimited quantities in his vast primeval jungles. But while doing all this, he is driving from their wild haunts a simple, untutored, and most interesting type of the human family, the Jacoons, to whom I have referred. This is a. race living almost solely on the bounty of nature, in the food-producing trees and shrubs that grow wild in the interior. They are said to be the true aboriginal inhabitants of the land. The pure specimens among them are woolly-haired and dark-skinned ; the same sort of people, indeed, whom we meet with in the Papuans of New Guinea, in the natives of many of the Pacific islands, and in the mountains of Indo- China. My only regret is that I do not know more about them. They have been used in various ways by the Tumongong, in cutting wood and clearing a route for the railway. They, however, detest the Malays, and hold no direct intercourse with them. 78 INDOCHINA AND CHINA. CHAPTER IV. Siam — The Menam River — Bangkok — Buddhist Temples — The King, Defender of his Faith — Missions — Buddhist Priests — The Priest in his Cell— The first King's Visit to the Wats— The Court of the Dead- Chinese Speculator investing in a Corpse — The Krum-mun-along- kot — An Inventor wanted— Taking the King's Portrait — The King describes the Tonsure Ceremony — The King's Request — Mode of administering Justice — Gambling — Floating Houses — A Trip to Ayuthia — Creek Life — Visit to Petchiburee. The Menam, or Mother of Waters, is for some miles above its entrance a broad, sluggish, and uninteresting stream, flowing between low banks, and flat alluvial plains. When I visited Siam in the steamer 'Chow. Phya,' I went ashore at Paknam, the first town on the river, and made the acquaintance of a native officer who had charge of the customs station, and who honoured me with an audience at his residence. There I found him surrounded by a group of crouching slaves, by half- a-dozen children, and by as many wives. The impres sion the scene made is still fresh in my recollection. The house and inmates differed from anything I had ever come across among the Malays or Chinese ; nor were tokens of refinement wanting, in embroidered wedge-shaped cushions, couches covered with finely plaited mats, wrought vessels of gold or silver, and robes of silken attire. The cool and peculiar fashion of dressing the hair, adopted by both sexes, alike resembled THE MENAM RIVER, SIAM. 79 an inverted horse-brush laid upon the crown of the head. But the sanitary arrangements were extremely defective ; oppressive odours of putrid fish and garlic pervaded the establishment, v/hile the dresses of the party, though finely wrought, were insufficient for the purposes of decency, according to our own more fas tidious Western tastes. Everywhere, from Paknam to Bangkok, we fell in with numbers of the people, but with few who were not boating, or bathing themselves in the stream. Here and there a scattered hamlet stood up above the steaming, unwholesome, moschetto-haunted marshes, like some giant grasshopper sunning its back while it cooled its feet in the mud. As we near the capital, the scenery grows more in teresting and varied. Palms, fruit-trees, and groves of feathery bamboo, diversify the plains ; and the latter, when covered with half-grown crops of rice, present a vast surface of vivid and beautiful green. I arrived in Bangkok on September 28, 1865, and steamed up through the floating city in the dimness of the early morning light. It is a place which other travellers have already described ; yet, as I spent some time there, the reader will pardon me if I give my own impressions of what struck me as its most remarkable features. When I use the term ¦ floating city,' I mean to say that the dwellings of the people are for the most part afloat on rafts, and it is impossible at first sight to determine where land begins, and where it ends. ' Before proceed ing to describe these aquatic abodes and their amphi bious-looking inhabitants, I must remind the reader that my first ideas as to the splendour of this oriental city were gathered at dawn, when I was gazing upon the towers and roofs of more than half a hundred 8o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. temples, standing each of them in its own consecrated ground. I enquired of what material these strange edi fices were made, for their towers seemed ablaze as with jewels, .and sparkled like refined gold. The thought (I confess) crossed my mind, how great a profit some powerful Christian government might secure by despoiling these heathen idols, and pulling down these ' summer-palace ' looking shrines ! But the reply to my enquiry somewhat modified my views, and I learnt to my disappointment that these temples are nothing more than brick and mortar embellished with gilding, foreign soup-plates, and bits of coloured glass. A trader, as I afterwards learnt, not many years back, imported a ship-load of foreign crockery, including toilet-services, dinner-services, dessert-services, and other miscellaneous china wares. But the stock was long in tempting buyers, and remained unprofitably on the owner's hands. At last, however, he persuaded a wealthy native noble man, who was engaged in the completion of a Buddhist shrine, to invest in the lot, assuring his purchaser that in European places of worship hand-basins and other less ornamental but highly useful vessels were esteemed the most recherche adornments. The simple-minded devotee proceeded in all good faith to ¦ decorate his temple, sticking willow-pattern pudding-plates a-row in the plaster, and working hand-basins or dish-covers fantastically into the balconies and parapet ornamenta tion. But the deception was not long in coming out, and the trader in consequence lost his reputation, together with all future prospect of business with the Siamese. It was said, and I believe with truth, that he was even never paid for the crockery, some of which may still be seen imbedded immovably in the mortar, SIAMESE BUDDHIST TEMPLES. 81 to point a silent moral on the consequence of commer cial disingenuousness. Temple spires in Siam are decorated, most of them, with rich mosaics of glass, porcelain, and enamel, and present, as they shine in the sunlight, a dazzling coruscation which it is difficult to describe. These edifices are usually erected during the lifetime or out of the proceeds of the estate of some nobleman, as sacred and meritorious works. There were, as nearly as I could make out, sixty-five Buddhist temples in the city during the time of my visit, and the priests attached to these numbered more than nine thousand. Bangkok is one of the great Buddhist centres, and the faith there is of a purer type than in the Chinese Empire, where the teachings of Gautama are mixed up with Taouism, with Confucianism, and with the remains of a form of worship still earlier even than these. No Siamese is qualified for an official position until he has been at least three months in the cloister, wearing the yellow robes of Buddhism, and performing the services of a priest. The King himself is High Priest, and defender of the faith. The late monarch spent about thirty years in monastic seclusion before he ascended the throne, and the distinguished reputation for his knowledge of Sanscrit and Pali scholarship, which he subsequently en joyed, was due to his having made the Buddhist litera ture his study throughout this period of his career. Late in life he turned his attention to English, and at tained such a proficiency in that language as enabled him to write and converse in it with comparative ease, though with an idiomatic quaintness and force of ex pression by which his not unfrequent communications to the ' Bangkok Recorder ' were at- once detected. G 82 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. He disliked to have his Anglo- Siamese manuscripts mutilated or corrected; and for this reason he established a royal printing-office, where his English, probably under penalty of death, was set up just as it was written down. At one time a series of letters from his pen were published in the ' Bangkok Recorder ' under the SIAMESE BUDDHIST PRIEST. signature of the Buddhist Champion, and in these he sought to defend and vindicate his own creed. These letters were answered by the late and much-esteemed Dr. Bradley, who spent his life as a Protestant mis sionary in Siam. Among other things the King main tained that Buddhist images were never set up as objects of worship. These images, always so remark- BUDDHIST IMAGES. 83 able for their expression of perfect serenity and repose, were simply designed to aid the souls of the devout in their abstracting themselves from all the cares and strife of natural existence, and in reaching that supreme in animate repose typified by the idol, and regarded as the chief attribute of the great Gautama himself. This is all very well for the cultured Buddhist, but then there are millions of men in Siam and China who hardly know who Buddha was, and who have an ignorant belief in the images themselves. The King admitted that the ' teveda ' (or angels) of the temples were more or less mythological characters. He did not know whether they had any real existence, or what sort of duties they were designed to fulfil. ' If Christians,' he said, ' have more prosperity than any other sect, if they have more wealth, live to a greater age, have more happiness, and do not grow old, nor die, nor do not become poor, I will agree with you that the Christian religion is indeed a blessing. But this blessing I do not yet see, and how can I hold it ? ' Another style of argument, and one not so easy to confute, was that Christians are disagreed among themselves as to what their creed should be. There was only one Christ, and there are a great many different sects ; the broadest differences existing between Roman Catholics and re formed churches, while narrower shades of faith divide the Protestant ranks. The King therefore summed up his case by the very natural enquiry as to how he was to determine which sect was in the right. But after all there is no more uniformity of doc trine among the Buddhists than is to be found within the Christian Church ; yet, I cannot forbear remarking here, that in the Buddhist countries which I have G 2 84 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. visited, the sectarianism of the Christian missions is a great bar to their success. If Missionary Societies would but unite, if they would but sink their narrow differences, and agree to abide by one scholarly trans lation of the Bible into the language of the land they labour in, they would by so doing command a far wider influence among the educated and influential classes than at present, unfortunately, it is in their power to do. As a rule, the missionaries who meet with the greatest respect, even among the lower orders of the natives, are the men of the highest culture and attainments ; those indeed, who made the greatest sacrifices when they abandoned their home and pros pects, to work on with patient long-suffering, and in obscurity, in these distant heathen lands. Each Budd hist monastery is in charge of an abbot or chief priest, who receives a small monthly stipend from the Government or noble to whom the establishment be longs. Under the abbots are the priests, the novices, and the pupils ; the latter receiving their education at the hands of the monks, who are the only school masters in the land. When twenty years of age, the novice, if he chooses, may be ordained a priest ; and shaving his head and eyebrows anew, and donning the full canonicals of his yellow-robed order, he takes the priestly vows. Indolent persons and men of doubtful character not unfrequently take to the cloister, for reasons best known to themselves. Each Wat or temple contains as many of the sacred order as the neighbourhood can afford to feed. Every morning, at daybreak, these pauper priests may be met going their rounds by land in silent Indian file, or else sitting like Buddhas, in their small canoes, which their pupils A BUDDHIST MONK. 85 paddle for them from house to house. Mutely they halt before each door, and await the dole of rice, fruit, and vegetables on which they depend for support, the bundles of burees (cigars) and their scraps of betel- nut and seri, with which their long hours of leisure are to be beguiled. Their chambers in the monasteries are almost like prison cells. One priest I knew well, and was in the habit of visiting, divided his atten tion between the pursuits of literature, perfect self-ab sorption, and the taming of a colony of white rats and mice. This devotee's cell was lit by a small window, and screened by a faded filthy Buddhist robe, which allowed a feeble streak of sunshine to struggle into the cold interior. At one end of the apartment there was- a simple platform of wood, covered by a straw mat. On this he slept at night ; on this he sat, wrapped in silent meditation, brooding over his sins by day. Above, in a dark corner, was a cage where his little favourites were busily at v/ork upon a tread-mill. These rats and mice he tended with the most peculiar care, because their white skins have a sacred signifi cance for the Buddhists,: and each tiny body may con tain, as is supposed, the spirit of some Buddha of the future. A number of sacred books on a shelf, one or two bowls of brass or coarse eathenware, and a mat on the clay floor, completed the furniture of the dwelling. This recluse had a taste for drawing, and was occupied in decorating the inner wall of a royal Wat with ob jects of Buddhist mythology. The cartoons produced were remarkable for gracefulness of outline, richness of colouring, and strange imagery ; the faces of several he copied from photographs, and other pictures which I 86 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. supplied to him ; and he would experiment sometimes with my water-colours, though, on the whole he pre ferred his own, or those of Chinese make. The majority of the Buddhist priests in Siam are, I suspect, but moderate scholars. They can read Siamese of course, and possess, some few of them, a smattering of Pali ; but, though they profess greatly to venerate Sanscrit, theirs is the reverence of the ignorant, rather than an admiration for that which they really com prehend. I make this remark from the fact that, after my visit to Cambodia, a number of the most noted priests translated one or two of the inscriptions found on the ancient temples in that country. But although the original texts were in every case the same, the renderings were never alike. My fellow-traveller, Mr. Kennedy, who is now at work translating these in scriptions, has found them to be in an ancient Pali character, much allied to the Kawi of the Javanese ; and had the priests been able to travel at all beyond the strict language of their own sacred books, they would assuredly have made these inscriptions out, The late King of Siam was a man of a different stamp ; had he given his attention to this subject, I feel no doubt that he could have translated the inscriptions into Siamese, at any rate, if not into the English tongue. It is the annual custom for the King, in the month of November, to visit certain royal temples, and to make offerings to their priests. On these occasions the monarch may be seen arrayed in all the splendour of his jewelled robes, enthroned in his state barge, and paddled by about a hundred men. Behind him follow the nobles of his court, almost as grand, and thus the THE KING OF SIAM'S STATE BARGE WAT SERET. 87 pageant moves in long procession down the river or along its network of canals. This ' progress ' in boats was one of the most imposing spectacles I ever beheld in the East. I do not, however, suppose that either the first or second Kings ever visited Wat Seket, or even the outer precints of that temple. The principal build ing at Wat Seket is a huge unfinished pile of bricks and mortar — intended, as I suppose, to symbolize Mount Meru, the centre of the Buddhist universe — the sum mit of which commands an extensive view of the palm groves, and house roofs of Bangkok ; but the special, and most melancholy feature of this sacred edifice is a court in the rear, where the bodies of the dead, who have no friends to bury them, are cast out to the dogs and vultures to be devoured. I paid one visit to that place. Few would willingly turn their steps thither a second time ! Following a narrow path through an avenue of trees, we came at length upon a walled-in enclosure intended for the reception of the dead. In the centre stood a small charnel house, while the pave ment round about was covered with black stains and littered with human bones, bleached white by the sun. An overpowering stench of carrion pervaded the atmosphere of the place. On a sudden the light was obscured, and down dropped a troop of vultures from the trees above, lazily flapping their dry parchment- looking wings, and sweeping a pestilential blast into our faces as they rustled slowly through the air. Next a hungry pack of mangy dogs rushed howling into the enclosure. And then, tardily wending its way up the avenue, followed a procession of slaves and mourners, bearing a naked corpse upon a bier. We made way for this funeral train, and saw them deposit the dead 88 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. body upon the ground ; the vultures meanwhile limping forward with a whistling, jerking noise, thrusting out their bare scaly necks to within a few feet of the corpse, and only kept off by an attendant with the aid of a bamboo rod. At length, when the funeral train had withdrawn, the leader of the vultures ran forward, tapped the corpse on the forehead to make sure that life was extinct, and then, in an instant, had scooped out its eyes. Horror-stricken, we rushed away from the spot, and left these ill-omened birds to feast and squabble over their prey. This was by no means the only sickening sight I encountered in Bangkok. One day, when passing along the main thoroughfare in the city, I found a Chinaman seated by a temple gate, with a naked corpse at his feet. - His object was to collect contributions from the devout to defray the costs of cremation. The Siamese responded well to his appeal, as they believe that by practising acts of charity they will win favour in a future state. But as for the Chinaman, he had purchased the body as a pure speculation. He was, indeed, bound to burn it, and he had paid the bereaved family about half-a- crown, promising to remove their deceased relative and burn him at a Wat. Out of the money collected by an exhibition so sensational, this curious undertaker supplied funds for firewood, and pocketed a handsome balance. I applied, through the British Consul, for permission to photograph the first King's palace. This was at once conceded, and his majesty was pleased to ap point a day on which I should take his own portrait as well. The King requested me to visit his abode on Monday, October 6, in the company of the Krum- . KR UM-MUN AL ONGKOT. 89 mun-alongkot, a nobleman holding the position ot chief astronomer, that is, the head of the astrologers attached to the palace. His majesty's letter informed me, among other things, that his royal brother ' was well understanding of the work of taking photographs, and being with Mr. Thomson will have good oppor tunity to do according to his pleasure in and about this palace.' Here was indeed a fine sample of 'Siamese king's English.' I found the Krum-mun an agree able old mandarin, but, if anything, a little inclined to boast of his own scientific attainments. He stood about five feet four inches, and was 53 years of age ; but he wore a very haggard expression, and indeed looked much older than he really was. He was dressed, when at home, in a light jacket, much too small to cover him, and wore a band of silk around his loins. His shrunken limbs were bare, and his feet encased in richly-embroidered slippers ; but on other occasions, when he paid me a visit, for example, he assumed much more ample and costly attire, putting the last finish to the whole toilet by covering his head with a European cap, braided all over with gold lace. Mahomet Ali, a Malay in the service of Mr. Ames, the commissioner of police, acted as my interpreter, translating the Siamese into Malay. Ali was, however, sometimes at a loss to make out the prince's words, as his mouth was frequently stuffed with a ball of seri- leaf and betel. Although kind and hospitable, the prince was not a man calculated to inspire awe into his beholders. Around his singular figure were grouped a number of his attendants and slaves, who crowded reverently on their hands and knees. The room in which we were received was filled with foreign ma- INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. chinery, scientific instruments, and articles, of domestic use. In one corner there was a telegraphic machine, backed by a statue of Buddha. In the lap of the image there was a Siamese flute (the idol was off duty and under repair), and an electro-plated coffee-pot, which had evidently been forced into some unnatural use. There were also watch- tools, turning-lathes, and telescopes, guitars, tom-toms, fiddles, and hand-saws ; while betel-nut boxes, swords, spears, and shoe-brushes, rifles, revolvers, windsor-soap, rat-paste, brass wire, and beer bottles, were mingled in heterogeneous con fusion. Having been dismissed to a sumptuous native repast, served up for me in one of the smaller apart ments, I rejoined my conductor at the King's palace gate. Before leaving this subject, I must confess that I was surprised at the ingenuity which this royal astro nomer displayed, and at his honest desire to understand the foreign instruments which he set up in his apart-;. ment for contemplation. One day he took a very fine sextant to pieces in order to discover how it had been constructed, and having fathomed the mystery, he felt very grateful to me for helping him to set it again together. Another time he called upon me with a royal letter in a splendid gold case, which set forth that his brother the King (who was a decided wag) had commanded him to find a foreign inventor, a man who could invent anything, and he wished to know how much monthly salary such a genius would require. The King, he said, desired when taking an airing of an evening to indulge freely in shooting his subjects; but the gun must be planned so that the progress of A SIAMESE PRINCK AND ATTENDANT AN INVENTOR WANTED. 91 the ball would be arrested when it had just penetrated half an inch beneath the skin. He only wanted, in this way, to strike terror into the hearts of his people by firing at them and then miraculously saving their lives. My noble friend Krum-mun-alongkot may have been a very accomplished Siamese astro nomer, able to determine, from the march of the heavenly bodies through stellar space, whether the year, as it passed, was that of the rat, the hog, or the goat ; but although he had a number of our finest instruments, he had made but little progress in the science as we understand it. His sextants and quadrants were out of adjustment, his chronometers refused to keep time, and the lenses of his telescopes were dimmed with oxidation. I found him one day busily studying ' Thomson's Tables ; ' but the book was upside down, and he gave it up in despair as he was called off to put a fresh spoke in a wheel of a royal carriage. After we had become better acquainted, he intro duced me to his family circle. He had, I believe, sixteen wives, although I never saw more than twelve at a time ; some of these were young and pretty, but no less timid in their behaviour, than unhappy in their looks. He told me it was a difficult task to keep his wives, cheerful ; they were modest and graceful ladies, and they expressed their surprise that a foreigner was after all a very harmless sort of animal. They were usually engaged in embroidery, and their needlework displayed both beauty of design and skill. I thought it a pity to see them smoking cigarettes, or chewing betel-nuts, the teeth blackened with the incrustation, and their mouths disfigured with blood-red juice ; they had also perforce a nasty habit "of spitting into golden 92 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. vases which their slaves held up dutifully for the pur pose. As for the children, they seemed to be born with a cigarette in their mouths. I have actually seen a child leave its mother's breast to have a smoke. This buree or cigarette is made of native tobacco, rolled up in a strip of dried plantain leaf, and cut even at the two ends. These cigarettes may be bought in SIAMESE LADY. bundles of one hundred for a few cents, and are really very good smoking. But to the palace. In front of the entrance gates we found a guard of soldiers drawn up, who presented arms to the Prince as he passed through. Soon we reached an inner court, and there fell in with a group of nobles, who crouched upon the pavement before our royal guide, and seemed, many of them, as if vainly anxious to render their portly figures THE LATE FIRST KING OF SIAM. 93 invisible to a personage of such exalted rank. After a pleasant refreshment of fruit, cake, and wine, we were informed that his majesty was engaged in his morning devotions, and that during his absence we could amuse ourselves by examining the objects of interest in the audience hall. This palace has been constructed partially in a foreign style. A flight of broad marble steps conducts us within the audience hall, and facing us, as we enter, is the throne of state, ablaze with gold and jewels, and erected in the centre of the back wall of the apartment. The furniture in the room made up a miscellaneous collection of Chinese, Siamese, and European wares ; the pillars were covered with polished brass to the height of four feet above their bases. At one end of the hall were life-sized portraits of Napoleon III. and the Empress of the French, while a well-executed picture of the late Siamese King adorned the opposite side of the apart ment. A shrill blast of horns heralded the approach of the King, and caused us hastily to descend into the court. His majesty entered through a massive gate way, and I must confess that I felt much impressed by his appearance, as I had never been in the presence of an anointed sovereign before. He stood about five feet eight inches, and his figure was erect and com manding ; but an expression of severe gravity was settled on his somewhat haggard face. His dress was a robe of spotless white, which reached right down to his feet ; his head was bare. I was admiring the simplicity and purity of this attire, when his majesty beckoned to me to approach him, and informed me that he wished to have his portrait taken as he knelt in an attitude of prayer. I accordingly adjusted my 94 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. instrument, but not without a feeling of some surprise, for I had thought, incorrectly, as I afterwards dis covered, that a Buddhist had no need of prayer. All was prepared beneath a .space in the court, which had been canopied and carpeted for this special purpose ; when, just as I was about to take the photograph, his majesty changed his mind, and without a word to any one passed suddenly out of sight. I thought this a strange proceeding, and fancied I must have given him some offence ; but it was possibly only one of his practical jokes. I appealed to the Prince; but his reply was simply that ' the King does everything which is right, and if I were to accost him now he might conclude his morning's work by cutting off my head.' As that would have been a result distasteful to his royal highness, we patiently waited, and at length the King reappeared, dressed this time in a sort of French Field Marshal's uniform. There was no cotton stuff visible about his person now, not even stockings. The portrait was a great success, and his majesty afterwards sat in his court robes, requesting me to place him where and how I pleased. I con sulted the Prince, who said — ' Yes, place him, but do not for the life of you lay hands on him, more especi ally on his thrice sacred head.' Here was a difficultty. How to pose an Oriental potentate who has ideas of his own as to propriety irt attitude, and that, too, without touching a fold of his garments ? I told the King, in plain English, what I wanted to do, and he said, ' Mr. Town-shun, do what you require for the excellency of your photograph.1' He enquired my nationality. I told him I was born in Edinburgh. ' Ah ! you are Scotchman, and speak THE TONSURE FESTIVAL. 95 English I can understand ; there are Englishmen here who have not understanding of their own language when I speak.' When all had been finished, his majesty thanked me and retired, and then the Krum-mun-alongkot invited me to join him at a table spread with Siamese and foreign delicacies. The nobles also, at his high- ness's invitation, added their presence to the repast By request of the King I afterwards attended the great Tonsure Festival, or So-Kan, as the Siamese call it, when the heir-apparent, Prince Chowfa Chul-along- korn, who has since come to the throne, was deprived of the top-knot of his boyhood for the first time — a solemn hair-cutting ceremony conducted with all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of a sacred Brahminical rite. The festival lasted six days, and was concluded on January 6, 1866. Within the grounds of the first King's palace, there is a large paved quadrangle surrounded by picturesque buildings of an architecture purely Siamese, and shaded, here and there, by the wide-spreading banyan and other umbrageous trees ; flowering shrubs adorn this enclosure, and in the centre there had been erected, by the King's command, an artificial hill known as Mount Khrai-lat, and bearing a tiny shrine upon its summit. In this shrine were deposited the sacred vessels, a throne for the reigning sovereign, and a font of holy water which the priests of Brahma had blessed As to the hill itself, it rested on a strong substructure of teak-wood, and was entirely made up, externally, of thin sheets of lead ; so fashioned a:> to re present a variety of rocks and fantastic cavern . .rith tanks for water hollowed here and there. The whole \va<\ 96 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. been artfully painted and patched with moss, while living trees and flowers were stuck about it. in a pro fusion that far outstripped nature in her most gorgeous tropical luxuriance. Perhaps the most important, certainly the most conspicuous feature, in the pageant was the procession which each afternoon escorted the young Prince thrice round the sacred Mount Khrai-lat. This procession was got up on a scale of great splendour. The chief members of the nobility marched in its ranks, arranged in costumes of an ancient type ; hundreds of the King's wives followed, glistening in silks of varied hues ; while female slaves dressed up to represent the women of various foreign nations brought up the rear of the phalanx. The imitations of English ladies were par ticularly ludicrous, for while the contrast between the graceful, modest native costumes and the huge crino line and chignon of the West, could not fail to strike every beholder, the awkward carriage and the faces stained a golden colour till they looked like harvest moons, gave a rendering of the pretty English originals, of which their country is so justly proud, rather less faithful than a stiff painted Dutch doll. The most at tractive element in the whole procession was a white- robed band of children, the daughters of the nobility, who bore peacocks' feathers, or other emblems, in front of the young Prince's palanquin. Three of the ladies were dressed in cloth of gold jewelled with a dazzling array of precious stones, and dancing in front of the throne. Among other photographs which I took on the spot, one represents his majesty as he receives his son and places him on his right hand, amid the simultaneous adoration of the prostrate host. Mrs. SACRED BRAHMINICAL NUMBERS. 97 Leonowens, who ought to have known better, has made use of this photograph in a work on Siam which recently appeared under her name, and described it wrongly as ' Receiving a Princess.' After this ceremony two ladies, here in waiting, conduct the Prince down the marble steps of the Pavilion, and two pretty young damsels are in readiness below to 'bathe his feet in a silver urn.' Thence he betakes himself to a temple hard by, where the top-knot is solemnly removed. The next business is to dedicate the sacred hill, by a sort of baptism of fire, the priests carrying lighted tapers thrice round its base on three successive nights. The entire ceremony is long and tedious ; but I think the most interesting feature was the purificatory ablution, which the Prince performed in a tank at the foot of Mount Khrai-lat. I believe, however, that I was the only European who witnessed this important part of the Brahminical cere mony. It is curious to remark, throughout these ancient Oriental rites, the importance attached to the sacred numbers three and nine. Thus we find that the circle of fire which is carried round the Mount is completed three times each day for three days in suc cession, in all making up nine circles of fire. The same mystic reverence for certain numbers may be observed in parts of the Chinese Alar as well as in the ceremonial at the Temple of Heaven, in Peking. There we have a triple terrace and triple roofs, while nines, or multiples of nine, may be counted in the steps and balustrades, and even in every circle of stones with which the terraces and top are paved. In Cambodia, also, we find a kindred symbolism in the three chief approaches on the outer cruciform pavement of Nakon-Wat, in the three gate- H 98 INDO CHINA AND CHINA. ways on each side, in the three terraces leading to the central tower, and in the three ornaments which crown the brows of the Teveda (angels) sculptured on its walls. Many of the great stone images of Cambodia are still called ' Phrom ' or Brahma by the natives, and there can be little doubt that the three galleries of this temple were designed for the use of the priests in carrying out Brahminical ceremonials, after the pattern of the Sokan and other Siamese festivals. I shall per haps have more to say on this point when we reach the succeeding chapter. After I returned from Cambodia I witnessed the actual ceremony of cutting the top-knots of five of the second King's sons. The first King having sent for me, I had accompanied the Prince Krum-mun- alongkot, to await his majesty in an outer court in the palace of the second King. There, at length, I fell into the procession of soldiers, priests, and Tevedas or angels, marching to the temple in which the ceremony was to be performed. In the front court of this temple we were detained for about half an hour, and then his majesty came out, walked up to me, and gave me his hand. He enquired kindly about our journey, said he was glad to know that we had got safely back, but could not forbear wondering why two rational Englishmen should undergo so long a journey, at the risk of being either devoured by wild animals, or carried off by jungle fever, only to see some stone buildings very much out of repair, and this more especially as he placed no restriction upon our looking at his own magnificent Wats in Bangkok. I presented his majesty with a set of my photographs of the Cambodian antiquities, with which he seemed AN INTERVIEW WITH THE KING. 99 very much astonished. ' What can I do for you, Mr, Tomo-shun ?' said he. ' I will give you, if you wish, a free passage to Singapore.' Perhaps he took me for a ' yak ' or evil spirit, and wanted me well out of his dominions. At any rate he may have honestly thought that anyone who would take the trouble to go so far to -examine dilapidated specimens of ancient masonry had better be looked upon as insane, and treated as a dangerous character. This conversation ended, the King led me by the hand to the door of the Wat, and there described to me the hair-cutting ceremony. I was startled by the unexpected beauty of the scene within. The walls were frescoed with cartoons, their bright colours softened by the dim religious light ; while at the inner extremity was a pyramid decked with flowers, and surmounted by a gilt image of Samana Khodom. The floor was of marble, and there was a low altar in the centre, on which a number of slender tapers burnt. The five royal chil dren sat to the left of this altar, robed in white, and having nobles of high rank on their right hand. Arranged in circles around the central group were others of the King's children, many of them of rare beauty, and all perfectly motionless and silent. At length, and as if prompted by the monotonous strains of music that broke on the ear, the most venerable noble took a lighted taper from the altar, and delivered it to the outer circle of priests, who, in their turn, passed it on from hand to hand, until the fire had com pleted the circuit. This was repeated three times, and thus the objects of the ceremonial were consecrated by what the King told me was an ancient Brahminical ceremony, and which we have seen above as the rite H 2 ioo INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. most prominent in the dedication of Mount. Khrai-lat. His majesty then asked me if I thought that the ancient temples of Cambodia belonged to Siam. I said I supposed they did, and he promised to give me some information on that subject before I quitted his dominions. Faithful to his word, the King afterwards paid my passage to Singapore, and presented me, in addition, with two golden mangoosteens and a cigar-case elaborately inlaid with gold. He also sent me a letter in English, from which I take the following extract : ' I beg to take from you a promise that you should state everywhere verbally, or in books, and newspapers, public papers, that those provinces Battabong and Onger, or Nogor Siam, belonged to Siam continually for eighty-four years ago, not interrupted by Cambq- dian princes or Cochin China. The fortifications of those places were constructed by Siamese Government thirty-three years ago. The Cambodian rulers cannot claim in these provinces, as they have ceded to Siamese authority eighty-four years ago.' Space will not admit an exhaustive account of my travels and experiences in Siam. I must leave out much that might interest the reader, and as briefly as possible conclude this part of my subject, before I pro ceed to Cambodia. The physical characteristics of the Siamese have been frequently described ; I need only say, therefore, that they resemble the Chinese more closely than is the case with the Malays, and on the other hand there is something so purely Indian in their appearance as to forbid our classing them with the Mongolian or Tartar races. They are indeed Indo-Chinese, and their institutions, political or re ligious, their manners and their customs, partake of THE MAGISTERIAL MARKET. 101 the same mixed character. The state ceremonials are of ancient Brahminical origin, while in their mode of governing, and in their code of laws, they have borrowed much from China in former days. As in the Celestial Empire, many of the magistrates of Siam receive but a nominal salary (or practically, no salary at all), and they undisguisedly make up for the lack of revenues by a not unrecognised system of corruption, a handsome bribe being found to be a powerful witness in favour of a client in the court where his case is tried. Polygamy, too, flourishes among the Siamese with greater vigour even than in the Flowery Land. Opium is a luxury in both countries, and gambling among each nation is a ruling vice. I remember visiting a magistrate's court in Bangkok, where a case of some importance was under investigation, and I noticed the same agencies at work there as in China, only that in the latter country the system of corruption is managed, by subordinates appointed for the purpose, with a degree of subtle polish and refinement, which almost persuades the grave and sober judge himself to believe in his own absolute integrity, though he knows full well that a little gold dropped mysteri ously into the scales will make the balance of justice kick the beam on one side or the other. But it was not so in Siam. There, in an open court, we found the fat judge, a single silken cloth around his loins — his only judicial robe — seated at a small window, with one flabby leg hanging over in the sunshine ; a slave girl fanning him, his mouth filled with betel-nut, and thus snorting out his enquiries from time to time. The prisoners were shut up in a sort of cattle-pen in front, while their friends and supporters, laden with gifts of nos INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. fruits, cakes, or other produce, crawled' through the court in a continuous procession, and presented their; offerings for inspection as they passed the judge's chair. The latter — when some fat side of pork, or other similar delicacy, won his special approvals-would squirt out a mouthful of saliva, grunting and pointing with his nose or chin to some ever-watchful slave, who thus understood that the tit- bit referred to was to be re tained for his master's table. The train of tribute- bearers thus passed on through a gateway into the magistrate's house, and thence to deposit their burdens upon the stalls of a small market kept by the family of this impartial ornament of the judicial bench. With these influences at work, we may be sure that a prisoner, if his friends were numerous and liberal, had little or nothing to fear. But, in justice to the govern ment and the late King, I must add, grave offenders were not allowed to escape unpunished. I shall never forget the scene I witnessed inside a Bankok prison. The public executioner lived close by, so we paid him a visit before we entered the jail. He was a hideous- looking fellow, but proudly conscious of his brawny chest and sinewy arm, that with one fell swoop of the sword had closed many a luckless criminal's career. He readily produced his fatal weapon, bright with recent polishing, passed his fingers lightly, nay, almost lovingly along its sharp-edged blade, grinned, and disappeared. I meanwhile watched his retreating figure, and then took a long breath. I thought' the fellow eyed me professionally ; he certainly looked at my neck, which was thicker than the average of those with which he had commonly to deal. In one part of the prison grounds men heavily ironed, and covered, A BANGKOK PRISON. 103 one or two of them, with old sores, were making bricks in a mud pool. Some had been in chains for years, and their condition reminded me of pictures of the Buddhist hells which I had seen on the walls of their temples. The air was filled with the wails of distress and the clank of fetters. Seated on a bench there was a condemned woman, who had been implicated in a murder. She seemed to be treated with mercy, and even indulgence, as she wore no chains but those which bound her to a pretty little child that lay smiling and crowing in her lap, and struggling to bring back the sunshine to its mother's worn and haggard brow. It was afterwards reported that she had been reprieved, partly for the sake of the child ; and I can readily believe the rumour, as the King had a passionate affection for his own children, and devout Buddhist potentates deem it a merit rather to save life than to take it away. The Siamese are great gamblers.; they amuse themselves also with cock-fighting and betting, not perhaps so unrestrainedly as the Malays, for the Buddhist laws forbid the wanton destruction of life ; but they sink at times to depths much lower than this, and I have been present in a gambling-house in Bangkok and seen an unfortunate player gamble his family one by one into slavery. A great variety of games of chance are known in Siam, for the most part imported from China. Among them are dice, cards, and dominoes. Sometimes we meet men playing the simple game of odd or even ; at other seasons they will bet upon the number of pips in an unopened durian or other kind of fruit ; and there is, besides these amuse ments, the ever-recurring lottery, an institution purely Chinese. In Bangkok at least two-thirds of the native 104 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. population pass their lives in their boats, or else in houses which float on the surface of the river. These floating houses are built upon platforms of bamboo, for the hard durable stems of this useful plant grow to great dimensions in that country, and offer special advantages in the construction of a raft. Thus the long hollow stem is divided naturally into a certain number of water-tight compartments, separated from each other by solid diaphragms of wood. The bamboo, too, will remain for a great length of time under water without deteriorating; and even should the stem by chance spring a leak in any one of its compartments, this still will not affect the buoyancy of the rest. It may have been from that fact alone that the Chinese derived the idea of building their boats in water-tight compartments. The bamboos of the foundation or raft are piled up one above the other, in longitudinal and transverse layers ; these are then lashed together with ratan, and when sufficient buoy ancy has been obtained to float the dwelling above, the platform is launched and moored in the stream. The raft, when moored, is fastened at each of the four corners to a strong pile which has been driven into the river bed for that purpose. The fastening consists of a loop of stout ratan rope, which will move or 'travel' freely up and down the pile, and thus the abode will rise or sink with the ebb and flow of the tide. When the raft has been got into position, the house is then erected above its surface, and may be constructed of teak-wood or bamboo, according to the taste or means of its proprietor. Not uncommonly the eaves, the windows, the panels, and the balustrading, are carved and varnished ; often they are painted and FLOATING HOUSES. 105 gilt, so that they form highly picturesque objects on the water. As to the interior apartments, these are so comfortable and well arranged as to furnish a cool and suitable dwelling even to the most fastidious tastes. From a sanitary point of view these ' river dwellings ' offer many advantages. Thus they do away with the need of a borough engineer, and the complicated systems of subterranean drainage which burden the rate-payers in Europe. The Siamese, too, are much addicted to bathing, and like to have their water close at hand. These floating houses are gene rally moored close together in compact lines, and are difficult to deal with in case of fire — a calamity happily of rare occurrence. Not many years ago one of the houses in a long row having caught fire, the neigh bours immediately cut it adrift, and let it go blazing down the stream. It was not long before it fouled a barque at her anchorage, and the latter was soon in flames and burnt to the water's edge. Floating houses are rather in the way of unskilful pilots, es pecially at points where the river narrows, and. if the current is strong. I remember once lifting a part of the roof off one of these abodes with the bowsprit of a steamer. Two merchants, an engineer, and myself, having had a steam launch placed at our disposal, determined to visit the ancient capital of Ayuthia. We armed ourselves with a chart of the river, and took turn about at the helm, leaving the engines to the charge of our professional friend. Things went on pretty smoothly during the first day, until at night we reached a district where the country was flooded, and it was difficult to keep to the main channel of the stream. About eight o'clock, 106 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. when, of course, it was already dark, I found we were steering bow on for a green mount, which loomed up in the distance. By reversing the engines and altering the course we just cleared the obstacle, but having rounded and taken bearings, we discovered to our dis may that we were in the centre of a paddy (rice) field. Here we halted till daylight, and, enabled to regain the bed of the channel, soon after arrived in safety at our destination. Having examined the Kraal and the Sala or ' Grand Stand,' whither the King repairs pe riodically to see the wild elephants driven in, and the most promising specimens secured, we took our way to the Royal Elephant Stables, where about a dozen of these huge animals are usually to be seen. Near to the river a splendid buffalo cow was feed ing tethered to a stake, and with a calf at her heels ; she looked up fixedly and steadily at the white faces of our party ; so steadily, that I determined to photo graph her. But the sight of the camera, and the mysterious dark tent, disgusted the brute more than ever, and she began to assume a disagreeably threat ening look. ' Now,' I said, ' let one of you open out your umbrella suddenly, just as I am about to photo graph, and we shall have an attitude of surpassing grandeur.' One of my friends, therefore, cautiously approached her and fired off his umbrella. This was too much for the buffalo, and, with a wild toss of her head, she broke the rope, and I just got a glimpse of her in full career, as she charged in the direction of her aggressors. The next moment I found that the owner of the umbrella had tumbled into an elephant midden, and though in a disagreeable position, was safe from harm. As for my China boy, PHOTOGRAPHING A BUFFALO. 107 he had consigned himself to the river, and only con sented to crawl out of his place of refuge on being in formed that a huge alligator was at his heels. We started for home shortly after, and came down beauti fully with the flood, but the steering required constant attention ; and, finally, at a most unfortunate conjunc ture, when we were just entering the city of Bangkok, we lost all command of the helm ; the steamer would not steer ; first she stuck her nose into the reeds on the bank, then she turned round with the flood, came out again into mid-channel, and at last crossed to the opposite shore, and carried the roof away from the floating house aforesaid. When we had leisure to look for the cause of this strange behaviour, we found that the steering-chain had got displaced. Things were put to rights at last, and we reached the jetty without further disaster. Siam has greatly changed since the time of my visit to that country. The first and second Kings have both been gathered to their fathers, and their sons now reign in their stead. Antiquated laws and objectionable customs have passed out of date, and a liberal policy is being steadily pursued. Slavery has been abolished, and the custom of crouching in the presence of a superior has been discontinued by the express order of the Sovereign. His majesty lately visited Singapore and Calcutta, and the experiences which he gained there seem to have been taken to heart. The education which this young King received from the English-Governess, Mrs. Leonowens, at his father's court, must have had its effect in forming his character, while constant intercourse with foreigners, together with his own manly ambition to make the most 108 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. of his inheritance, have all contributed to render his career an exceptional one in the history of his country. One might almost suppose that he has in his veins some of the blood of those ancient Cambodian rulers who built their marvellous cities and temples, who con quered and subdued the surrounding countries, and founded for themselves a mighty empire, of which no traces save their stone monuments remain. The in fluence of a newspaper, published partly in English and partly in the vernacular, must not be overlooked when we take account of the progress of Siam. The late Dr. Bradley kept this newspaper, the ' Bangkok Recorder,' afloat for many years, some times under difficulties which would have effectually swamped the undertaking in the hands of anyone less devoted and zealous than he. I had the pleasure of joining the venerable doctor in a trip to Petchiburee, a southern province of Siam. At the start we passed first through the Bangkok-yai canal of ' Great Bangkok,' and then turning to the left we travelled along the Klong-Bang-luang, or ' Creek of the King's Hamlet.' The people on the banks of these creeks dwelt either in floating houses or in cottages built on piles, so that they overhung the stream. And thus, from the window of our boat, we enjoyed a series of views of humble city life. Yonder we could see a Siamese shopkeeper lazily smoking his cigarette, while his wives assorted and sold his wares, or else tended a troop of naked children that never seem to tumble into the water, although they are reared and dwell within a foot of it all their days. Women were to be observed on the verandahs of nearly every house, loll ing about, nursing children, smoking, or asleep. Few BANGKOK CANALS. 109 of them could pretend to any beauty, but all for the most part were as lightly clad as Siamese decency would permit; for, with the exception of a silken langouti wrapped round the loins, tucked up between the legs, and fastened in the waist behind, they sought for no other adornment than their own bright olive skins ; and yet these women are both modest and chaste. In other verandahs were groups displaying their fair proportions, and indulging their passion for gambling. At length we came upon the pretty floating harem of a noble. The cut represents two of his Lakon, or dancing-girls, wearing the masks and costumes in which they appear on festive occasions. The facade of this house was elaborately carved, painted, and varnished ; an ornamental wood rail swept round the broad platform in front, and we could there see a number of female slaves and concu bines crouching before their master, who had but just arrived, and was listening to the musicians on his barge. The leader of these native musicians was performing a jubilant Siamese air on the ' whong kong,' a circle of musical bells, supported by the ' cluae ' (flageolet), and the Laos reed organ, on which the per formers kept up a running accompaniment, inter mingled with the woody tones of the bamboo har- monican or ' Ranat' The combined effects of these instruments, when softened by distance, was very pleasing at times. But there appears to be nothing of a soul-stirring nature in the Siamese music ; it is too vague. One hears a few notes, and fancies them the prelude to some sweet soothing measure. The illusion lasts but for a moment ; the effect is cut short by a tumult of sounds, and the sweet fragment of melody flies off the instruments like a nightingale startled by no INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. the howling of a menagerie let loose. We passed a number of rice-mills on the banks of the creeks, where enslaved debtors were working out their redemption. A number of these unfortunates had dragged their chains down to the water's edge, and laughed and joked as they bathed, as if they were the happiest of mortals. It requires a careful study of the tidal influences upon the network of creeks of this region to make a quick trip to Petchiburee. Thus we quitted Bangkok THE SIAMESE TWINS. m about an hour before the tide had ceased to flow, and carried it with us as far as Banban, from which place the ebb of the current swept us twenty-five miles on ward down the Tacheen river and to the mouth of the Ma Klong. At Ma Klong village we had to wait twelve hours. This was the birthplace of the Siamese twihs, but the people there seemed to have forgotten their existence. At the local temples we found a " lusus naturae " in the shape of a biped pig, which was fed and tended by the priests. Besides the pig, there were two pitiable idiots at large in the temple grounds, and a herd of starving pariah dogs. It is contrary to the Buddhist creed to take away life ; hence many of their temples become places of refuge for troops of famished dogs, who remain there till they die. For though the priests give them what food they can spare, there is never enough for them all. These dogs, then, are usually animated skeletons, their skins destitute of hair, and covered with many sores. I tossed them a little food ; it gave rise to the most savage fight I ever witnessed. One or two wretched curs limped away from the strife torn and lacerated, probably to lay down and die. This canine community — fierce, hungry, and diseased — must surely be one of those many Buddhist hells where sinners expiate their crimes. The animals are deemed to be animated by the spirits of the departed, and are undergoing a lifetime of torture. The priests, if they are good men, look on at their misery with pious complacency, and probably take the lesson to heart, lest they too in the next stage of their existence should be condemned to howl for offal or garbage to satisfy the hungry fangs and sore- eaten frame of starving pariah dogs. The male idiot ii2 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. whom we encountered here was constantly beating his head and muttering, ' The trouble is here — is here ; beat a little more and it will be out' He had been beating thus for years, until the palm of his hand and a patch on his forehead had become as hard as horn. The female manifested what to the Siamese mind seemed a very aggravated sort of madness ; she was simply striving, with the few rags which did not cover her, to hide her nakedness from the public gaze. Not long after we left Ma Klong we noticed a certain conical hill, which appeared to be taking a morning walk round and round our position — an extraordinary fact in geology, only to be accounted for by the wind ings of the stream. Petchiburee is one of the finest and most productive provinces in Siam. The chief town, unlike Bangkok, was mainly built on land, and in some parts bore quite an English look. Thus, there were rows of well-built brick cottages, and a stone bridge across the river, broad enough and strong enough to sustain the traffic even of a metropolitan thoroughfare. The builder of this new town was a very clever young noble, who had visited England with the Siamese embassy, and who, at the time of my visit, was the deputy-governor of Petchiburee. It was he, too, who designed and erected the king's new summer palace, after the model of Windsor, on the top of an igneous mountain which rises boldly above the plains about two miles beyond the town. To build this palace was no easy task, for the road to the summit of the hill, and the foundations for the edifice itself, had all to be cut out of porous volcanic rock, nearly as hard as flint. A line of rail was laid along the plain for the transport of stone and PETCHIBUREE PALACE. 113 timber to the mount, and an iron aqueduct had also been constructed to supply the palace from the river. At the palace end of the aqueduct a bath has been constructed for the special use of the King, the water flowing into it from the mouth of a serpent. There is also a sala or grand stand, whence his majesty may witness wrestling-matches, foot- and cattle-races, or the other out-door amusements of the country. From the palace on ' Khow Phra Nakon Kiree ' we obtained an unbroken view for at least twenty miles across a plain as level as a billiard-board, and presenting an almost continuous expanse of pale green fields of rice. These fields are banked off into squares for the purpose of irrigation, and fringed in many places by tall Palmyra palms. As for the rice-plants, they were partially covered with the still pools of water that lay between the rectangular ridges which divided field from field. Far away on the verge of the horizon we could descry a dense forest of dark sugar-palms, and about two miles to the north of us stood Khow Sang, a volcanic hill, hollowed with magnificent grottoes, which the natives at great cost had converted into Buddhist shrines. The avenue leading to the principal grotto is shaded by kamboga-trees, whose many flowers shed a de lightful fragrance, and are employed by the devout as offerings, which they reverently deposit on the palms of Buddha's hands. At the mouth of this grotto stand natural pillars 30 feet in height, and we found the dimensions of the great cave to be 180 feet east and west, and 140 feet north and south. The floor has been paved, and the whole interior adapted to the purposes of a magnificent temple, the light being admitted through an old volcanic vent in 114 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. the apex of the roof above. From the ceiling depended- a number of huge pure white stalactites, while the crevices and cells in the rock were filled with images and votive offerings. Part of the area is occupied by large golden statues of Buddha. I descended, against the advice of the local priests, into a rent which dipped down through the rock, but I had to return quickly, half suffocated by strong sulphurous fumes. In the vicinity of Petchiburee are a number of pretty Laos villages, the abiding places of four or five thousand captives who have been planted there in former times. The Laos bondsmen are permitted to grow their rice on crown lands free of impost, but are taxed immoderately in other ways. Thus, at times they are compelled to give six months unpaid labour to the government. It was the Laos slaves of Petchi buree who built the palace for the King, and they had to find their own maintenance during the whole of that employment. But they are a frugal and industrious folk, simple and honest in their ways ; and although this burden must have pressed heavily upon them at the time, they soon recovered from its effects. The building is so well put together as almost to make one imagine that these Laos slaves have inherited some thing of the skill of the ancient Cambodian craftsmen. There can be, I think, little doubt that they are in - many respects a superior race to the Siamese ; they are taller and handsomer. They weave fine cloth, and wear more of it to cover them, as only the feet are left bare. They are more painstaking and successful cultivators of the soil ; their musical instruments are ingeniously constructed, and their native airs are full of tenderness and pathos. I never spent a more A LAOS VILLAGE. 115 pleasant day than when paying a visit to one of the Laos villages. One always feels a certain degree of sympathy with captives in a strange land. Mr. McFarlane and myself set out on horseback. The Prapalat had kindly furnished us with royal steeds. I had also six men bearing my photographic instruments. The road was in parts flooded, but every available foot ©f ground around was taken up with rice. On either side were thick hedges of the sweet-smelling gum-arabic tree, or of the ' Mai Phi ' or wood-bamboo, a plant studded with formidable prickles, and which forms, owing to its great strength, an impenetrable barrier. The bridges over the creeks were formed by single bamboo stems, so rather than risk our limbs upon them we made the best of our way through the water, and at length reached the Laos village, where I was favourably impressed with the fine appearance of the people. The men were larger and more muscular than the Siamese, while the poorest among them were completely clothed in dark blue cotton, closely resembling the dress worn by the labourers in some parts of China, and made up of a loose jacket, and trousers falling to two or three inches below the knees. The women, some of them, were of fair complexion and exceedingly pretty, having their long dark tresses coiled up so as to form an ample and picturesque covering for the head. Their costume consisted either of an embroidered jacket or long strips of cloth covering the bust, and a petticoat of striped red, yellow, and blue (primary Colours), manu factured by themselves, and peculiar to the Laotian tribes. it6 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. The houses of the village were raised five or six feet above the ground on strong posts, and built of wood and bamboo; the roofs were tent-shaped, and thatched with long dried grass. With the exception of a few articles of Chinese manufacture, everything about the village, and for domestic use, was of native make. Viewed from a distance, the settlement, hidden among palms and fruit-trees, rose from the wide ex panse of level plain like a green island in the sea. Everywhere around, the fields were cultivated with rice ; and the same evidence of ceaseless industry was. carried to the very threshold of the dwellings, where each household had its well-tilled kitchen garden, and plot of tobacco, and cotton. The latter they dye with native vegetable and mineral substances, and weave on their own looms into fabrics for family use. There were huge bamboo baskets for holding produce, and small Baskets of straw, utensils made of varnished wood, harrows, ploughs, and various other implements used in husbandry. The Laos of Petchi buree and their surroundings bore a stronger resem blance to the Pepohoan of Formosa than to any other race I have encountered during my travels. The Laotian is the higher type of the two, as the Pepohoan is solely occupied in cultivating the soil. The villages of both races are characterised by the same peaceful surroundings, while the inhabitants of these primitive settlements are remarkable for their simple honesty, and for the absence of crime among them. In the Formosa Pepohoan villages I do not remember ever having seen either a prison or a pauper. The rapid inroads which the Chinese are making on that beautiful island will soon furnish both, CHARACTER OF THE VILLAGES. 117 as their trade and ancient civilisation will disturb the social equality which only recognises the rank conferred by grey hairs and wisdom. Craft and duplicity will ere long invade their humble abodes that nestle in fertile valleys, watered by clear mountain springs, and shaded by primeval forests. INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. CHAPTER V. An Expedition to Cambodia— Bang Phra-kong Creek— Prairie on fire— A Foreign Sailor — Wild River Scenery— Aquatic Birds — Kabin— Kut's Story to the Chief — A Storm in the Forest — The Cambodian Ruins — Their Magnitude — Siamrap — Nakhon Wat — Its Symbolism — The Bas- reliefs and Inscriptions — The Hydra-headed Snake — The Ancient Capital, Penompinh — The King of Cambodia — Dinner at the Palace— The whole Hog — Overland to Kamput — Pirates — Mahomet's Story — The Fossil Ship — The Voyage up the Gulf of Siam. I had already been in Siam several months before I could carry out the project which had originally taken me to that country. My plan was to cross overland into Cambodia, and there photograph the ruined temples and examine the antiquities which have been left behind by the monarchs of a once powerful empire. Mr. H. G. Kennedy, of H.B.M's consular service, consented to accompany me on this expedition, and we got away together on January 27, 1866. We had first intended to sail down the Gulf of Siam to Chantaboon, and thence to cross over the forest-clad mountains of that province to Battabong. But the Siamese Government declined to grant a passport for that route, which they reported as dangerous and impracticable. We were therefore reduced to the necessity of making a tedious, and, so far as health was concerned, more dangerous journey by the creeks and rivers, and across the hot plains and marshes of the south-eastern provinces of the interior. SANSEP. 119 We started in a long boat manned by eight stalwart Siamese, with Mohammed Ali, a Malay, a Siamese named Kut, and two Chinese men-servants, Ahong and Akum. Our way lay along the Klong Sansep, a creek cut some fifty years ago, and which penetrates from the left bank of the river Menam nearly due east, till it emerges, after a course of fifty miles, in the river Bang Phra-kong. This creek, at Wat ' Tarn Phra,' about ten miles from Bangkok, was only three or four feet in depth, and its banks were choked in many places with high prairie grass, through which we had to force a passage. It was harvest time, and the vast plains of Sansep district were covered with a golden crop of rice. Here and there we could descry groups of reapers among the grain, or isolated slaves stationed as scarecrows about the fields. At Wat Sansep, a small temple where we halted for dinner, the festivities of our evening meal were enhanced by the howling accompaniment of some dozen famished pariahs. The kindly curs barked for our entertain ment with a skill and assiduity that did them infinite credit, willingly repeating the choice passages at the barest hint for an encore. Jolly dogs these ; and yet, as I have already stated, the canine tribes who flee from worldly sorrows to consecrate their voices to the ex clusive service of the Buddhist faith, are generally miserable skeletons, veritable ascetics indeed ; and it is difficult to make out why so many dogs, endowed as they are with singular sagacity, should drift into these temples, unless indeed they love the seclusion and liberty of these monastic retreats, where they may die of starvation, or, maddened by hunger, devour each other. Here we fell in with an American sailor. Ali 120 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. was the first to see him. He said 'Ah! Orang puti de blakang poko, ada ' (' There is a white man behind the trees '). He had deserted from his ship for the purpose, he said; of going to Saigon hospital overland, to have a broken arm reset. For several days he had been wander ing about the country, meeting with some kindness from the natives, but suffering fearfully from the bites of moschettos and other insects. When we met him he was literally one mass of sores, and his broken arm was much swollen and inflamed. After doing what we could to relieve his immediate wants, Mr. Kennedy called upon the nearest native official, who promised that the fugitive should be sent back to Bangkok. It appeared that some judicious friend had advised him to walk over to Saigon, some four hundred miles away, without food, without a passport, and without a cent in his purse. We spent our first night in the creek, to the joy of the moschettos, which attacked us in myriads, and effectually banished repose. We tried to sleep at a Wat (temple), but it was no good ; and then the boatmen, who were nearly as badly off themselves, volunteered to pull all night, in order to get clear of the marshy haunts where these vile insects abound, and to reap the benefit of a little breeze by keeping the boat con stantly in motion. All night long the buzzing of our invisible foes sounded like the discordant notes of an orchestra as it sets its stringed instruments in tune. Moschetto-nets were useless, and wrapping one's head in a blanket only drove them to sing on, and sting on, until they dropped off bloated and intoxicated with. blood. Next morning our hands and faces were BANG PHRA-KONG RIVER. 121 •swollen, painful, and distorted ; but we had now reached a wider part of the creek, and were free from further persecution. The plain hereabouts was covered with grass which stood ten feet high. Some of this had caught fire, and was blazing with great fury when we passed. The flames were swept before the wind, roaring, crackling, and sending up a dense column of smoke in their wake, followed by vultures ready to pounce down upon the hapless victims of the devour ing fire. We landed, and had some sport ; but it was arduous, unprofitable work. Ali fell into a mud pool up to the neck, while my friend and I had to wade through marshes covered with water, and were obliged to undress and pick the leeches off our bodies when we returned to our boat. But it was quite by accident, and after some short interval of time, that we discovered the presence of the leeches. They fasten silently and without pain upon the flesh, where they at length produce a disagreeable itching sensation, which leads to their detection. The Kabin branch of the Bang Phra-kong river formed one of the most attractive parts of our route. No more romantically beautiful little stream is anywhere to be found in the world. When we passed into its placid waters, we seemed to have entered a region un known to man, and inhabited only by the lower orders ¦ of creation. Monkeys walked leisurely beside the banks, or followed us with merry chattering along the overhanging boughs, while tall wading birds with tufted heads, snow-white plumage, and rose-tipped wings, paused, in the business of peering for fish, to gaze with grave dignity upon the unfamiliar intruders. Some were so 'near that we could have struck them 122 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. down with our oars, but to avoid this outrage they marched with a calm stately stride into the thickets of the adjoining jungle. The first report of our rifles wrought a change in the scene. The forest rang with voices of alarm ; the monkeys gibbered and scrambled out of sight, the tall storks rose slowly upon their giant wings and soared away in their flight till they looked like a curved line of light against the blue face of the sky. We made an attempt to preserve the skins of a number of rare aquatic birds, including one or two varieties of the kingfisher, which are to be found in great abundance in this part of Siam. Unfortunately our arsenical soap, and the facilities for drying, were insufficient for the purpose. Coming suddenly upon a wide reach in the river, we found its surface whitened with a- fishing party of pelicans. Some, with pouches well stocked; lolled lazily along ; others skimmed the surface, ele vating their bills from time to time, and indicating by the glittering of their finny prey that the flock had chosen happy hunting-grounds, and were busily en grossed with their enterprise. Two fell victims to our rifles ; one of them escaped ; the other was of such colossal proportions that it took two men to haul him into the boat Our Chinaman, with the masterly assist ance of Kut, who had a keen appreciation of the deli cacies of the table, produced a savoury breakfast of soup and pelican-steak. Ahong was heard to remark just before falling asleep for a forenoon nap, ' Ah yah ! ' The fat of this king of birds is delicious. It recalls to my mind the pleasures of a pork dinner. Anyorte unac quainted with the lower orders of the Chinese can form but little notion of the bliss implied in the above brief PR AC HIM. 123 sentence. To be overcome by a full meal of pork, and to sleep off the effects of the repast, comes very near filling the cup of Chinese happiness to the brim. On the morning of the 30th the maximum tem perature in the shade was 91° Fahrenheit, but at 6 p.m. it had fallen to 68°, while strangely enough the water of the river showed a temperature of 850. We passed a place called Bang-Sang, where a royal palace had been erected for the reception of a sacred white ele phant, which died, it was reported, of a champagne dinner, on its progress to the capital. The untimely end of this brute was esteemed a national calamity, and was a cause of deep mourning to all devout Siamese Buddhists. On the same evening we passed a Chinese trading- boat, bound with a cargo of rosewood to Paknam. At Prachim we presented ourselves before the Prapalat or deputy-governor, and handed in our credentials. The old gentleman examined the King's letter with great reverence ; his chief clerk, meanwhile — a powerful- looking functionary, well up in years- — devoting his whole attention to a bottle of ' eau-de-vie,' which he would have finished on the spot, had it not been for the timely precautions of Ali. The river had cut a deep channel through this part of the country, and the exposed strata on the banks showed that the plain was made up of a series of thin argillaceous and sandy deposits, resting upon a sub stratum in which I noticed marine shells. During our journey across the country, I found constantly recur ring evidence that the plains of Siam had gradually emerged from the bed of ocean. The thin alternating upper strata were accounted for by the annual floods 124 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. which still inundate the land, depositing the alluvium upon which the rice crops depend. At a small Wat at Lan-yang-we, we noticed a venerable priest engaged in shaving his head and face without either mirror or soap, and wonderfully he managed it too. About a mile from Ban-hat-yai-kow we came upon a Laos settlement, where the women were weaving silk and cotton fabrics ; the latter of fine quality and long staple, and the former of the coarse yellow sort peculiar to Cambodia and the Laos States. They evidently took us for Yaks (wood spirits) or Teveda (angels), as they had never seen white men before. Angels of the Siamese mythology are quite different from anything we picture them. They are more like satyrs ; some have the tails of apes and claws of birds. On the 31st of the month we reached Paknam Kabin, or the port of Kabin, the only place which we had as yet encountered of any commercial pretensions. Here, as might be expected, we found the pioneers of trade in the shape of Chinamen from Bangkok. There is great competition among these sons of- Han, who carry on their transactions by barter, waylaying the elephant trains from Battabong and the far interior, and exchanging salt and Chinese and European wares for horns, hides, silk, dammar, oil, cardamums, and other products. At the town of Kabin there were no elephants to be had, so we were forced to content ourselves with ponies and buffalo-carts for the overland journey be fore us. Here it was that we gained our first experi ence of vexatious delay. We ourselves reached our A LATE BREAKFAST. 125 halting-place by 9 a.m., but we had then to await the arrival of our men and baggage, who turned up at last in the afternoon at about 4 o'clock, and discovered, when they arrived, that they had left the cooking- utensils in the boat, and we had not yet had break fast! Hiring a pony, I started at once for Paknam, which lay about six miles off. But the journey was an arduous one, as my steed had no saddle, and only a bit of cord- by way of bridle. The animal took its own way, and that, unfortunately for my clothes and skin, lay through the thickest of the prickly jungle. At last, just after dark, I met another of our carts, and returned with it to Kabin ; but there were still neither cooking-pots nor lamps. We, however, found a teapot and tin of salmon, and these supplies furnished us with breakfast, dinner, and supper, all in one. We called on the governor of Kabin, and presented him with a cadeau of European wares ; among other things, we gave him a micro-photograph in a small ivory telescope, and a bottle of perfume. Kut, whenever he made official visits, put on an old suit of his wife's uniform (she was an officer of the King's amazon guard). We after wards discovered also that he dealt largely in fiction, and had informed the Prapalat that the photograph (one of Her Majesty the Queen) had been sent specially as a mark of royal favour to this renowned chief ; and as to the perfume, it was the breath of a thousand beautiful English women put up in a bottle, and reserved exclusively to reward all governors who rule well and wisely. The Prapalat only remarked, ' he could never have supposed it, as the breath of his own women was -so very different' He smelt, and 126 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. wondered as he smelt, what manner of women those could be who breathed such sweet fragrance forth. He thought it strange, too, that our country should be ruled over by a woman ; and I have no doubt, from the questions he asked, the notion crossed his mind that we had come to Siam to pay tribute, and that we probably wanted the King to take our State under his protection. The people of his town, city, or village, were not remarkable for honesty. We slept in a sala, or open bamboo shed, erected on a clearing in the forest. This sala was raised about six feet above ground, and there were cracks between the boards which formed the flooring, large enough for us to insert our feet through if necessary, which was a very convenient arrangement. One morning early I was about to put on my nether garments, when I saw them depart mysteriously through one of these openings in the floor. This was ungenerous in the trousers, for 1 had been on friendly terms with them for some time previously. I have reason to suspect that some villain persuaded them to desert me — at least, a dark shadow flitted soon after across the clearing into the forest. Anyhow, my garment left me, and I never saw it more. As for the natives, they put an absurd story afloat that the trousers had been stolen, but they did not go the length of suggesting a human thief. They concurred in saying that it must have been a spirit or a tiger, and no doubt great weight ought to be at tached to their opinion. I set out again in a bullock-cart for Paknam, where I discharged the boatmen, while Kennedy made ar rangements for our overland journey. The boat's crew behaved well the whole way, and two or three of STARTING FOR CAMBODIA. 127 them, as we parted, carried me on their shoulders back to the cart. In the evening we enjoyed an entertainment at the governor's house, where a band of Laos musicians exhibited their skill, and a Laos girl sung a plaintive pleasing air to the accompaniment of a reed organ, and a soft-toned flute. About this time our two Chinamen, finding that pork was a rare luxury, their meals rather irregular, and their work rough, while the danger of being devoured by tigers was daily increasing as we pene trated further into the interior, thought that a little insubordination might not be wholly thrown away. By threats and coaxing, however, we calmed them for a time, and prevailed on them to proceed with us on our journey. At last, one evening, towards 5 o'clock, with two wretched buffalo-carts and a pair of ponies, we set out for Cambodia. I had also engaged two extra carriers specially for taking charge of my chronometer, sextant, and other instruments. Our way, at first, lay through a stunted forest ; b.ut it was not long before we reached a shrine on a small clearing, and halted for the night At 3 on the following morning we again set out, ourselves in advance, and our baggage-waggons fol lowing slowly in the rear. We had not proceeded far before the forest was wrapped in deep gloom, and a thunder-storm burst upon our party. The rain was still falling in a deluge, when one of the buffaloes took sudden fright and upset our cart, our Chinamen, and our stores. Alarmed at the crash and uproar, we rode quickly back, gathered our men and provisions out of the mud and water as well as the darkness would 128 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. permit, and then pushed on again till 8 o'clock.' By this time the rain had abated ; but Ahong dis covered, when we halted, that he had lost his box and all his cherished possessions. The box was recovered, but its contents had gone. Ahong and Akum next tried to make their escape, and at all hazards return to Bangkok ; but we intercepted them, and again per suaded them to carry out their agreement. We had little reason to complain of them afterwards, as to our surprise they faced the remaining difficulties of the journey with a pluck and manliness of which we had thought them destitute. Camping at night beneath forest-trees, or on the open arid plains ; halting at short intervals to repair our carts with the materials which the jungle afforded (for there was not a single nail in these vehicles), or to exchange them for others at the various settlements on the route ; we thus spent over a month in lumbering across the country, and, as may be imagined, had to endure some hardships from want of proper food, the bulk of our supplies having been lost or damaged in the storm when we quitted Kabin. . At ' Ban-Ong-ta Krong' I had a sharp attack of jungle fever, which left me so utterly prostrate that I had to hire a small bullock-cart to take me on. Kennedy, with regular doses of quinine and kind nursing, effected a rapid cure, but I could not take to my feet for some days. Had we succeeded in procuring elephants at Kabin, as we were led to expect, the whole journey might have been accomplished in half the time. It was our custom, when camping for the night, to make an enclosure with the carts, and branches of trees, placing the cattle inside, and keeping up a fire in A MIDNIGHT VISITOR. 129 the centre. Wild animals were sometimes seen near our halting-places, and I brought away the skin of a huge leopard, shot close to a sala where we slept. On one occasion I remember being roused, and Ali, who slept beneath my cart, cried out that there was a tiger prowling round. The night was dark, but I could make out a black object not many paces from where we lay. The cattle were active too, and snorted uneasily. I raised my revolver, and would have fired, had Ali not arrested my arm, and advised me not to risk a shot in the dark, as had I only wounded the brute we should have been certain of a furious attack. At the sound of human voices it speedily disappeared into the forest. From Mrs. Leonowens account of her expedition into Cambodia, I gather that she must have travelled along the same route as ourselves ; but I cannot make out, if that was the case, how her elephants could have ' pressed on heavily, but almost noiselessly, over a parti-coloured carpet of flowers. ' As to parti-coloured carpets, the convolvulus and other flowers, found in these regions, are of remarkably beautiful kinds, but it is on account of their extreme rarity that they are most highly prized. For my own part, I should have ex pected a longer and more detailed account of her journey from a lady who observes so accurately and de scribes so well. Can it be possible that it was she, after all, who aided in compiling M. Mouhot's posthumous narrative, where some of the passages which treat of the Cambodian ruins read like extracts from Mrs. Leonowen's own valuable work. For example, we find, on p. 305 of ' The English Governess at the Court of Siam ' :, — 130 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. ' The Wat stands like a petrified dream of some Michael Angelo [what is a petrified dream ?], more impressive in its loneliness, more elegant and animated in its grace, than aught Greece and Rome have left us.' In M. Mouhot's work, vol. i., p. 279, the same Wat is thus described : — ' One of these temples — a rival to that of Solomon, and erected by some ancient Michael Angelo — might take an honourable place beside our most beautiful buildings. It is grander than anything left to us by Greece or Rome,' &c. There is a slight difference between the two passages. In the one the Wat is simply pronounced the work of some great master; while in the other it resembles an animated, petrified dream, whatever that may be. But other ideas, on the pages quoted, will be found expressed in nearly identical words, furnishing an example of one of those strange coin cidences which so startle us occasionally in our experi ence of life. We regret, however, to discover this authoress, when she describes the Cambodian ruins, falling into a number of grave errors which might, some of them, have been avoided had she studied my photographs more carefully when she did me the honour of selecting them to illustrate her work. On the higher waters of the Sisuphon river we fell in with the first trace of ancient Cambodian civilisation in the shape of a ruined shrine, which had been built of exquisitely finished grey bricks, like blocks of freestone both in texture and appearance. The stream, at this point, was still faced with a strong stone retaining wall, and a broad flight of steps gave us access to a narrow path terminating in an elevated mound of earth, where RUINS ON 7 HE SISUPHON RIVER. 131 giant trees now grew. Buried beneath this overgrowth of jungle lay the foundations of an ancient edifice. I took the bearings of the mound with my azimuth ; and the men, when they saw me adjusting my instrument, concluded that I was after hidden treasure, and set to digging until they reached the wall, and unearthed some bricks. In the centre of the mound there was a thick brick wall built above arched vaults, while, beneath a rude shed hard by, we found the remains of two idols finely sculptured in stone. These idols were life size, and modelled in very accurate proportions. One, a male figure, had been decapitated ; and we found the head with its stony diadem still lying among the rubbish close at hand. The features wore a calm benignant look, reminding one of the Hindoo type. The second figure, a female, was in much better pre servation ; both the contour of its bust, and the expres sion of its face, showed traces of an accomplished sculptor's hand. The Chinese annals of the Sui dynasty tell us that the then Queen of Chinla 1 was married to a Hindoo, and that it was he who taught the people Deva worship. There were no inscriptions to be found among the ruins here ; but it is just possible that these images may have been the statues of that Queen and King who reigned about the be ginning of the seventh century, and to whom the his torians of China allude. Fragments of sculptured stone everywhere met the eye, and impressed us with the conviction that the ancient temple-building race of Cambodia had reached a high pitch of civilisation. There was nothing rude, unfinished, or elementary about the work. The simple 1 See Chinese Map. k 2 - 132 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. bricks of the wall had been carefully and honestly finished, and their plain even surfaces were so true that when placed in position and fixed together without mortar, they left only a delicate line to mark where the joins occurred. But one ought to be careful in asserting that square honest work, and good material betoken a high pitch of civilisation, lest in some future age it may be said of ourselves that our much-vaunted progress and nine teenth century civilisation were but empty shadows ; that our domestic architecture, at least, was designedly de ceptive and dishonest ; that our greatest ambition was to please the eye with spurious imitations of sculp tured marble and stone, to supply tinsel in place of gold, p'aint and veneer for the tough fibre of the solid oak. But what shall we say of the stone cities and sculp tured palaces which we were now approaching — monu ments of human labour with which even our greatest modern edifices can hardly be worthily compared ; of those cities where, as ancient travellers tell us,1 there were images of pure gold within the palaces, and look ing down from above the city gates.2 Another Chinese historian relates that the people of Bonam, or Siam, as early as the third or fourth century, were noted for their commerce, their honesty, and their thrift. All that we can say in regard to their buildings, in the ab sence of any historical records of their own, is that these old Cambodians must have built their towns and temples by the taskwork of slaves, or by cheap labour of some sort. And yet, as I have said, there is a 1 History of the Tsin Dynasty, a.d. 265-419. 2 It is stated, in the History of the Chinese Sui Dynasty, that a Chinese general carried off from the capital of Limyip (probably Siamrap) eighteen golden images. THE GREAT LAKE. 133 thoroughness about their edifices, and a genuine love of art evinced in all their sculptures — in the tender tracery lavished without stint upon the stones, in the uniform grace of every curving stem, in each delicately chiselled lotus, or lily— such as never could have come out of the lash of the slave, out of ill-requited, unwilling hands, or out of the crushed spirit of a bondsman. We see a love of art in every line of ornament, which speaks of the enthusiasm of a master sculptor glorying in his work, and straining every effort of his hand and head that nothing might be lacking which could confer excellence on his toil. But I am anticipating. At ' Dan Simah,' on the Tasawi river, the chief of the district would have had us wait until he could find a suitable craft to convey us across the lake. But as we observed a boat which would suit our turn at his very door, we took posses sion of it at once, agreeing as usual, to pay for its use. This arrangement was concluded much too sud denly to enable the chief to take it in. He would have required at least a week to think over it. As we left in the vessel, he looked good-naturedly bewildered. The notion had not yet dawned upon him that it was all right, as our men pulled away out of sight, and had soon crossed the head of the Great Lake ' Tale Sap,' and entered the Siamrap stream, whence we sent on bur letters under Ali's charge to the Chow-Muang, or governor of the province where the chief antiquities are to be found. The great freshwater lake of Cam bodia I shall leave for the present undescribed ; but I may here mention that Battabong and Siamrap are two provinces which were wrested by the Siamese from the Cambodians eighty-seven years ago. Ali 134 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. returned in the afternoon, bringing a favourable account of his reception. The Governor had indeed done us the honour to despatch two elephants for our own riding, and five buffalo waggons for our baggage. The elephant howdahs were dome-shaped, of a kind used only by persons of a superior rank. My friend had had experience of elephant travelling in Korat, but the sensation was new to me. The colossal, soft- eyed brute was requested, in Siamese, to give me a lift. Whereupon he bent his huge right fore-leg, and then looked me over slowly from head to foot, before venturing to hoist me on to his back. I placed one foot firmly on his knee, and he then gently raised me until I could reach his neck, keeping me steady with his trunk until I had fairly scrambled into the howdah. This business finished, he then marches with a steady step onwards to his destination, knowing, apparently, all about the country. On he goes through pools and marshes, but keeping an eye the while on the spread ing branches of the trees above ; for somehow, with a marvellous exactness, he knows the howdah's height, and if a branch would barely clear it, he halts, raises his trunk, and wrenches it off before he ventures to proceed. When he comes to the steep bank of a stream, he sits and slides down into the water, and if hot and teased by the flies, he will duck howdah and all be neath the cold surface as he swims across. He charges his trunk with water whenever an opportunity occurs, and this he carries along with him to quench his thirst or to squirt over his body and drown the unsuspect ing flies. Thus he plods on in perfect safety over obstacles which no other quadruped could surmount. ELEPHANT TRAVELLING. 135 If he sees afar off some tempting tree, he shapes his course for it, in order to have a passing mouthful of its leaves. For all that, he is perfectly docile, and seems by his implicit obedience to understand every word his keeper utters. His attendant sits astride his neck, and guides him gently, when needed, with an iron- spiked staff. The elevated position, the straight course one shapes through forest and jungle, and the commanding, view one obtains of the surrounding scenery, have at first a rare charm ; but after a time we feel that it would be a decided relief could we stay the regular gyration of the head, and seek another axis of motion than the small of the back. So we form some excuse, and descend to ' terra firma ; ' but even then the motion still goes on, or appears to go on at any rate, for some time. The Chow Muang of Nakhon Siamrap received us with great courtesy, placing a house at our disposal for two or three days, until a Laos chief, who had come with a considerable escort on a pilgrimage to Nakhon Wat, should have started on his homeward journey, and left room for our accommodation. The old town of Siamrap' is in a very ruinous state — the result, as was explained to us, of the last invasion of Cam bodia — but the high stone walls which encircle it are still in excellent condition. Outside these fortifications a clear stream flows downwards into the great lake some fifteen miles away, and this stream, during the rainy season, contains a navigable channel. On the third morning of our stay we mounted our ponies, and passed out of the city gates on the road for Nakhon Wat, and the ancient capital of the Cambodian empire. One hour's gentle canter through a grand old forest 136 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. brought us to the vicinity of the temple, and here we found our progress materially arrested by huge blocks of freestone, which were now half buried in the soil. A few minutes more, and we came upon a broad flight of stone steps, guarded by colossal stone lions, one of which had been overthrown, and lay among the dibris. My pony cleared this obstacle, and then with a series of scrambling leaps brought me to the long cruciform terrace which is carried on arches across the moat. This moat is a wide one, and has been banked with strong retaining walls of iron-conglomerate. The view from the stone platform far surpassed my expectations. The vast proportions of the temple filled me with a feeling of profound awe, such as I experienced some years afterwards when sailing beneath the shade of the gigantic precipices of the Upper Yang-tsze. The secret of my emotion lay in the extreme con trast between Nakhon Wat — rising with all the power which magnitude of proportions can give, a sculptured giant pyramid amid forests and jungle-clad plains — and the grass-thatched huts, the rude primitive structures which are all that the present inhabitants have either wish or ability to set up. Nakhon Wat, like the ma jority of the buildings of ' Inthapatapuri ' and the other cities of Cambodia, is raised upon a stone platform. It is carried upward from its base in three quadrangular tiers, with a great central tower above all, having an elevation of 180 feet The outer boundary wall en closes a square space measuring nearly three-fourths of a mile each way, and is surrounded by a ditch 230 feet across. This ditch is spanned on the west by the causeway (already described), having sculptured flights of stone steps leading to the water. These were pro- To face page 137, % ffi ffS-^fy^ a Fig. 1. Plan of Inner Temple of Nakhon. from a surv *v hv th* „„fV,o NAKHON WAT. 137 bably intended for the first ablutions of the worshippers at this Brahminical or Buddhist shrine. Facing the cardinal points of the compass, and in the centre of each side of the boundary wall, there are long galleries with arched roofs and monolithic pillars, which present a striking and classical appearance. Entering the main gateway through the western boundary, and passing up a broad inner causeway, paved like the outer one with blocks of polished freestone, we approach the western front of the temple proper. Ascending to a cruciform terrace by a flight of steps sculptured with the most beautiful ornaments, and guarded on either side by colossal stone lions, we stand before the principal en trance of the shrine. The facade on this side is more than six hundred feet in length, and is walled in, in the centre, for a distance of some two hundred feet. This walled space is divided into compartments, and each compartment is lighted with windows. In every window there are seven ornamental stone bars, uniform in pattern and in size throughout. The floral ornamenta tion on these bars appear to represent the sacred lotus, and the flowers are as carefully repeated as if they had been cast from a single mould. These compartments recur in the centre of all the galleries ; the remaining two-thirds of the space always consisting of open colonnades, the back walls of which are adorned with the bas-reliefs which form one of the chief attractions of Nakhon Wat The building, as I have already observed, rises in three terraces, one above the other, and it is out of the highest of the three that the great central tower springs up ; four lower or inferior towers rise around it, and the whole structure is probably meant to symbolise I38 INDO-CHINA AND. CHINA. Mount Meru, or the centre of the Buddhist universe. This is all the more apparent when we consider that Meru is surrounded by seven circles of rocks ; * that there are seven circles on the central tower; that the sacred mount is supported on three platforms (cor responding to the three terraces) one platform or layer of earth, one of water, and one of wind ; and that it rises out of the ocean. This part of the symbolism is indicated by the temple being surrounded with a moat, and indeed during the rains, when the plain is flooded, the whole stupenduous structure would rise (like Meru from the ocean) out of an unbroken sheet of water.2 1 See Dr. Eitel's Sanscrit Chinese Dictionary, Art. Sumeru, p. 136. 2 The accompanying note by the Rev. Joseph Edkins will show that in some of the Buddhist monasteries of Peking the ordination of the priesthood takes place ona triple terrace, similar to the triple terrace of Nakhon Wat. Admission to the Buddhist Vows on the Triple Terrace. Buddhist priests are received into the monastic community of that religion in great numbers at the monastery called Chiay tae sze, near Peking. This beautifully situated monastery commands a fine view of the Hwun ho and the Peking plain. The name Chiay tae means Vow terrace. The Vow terrace is in a square building on the east of the hall, in which are placed the principal images. It is built of carved stone, and is triple. The disciple ascends the lower terrace at the back. Going round it, he ascends the middle terrace, and after going round it in the same way he ascends the upper. On reaching the top, after three times making the circuit, he finds him self in front of the abbot and his assessors. The abbot sits on a throne which faces the south, and the assessors, two on each side, face the east and west. The ceremonies for the reception of neophytes are here carried through to their completion. I expect that there is a Chiay tae in every large monastery, or in most of them, but this is the best-known in the neighbourhood of the capital. At small monasteries priests are admitted with less formalities than in large ones. The first terrace is for Buddha, the second for the written law, and the third for the monastic community. The neophyte enters into a responsible relation to all three. He leaves the sea of misery where he was without a helper and attaches him- KHAO KHRAI-LAT. 139 In many of the ancient temples of Java we find the same symbolic architecture. The shrine of Kalisari,1 for example, we are told, is an oblong square divided into three floors, and there are many others of exactly the same design. On the ancient Buddhist temple or monument at B6ra B6do, there are, I believe, seven terraces (and no central tower) which would correspond with the seven circles of Meru. But the three terraces of Nakhon Wat may have another significance ; they may have been designed originally for the sacred rites - and processions still practised in the ceremonials at the royal tonsure festivals of Siam ; for example, at the coronation of a king the priests march thrice, on three separate days, round the sacred ' Khao Khrai-lat,' the Siamese Buddhist Mount Meru. It is difficult to say what may have been the origin of the sacredness attached in many heathen religions to the number three. We have them in the Holy Trinity of our own Christian faith — a doctrine which does not claim a high antiquity ; in the supreme principle of creation ; in the Orphic My thology,2 Council, Light, Life; in On, Isis, and Neith of the Egyptians ; in the Magian trinity Mithras, Oro- mazdes, and Ahriman; the Indian triad Brahma, Vishnu, and Seeva ; while in China we have the classic doctrine of the powers of nature— Heaven, Earth, and Man ; and the Buddhist Past, Present, and Future. We also find self to Buddha, who occupies the position of a Redeemer. He escapes from ignorance into the knowledge of Buddhist doctrine. He gives up worldly enjoyments and sins in order to enter on what he expects to find— the pure life of the monks, far from the turmoil of city crowds. It is to symbolise this threefold refuge that he is made to pass along the railed pathway round three terraces rising successively in height before he arrives in the presence of the venerable robed abbot who admits him to the Buddhist spiritual life. 1 Sir S. Raffles' Java., ii. 25. > See Hale's Chronology, iv. 472. 140 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. in the Temple of Heaven at Peking, where state wor ship is performed, an altar of three terraces, on which at certain times of the year three sacrifices are offered, These are the Ta-sze,1 or great sacrifice ; the Choong-: sze, or medium sacrifice ; and the Seaon-sze, or lesser sacrifice. The symbolism of this Chinese temple is a subject full of interest, and has been yery carefully examined by the Rev. Joseph Edkins.2 To return to Nakhon Wat. The ancient Chinese traveller says something in his narrative of a tradition relating to the worship of the snake in early times ; s but he, at the same time, tells us that Buddhism was the religion which then prevailed in Cambodia. It is possible that this great building has been erected to the snake god (and this was the view taken by Prof. Ferguson after I had placed my plan, my photographs and the information I had gathered, at the disposal of that most distinguished authority on architecture) ; but after visiting China, and viewing the Hindoo deities which guard the gates of Buddhist temples there, and the mythological objects which adorn these shrines, I have been led to believe that Nakhon Wat is a Buddhist edifice, decorated about the roofs and bal conies with effigies of the seven-headed snake, who is honoured for ever, because he guarded Gautama when he slept. ' Nagas (snakes) appeared at his birth to wash him ; numbers of nagas conversed with him here and there, protected him, and were converted by him, and after the cremation of his body an eighth portion of the relics was allotted to the custody of nagas.' i 1 Sir J. Davis, The Chinese, p. 210 2 Journeys in North China, Rev. A. Williamson, ii. 353. 3 ' Chinla Tung-too-ke,' by Chow Ta Kwan. 4 Sanscrit-Chinese Dictionaiy, Art. Naga, 78, Dr. Eitel. ANCIENT CAMBODIAN CIVILISATION. 141 The snake plays an important part in the Buddhism of China, and is represented, when on the earth, as man's great enemy ; and again, when a river god, as, his great protector. It would appear, then, that the snake which guards the temple of Nakhon was nothing more than the natural protector of Gautama spoken of in the ancient Sutras. I cannot, however, do justice to this question here ; I must leave it in the hands of those who are better able to sift the evidence brought forward in elucidation of a deeply-interesting subject. I believe that a richer field for research has never been laid open to those who take an interest in the great building races of the East than that revealed by the discovery of the magnificent remains which the ancient Cambodians have left behind them. Their stone cities lie buried in malarious forests and jungles, and though many of them have been examined, not a few are still wholly unexplored ; and indeed it is impossible for anyone who has not visited the spot to form a true estimate of the wealth and resources of the ancient Cambodians, or of the howling wilderness to which their country has been reduced by the ravages of war, the destructive encroachments of tropical jungle, and the ignorance and sloth of its present semi-savage inhabitants. The disappearance of this once splendid civilisation, and the relapse of the people into a primi- tiveness bordering, in some quarters, on the condition of the lower animals, seems to prove that man is a retrogressive as well as a progressive being, and that he may probably relapse into the simple forms of organic life from which he is supposed by some to have originally sprung. 142 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. The bas-reliefs of Nakhon Wat which are sculptured on the walls of the galleries are extremely interesting; They are contained in eight compartments, measuring each from 250 feet to 300 feet in length, with a height INTERIOR OF WESTERN GALLERY. NAKHON WAT. of 6^ feet, and in a square space of 6\ feet the average number of men and animals depicted is sixty. The majority of these representations are executed with such care and skill, and are so well drawn, as to indi- THE RAMAYANA. U3 cate that art was fostered and reached a high state of perfection among the ' Khamen-te-buran,' or ancient Cambodians. The chief subjects represented are battle-scenes, taken from the epic poems Ramayana and Mahabarata (which the Siamese are said to have received from India about the fourth or fifth century). Disciplined forces are depicted marching to the field, possessing distinct characteristics soon lost in the confusion of battle. In the eager faces and attitudes of the warriors, CAMBODIAN FEMALE HEAD-DRESS. ANCIENT SCULPTURE; as they press forward past bands of musicians, we see that music then, as now, had its spirit-stirring influence. We also find humane actions represented — a group bending over a wounded comrade to extract an arrow, or remove him from the field. There are also the most animated scenes of deeds of bravery — soldiers saving the lives. of their chiefs ;- chiefs bending over their plunging steeds, and measuring their prowess in single combat ; and finally, the victorious army quitting the field laden with spoil, and guarding the numerous captives with cavalry in front and rear. 144 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. Perhaps the most wonderful subject of all the bas- reliefs is what the Siamese call the battle of ' Rama- kean.' This is one of the leading incidents of the Ramayana, of which Coleman says, ' The Grecians had their Homer to render imperishable the fame acquired by their glorious combats in the Trojan war ; the Latins had Virgil to sing the prowess of ./Eneas ; and the Hindoos have their Valmac to immortalise the deeds of Rama and his army of monkeys.' The Ramayana (one of the finest poems extant) describes the incidents of Rama's life, and the exploits of the contending foes. In the sculptures of Nakhon Wat many of the incidents of the life of Rama are depicted ; such as his ultimate triumph over the god Ravana, and the re covery of his wife Sita. The chief illustration of the poem, however, is the battle-scene which ensues after the ape-god Hanuman had performed several of the feats which formed the everyday incidents of his life, such as the construction of what is now known as Adam's Bridge at Ceylon. This he accomplished by a judicious selection of ten mountains, each measuring 64 miles in circumference ; and being short of arms, but never of expedients, when conveying them to Ceylon, he poised one on the tip of his tail, another on his head, and with these formed his celebrated bridge over which his army of apes passed to Lanka. In another compartment the subject appears to be the second avatar of Vishnu, where that god is re presented as. a tortoise supporting the Earth, which is submerged in the waters. The four-armed Brahma is seated above. A seven-headed snake is shown above the water, coiled around the Earth, and extending over Wtt&Mfr ¦:^SM a ¦ ¦ SUP "'¦ 1 m^^^mii^ WKK^K^Im^- Pl||l| ^w^w*' &mmk yy'^'fr ¦HSf . -V- v;';:>c.SPiJ* MiiHM«'>:** SliltliWiFV- ¦'.'.¦ ¦ ¦ ¦-_.' —: 'iiiK s______liH«ara»M.'>^rK^ 5.i»,vm„ |H|< '', I1 , , A1 ill ¦• ~. 4?__i_yfnswlJ!'w> i '« 'wj inr-_i?;r__™t__ ?"v_. ^v. ¦ ,1. 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The gods on the right, and the dinytas on the left are seen contending for the serpent Hanuman is pulling at the tail, while above a flight of angels are bearing a cable to bind the reptile after the conflict is over. The example given in the woodcut will convey an idea of the accurate nature of the battle-scenes, and will also enable the reader to judge for himself not only regarding the art which they display, but also of the constructive mechanical skill which the Cambodians possessed,, and which enabled them to build their war chariots at once strong enough for the rough usage of war, and light enough to secure that degree of speed upon which the issue of a conflict might depend. Take, for example, the wheel of the chariot. It must have been strong, and nothing lighter or more elegant could be constructed at the present day among ourselves. Part of it at least must have been made of metal, and had we no further proof, the inference may hence be fairly drawn that the builders were skilled in the use of metals. In another compartment of the bas- reliefs however, we find mechanical appliances for the torture of human beings, such as a double-handed saw, or knife, a lever, the wedge, pestle and mortar ; and a number of other contrivances, which must have been in common use then, and are still, in our own land. It is impossible here, in the space of a single chapter, to give anything like a complete account of the information we gathered during our expedition to Cambodia. I may say, however, before I leave this region, that the ruins are found to spread over an area very much larger than was at first supposed, which has since been broken up into, and occupied by different in- i_ i45 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA.' dependent States ; and which, judging from the simi larity of the ruined buildings found in Siam, Laos, and Annam, and the identity of the characters with which they are inscribed, leaves little doubt as to the magni tude of the empire over which the ancient Cambodian dynasty must in former centuries have reigned. Much may yet be learned as to the true history of the race, when the inscriptions found carved upon the ancient temples shall have been made out. I took rubbings of some of these, but my efforts to obtain translations of them have hitherto been unsuccessful. Mr. Kennedy has, however, already been able to interpret some por tions, and perhaps I cannot do better than quote what he says concerning them. ' There are, at any rate, three styles of writing adopted ; I do not say that the lan guages differ, I suspect that they will be found to be in all cases identical ; but the characters are funda mentally the same, and as more competent men than I have assured me, are modifications of the Devanagari alphabet. In reference to the difficulties to be en countered in translating, he says : ' There is this pecu liarity to be noticed, which is probably one of the secrets of the failure hitherto of all attempts at inter pretation. These men of monosyllabic speech cut down their long Pali or Sanscrit terms to the shortest possible dimensions. Thus Indra becomes In, a disciple of a priest (Samanera) becomes Nen, and the name for a camel is not ushtra, but ut; akshara (letters) becomes akson. But when these words are written down, in many cases their derivation is shown by a number of mute terminals, with an accent super scribed, denoting that that . portion of the word is left without articulation. Now when we examine these in- ANCIENT CHINESE ARCHWAY. M7 scriptions, it becomes necessary to inquire whether the engraver expended the time and labour requisite to write down the unpronounced part of the word which he had to engrave, or would he simply cut the letters of the shortened form, the word as pronounced, and not the word as written ? ' * If this be indeed the case, ANCIENT ARCH AT KEU-YUNG-KIVAN, NANKOW PASS. it is strange and interesting to find inscribed on an old arch in the defile of the Nankow Pass, on the road to the Great Wall of China, a Buddhist prayer, which Mr. Wylie tells us is also in one section, at least, written in \ See paper read by H. G. Kennedy, Indian Section of Society of Arts, May 1, 1874. 148 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. the ancient Devanagari characters, and bearing "the date 1345. It was probably somewhere about this date that the temple of Nakhon Wat was erected ; and when we further find it recorded that the ancient Cambodians were in the habit of sending ambassadors to China to obtain imperial titles for their religious edifices, it is possible that Cambodian sculptors may have been employed to construct this memorial, and more especially as we find on its keystone the same seven-headed snake which forms a leading ornament of the great Cambodian temple. At any rate we have here the seven-headed snake adorning a purely Buddhist structure, inscribed with a Buddhist prayer, engraved in a number of different languages. The bas-relief representations of the Hindoo gods found beneath the arch are the finest examples of the sculptor's art I found in China, and re sembled more closely the work of an ancient Cam bodian sculptor than of a Chinese artist. It would appear from the Chinese annals that the Cambodians, at an early period, were an exceedingly warlike race, and that they annexed many surrounding kingdoms. Thus, in the history of the Sung dynasty, there is a reference to the kingdom of Sanbotsi. That country is there described as conterminous with Cochin China (Cheng Cheng), and lying between Cambodia (Chinla) and Java ! It is further represented as highly civilised, owning both Hindoo and Chinese institutions, and making use of Chinese state documents. Lastly, we are told that the education of the country was com ducted by means of Pali writing. In the year a.d. 1003, it is stated that the reigning LAST WORK OF THE ANCIENT CAMBODIANS. 149 monarch sent an embassy to inform the Emperor of China that he was building a Buddhist temple, in the hope that so meritorious a work might add something to the length of his years. The edifice referred to might have been Nakhon Wat, but evidence from UNFINISHED PILLARS, NAKHON WAT. other quarters points to a later date for its construction. It would appear to have been built after the visit of the Chinese traveller of the thirteenth century (whose narrative M. Remusat has translated), as he makes no mention of it. He visited Cambodia in 1295, but the i5o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. final overthrow of the empire by the Siamese did not take place (according to M. Garnier's account, p. 139) until 1373, when the still unfinished temple was abandoned, and the King fled to Annam. Nakhon Wat itself bears evidence that during the progress of its construction the Cambodian empire must have been overthrown by some crushing disaster. At any rate the building was never finished, and in the interior of an outer pavilion I found some pillars which were still rough hewn. They had been placed in position, it is true, but we could almost point out the spot at which the sculptor's hand had been arrested, leaving his task for ever incomplete. The plan followed had been to fit the rough monolithic stones into their places, and then to cover them with sculpture— a system adopted now-a-days by our own builders when ela borate ornaments have to be carved. But I must quit a subject over which I fain would linger, and hurry forward on my journey. We spent several days at the ruined city of Nakhon, on the verge of the native jungle, and amidst a forest of magnificent trees. Here we were surrounded on every side by ruins as multitudinous as they were gigantic ; one building alone covered an area of vast extent, and was crowned with fifty-one stone towers. Each tower was sculptured to represent a four-faced Buddha, or Brahma, and thus 204 colossal sphinx-like countenances gazed benignly towards the cardinal points — all full of that expression of purity and repose which Buddhists so love to pourtray, and all wearing diadems of the most chaste design above their unruffled stony brows. At the outer gate of this city I experienced a sort of modern ' battle of the apes.' Reared high above the SCULPTURED TOWER. IS1 gateway stood a series of subordinate towers, having a single larger one in their centre, whose apex again displayed to us the four benign faces of the ancient god. The image was partly concealed beneath para- SCULPTURED TOWER IN NAKHON THOM, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF CAMBODIA. The cut represents a single example out of fifty-one stone towers which adorn the ancient temple ' Prea-sat-hng-pown,' in the heart of Nakhon Thom, or ' Inthapatapuri. ' sitic plants, which twined their clustering fibres in a rude garland around the now neglected head. When I attempted to photograph this object, a tribe of black i52 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. apes, wearing white beards, came hooting along the' branches of the overhanging trees, swinging and shaking the boughs, so as to render my success impossible. A party of French sailors, who were assisting the late Captain de Lagree in his researches into the Cambodian ruins, came up opportunely, and sent a volley among my mischievous opponents ; whereupon they disappeared with what haste they might, and fled away till their monkey jargon was lost in the recesses of the forest. On our return to Siamrap we found our old friend the Chow Muang busily engaged in the cremation services of the deputy governor, who had deceased not long before. The funeral pyre was set beneath an imposing catafalque, with a spire that reminded us of some Gothic church. A pavilion had also been erected to accommodate the spectators, of whom there were two hundred or thereabouts. The ceremony began with a procession of Buddhist priests, behind whom followed a band of musicians, a troop of hired mourners bringing up the rear. These mourners kept to their work bravely, the chief leading off with a shrill wail, and his associates supporting him with a chorus of sobs. While the body was still burning, the townsfolk gave themselves up to the delights of a banquet, or occupied their time with the theatricals and a variety of other amusements which had been provided for their entertainment, but gambling was the pastime most in vogue. The comic evolutions of a dwarf and a giant were received with general approbation, while a troop of pretty Lakon girls, who danced to native music, came in also to show that the burning of the body of a chief was by no means a subject to call forth intense mourning, any more than the burning of a house would with us, when one felt CREMATION. 153 certain that the owners were safe and their effects insured. The deceased chief they supposed had gone, leaving behind nothing more than his old tenement of clay, that in his future state he might take possession of one better fitted for a being one degree nearer Nirvana. The only objection to the practice of cre mation in our own Christian country that can be reasonably urged, is the feeling that the relatives of deceased persons would be sanctioning, or taking part in, what to them might seem to be a barbarous des truction of familiar and much-loved forms, in place of consigning them to the silent, slow, but equally certain and more loathsome process of decomposition in the grave. Some, again, would ask, what if our real bodies are, one day, to be raised up from the dead ? — putting no faith in the theory that the dust of the dead mixes with its parent soil, and is constantly being redistributed among living plants and animals ; and that the gases of the body pass into the air, and are carried with the wind over the wide world. Such persons would thus seek to limit the power of the Almighty by supposing that the process of cremation would in some way affect the ultimate designs of God. But this is a subject on which I cannot enter here. It seems to me, however, that no valid objections can be raised to cremation as a rapid means of disposing of the bodies of the dead in overcrowded cities, in the neighbourhood of which extensive and overstocked burial-grounds have proved detrimental to the health of the community. Next day we mounted our elephants and started for the ' Richi Mountains,' about thirty miles distant from Siamrap. It is said that these mountains contain the quarries from which ancient Cambodians obtained iS4 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. their supplies of stone. On our route we passed more ruins, the most remarkable being a broad causeway which led right up to the foot of the hills, and which was still in very serviceable repair. The officer who accompanied us made a series of devout offerings at the shrines in the forest, in order to gain the favour of the malignant spirits that infest these wilds. We then set out bare-backed upon the elephants, to attempt to penetrate the thick jungle of the mountains. But riding bare-backed upon an elephant was by no means as agreeable as it was new to us. The loose skin on the back had a nasty way of carrying one over the hard spine of the animal. How ever, there was nothing for it but to submit and push on, as howdahs could not be used ; and we soon dis covered that even the elephants themselves could not make way through the gigantic wall of jungle and forest that closed us round on all sides. We had there fore to return, but not before seeing what we imagined to be traces of ancient stone quarries. The expedition occupied nearly three days, after which we pushed on for the head of ' Thale Sap ' lake. This lake rises during the rains to a very con siderable depth, and forms a sort of back-water to the river Mekong ; but when we crossed it, which it took. us about five days to do, we found that the water was seldom more than three or four feet deep, whereas, at the end of the wet season, it becomes so full that even the forests on its banks are submerged. A number of fishermen's villages studded the lake, some of them far from the shores, and supported on piles which had been driven into the soft bottom of the lake. These villages, from their situation and general appearance, THALE SAP. 155 reminded me of the accounts given of the pre-historic Lake-dwellings of Switzerland. The houses are erected above a platform of bamboo, common to the entire settlement, and used also for drying and curing fish. After descending Thale Sap, and entering the stream that connects it with the Mekong, we discovered that a great trade in fish-oil was carried on in the Annamese settlements along the banks. It sur prised us to see the enormous quantities of fish that were caught in this lake, and then sent to the Annamese villages to be boiled down into oil. The trade is a lucrative one, and gives employ ment to thousands of families — the only really indus trious ones in this quarter. We came into contact with European civilisation once more when a sudden bend of the stream brought us in sight of a small gun boat, which was there awaiting the return of M. de Lagree from Siamrap. The meeting was as welcome as it was unexpected, and I shall be ever grateful to those kindly French officers for cordially receiving us on board. On March 26th we landed at Campong Luang, the first trading-place of any pretensions which we had yet reached on our downward vovage. There are many Malays settled in this town, as might be expected from the name it bears. Malay settle ments, indeed, are common on both banks of the stream ; but regarding the date at which they came into the country, the village chiefs whom I interrogated 00 j.14 give no certain information- They- adhere to the'r own customs, are governed by their own chiefs, a?id are followers of the Mohammedan religion. The bazaar at Campong Luang presented a mo-.t animated scene, and we saw few there who were not iS6 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. well-dressed and busy, and to all appearance pros perous. We reached Penompinh on the night of the 27th, and anchored off the palace, in the centre of the town. Just below this place there is a point at which several streams converge. Of these confluents the most im portant is the great river Mekong, and after that the artery which drains the lake at one season and fills it at another, and down which we had been shaping our course. The King treated us with great courtesy, assigning us a house within the palace grounds, and entertaining us repeatedly at his table, where excellent dinners were specially prepared for us in completely European style. The fact is, his majesty had a French cook in his pay ; and this was the secret of a culinary skill which at first took us somewhat by surprise. These dinners were a real enjoyment, for we had not had a good meal for some time ; as my readers will understand when I tell them that at. Nakhon Wat — thinking we should be all the better for some strengthening food, and not being familiar with the. American plan of cutting a steak as we required it, and keeping the animal going alive — we had to purchase a whole bullock to secure a joint of beef. The animal afforded us about three good meals, and caused us to be looked upon as demons by the devout Buddhists for slaying an ox. We then tried to preserve portions of the carcase, but it was a failure. His majesty honoured us with a long performance of his dancing women. However, it was truly a tedious affair when the first novelty of the exhibition had worn off. As for the King, he lay stretched out in a nearly nude condition, betel-chewing and smoking, A MALAY FIRE. iS7 till the whole entertainment came to an end. Truly, the cares of state must sit easily on his royal breast. In return for a number of presents we laid at the feet of this easy-going potentate, he one morning sent us a whole pig. He must have done this without consulting the members of his Cabinet, for otherwise a monarch so enlightened would hardly have been guilty of so inconsiderate an act. The sight was too much for our way-worn China men. Here was an entire fat porker, all our own, handed over to us as a free gift. Their masters would not eat of it, and that they well knew. Almost mechanically they stripped their jackets off, and whetted their knives, stopping every now and then to gaze and grin, and smack their lips in a sort of delirium of joy. After three days of uninterrupted feasting there was very little left of the pig ; but our celestial serving-men made a touching appeal to us to pay them their dues, and suffer them to remain behind in a country where pigs are given away. I photographed the King in his native robes of state, and a second time in the uniform of a French field- marshal. In the latter instance, I remember, there was some difficulty about the boots, which I think ended in his majesty borrowing a pair from his cook. One night during our stay a fire broke out in a large Malay settlement on the other side of the stream. The spectacle was a grand one, and we hurried across the river, to see whether we could be of any use. Judge our surprise to find the Malays — men, women, and children — coolly sitting at the water's edge watching the devouring flames. At length we made up to the ' Orang-datu,' or chief, and prayed him to rouse the 158 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. people to do something to save their effects ; but he laconically replied, ' Teda tuan ! ' (No, sir). ' Why not ? Have they then, themselves, set fire to the village ? ' ' Teda tuan' (No, sir), again. ' Tuan Alia poonia krajah ! Kinappa bullie baut?' (It is God's work! What can we do ?) The old man afterwards informed me, when the fire had done its worst, that it was customary for good sons of Islam to allow a conflagration to take its natural course, as it was simply one of God's most direct ways of punishing a much-loved community for their sins. ' Praised be God,' he said, as the last house fell among the ashes, and the inhabitants prepared to spend the night beneath the cloudless sky. Had he said that the fire was the work of the devil, he would have been much nearer the truth. For there were others in the town who assured us that conflagrations of this sort are brought about by incendaries — men who have just brought a large stock of bamboos to the place, and who will get a better sale for their wares if a fire brings building-material into brisk demand. Such conflagrations, therefore, are by no means un common, the simple inhabitants invariably setting it down to their own sins, while crafty Chinese speculators grow fat on the misery which their own mischief entails. The authorities are aware of this ; probably some of them get hush-money out of the nefarious traffic. Provided with elephants by the King, from whom, as well as from the French officers at Campong Luang, we received every kindness and attention, we set out for Kamput. The district crossed on our five days' journey overland abounded in forest-clad mountains and richly cultivated alluvial plains ; but, as it was now the very height of the dry season, we suffered extremely from CROSSING THE COUNTRY. I59 scarcity of water. The districts which lie between Pe- nompinh and Kamput are perhaps the most productive of any in the present kingdom of Cambodia. Rice is grown there in such abundance as to admit of a consider able export trade, although that grain is the staple food on which the people depend for their sustenance. Palm- sugar is another important article of commerce raised in this quarter. Silk also is produced and manufactured into the rich langoutis, prized no less for the brilliancy of their dyes than for the durability of their texture. At one spot in a plain which we crossed, a band of rebels had formerly been overthrown, and the skull of a ring leader who had been captured and put to death was still to be seen impaled upon a post, as a warning to evil-doers. The intense heats of the day were followed by a clammy night air, and by heavy falls of dew. Once, after a heavy day's march, we stretched ourselves out, as usual, to pass the night on the open plain ; and at daybreak, when I awoke and turned round to where my companion lay, I felt my limbs stiff and racked with pain, and I saw how my friend, where he still slept, had his head and hair glistening with a thousand drops of dew. After a while the rheumatic pains wore off, but we took care henceforward to observe greater caution in the selection of a resting-place. Passing through a rocky defile between mountains clad in evergreen forests, and rising five or six thousand feet above the plain, we emerged on April 9 on the cultivated lands around Kamput, having spent about five days in the accomplishment of our journey. Kamput stands on the coast near the southern extremity of the Gulf of Siam, and is approached by a small shallow river not easily navigable, and having 160 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. a bar at its mouth which obliges the ships that trade at the port to anchor in the road outside. The chief merchants at Kamput are, as a matter of course, China men. It is the Chinese, too, who cultivate the rice, sugar, and pepper which form the chief articles of the local export trade. But the business of the place had fallen off, and the port, at the time of our visit, was said to be blockaded by a piratical fleet of junks, owned and manned by men of the same race as the merchants whom they sought to plunder, but hailing from different provinces ; the merchants belonging mostly to Fukien, and the pirates to the island of Hainan. It was reported to us that some of these junks were bound for Bangkok; and one of our own servants, a Hainan man, who brought us the information, suggested to us to embark among his piratical kinsmen ; but an old Malay chief, whom we fell in with at Kamput, gave us a hint of the danger, and we therefore declined the proposal. This Malay chief was an officer in the service of the King of Cambodia ; one who, with his trusty sword, had aided more than once in suppressing rebellion in the land. I enquired of him if, for any consideration, he would part with that sword. Bending the blade nearly double, and allowing it to spring out to within an inch of my throat, he replied ' No, sir ! when I part with my sword I part with my life.' There is at Kamput a Malay settlement, of fighting men as far as I could make out. But our friend Mohamet, as I shall call him, though I did not learn his true name, told me a long story about a peaceful mission with which he had been entrusted, and one affecting the prosperity of the kingdom. He said, ' I was despatched to the dis- MOHAMET'S EXPLORATIONS. 161 tant mountains to search for a white elephant reported to have been seen by some " Orang Outan " or " Orang Bukit," wild men of the mountains, who dwell there.' ' But who are these wild men ? ' I said. Mohamet, assuming an expression of compassion at my ignorance, replied, ' Ah, you seem to know a good many things, and yet you don't know that' ' Did you ever see one yourself, Mohamet ? ' 'No, sir, not exactly, not alto gether, but I have seen them flying off through the forest. They are very black and hairy, have a lan guage of their own, eat nuts and fruit, just like monkeys, and shoot game with the bow and arrow. ' Come with me and I will show you them. More over, if you are fond of sport, there are the elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, deer, besides a multitude of other animals which inhabit these wilds, and on which the " Orang Bukit " feed. More than that, if you give me ten days, as you hold the King's letter, I will take you over yonder mountains to a place near the summit of them, where sacred lotus pools are to be seen, and lilies big enough to sit in. There, at night, you hear the whisperings of strange beings around the pools, and see the weird lights of the " Orang Anto " (spirits), as they feed the reptiles that dwell in the waters. On the summit of the mountain there are foot-prints of animals of all sizes in the solid rock, some three feet in diameter, some smaller; some cloven, and some with toes and nails; all of them perfect, as if they had been moulded in clay. But I am coming to what I desired to tell you about, and by the holy prophet of Mecca it is true!' Here he made a gesture, as if to cut his throat, as a token of his veracity. ' On the mountain top there stands a ship made of stone. It wants the M ¦i62 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. masts, it is true ; but there, on the deck, is a coil of rope, also of stone. It is an immense ship, worn in places ; but it is still complete, and who can say for how many tens of thousands of years it has stood where we may pee it now.' As to the white elephant, he was not to be found, nor could he open communication with the ' Orang Bukit.' It was difficult to know what to make of such a story as this. Mohamet spoke as one who was record ing only what he had actually seen, and sketched me an outline of the stone ship with the point of his sword on the sand. Perhaps he may have seen what he related in some dream, and told the story repeatedly, till belief in its reality had ultimately taken possession of his mind. Perhaps he had discovered Noah's Ark, and the true Mount Ararat. Perhaps it was a pure fabrication, founded on the account of the deluge contained in the Koran, At any rate he volunteered to take us to the spot, and the offer was a tempting one ; but we decided that we were both of us much in want of change, for our health had been somewhat impaired by the heat of the climate, by the scarcity of pure water, and by the absence of nutritious food. So we hired a boat with six men on board her, and set sail up the Gulf for Bangkok, a distance of about 500 miles. Trusting to a small map of this region, and to our compass, we kept watch and watch, Kennedy and myself, and made the run to the mouth of the Menam in rather less than five days. Some of the islands where we landed on our route were uninhabited, save only by birds, insects, and wild ARRIVAL AT BANGKOK. 163 animals. On one we found the spoor of the elephant, where that animal had been recendy feeding ; and this fact is valuable, in so far as it tends to corroborate the theory that these islands were originally attached to the mainland, and were separated probably by the subsidence consequent on volcanic action, as Mr. Wallace suggests when endeavouring to account for the natural history of the regions through which he travelled. There is hardly a bare spot on these islands. They are clothed with an evergreen foliage to their summits, and rise from the sea a glorious confusion of gigantic trees, tangled shrubs, and parasitic plants ; save when bold red cliffs peep out, here and there, amid a drapery of pendant creepers. Among the boulders and bright sand on the beach are found clear pools, filled with beautiful marine plants and sparkling shells. The surrounding bed of the ocean, seen many fathoms down through the glassy water, rivals the island in the rich colours of its corals, shells, and plants. On the night of the 1 8th we steered, as we thought, to fetch the mouth of the Menam ; but it was unfor tunately dark, and the land lay so low that we ran in shore about five miles to the eastward, and had to come to anchor with a heavy sea running, which favoured us with cold baths at short intervals through out the night. We made sail again next day at daybreak, and reached Bangkok in safety, much to the surprise of some of our friends, who had recommended, when we left, that we should take with us our coffins, and have the Burial Service read before starting. M 2 164 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. CHAPTER VI. Saigon ; its -Harbour — The Town — The Resident Foreign Community— Cholon, the Chinese Town — River Dwellings — Customs of the Cochin Chinese — Chinese Traders — The Cochin Chinese Village of Choquan— The Sorcerer — Plaine d'es Tombeaux — Petruski. Saigon, in French Cochin China, is approached by an offshoot of the great Mekong river, narrow and tortuous indeed, but nevertheless navigable for vessels of the heaviest tonnage. The town itself has a gay look about it, or had, at least, during the time of my visit ; but it has a somewhat straggling appearance. Facing the settlement there is a spacious haven, con taining a floating-dock, and a fleet made up of ironclads, steamers of the ' Messageries Maritime' line, and other private trading companies, besides many square-rigged ships awaiting cargoes of rice, the chief product of the vast alluvial plains of southern Cochin China. Along the banks run a long low line of cafes and mercantile or government offices, surmounted by the flags of the different consulates, while by far the most conspicuous building was an hotel in progress of erection, which promised to become a very imposing edifice. The wide level roads, edged with rows of trees, and penetrating for miles in perfectly straight lines through the country, were an attractive feature in the settlement ; showing also that the Government had lost no time and spared no expense in adopting measures SAIGON. 165 which materially contributed to the health and enjoy ment of the community. As for the residents them selves, they have provided their dwellings with many of the comforts and luxuries of home. As far, how ever, as I could judge, the bulk of the Saigon commerce is in the hands of the English and Germans. At the same time, there were a large number of French houses ; yet the French merchant, somehow, seems to carry on his trade with a degree of polite ease and light but elegant deliberation, which constitute his business a means of supplying a comfortable pleasant livelihood, rather than an instrument which, after days of weary toil, sleepless nights, and continuous struggle, will en able him to wrest a competency from the hands ,of for tune. It is interesting to note how the day was usually portioned out. About half-past five or six o'clock in the morning the man-servant (Chinese) would tap at the door. ' Tuan bangon adda copee ! ' ' Awake, sir, coffee is ready,' is the announcement he brings, in Malay, a language spoken by the Singapore Chinese. Refreshed with a cup of coffee — of the true Parisian flavour, by the way — and with a plate of freshly-gathered fruit, the merchant would descend in bajo and pajamas (sleeping costume) to the office on the ground-floor ; and there, having lit his cheroot, he would sit down to business till about half-past nine o'clock. To bathe and complete the toilet is the next duty to be fulfilled, and after this follows breakfast, with its rice, curry, and so forth ; such a repast, indeed, , with slight variations, as are the breakfasts which we know every where in the East. The meal concluded, time is whiled away with reading, sleeping, smoking, and loung ing, until the cool of the afternoon has arrived. Then 1 66 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. tiffin (luncheon) is served up, and after tiffin work is renewed for two or three hours. Some time is then spent in a promenade, to listen to the band ; in a game of billiards, or ' ecarte ' at the club ; or in sipping a glass of absinthe at the favourite cafe. After dinner the evening would be spent at home, or it might be at the club or cafe, where card -parties were made up and play carried on to a late hour. This sort of existence is, of course, varied by private balls, dinner-parties, and state receptions at Government-house. I remember meeting one or two of the representative Chinamen at a Government ball, and among them one who had never before been present at such a gathering. Some one had informed this gentleman that the dancing carried on with great seriousness and ceremonial was part of our European burial service, and he was gravely enquiring whether he should not have appeared in white (deep mourning) as a token of sympathy for the bereaved, till he discovered that he had been the victim of a hoax. But the imaginative Frenchmen sometimes will themselves fall a prey to delusion. On one occasion, at a quiet dinner given by a French mer chant, I found the guests could talk of nothing else but the untimely end of a devoted naturalist and distinguished traveller who had filled the position of director of the ' Jardin Botanique ' in Saigon. It was reported that this unfortunate gentleman had been robbed and murdered by a band of natives in a hill district, where he had for some months been prose cuting his botanical researches. Our party was truly a sad meeting ; the young martyr to science was loved and esteemed by all who knew him, and those present, CHOLON. 167 one and all, vowed to wreak a speedy vengeance on the heads of the assassins, a number of whom — so the rumour ran — had already been secured. The tide of sympathy was now at its height, when a light foot was heard on the stairs — in a moment the door flew open, and the murdered savant rushed into the arms of his sorrowing fellow-countrymen. He had, as it turned out, lost all his properly, but a well-disposed native had saved his life. Cholon, the native quarter of Saigon, is separated from the European settlement by a distance of three miles. Let the reader join me in a morning walk to this half Chinese, half Annamese town. Our course is along the footway of the ' Grand Canal ' — grand in nothing but its name, for the banks are overgrown with rank weeds, and the waters at high tide are muddy, and at low tide mud. A pack of pariah dogs rush madly across the road, and through the cloud of dust which they raise we can discern the outlines of a train of Cambodian carts, each cart having a pair of bullocks tethered by a rope through their nostrils to the con veyance immediately in front The whole train is managed by a little boy, for the traders are still asleep among the tusks, hides, horns, gum-dammar and gam boge, which they are bringing to market for sale. The cart-wheels creak hideously around their dry- wooden axles, and indeed would make the fortune of any speculator who should be enterprising enough to drive them up and down some quiet London neighbourhood. We had now entered the main Cholon road. Yonder is the Gendarmerie on the left, and here come a long row of barefooted women, bringing fresh vegetables to the town. Their dress is similar to that of the Chines': peasant girls, excepting their hats, and these resemble 168 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. huge baskets poised above their heads. Hats of this sort are made of dried leaves, and measure two feet in diameter, by six inches in depth. The men wear head pieces even larger still, conical in shape, and descend ing over the shoulders ; these huge extinguishers are tilted up in order to enable their wearers to see their way, and are of a sort well suited to the Annamese cha racter, for they afford shelter from rain, and this is everything among a people who deem pure water to be their deadliest foe. During a residence of three months in Cochin China, I do not recollect ever having seen a native wash himself, unless when requested to do so, that a fair photographic representation of his face might be obtained ; and even then the operation had to be carefully watched, for the washing was managed in such a way that it left a rim round the physiognomy, like an earthwork, thrown up to protect the features from further violence. Let us, however, proceed in our excursion. There has been no rain for months, the hedges and shrubs are bronzed with dust, but enlivened also by the varied co lours of the convolvulus. There is nothing of peculiar interest to be seen on the road at this early hour, until we get within a mile from the town ; and then we come upon the ' Plaine des Tombeaux,' a burial-ground cover ing an area of about twenty miles. This ground was chosen by the native rulers hundreds of years ago, as a resting-place for the dead, in obedience to the advice of the court astrologers. The telegraph which skirts the road now tells of new life, and a new era in the history of the country. Cholon is now before us ; the principal inhabitants are Chinese, and Chinese characteristics are to be discovered everywhere around, no less in the temples and the houses than in the industrious activity CHOLON. 169 of the population. The town was astir hours ago, and in the faces we encounter so full of business we recognize only Chinamen. In order to see something of the Cochin Chinese we must go to the river-side, where there are hundreds of boats grouped together, forming a native floating village. Many of the Chinese merchants are already down to the boats, treating for the rice which they contain, while others have closed their bargains, and are paying the natives in basket-loads of copper cash. A few steps beyond we come upon the river dwellings. Can any style of life be more primitive than this ? The caves which our British forefathers inhabited were castles when com pared to these abodes, and the Swiss Lake-dwellings were palaces. Here a family of seven may be found domiciled in a hut which measures five feet by seven. The sanitary arrangements are simple. The structure is elevated on a platform a few feet above the stream, into which all the refuse and garbage is allowed to fall. The capitalist, if he proposes to build a river residence of this sort — one offering every advantage to a large family in search of cheerful society, a commanding view of the stream, good fishing close at hand, unen cumbered by tolls and ground rent, and boasting a drainage system so unelaborated and cheap — has to launch out the sum of two-and-a-half dollars, or twelve shillings, in the construction and decoration of the edifice. When built, the proprietor will let it on a repair ing lease. By referring to the picture it will be noticed that the ' Paterfamilias ' has modestly retired behind his children. As the morning is hot, his only article of clothing is a conical hat, the badge of parental dignity. He would, as he is partially civilized, have removed this i7o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. ornament when we approached, but as it might have led to a severe cold and an untimely end, I requested him to keep it on. Clothing in this neighbourhood is one of the most expensive items in the maintenance of a family, although articles of dress are usually un known to the children until they become five years old. In front of these huts we may see the canoes, scooped out of solid logs, and used for friendly visits, marketing, or fishing. These natives, as I have already said, are not cleanly in their habits. They are near water, but I fear soap would find a poor market among them, unless they took a fancy to eat it, which sometimes occurs. They labour as little as they possibly can, and spend their leisure in smoking, in chewing as much betel-nut as they can afford to buy, and in the chase ; but their hunting-ground is a ' caput humanum,' and the tiny game is esteemed a great delicacy. Here, in Cholon, the Chinese is the dominant trading Asiatic race, and this is indeed the case in all the Malayan and Indo-Chinese nations to which they have emigrated. They are almost invariably found not only carrying on a direct import and export trade on their own account, but also acting as middle-men between the foreign merchants and the natives. I made the acquaintance of one or two China merchants in Cholon, who not many years ago arrived in the country as ordinary day labourers, and who by their reputation for energy and honest dealing won for themselves the support and confidence of the European traders in Saigon. During the Chinese new-year holidays, I had an invitation to the house of one of these traders. The place was built in semi-Chinese, semi-European style. The front warehouse had changed its usual aspect. CHOQUAN 171 Tables with embroidered covers had taken the place of bales of piece goods and bags of produce, and were laden with substantial fare. Some hundreds of ver milion visiting-cards, each about the size of a sheet of note paper, and inscribed with Chinese names, adorned the walls. In a spacious apartment on the upper story a table was spread with European ware, wines, and delicacies. Our host apologised for the absence of certain plates and knives by saying that his Cochin Chinese friends had begged to be allowed to carry them off as curiosities. Some of these sons of Han settle permanently in the country, but the majority return to China, where, having purchased a petty title and personal security with a portion of their savings, they will retire, or resume business with what is left. The village of Choquan stands about half way be tween Saigon and Cholon. On the right of the path way by which it is reached there is a well-grown bamboo hedge, and on the left, in the centre of a rice- field, a deep pool in which buffaloes delight to wallow, plastering their hides with mud to prevent the attacks of the moschettos. Upon approaching Choquan there is nothing to be seen of the village, save the fruit-trees that cluster round the houses ; and at the time of my visit, orange and pumeloe-trees {Citrus decumand) were in full fruit, bending down over the enclosures with the burden of their crops. The village, in so far as I could make out, is entered through a narrow lane between two walls of prickly cactus ; this lane led to a labyrinth of other lanes, so I was puzzled to know which to take to find Choquan. But I had passed through the heart of the hamlet several times without being aware of it, as the scattered houses were each shut in by high hedges of 1 72 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. cactus or bamboo. The natives love privacy ; every prickle in the hedges that encompass their dwelling is, as it were, a token that the family within would rather be alone. If one be not satisfied with this, the outer doorway has only to be opened, when one or two ill- conditioned pariah dogs will show their fangs, and use them too. Groups of naked children roll about in the dust in the lanes, or loll in the shade smoking, in flating their chubby cheeks with the fumes of the cigarette and blowing them out again through mouth and nostrils with that air of intense satisfaction which belongs usually to maturer years. Men, too, block up the way squatting or (as the hedge is not an inviting object to lean against) lying down in the dust to have a talk, or else — as there are no 'Swans,' 'Wheat Sheaves,' or ' Royal Oaks,' one of which always seems to be the next house we come to in our village streets at home — they betake themselves to their own abodes, bar the outer gate, get into the verandah, into seats, or upon matted benches furnished with wooden pillows, and then, in a recumbent position, with tea, cigarette, sam-shu and betel-nut within reach, resume the topic of discussion, the interest in which has carried them so far through the listless day. Now let us enter one of these dwellings. The two men (for what I relate I have actually witnessed), now prostrated with their conversational efforts, are land owners in the village, and their estates measure about an acre apiece. The pair of pleasant-faced unwashed little girls who fan their masters are domestic slaves. The lady of the house sits smoking and dandling her child in a dark corner of the interior. The edifice itself is well built, and the floor stands upon brick pillars . -.. i :.£SIt'1P9& »I#iHB^ SiWil^ III i^llp #1 ,&¦ tifMIt flP^PK^fl A VILLAGE ROAD, COCHIN CHINA COCHIN CHINESE. 173 about three feet above ground. An ornamental framework of carved wood supports the tiled roof, and the interior is partitioned off into apartments for the decent accommodation of the family. In front there are verandahs on each side of the doorway, and above the lattice is a board inscribed with the owner's name or title, while suspended from the doorposts are addi tional boards bearing texts from the Chinese classics. If the owner be a man of wealth, the entire front of his house is carved into open work, which with the ad dition of paint and gilding presents an imposing aspect, and serves to screen the defects within, where the family are kept lively by the vermin that revel in the darkness and dirt. The fetid air of the interior deters one from a prolonged inspection. Let us notice, how ever, the unique arrangement of a boudoir where an old woman is seated on a table sewing; and an elderly gentleman reclines on a neatly-covered couch. A few chairs of Chinese make are ranged round the apart ment. On one of them stands a rice-pot filled with oranges, a bowl of rice, a cup of sam-shu, and one or two disused idols. On another we may see sundry articles of horse harness, and above it a Roman Catholic picture in red and yellow. Beneath the chair are a bag of fruits and a lot of agricultural implements. Chinese and European pictures are hung about the walls ; and one or two mirrors, which give most hideous contortions of the human face, make up the adornments of the dwelling. Now for a breath of pure air, and I will take you to another quarter of Choquan, where a sorcerer re sides. His house is situated in a retired part of the village, and is surrounded by a thick cactus hedge. 174 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. There is only one way by which this curious retreat can be entered, and that is by ascending a tree which bends over the hedge, then walking along a branch, and dropping from it to the doorway of the hut. When we have got inside we find the doctor, sooth sayer, and magician, bent over a volume. Strewn on a rough deal table before him are the herbs by means of which he works some of his potent spells. One herb there is in frequent demand, and is a love-philter ; and this, when used by some ardent but disappointed swain, must be reduced to a powder, and applied to the end of a cigarette which he presents to the unsuspecting but fickle fair one. When the first few whiffs of the enchanted vapour have been puffed through her nostrils, she loses her heart to its assailant, and is conquered. The posture of profound study assumed by the magician is altered at intervals, and the mys terious medicine-man at last reminds us that he is mortal by reaching forth his hand to refresh himself from a bowl of sam-shu (native whiskey). Now he pauses to take a whiff of his pipe, or to rivet his gaze upon nothing material, while he ponders over the most dangerous symptoms of his last patient, considering whether in the event of his succumbing to his disease, or his physician's treatment, the friends of the deceased will be able to pay the full fee. It may be he is then interrupted by a fresh patient dropping down upon him with a broken head, or heart, the victim of a quarrel or the sufferer from disappointed love. But the branch of his profession on which he mainly de pends to fill his cash-box is the exorcism of the devils, which find a home in the hearts of his countrymen, When a poor man is troubled with a malignant spirit, SORCERY. 175 it can be got rid of for about a dollar ; while, on the other hand, if the patient be a man of property, the demon is certain to prove refractory, and to require at least sixteen or twenty dollars' worth of spells to bring about his ultimate expulsion. When called to a patient's bed-side, the doctor begins his operations by bleeding — not the sick man, however, but himself. Into his own cheeks he first fixes two small skewers having lighted candles attached to their ends ; then bending over the bed, he recites the praises of the good spirit, Chiu-xuong, and solicits its aid. Should this exorcism fail, he calls in his attendant who does the drudgery, stretches out the lad's right arm, and in his hand next places an idol, which is supposed to create involuntary motion in the extended arm. After the first hour or so, the involuntary motion resolves itself into one that takes the nearest bowl of sam-shu provided for the idol deity, who, on such occasions, has an intense thirst, producing strangely enough, a variety of complex and involuntary motions in the limbs of the assistant who supports him. The natives attribute all this to a kind of animal magnetism, not unknown in other parts of the world. Should the treatment described be unsuccessful, the physician, priest, and sorcerer is supposed to sleep on thorns, walk through fire, drink boiling resin, and accomplish a variety of feats, wherein the only visible spiritual agent is sam-shu. Another source of income to this mysterious quack is derived from the ' Plaine des Tombeaux,' or ' D6ng-tap-trau,' where tens of thou sands of the Cochin Chinese lie buried. He has simply to declare to some afflicted family that' the cause of their affliction is the unfortunate position of 176 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. the body of a deceased kinsman in relation to the terrestrial dragon ; he will then be engaged by the suffering survivors to remove the body to a more lucky site. The Cochin Chinese, like the Chinese, have many superstitions connected with the burial of the dead ; one of these accounts for the uniform direction of the graves in Dong-tip-trau, and another for their general structure. As in China, the dragon is frequently seen sculptured on their tombs. When death takes place in a family, this sorcerer or master of the mysteries of ' Feng-shui ' is called in to superintend the burial of one who, it may be, has been a victim of his quackery ; and, as a matter of business, he is expected to dispose of the corpse in such a way that the spirit in its new state will aid the fortunes of the house. He therefore proceeds to Dong-tap-trau, with a Chinese compass in the one hand, and an idol in the other. His first care is to find the position of the head of the terrestrial dragon, in order that he may rest the head of the body upon it. He then carefully takes the bearings of the stream that flows through the plain, so that the body may be placed with its feet towards the source. Were it placed with its head towards the source, it is be lieved that the spirit would be eternally engaged in striving to make way against the current, and thus suffer, through the neglect of surviving relations, the torments of a perpetual watery hell. The Cochin Chinese gentleman, like his prototype among other and more enlightened nations, generally exhibits in his physique and manners the evidences of superior breeding. When nature has had fair play, he is taller and more erect than the average specimens of his PE TRUSKI. 177 countrymen of the humbler orders, while they are infinitely his superior in muscular development. He has never done a day's work in his life. His hands are small, well formed, and soft like a woman's, while, as an indication of their utter uselessness, the nails of his third and little fingers are permitted to grow, or are cultivated, until they rival vulture's claws. Some of his actions, too, might be aptly compared to those of the king of birds. If he be a government official, he is frequently severe in the treatment of subordinates ; for it is he, together with his chief, who are responsible for their behaviour. In consequence of this system, clannish outbreaks are less frequent in French Cochin China than among the Chinese of Singapore and Penang. The life he leads is an indolent one ; when at home, he lolls on a couch or chair, surrounded by half-a-dozen attendants, one probably hunting for insects in the hair of his head, another fanning him ; while a third, who watches the inanimate face of his lord, anticipates a wish, lights a pipe or cheroot, and quietly places it between his master's lips. Should a friend drop in for a chat, he fills his mouth with betel- nut and seri, as a polite intimation that anything like an animated conversation is not to be thought of, and only suited for the vulgar. The friend is then invited to do likewise ; and when both have the nut sufficiently chewed, gurgling growls, emitted through the plash of mastication, are interchanged, intelligible only to their own highly-tuned ears. A notable exception to the above type of native gentleman was Monsieur Pe- truski, a Cochin Chinese Christian, occupying the post of professor of his own language in the College des Interpretes of Saigon. He had been educated in a N T78 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. Roman Catholic college at Penang, and I shall never forget my surprise when first introduced to him. He addressed me in perfect English, with just a slight French accent, while in French he could converse with the same purity and ease. He was equally, at home, I believe, when he spoke, or wrote in Spanish, Portu guese, or Italian ; and it was to his scholarly knowledge of Oriental tongues that he owed the distinguished position which he filled. On one occasion I visited his study, and I found him engaged on a work which had cost him years of labour — ' A Comparative Ana lysis of the Languages of the World.' He was sur rounded by a collection of rare and valuable books, some of which he had gathered when travelling in Europe ; others — Sanscrit, Pali, Siamese, and Chinese — he had obtained in various parts of the East. During the evening one of the Cholon missionaries joined us, and when I left he had engaged Petruski in a theological discussion in Latin. He is the author of a number of works ; among others, an Annamite Grammar, which opens by tracing the affinity between the most ancient symbolical characters and those of the modern written language of Annam. HONGKONG. i79 CHAPTER VII. Hongkong — Description of the Island — The City of Victoria — Its pre sent Condition — Its Foreign and Native Population- The Market place — Hongkong Artists — Grog-shops — Tai-ping-shan — Expense of Living — A Strange Adventurer — A Mormon Missionary. After leaving Cochin China I spent a short time in Singapore, and thence took voyage to the British colony of Hongkong. Hongkong was the first island I visited in Chinese waters, and it was there that I obtained my earliest impressions of the Chinese on their native soil, and formed the determination, which I afterwards carried out, of making myself acquainted with the manners and customs, and the wide-spread industries, of this ancient people in various provinces of their land. Hongkong, with its mixed population, its British rule and institutions, its noble European edifices, and Chinese streets, its Christian churches, and Buddhist temples, stands alone, on the verge of the great continent of Eastern Asia. This spot, moored to our little island by an electric cable that sweeps half round the globe, rises like a political beacon out of the China seas, and has by no means been without its influence in prevent ing the Tartar dynasty from foundering, in maintaining peace, and in casting the light of a higher civilization over some dark corners of the Flowery Land. N 2 i8o INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. We may justly be proud of the policy which planted the British flag on this desolate island, and constituted it a Crown colony in 1843. A like praise worthy enterprise since those days has built a splendid city out of its granite rocks, cleared the surrounding seas of piratical hordes, and crowded the spacious harbour with a merchant fleet of all nationalities ; and yet, in some respects, the change is a disappointing one. Our liberal administration, and the freedom, and protection afforded by our laws, have rendered the place an asylum for the scum of Chinese cities and for ruffians too poor, or actually too depraved, to be able to purchase immunity from the penalties of crime by entering the Buddhist cloisters of their own land. Happily some of these mauvais sujets, finding a wider scope for honest energy, become respectable citizens, but the bulk of them are either supported in our prisons, or else prey upon the European and native community. Although the geographical position of the island is well known, it may not be out of place here to give some account of its general appearance before we dis embark. On the average it is about ten miles in length and four miles broad. A central rocky spine runs from east to west, rising in a series of jagged peaks, whose greatest elevation is 1,900 feet, and falling away towards the shore in a multitude of low hills, or bold crags. It is no longer the barren place of thirty years ago. There are wood-covered heights and grassy slopes, gardens in the valleys, and picturesque fisher villages nestling beneath the shade of umbrageous trees ; while on the north, the city of Victoria rears its granite buildings, like the side of a richly-sculptured pyramid, HONKONG. i8t on the terraced clifls beyond Victoria Peak. Below the town the shore curves round towards the mainland of British Kowloon, where a high ridge of hills encloses one of the finest harbours in the world, approached from the east by the Ly-ee-moon Pass, and entered through the Lama passage on the west; The view of Victoria from Kellet's Island, a small fortified rock in the east of the harbour, presents a striking scene, more especially during the rainy season, when the setting son casts a deep purple veil over the town and over die peal., H03GK05G, FBOM KEUZrfc faASO. which lie partly in shadow. At such a time I have seen the hill capped with a wreath of pearly cloud with a fringeof rose-pink or gold, and the edges of the stone buildings beneath gilded with sunshine looming oat through the deepening gloom. The islands in the distance seemed like ruby clouds testing on die horizon, while near at hand a tangled forest of masts and spars rose up darkly against die face of die sky. The harbour was ablaze with light, broken by the sombre hulls of the ships, or die picturesque forms of native 182 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. craft, with their huge sails spread out like wings to catch the evening breeze. Let us suppose that we land from a steamer that has just come to her anchorage. It is early morning, and there is a great tumult on deck. Passengers hurry, to and fro, in quest of baggage that had been consigned to the hold, and about which the officers seem to know nothing and care less. Trunks and boxes are all the while being speedily got up and arranged on deck, and the yells and impre cations of a hundred boatmen announce, not that they have come from the lower regions, but that celestial labourers are discharging cargo in their own way. Soon the ladder is let down, and up it scramble a number of petty traders arrayed in straw hats, long white cotton, or silk jackets which reach to the knees, dark blue breeches, white cotton leggings, and em broidered shoes with thick flat soles. To your sur prise, one accosts you familiarly as captain, and says, with a look of recognition, ' Tsing ! Tsing ! too muchee long tim my no hab see you ! ' This is the pidjin English for ' I greet you ! it is a long time since I have seen you ! ' It is no use telling the fellow he is mistaken, as you have only arrived for the first time in China. He will reply, ' Ah, my sabby your broder, you alia same large facie mun ; he blong my good flin ; ' or, 'Ah, I understand, I know your brother, you have the same broad benevolent face as he who was my friend.' They have a notion, some of them, that England is a very small outside settlement on the borders of the Chinese Empire, and that we Englishmen all know each other, or are in some way akin, Hence they LANDING AT HONKONG. 183 think they cannot go far wrong in asserting that you are some member of the family. These men are floating tailors, shoemakers, jewellers, washermen, artists, and curio-dealers ; but we will have a better look at them ashore. They are certainly very enterprising, and there is no end of competition among them. Others, a trifle more enlightened, imagine that Hong kong represents bur greatest possession, and that the bulk of our people are merchants, who pass, to and fro, in ships engaged in the Chinese trade. We go ashore in a native boat, which is the floating dwelling of an entire family. There are, in Hongkong alone, more than 30,000 such people as these, who make their homes in their boats, and earn their subsistence by fishing or attending upon the ships in harbour. These folks carefully study the indications of the weather, and can calculate with great shrewdness the near approach of a storm. They usually verify their own observations by ascertaining the barometrical changes from foreign ship-captains in port; and when they have settled in their own mind that a typhoon is at hand, they cross the harbour en masse, and shelter in the bays of Kowloon until the fury of the hurricane is past. The men in the boats are naked to the waist, and bronzed with constant exposure ; but the women are decently clothed, pretty, and attractive-looking. Some of them, if we may judge by their pale skins, their finely-formed features, and their large lustrous eyes, are not of purely Chinese blood. We have just time to observe that the Praya, or Bund, is faced with a retaining wall composed of huge blocks of granite — which, as we shall see by-and-by, are not of sufficient dimensions or weight to resist the violence i S4 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. of a typhoon — when we are landed opposite the Clock Tower at Peddar's Wharf, and find ourselves mobbed and jostled by a crowd of Chinese coolies, who, if you don't look about, will tilt you into a chair and bear you off, nolens volens, to the nearest hotel. A FAMILY PARTY, KOWLOON. These sedans take the place of our flys, and are the only public conveyances in the town. They are licensed, and bear, each one, a printed tariff of charges, fixed at about half the cost of London cabs. Each chair will hold one passenger. It is made of bamboo, _i. NATIVE SEDANS. 185 roofed over with oilcloth, and is carried on two long poles that rest on the shoulders of the bearers. It is by no means a disagreeable mode of travelling, and affords, at the same time, a good opportunity for seeing the streets. If of a sensitive temperament, you are apt to feel compassion for the men who bear you through the hot thoroughfares, or toil up the hill paths in order that, without an effort of your own, you may breathe the fragrance or enjoy the wonders of the Flowery Land. These sedans are to be found at every street corner, also in front of the hotels and public-houses. The bearers make it their constant study to find out the habits of the European residents, so that a new-comer only requires to be about a week in the place, and it is ten chances to one, should he be dining out, and hail the first chair to take him home, the chair-coolies, without a word spoken on either side, will land him in front of his domicile. Nay, they have learned more ; they already know something of his personal character, and whether they ought to trust him and accept the paper which he offers. It is customary, in most transactions with the Chinese, to pay them with an order on the schroff, or Chinese cash-keeper of the house to which one belongs, while the schroff, in honouring these cheques, whenever he has the opportunity, will discharge the debt in light dollars, and charge full weight to his employer's account. This is the first sample of the systematic squeezing and overreaching process which is the kejmote of Chinese society over the whole land. The system is so minute in its ramifications, that it is quite impossible for the European merchant who employs Chinese compradors and schroffs to place a check upon it. 1 86 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. Besides this, the value of the dollar in copper cash is subject to constant fluctuations. To-day it maybe 1 10 copper cash ; but should the cook, house-boy, or coolie be sent to market, he only accounts to his master for ioo cash each; the difference in exchange he pockets as his own legitimate squeeze. We are now in Queen's Road, which runs east and west through the town, and to the right, and left, a labyrinth of streets conduct us to the Praya, or to the upper terraces and roads cut along the face of the hill. Every available spot of ground in this quarter of Hongkong is taken up with shops, stores, offices, and banks. The Hongkong Club and Hotel are stone-built edifices, whose imposing pro portions would not disgrace the best part of London ; and as for the shops and their array of valuable con tents, Falconer the jeweller's, which is but a trifle more showy than the rest, looks like an establishment in the heart of Bond Street. The Chinese, on their part, vie with each other in the display of costly wares, Canton silks, carved ivory, jewellery, porcelain and paintings. Entering ' Sun-Sing's,' a Cantonese shop, we are welcomed by the proprietor himself, a Kwangtung gentleman speaking English. His attire is a jacket of Shantung silk, dark crape breeches, white leggings and embroidered shoes, and he displays all the pondorosity and ease of a prosperous Chinaman. His assistants are dressed with equal care, and stand behind ebony counters and glass cases — the latter of spotless polish, and filled with curiosities, ancient and modern, from Canton. One side of the shop is occupied with rolls of choice silks, and samples of grass matting, all labelled and priced. The floor above is taken up with a cleverly arranged assortment of ancient bronzes, porcelain and THE MARKET-PLACE. 187 ebony furniture and lackered ware. We invest in an ivory fan, and Sun-Sing designs and engraves on it a pretty English monogram. This shopkeeper, really a fine specimen of his race, much respected by the European community, and scrupulously fair in his dealings, will furnish one with the cheapest toy in his stock with as great politeness, and apparent satis faction, as if receiving an order for a shipload of em broidered silks. Crossing the street we enter the market-place, but there the chief business of the day was concluded by about seven in the morning. Here the avenues are rendered picturesque by painted and- gilded signboards inscribed with characters, Chinese or English, though the dealers are all of them Chinamen. Thus ' Ah- Yet ' ' Sam-Ching,' ' Canton Tom,' and ' Cheap Jack,' an nounce that they are prepared, as ships' compradors, to supply poultry, beef, vegetables, and groceries of the best quality, at the lowest rates, and solicit a trial, or at least an inspection of their stalls. Such men keep monthly market-books for their customers, and these, with each item supplied and its price jotted down, are settled at the end of each month. Apart from the well-filled shops of these useful members of society, there are a great variety of stalls which supply special commodities ; preserved European provisions, for example — fruit, fish, and so forth. Perhaps the most interesting of them is the fishmonger's. This establish ment consists of an arrangement of tanks, or aquariums, filled with clear running water, and teeming with living sea or river fish, for the most part reared in the Canton fish-breeding ponds, and brought to market in water- boats. The purchaser stands over the tank, selects 188 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. some finny occupant which takes his fancy, and this is immediately caught and supplied to him. I have never seen any of these fresh-water fish in Europe ; they revel in the most beautiful and varied colours, blue, green, brown, red, yellow, mottled, striped or spotted ; and there are others plain and uniform in tint, though no less curious in form. Then, at the butcher's, there are sundry deli cacies to be met with unknown to European palates, but which the natives delight in ; rats strung up by the tails, temptingly plump, and festoons of living frogs fattened for the epicure. Some say that here and there we may see small legs, and ribs, undoubtedly canine, but of this I am by no means certain. I have, indeed, in cities purely Chinese, seen dog's flesh sold for food; the practice, however, is not a common one. As a rule, the Chinese are not very particular as to the kind of food they eat ; but they are cleanly in their modes of preparing it, and we might well learn some valuable lessons from them in this branch of domestic economy. Thus they are skilled in making very palatable and nutritious dishes out of odds and ends, and are far- less wasteful and extravagant in the use of their food than we are. A number of our best European vegetables are sold in the Hongkong market ; beef and mutton, fowls, eggs, fish and game, are also to be procured at prices which seldom exceed what we pay for the same commodities at home. Besides all this, there are about fifty different kinds of fruit, nearly the half of them indigenous, and peculiar to China. Retracing our steps to Queen's Road, we pause before a display of huge signboards, each one glowing in bold Roman letters with the style and title of some Chinese artist. The first we come to is that of Afong, photographer; CHINESE PHOTOGRAPHERS. 189 to this succeeds Chin-Sing, portrait painter. Then follows Ating ; and many others make up the list of the painters and photographers of Hongkong. Afong keeps a Portuguese assistant to wait upon Europeans. He himself is a little, plump, good-natured son of Han, a man of cultivated taste, and imbued with a wonderful appreciation of art. Judging from his portfolios of photographs, he must be an ardent admirer of the beautiful in nature ; for some of his pictures, besides being extremely well executed, are remarkable for their artistic choice of position. In this respect he offers the only exception to all the native photographers I have come across during my travels in China. He shows not a single specimen of his work at his doorway, whereas his neighbour Ating displays a glass case containing a score of the most hideous caricatures of the human face that it is possible for the camera obscura to produce. Ascending a narrow stair case we reach the showroom of this celestial artist; and there, in another case of samples, we find represen tations of men and women, some looking as if they had been tossed against a wall and caught in a moment of intense excitement and alarm ; others with their heads to all appearance spiked on the iron rest ; while, as far as the natives were concerned, the majority wore the Buddhistic expression of stolid in difference, and were seated all of them full front, with limbs forming a series of equal angles to the right and left. A Chinaman will not suffer himself — if he can avoid it — to be posed so as to produce a profile or three-quarter face, his reason being that the portrait must show him to be possessed of two eyes and two ears, and that his round face is perfect as the full moon. 1 90 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. The same careful observance of symmetry is carried out in the entire pose of the figure. The face, too, must be as nearly as possible devoid of shadow, or if there be any shadow at all, it must be equal on both sides. Shadow, they say, should not exist ; .it is an accident of nature ; it does not represent any feature of the face, and therefore should not be pourtrayed; and yet they all of them carry fans in order to secure that very shade, so essential to existence in the South of China, and the element — though they fail to recognise it as such — to which, in conjunction with light, they are in debted for the visible appearance of all things animate and inanimate which make up the Chinese Empire. The walls of Ating's studio are adorned with paintings in oil, and at one extremity of the apartment a number of artists are at work producing large coloured pictures from small imperfect photographs. The proprietor has an assistant, whose business it is to scour the ships in port in search of patrons among the foreign crews. Jack, desirous of carrying home a souvenir of his visit to the wonderful land of pigtails and tea, supplies a small photograph of Poll, Dolly, or Susan, and orders a large copy to be executed in oils. The whole is to be finished, framed and delivered within two days, and is not to exceed the contract price of four dollars, or about one pound sterling in our own money. The work in this painting-shop, like many things Chinese, is so divided as to afford the maximum of profit for the minimum of labour. Thus there is one artist who sketches, another who paints the human face, a third who does the hands, and a fourth who fills in the costume and accessories. Polly is placed upon the celestial limner's easel — an honour, CHINESE ARTISTS. 191 poor girl, she little dreamt of — and is then covered with a glass bearing the lines and squares which solve the problem of proportion in the enlarged work. A strange being the artist looks ; he has just roused him self from a long sleep, and his clothes are redolent of the fumes of opium. He peers through his huge spectacles into poor Polly's eyes, and measures out her fair proportions as he transfers them to his canvas. Then she is passed from hand to hand until, at last, every detail of her features, and dress, has been re produced on the canvas with a pre-Raphaelite exacti tude, and a glow of colour added to the whole which far surpasses nature. But let us examine the finished work. The dress is sky-blue ! flounced with green. Chains of the brightest gold adorn the neck. There are brace lets on the arms, and rings on the fingers gleaming with gems. The hair is pitchy black, the skin pearly white, the cheeks of vermilion, and the lips of carmine. As for the dress, it shows neither spot nor wrinkle, and is as taut, Jack will say, as the carved robes of a figure-head. On a very square table by the side of this brilliant beauty stands a vase, filled with flowers that glow with all the brilliant hues of native art. Surely all this will please the lover, and indeed it does. John Chinaman, he declares, made more of the lass than even he thought possible, and there is a greater show of colour within the frame than he ever beheld before. He proudly hangs the picture above his bunk ; but still, at times, he has his grave misgivings about the small hands and feet, and about therainbow- hued sailor's goddess into which Poll has been trans formed. We will now descend to the open street from 192 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. Ating's gallery of horrors. On the other side of the way there are numerous ivory-miniature-painters. These men also devote themselves to copying photo graphs, and their work is decidedly better than when the copies are enlarged, as in the latter the defects of the original are frequently exaggerated. It is, how ever, only on rare occasions that the miniature-painters produce fairly good work. Their paintings are always highly finished ; but during my residence in the colony I fell in with one man only who, from his knowledge of art, could venture with any success beyond a mere servile imitation of a photograph. He was a sort of genius in his way, and, at the same time, a most inveterate opium-smoker. When I first knew him he was a good-looking dandy, in full work as a miniature- painter, fond of good company and high living, a frequenter of the music-halls and gambling clubs of Victoria. He used to smoke opium in moderation at first, but it gained upon him to such an extent, that when the hour for the pipe came on, no matter where he was, or how occupied, he had to rush off and abandon himself to the use of the drug which was bringing him fast to his grave. He used to work at my rooms, and when the moment arrived (never having a cent of his own), and he could hold out no longer, he would demand an advance of money with the fierce ness of a man suffering the death-pangs of starvation. Passing westward along Queen's Road, we come upon a quarter of the town much frequented by seamen of all nations-. Here spirits are sold in nearly every second shop, and bands of common sailors may be seen spending their time and money on question able drink in more questionable company, roaring out GROG-SHOPS. t93 some rough sea-song in drunken chorus, or dancing to the time of a drum and flute, accordion or cornopean. The keepers of these grog-shops might be mis taken for respectable members of society were it not for their bull-dog, battered, and damaged countenances, which betray sundry evidences of recent bruises and black eyes, received in taking the change out of their customers. The piles of Chinese houses which rise above this locality embrace Tai-Ping-Shan, or the hill of great peace. The name is a fine one, but a fine name will not hide the sins of the place. Tai-Ping- Shan is inhabited, for the most part, by Chinamen ; but men are found there belonging to all the nations of the East. As for women, these are principally Chinese ; they are numerous enough, but of the lowest type. There are strange hotels in this quarter, be sides music-halls and lodging-houses, the haunts of vagabonds well known to the police. I once accom panied an inspector of police on one of his periodical rounds through this region of darkness, and I should not like to describe everything I saw there ; but it proved that all which has been alleged of the im morality of the lower orders of the Chinese is perfectly true ; while, on the other hand, that the more respect able part of the community, had there many places of rational amusement, with which, in so far as I could judge, one could find no fault whatever. One great „ difficulty of our government in this new colony has been how most effectually to curb the crime and vice common to all great seaport towns, and avert its con sequences. The policy adopted has been to licence, and bring within direct government supervision, what ever they have found themselves powerless to suppress ; o 194 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. and the result, so far as statistics show, has proved the wisdom of the system. From a few particulars which I have gathered on the spot, but which it would serve no good end to publish here, I found no difficulty in estimating the magnitude and gravity of the question, how best to bring under control an evil which has always hitherto appeared inevitable. Among the largest music-halls there was one which had been but recently erected, and it may serve as a type of the more attractive sorts in a list of about one hundred and eighty similar establishments. The hall I speak of stands at the end of Holy wood Road, and is extensively decorated externally with porcelain floral ornaments. At the entrance we find an altar crowned with votive offerings, and dedicated to the god of pleasure, whose image surmounts the shrine. To the right and left of this hang scrolls, on which high moral precepts are inscribed, sadly at variance with the real character of the place. Half-a-dozen of the most fascinating of the female singers are seated outside the gate. Their robes are of richly-embroidered silk, their faces are enamelled, and their hair bedecked with perfumed flowers, and dressed in some cases to re semble a teapot, in others a bird with spread wings, poised upon the top of the head. On the ground- floor all the available space is taken up with rows of narrow compartments, each one furnished apparently with an opium-couch, and all the paraphernalia for the use of the drug. Here there are girls, in constant attendance, some ready to prepare and charge the bowl of the pipe with the opium, and others to strum upon the lute or sing sweet melodies to waft the sleeper off into dreamland under the -strangely fascinating in- MUSIC SALOONS 195 fluences which, ere long, will make him wholly their slave. On the first-floor, which is reached by a narrow flight of steps, there is a deserted music-hall, showing traces of the revel of the preceding night in the faded garlands which still festoon its carved and gilded roof. There were two more stories to the edifice, partitioned off both of them in the same way as the ground-floor. At another house we visited we found a goodly company in the music-saloon. The whole interior had been freshly decked with flowers, festooned from the ceiling, or suspended in baskets made cf wattled twigs ; while mirrors, paint, gilding, and all the skill of Kwangtung art, had been lavishly bestowed in the more permanent wall-decorations. At a table spread with the choicest delicacies, and the finest fruits, sat a merry throng of Chinamen — young, middle-aged, and old. Hot wine in burnished pewter pots was passing freely round the board, and the revellers were pledging each other in small cups of the fuming draught. We had, in fact, dropped in upon a dinner-party, where, under the influence of native wine, melon-seeds, and pretty women, the guests were engaged in a noisy, but at the same time, friendly contest, in the art of versifi cation. Behind each guest, as is customary at such gatherings, a young girl sat ; and many of these girls might fairly claim to be called handsome, while all were prettily dressed in the most fashionable silks of Canton. Their hair was wreathed with flowers, and their faces painted until they resembled their native porcelain ware. An old Chinese merchant present, whom I knew, informed me that these women were all highly respectable. That might be the case ; at any rate, he assured me that they were not unfrequently carried off 196 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. by the visitors, and raised to the rank of second wives or concubines. Music, of a high Chinese order, was being performed in the four corners of the room by four independent female bands, each accompanying the shrill piping voice of an old woman, who sang the adventures of an ancient hero of romance, a personage famous alike for his un scrupulous dealings, and for his ardent and amorous heart. During my residence in Hongkong that passion for gambling which characterises all Chinese com munities got the credit, probably with justice, of being at the root of much of the crime and petty larceny among servants and subordinate office employes. The police were found incompetent to keep the popular vice in check, and as a consequence it became more and more in fashion throughout the island. At last the authorities determined to try the ex periment of licensing gambling-houses, and instituted a gambling-farm, in order to bring the evil under the strictest surveillance and control. The experiment was a bold one, and as a matter of course was received in many quarters with violent opposition. So strongly did the current of public opinion pronounce against the policy, that no very long time elapsed before the new ordinance was suppressed. The licensing system, during its short career, con tributed about 14,000 dollars a month to the trea sury; and judging from local government statistics, materially aided in the suppression of crime. It was besides supposed to maintain a higher moral tone among the native police, who, when secret gambling- houses flourish, are seduced continually by bribes into GAMBLING. 197 dereliction of duty and corruption. One of the first prac tical difficulties in carrying out the newly inaugurated plan was the conscientious scruples — which, apparently, even affected the promoters of the measure — as to the application of a constantly accumulating fund derived from so polluted a source. It was even suggested to drop it silently into the sea, and be done with it. All I would say is, if the policy of sheltering this particular vice, in order to effect diminution of crime in the colony, was sound, the proceeds of the gambling-farm might have been worthily employed in rendering the police force still more efficient, and in lightening the general burden of taxation borne by the colonists. But the ordinance, as I have already stated, was suppresed probably before the efficiency of such a hazardous and unpopular experiment could be thoroughly put to the test, as a means of suppressing crime. The Hongkong police force is numerous and expensive, and its reputed inefficiency has been a subject of frequent comment in the press of Victoria ; but the last of these character istics may not impossibly be, in a very considerable degree, due to other and simpler causes than the wiles of Chinese gambling parties. The constables were, many of them, Chinese under the command of European inspectors, who, for the most part, knew nothing of the language and habits of the men under their charge. One section of the force was made up of Indians, who, with rare exceptions, were alike ignorant of Chinese, and therefore of very little service in detecting crime ; while some of them were sufficiently well up in Chinese manners to know something of the security and dignified silence procurable by a judicious use of the coin of the realm. 198 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. Gambling is a luxury in which all Chinese more or less indulge. During the time when gambling-houses were under Government supervision, they became the open resort of most respectable-looking Chinamen — men whom one might take for patterns of native virtue, and yet who must needs have acquired their secret passion for this vice when it was still under the ban of the law. It took me by surprise, when visiting a gaming-house, to find one or two Chinese shopkeepers, otherwise noted for eminent respectability, busily engrossed at the table ; indeed I should hardly have been more amazed had I beheld an elder of the Scotch Kirk cautiously staking his savings after church hours on Sunday. These establishments were well worth inspec tion. As you approached one from the street, you would notice an European seated at the outer door way. This individual was supposed to select and admit the men who ought to gamble, and to exclude those whose morals were of greater importance to the community ; among the latter were included domestic, and office servants. He must have been endowed with rare powers of perception to be able to deter mine the occupation of each visitor to the house (it would have been called a hell before the new ordinance came into force, but now it was a sort of heaven with a gate-keeper who separated the wheat from the chaff) for tickets could afford no protection, as they might be passed trom hand to hand. This watchman could also test for himself the power of the new Taw to suppress bribery and corruption. At the top of a narrow wooden- staircase we found an apartment lit by a smoking oil lamp. This room was nearly square, A CHINESE GAMBLING-HOUSE. 199, and the ceiling above it had been pierced in the centre with a large square opening leading to the next floor, or gallery. Above the gallery is a contrivance to accommodate the upper ten, some of whom are bending over the railing and looking eagerly down upon a long- gambling table spread before us. One would scarcely, at first, suppose it, but we were pressing forward for a good place amongst some of the most desperate ruffians of Hongkong. But let me now bring you to the spot to watch the game ; the stakes are being made. That close-shaven, smooth-. visaged, fat, placid Chinaman on the right, is the banker ; see how orderly is his array of coins and bank notes, and how deftly he reckons the winnings and interest on the smallest sums, deducting a seven per cent, commission from the gains of every transaction, Behind him is his assistant, weighing the dollars, broken silver, or jewellery of the players. Then at his side is the book-keeper, and on the left the teller. On the centre of the table is a square pewter slab crossed with diagonal lines, and the sections thus formed bear the numbers one, two, three, and four respectively. The player is at liberty to stake on any of these numbers, when, unless he stakes on two numbers separately, and at once, he will have three to one against him, plus seven per cent, on his winnings, if he succeeds. Some of the players spend the entire day in the house, and on starting open an account with the bank, which is kept carefully posted on a pewter slab before them, and balanced at the end of the day. All the stakes have now been made, including those dropped from above, in a small basket attached to a cord. The teller — sleek, fat, and close-shaven, like his confreres — 200 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. sits there conducting the vital part of the game with an air of stolid indifference ; a man to all seeming, of the strictest probity and honour, and yet, if report be true, he knows tricks in his trade which defy the detection of the hundred hawk-like eyes that watch his every movement. His sleeves are short, nearly up to his armpits, and in his right hand he wields a single thin ivory rod. Before him on the table there is a pile of polished cash. From this he takes up a huge handful of coin, places it on a clear space, and covers it with a brass cup. When all the stakes are made, the cup is removed, and the teller proceeds, with the extreme end of his ivory wand, to pick out the cash in fours, the remaining number being that which wins. Before the pile is half, counted, provided there are no split coins or trickery in the game, a habitual player can always tell with puzzling certainty what the remainder will be, whether one, two, three, or four, and it is at this stage of the game that we observe a striking peculiarity in Chinese character. There are no passionate exclama tions, no noisy excitement, no outbursts of delight, no deep cursing of adverse fate. It is only in the faces of the players that we can perceive signs of emotion, or of the sullen desperate determination to carry on, at all hazards, until fortune smiles once more, or leaves them beggared at the board. Gambling, in those days, was not entirely con fined to the licensed houses. It was still carried on secretly in clubs and private abodes ; even by the coolies, in their leisure moments, at the corners of the streets. Dice, too, were in constant demand among petty traders and hawkers ; and I have seen children form a gambling-ring round some byeway vendor of LOTTERIES. 201 sweets, and eagerly stake their cash in the attempt to win a double share of his condiments. I have found coolies, too, in my own employment, sit down delibe rately and gamble away their next month's wages, till their very clothes were held in pawn by the lucky winner. Lotteries are also in great vogue in China at all times. For these there are tickets sold, upon which a series of numbers have been engrossed. The purchaser pays his cent and marks ten of the. numbers — those which, by some secret process of his own, he may have fixed on as the lucky set. The marked ticket is then paid in, and the holder receives in exchange a duplicate ticket marked in the same way. On the day of drawing the numbers are supposed to be dealt with by a mystic being, who dwells perpetually in darkness. He who holds three of the winning numbers receives back his even money, and he who holds the ten numbers receives six thousand times his stake. Assuming that the whole transaction is honestly carried through, the banker not unfrequently pockets as much as fifty per cent, as his profit for managing the lottery. Although gambling is a common Chinese vice, it does not, so far as I am aware, meet with direct recog- tion from the Chinese Government, although it might be made to contribute largely to the imperial revenue. Following Queen's Road through ' Wong-nei-chong,' or passing along the Praya to the east of Victoria, we reach the shady approach which leads to the Happy Valley, where the race-course and the cemetery are to be found. This European burial-ground lies behind the grand stand, where all the gaiety and fashion of the island assemble annually to view the races, which have 202 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. long been one of the institutions of the place. The turf- loving residents look forward to the race-meeting from year to year as the crowning pleasure of the whole twelvemonth, making up to them for all the heat and hardships of a place which has been termed the grave of Europeans. Although, strangely enough, but a step divides the living from the dead in this truly picturesque valley, the island itself is accounted one of the healthiest stations on the coast of China. The present style of living has probably something to do with the improved health of the community. The houses are better adapted to the climate than they were some twenty years back. The sanitary arrange ments are also more complete ; whereas, when first the city was being built, vast surfaces of decomposed granite were laid bare as the workmen cut into the face of the hill ; from the exposed spots noxious miasmas were exhaled, and to them are attributed those maladies which prevailed so fatally at that time, and which proved themselves the worst enemies our troops had to contend against in China. Even now, whenever the soil has to be opened anew, we still hear cases of this Hongkong fever occurring near the spot. The Chinese geomancers attributed the prevalence of this disease to our ignorance of the laws of ' Feng Shui ' — literally ' wind and water,' but denoting something like good luck brought about by a knowledge of astrology and geomancy — and it must be acknowledged that they correctly foretold the results which befel the colony as soon as the hill-sides were opened. Tree-planting was carried on vigorously under Sir Richard MacDonnell's administration; and this, while it adds greatly to the picturesqueness of the EUROPEANS IN HONGKONG. 203 island, has done not a litde to promote the good health of its inhabitants. Europeans in Hongkong live in a very expensive style ; much more expensively, one would think, than they need do, when we consider that many of the necessaries of life are to be had at prices very little in advance of our market rates at home. Beer and wine, however, and the coundess other little luxuries which one has to purchase at the Euro pean stores, make up a startling monthly bill : and, after all, the dollar which would be four shillings and sixpence in London is equal to little more than a shilling in Hongkong, in exchanging it for such com modities as are brought from home The newly- arrived resident may furnish his dwelling cheaply enough by buying at the constantly recurring auction sales of the householders who are leaving the colony ; or else of a Chinese tradesman, who will fit up his house for him throughout at a comparatively moderate charge But then servants are indispensable, and add greatly to the expense of living. The following is a list of those required for an ordinary family, where there are one or two children to be maintained : — Monthly Wages. Cook ... .... 10 dollars Two chair-coolies ...... 14 One nurse or amah 10 One house-boy .8 One house-coolie 7 This, at a low rate of exchange, is equal to one hundred and twenty pounds a year for domestic servants alone. Then all the washing is done by a Chinese laundryman, whose charge is the same as we pay in London. As for the doctor, he will make a contract to attend the 204 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. family for an annual retaining fee, say forty pounds, or thereabouts, and no end of medicine has to be bought at prices which, if need be, will afford your medical adviser a consideration of twenty-five per cent. The doctor is not supposed to have anything to do with the dispensing chemist ; but, nevertheless, the enormous quantity of drugs ordered, and at times tossed out at the window by the patient, leads people to draw con clusions which are not always just. Rent would be about one hundred and forty pounds a year for such a house as may be obtained in London for sixty ; and altogether, the expense of living in Hongkong may be fairly set down at something more than double what it is at home. Strange characters are not rarely to be met with here ; men who, from time to time, turn up with wonderful schemes for the benefit of the human race, but quite unable to tell you how their projects are to be carried into effect, or by what means the money is to be provided. Mr. Gabriel was an adventurer of this sort. I knew nothing of him, and had never seen him before the night on which he came to my house as a stranger, and requested permission to bring his baggage into my rooms until he could find some suitable lodgings elsewhere. This I granted, and about an hour afterwards he returned, saying he had not succeeded, and that he would feel grateful if I would allow him to sleep in any corner. A couch was prepared for him, and he settled himself for the night, but not before he had detailed to me his plans for rendering the island of Borneo one vast coffee-plan tation, and bringing its coffee-coloured people out of the darkness of savagedom into the light of civilisation. A STRANGE ADVENTURER. 205 Appearing to find pleasure in my society, Gabriel had remained under my roof for ten days, when I suggested to him that Borneo was all this while a howling wilderness, and its inhabitants still preying on each other for the want of schools and coffee. He had come from the Sandwich Islands, where he had been a schoolmaster, but his occupation there was unre- munerative, as he had brought no money with him. At length he persuaded a ship captain that it was his duty to afford him a free and comfortable passage to Singapore, and he accordingly left for that port, where he found out some of my friends, and got them to help him on his way to Borneo. In about two months Mr. Gabriel again appeared at my door with his cotton umbrella in one hand, a hymn-book in the other, and a decidedly crest-fallen expression in his face. He had landed on Borneo, but strange to relate, every body there, even to the Bishop and the European community, so he said, were of opinion that he had made a mistake; and the very natives themselves seemed disinclined for coffee, commerce, and schools. How he managed to get back I never clearly made out. Gabriel's countenance was a good one, and he always appeared in all he did to be . actuated by the purest motives, and the deepest sincerity. He had a mild, dreamy eye, and he would sit for hours alone, picturing to himself the results of the great reformation which he was destined never to accom plish. Again taking up his abode with me, he pro fessed his willingness to do anything, or to go anywhere to do good ; his life in one hand, his um brella in the other, to gain a living. At last I got him into the police force ; he wore their uniform for about 206 _ INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. two days, and then he returned to me again, and in a state of the deepest depression. He had resigned ; he could not stand the rough work, and rougher talk, to which he had been exposed. He was next em ployed at the sugar factory, and when he paid me his last visit it was to plead for the loan of eighteen dollars to settle his rent, for the ruthless landlord of the small house he occupied was about to seize his all for debt, as he could not appreciate his philanthropic object in desiring to live rent free. I lent him the money, but never saw any more either of him or it. I feel sure he would have paid me if he could, and I should really like to have heard what was his ultimate fate. A well-known clergyman told me of another character, who accosted him one day as he was leaving his church, and announcing himself, in a tone of mys terious confidence, as the bearer of a divine message, summoned to Hongkong to publish what had been thus revealed, requested permission to occupy the pul pit during the afternoon. My friend, noted no less for his caution than distinguished for his learning, said, ' Where are your credentials ?- If you have a mission direct from heaven, you are no ordinary person ; and seeing you have been sent to Hongkong, you have doubtless been gifted with the Chinese tongue ; so if you will just repeat what you have stated in Chinese, I will let you have the chapel.' This he could not ac complish ; but he did what surprised my worthy friend nearly as much — he confessed to being a faithful follower of the Mormons, and asked the clergyman if he had an old pair of trousers to bestow, as those he wore were not his own. Like other small communities at home and abroad, GERMAN MERCHANTS. 207 Hongkong has a little artificial society of its own divided into sets or cliques ; but on the whole the in habitants pull well together in all matters where they have common interests at stake. The trade of the port is divided among men of different nationalities ; American, French, German, Dutch, Chinese, Parsees, Hindoos, all enjoy a share of the commercial prosperity of our little colony. Next to the English and Americans, German merchants hold the foremost place. They have just built a splendid new club, and they are our close and successful competitors in almost every avenue of trade. Some of these German houses have a very high standing indeed, and their undoubted successes are spoken of at times with feelings not unmingled with bitterness. Nevertheless, we cannot but award them just praise for conducting their business with tho roughness, economy, and energy — qualities which have secured them a not unimportant position in commercial circles in the East, and have also brought them to the front rank among Continental nations at home. There are, doubtless, times when the British merchant imagines he has just cause to com plain of the manner in which the petty German trader secures his ends, and probably he is right. But if he is, it is ten chances to one that the trader who, like a mole burrowing in the soil, seeks the shady and doubtful paths of commerce, will be found out in the long run by the Chinese with whom he has to deal, and turn out a loser in the end. Be this as it may, it seems to me that the Germans are masters of some elements of success with which even a Scotchman, with all his thrift, can boast but a rudimentary acquaintance ; in a word, they manage their business more cheaply than 208 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. we do. They are, many of them, less expensive in their mode of living. Their assistants are not so numerous ; they board together in their houses comfortably, if not quite as luxuriously, as in the English establishments ; and often they are masters of more than one Eu ropean language ; at any rate most of them not only know their own tongue thoroughly, but can speak our language well enough, if need be, to occupy posts even in an English house. This in itself enables them to join a British firm, for the express purpose of adding to their already extensive experience a know ledge of the English trade. Many of them have been in houses in London, Manchester, or Liverpool, • and while there have made the most of their opportunities. Few of our countrymen, on the other hand, have had similar facilities for acquiring German, or have even thought it worth their while to fit themselves to trans late a simple German document. Nothing surprised me more in Hongkong than the expensive way in which English assistants were housed, and the luxuries with which they were indulged. Indeed few more luxurious quarters were anywhere to be found than the ' junior messes ' of the wealthy British firms. There the unfledged youth, coming out from the simplicity" of some rural home, was apt to develop into a man of epicurean tastes, a connoisseur in wines, and to become lavish in his expenditure; proud of his birthright, as a Briton ; honest, hospitable, extravagant ; despising meanness, and, alas ! even thrift. This sort of education was not calculated to prepare the merchant of the future for the cheese-paring shifts of modern times, when markets are overstocked, when competition runs strong, when Chinese companies and ENGLISH SOCIETY IN HONGKONG. 209 German economy are set in array against us, and when to trade and win a share ot the wealth, that seemed almost forced upon us in the olden times, re quires now patience, self-denial and determination. But Hongkong is rapidly shaping itself to the nervous energy of the times, and her English merchants still hold their own in the great trade of China. Their assistants still live well, although not so lavishly as in former days ; they are still hospitable, still liberal, and no unfortunate fellow-countryman is ever left des titute in their streets. Often in my time old residents have died and left penniless families behind them ; then subscription lists were opened, and responded to with such liberality that the widow and children went home with a very comfortable pension. But as I said, the times have changed ; now there are constant telegrams and steamers, and no less constant anxiety and care. The luxury and the extravagance have abated, but yet the style of life is higher and the amusements of the residents are more varied ; and alto gether society in Hongkong resembles more closely what one is accustomed to see at home. The climate of this quarter of the globe is for about six months of the year dry, with cool nights, and an almost cloudless sky ; but when the hot weather and the rain come round, the sky seems to descend and rest like a sponge on the top of the hill ; and this sponge, always full of moisture, is frequently squeezed over the town, and the rain falls in a sheet, and floods the streets and rises in hot vapour with the sun ; books and papers become limp and mouldy, and the residents feel as in a vapour-bath, while reclining in their chairs and languidly watching the flying ants that settle in p 210 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. thousands in the lamps, or alight on the table, when, casting their wings, and, crawling like worms, they seek an asylum in one's soup-plate, or in the various dishes of the dinner-table. But after all one gets used to these things and the place is by no means an unhealthy, or a disagreeable one, to reside in. I happened to be in Hongkong in 1869, when His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh visited the colony. He was the first English Prince who had roamed so far and wide over the world, - and who, according to the Chinese notion, had braved the dangers of the deep in order that he might, for once, feast his vision on the glories of the ' Great Middle Kingdom.' Whatever may have been his impressions • of the Celestial Empire and her rulers, any feeling of dis appointment on that score must have been dispelled by the hearty British welcome he received when the ' Galatea ' steamed through the throng of native and foreign craft, and moored in the smooth waters of Hongkong harbour. I well remember his landing. Ships of all nations vied in the splendour of their decorations ; long lines of merchant boats guarded the approach to the wharf; and on a thousand native craft, adorned with flags and shreds of Turkey red cloth, appeared dusky multi tudes of the floating population, swarming over the decks or dinging to the rigging of their vessels. The wharfs, too, and landing-stages, were covered with a sea of yellow faces, all eager to catch a glimpse of the great English Prince. Nor can I forget the regret expressed by some at finding he was only a man and a sailor after all. Some even ventured to suggest that 'sailor-man no saby proper Prince pidjin,'and indeed he VISIT OF H.R.H THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH. 211 was only attired in a captain's uniform, with no display of purple and fine linen, and with none of the mystic emblems of royalty to hedge his dignity around. A different being, this, surely, from the offspring of their own great Emperor, who is brother of the Sun, and full cousin to the Moon, and on whose radiant countenance no common mortal may look and live. The Prince's sojourn on the little island furnished a gay and festive episode in its history. The Prince and his gallant officers were never behindhand in con tributing to the enjoyment of the residents. Their crowning effort was a theatrical performance given by them in the pretty City Hall Theatre, where they not only displayed histrionic skill, but where the orchestra, under the able leadership of the Prince himself, proved a great attraction. p 2 2i2 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. CHAPTER VIII. Snakes in Hongkong — A Typhoon — An Excursion up the North Branch of the Pearl River — Fatshan — The Fi-lai-sz Monastery— The Mang tsz-hap, or Blind Man's Pass — Rapids — Akum's Ambition — The Kwan- yin Cave — Harvest — From San-shui to Fatshan in a Canoe— Canton — Governor Yeh's Temple — A Tea Factory — Spurious Tea — Making Tea — Shameen — Tea-tasting. ' Beware pf snakes ' is a caution very necessary to the new comer who may delight in morning rambles over the hills or through the grassy valleys of the island. In deed the snakes we find at Hongkong belong some of them to the most venomous sorts. Thus I once myself encountered a hooded ' cobra ' among the rocks at Wong-nei-Chong. When taking a photograph I sud denly noticed a dark object moving close to my feet. I raised my camera in order to use the tripod, as a weapon of defence, whereupon the reptile reared its head, erected its hood, and with a hiss slid down off the rock into the underwood. A well-known doctor in the colony captured three live cobras one after the other in the hospital grounds ; these he kept for some time in a cage, and instituted a series of interest ing experiments to test the best mode of treating the wounds which they inflicted. At one time he had a fine specimen in his possession. It had been but recently secured, and was an object of great interest to his acquaintances. But I confess my own curiosity was somewhat marred when one afternoon, before ' SNAKES IN HONG-KONG. 213 dinner, my medical friend informed me with much gravity that he hourly expected a visit of the cobra's mate, as they were frequently found in pairs. ' If you should see it about the room,' said he, 'just sit quiet and don't bother yourself. It might be beneath the table, you know, but it would'nt attempt to bite unless you happened to tread on it, and even then you might hear it hiss, and have time to get out of its reach. At any rate if the wound was treated at once you probably would not be a whit the worse for it.' Suddenly the dispenser appeared, to announce that the snake had arrived, and was in the adjoining room. ' Now,' he said, ' coolness and a quick eye are all that we require for his capture. Come along, and mind your legs, for the cobra is very quick in his movements.' We ac cordingly proceeded to the scene of action, and found the enemy beneath a chest of drawers, from which he was successfully dislodged and secured in spite of his forked tongue, his ferocity, and his poisonous fangs. These snakes never survived long, so that the experi ments which promised to yield important results could not be carried to a satisfactory issue. The doctor was a man of wonderful resource. During the intense heat of summer he was troubled with sleepless nights, so in his bath-room, near the chamber where he slept, he fitted up two bathing-jars, one above the other, and fixed a water-wheel between them. This wheel had originally belonged to a bicycle, but was soon metamor phosed and became the driving-wheel which kept a punkah continually at work, fanning him on his bed all night. The water falling on the wheel descended to the lower jar, and was ready for his morning ablu tions. 214 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. ' I had for long been anxious to see a typhoon, and I had my wish gratified in Hongkong on more occasions than one. The strength of the wind at such times, is greater than I could ever have thought possible. It whirls ships helplessly adrift from the firmest moorings ; and I have seen them emerge from the storm with canvas torn to shreds, spars carried away, and masts broken off nearly flush with the decks. In Hong kong the wind with a sudden blast has riven away the corners of houses, and sent projecting verandahs flying across the streets. During the height of the gale the . residents for the most part shut themselves closely in their houses, carefully securing their windows and doors, and so remain with constant apprehension and dread, lest the dwelling should in a moment be swept away, and themselves entombed beneath the ruins. Once, while the storm was at its worst, I ventured down to the Praya in time to see the crowd of Chinese boats and trading craft that had been blown inshore, and piled up in a mass of wreck just below the city, at the western extremity of the beach. One or two intrepid foreigners had been there, and had rescued a large number of the natives, but many more had gone down with their boats. The sky was of dark leaden colour; and there were moments when the fierce strength of the wind abated, but only to gather fresh violence, catching up the crested waves and sending them in long white streaks of vapour across the scene, through which the dismantled ships were dimly descried drifting from their moorings, and the steamers with steam up ready for an emergency. Besides, the heavy stone-faced wall of. the Praya had given way, and the great granite blocks of which it was composed had been washed in upon ¦ If wlMHP 'IffifflBii i ¦ iWM Hlfll Hi . ffllllil lift - ¦ IIIII I oa< aozo«ozoa o c a a, >•H A TYPHOON IN HONGKONG HARBOUR. 215 the road. Half blinded by the waves as they leapt over the road and dashed in angry foam against the houses, and leaning forward in the efforts, often fruitless, to make headway against the tempest, I at length reached the east end of the settlement, where a number of foreigners were attempting to rescue two women from a small Chinese boat. These boatwomen were using the most desperate exertions to keep their tiny vessel in position, and to prevent it from being dashed to . pieces against the breach in the Praya wall, where jagged blocks of stone were interspersed with the fragments of boats that had already been destroyed. So strong was the wind that the wild raging, ocean seemed reduced nearly to a level, for the tops of the waves were caught up by the tempest in its fury and hurled in blinding spray into, and even-over the houses. We had to cling to the lamposts and stanchions, and to seek shelter against the doorways and walls. Advan tage was taken of a slight lull in the storm to fire off rockets, but these were driven back like feathers against the houses. Then long-boats were dragged to the pier, but the first was broken and disabled the moment it touched the water, while the second met a like fate, and its gallant crew were pitched out into the sea. In short, every effort proved abortive, and as darkness set in the boat and the unhappy women were reluctantly abandoned to their fate. Next morning the whole length of the Praya presented a scene of wreckage and desolation. Many of the Chinese, notwithstanding their shrewdness in predicting storms, had been taken quite unawares, and hence the fearful sacrifice of life and the loss of property which had ensued. In 1870, accompanied by three Hongkong resi- 216 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. dents, I made an excursion up the north branch of the Pearl River of Canton. This northern affluent joins the main stream at a spot called ' San-shui ' or ' three waters,' lying above the city about forty miles inland. To reach it, we must pass through the Fatshan Creek, where Commodore Keppel fought his famous action in the year 1857. The town of Fatshan exceeds a mile in length ; the creek passes right through its centre. It is said to be the nucleus of the greatest manufacturing districts of Southern China. Cutlery and hardware are the two chief industries, hence Fatshan is sometimes designated the Birming ham or Sheffield of the Flowery Land. It seemed a strange thing to me when I examined the knives, the scissors, and the pans of brass and copper which find a ready market all over the country, that similar articles of a superior English make have done so little to paralyse the* industry of these Fatshan factories. This is partly caused by the cheapness of Chinese labour, and partly by the suitableness of the articles manufactured to the local popular requirements. Chinese scissors, for example, are quite different in form from those in use with us, and, if we were to attempt to cut with them, we should be apt to tear the cloth. In the hands of a native tailor they are made to work wonders, and indeed use had taught the latter to prefer them to our own. I have no doubt it would be well worth the while of an English manufacturer to visit Fatshan and make himself acquainted with the exact form of all the different kinds of tools in use among the Chinese, so that afterwards he might imitate and export them himself. The iron used in this district is imported from foreign countries, although it FATSHAN CREEK. 217 has been said that ore abounds in the Yan-ping division of the province, x of a quality so good, as to yield 70 per cent of the pure metal, and contiguous also to deposits of valuable coal. So long, however, as ' Feng-shui ' and shortsighted Government interest hold their sway, mines are certain never to be opened up. As we pass through the city we notice numerous im posing edifices substantially built of brick, the resi dence of native merchants, temples with a grotesquely sculptured granite facade, and a large customs station ; but the houses in the suburbs which border the creek are raised above water on piles, and their temporary miserable appearance is in striking contrast to the princely abodes and evidences of wealth which we en counter in the heart of the town. These poor propped- up tenements suggest the idea of a procession of invalids, staggering forth on their way into the country, much the worse for the dissipation of city life. The creek is the principal ' thoroughfare, and is crowded with thousands of junks and boats, all busily engaged in loading or discharging cargo, or else in bearing passengers to and fro along the extremely narrow channel which winds its way through this floating Babel, where endless discord reigns. This creek is evidently much too contracted for the traffic of the place ; and I can readily imagine how, seventeen years ago, the Chinese squadron, fleeing before a handful of British tars in their small boats, drew up like a wall across this narrow passage, and poured a hailstorm of shot upon their gallant assailants, spreading death and destruction among the little band. As for the Com- 1 China Review, 1873, p. 337. 218 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. modore, with his boat shot away from under him, ' with his coxswain killed, and every man of his crew wounded,'1 he calmly retired to await reinforcements and returned at last from a severe attack, with five of the largest junks in tow. The Chinese themselves, who are by no means destitute of courage, are said honestly to have acknowledged their admiration for the pluck, and daring of the man who started with seven small boats to capture Fatshan and its 200,000 inhabitants, and who destroyed their entire fleet — the terror, as was supposed of the ' foreign fire-eating devils,' who were held never before this to have fought a fair fight ; but to be always taking their foes in the rear of their forts, instead of bravely coming to the front and facing the guns which had been set up with so much pains for the very purpose of receiving their assaults. Whenever a block-up among the boats in the creek takes place — which happens frequently, and is pro tracted indefinitely for a long period of time — one has leisure to notice the numerous floating tea and music- saloons, and many flower-barges moored close against the banks. These boats carry elevated cabins on their decks, and are very prettily painted, gilded, and decorated throughout. The windows and doors are curtained with silk ; and through one of these, which stood conveniently open, we could discern gaily-dressed young dandies, and even elder sybarites, flirting with gaudily-painted girls, who waited upon them with silver pipes or Chinese hookahs, or served up cups of tea. There were pleasure-boats, too, .fitted up with private cabins, in which families were being conveyed into the 1 China, G. Wingrove Cooke, p. 35. WONG -TO NG VILLAGE. 219 country to enjoy a glimpse of the green rice-fields and orchards. At San-shui we entered the north river, passing into a picturesque district, in some places not unlike the Scottish lowlands, covered with ripening fields of barley. Halting not far from the town of Lo'pau, at Wong-Tong village, on the right bank of the stream, I prepared to take a photograph, and my intention was to include a group of old women who were gossiping and drawing water ; but when they saw my instrument pointed towards their hamlet, they fled in alarm, and spread abroad the report that the foreigners had re turned and were preparing to bombard the settlement. A deputation soon set out from the village, led by a venerable Chinaman, the head man of the clan, and to him we explained that we had come on no hostile errand, but only to take a picture of the place. He gave us a hearty welcome to his house, spreading tea and cake before us. This was one of those many in stances of a simple genuine hospitality which I experi enced all over the land ; and I feel assured that any foreigner knowing enough of the language to make his immediate wants understood, and endowed with a reasonable even temper, would encounter little opposi tion in travelling over the greater part of China. But there is always a certain amount of danger in the larger and more populous cities. We offered one or two small silver coins to the children of the house, but the old gentleman would not permit them to be accepted, until it had been carefully explained to him that they were simply gifts to be worn as charms, and not intended as a recompense for his hospitality. On the bank of the river in the Tsing-yune district 220 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. I narrowly escaped sinking into a quicksand. We spent a night before Tsing-yune city, but were kept awake by the noise of gongs and crackers, by the odour of joss-sticks, and by the smoke of cooking from the ad joining boats. At length we reached the monastery of Fi-lai-sz, perhaps the most picturesque and one of the most famous of its kind to be seen in the south of China. The building is approached from the brink of the river by a flight of broad granite steps; this con ducts us to an outer gate, whereon is inscribed in characters of gold, ' Hioh Shan Miau.' The monastery- has been built on a richly wooded hill-side, and half way up to it, on the verge of a mossy dell, we reach the Fi-lai-sz shrine. Three idols stand within this shrine, one of them representing, or supposed to repre sent, the pious founder, who is said to have been transported hither, shrine and all, on the wings of a fiery dragon, more than two thousand years ago. A favourite resting-place this for travellers, one where they are hospitably entertained, and where the monks, with impious sympathy for human weakness, supply their guests with opium, and sell carved sticks, cut from the sacred temple groves, as parting relics of their visit. The Tsing-yune pass, in which the monastery lies, is in great repute as a burial-ground. There, thousands of graves front the river and stud the hill slopes to a height of about 800 feet. To every grave there is a neat facing of stone, something in the form of a horse shoe, or like an easy-chair with a rounded back. The interior of the temple cloister is paved with granite and decorated with flowers set out in vases and orna mental pots ; thus art lent its aid to a scene of natural LIEN-CHOW-KWONG. 221 loveliness the most romantic and beautiful. On the opposite bank of the stream a narrow path leads to a wooded ravine, whither the monks retire when they seek to abstract themselves from the world, forgetting existence, with its pleasures and sorrows, and culti vating that supreme repose which will bring them nearer Nirvana. It seemed to me, when I inspected the cell-like chambers of these devotees, that some among them were not unfamiliar with the fumes of the opium-pipe, and that they must, poor frail mortals ! at times endeavour to float away to the western heavens steeped in the incense of that enslaving drug. I cannot picture anything more dreary and depressing, than the unnatural existence which these recluses are supposed to lead, droning their dull lives away in chanting a tedious, and to some of them, meaningless ritual ; seek ing to attain the perfect holiness of doing nothing, learn ing nothing, and feeling nothing; struggling, indeed, to crush out all consciousness of life, and to resolve themselves into the inanimate material out of which all things have been created. We next halted at a village called Lien-Chow- Kwong. It was a miserable specimen of its kind, planted in a desolate neighbourhood, and with an air of poverty and destitution pervading both it and its in habitants. The wretched unwashed peasant, in his tattered coat, leant from sheer weakness against a wall, in order to get a steady look at us, while the lean and ill-conditioned fowls were plucking their own feathers out to appease the pangs of hunger! The passes in this river present some bold rock and hill scenery, while the short reaches and sudden bends of the stream remind one of Highland lochs. In 222 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. other places the hills slope gently downwards towards the water, and terminate in a bank of glittering sand, not unfrequently a mile broad. These sand-banks glare like miniature deserts beneath the blazing mid day sun, but are happy in the association of a re freshing stream which flows clear and cool along the margin. The Mang-Tsz-Hap, or Blind Man's Pass, is one of the finest on the river. Here the bold crags shoot up in precipices that are lost in shreds of drifting mist, as if the heavy clouds, sweeping across jagged pinnacles of rock, were riven into a hundred vapoury fragments. The weather was now cold and stormy, but fitful gleams of sunshine broke in upon the dark ness, now lending its brightness to a patch of vivid green among the rocks, now shooting a solitary beam through clouds and haze, to light up some distant spot upon the waters. Once, caught in a rapid by a sudden gust of wind, our boat seemed like to have been shattered in the breakers ; but her crew in a twinkling slipped the tracking-line, and she drifted safely down mid-stream. At another time we ran aground, and the sudden shock sent one of the boatmen headlong over board. He was thoroughly exhausted when we picked him up again ; but after a glass of brandy he speedily recovered, and expressed his willingness to be rescued from drowning, and revived in the same way, as frequently as we chose to repeat the dose. The Chinese get the credit of being exceedingly- temperate, and in the majority of cases this is true ; but at the same time, among the lower orders, especially the boating population, temperance is only observed. because sheer necessity compels restraint ; and many of the boatmen on the rivers along which I have travelled YING-TEK CITY. 223 will drink sam-shu to excess during the cold weather, whenever they can win a few extra cash. These men are about as poor and miserable a class as one can meet in the most poverty-stricken districts of the land. In the southern provinces their sole food is steamed rice flavoured with salt, or rendered more savoury with a fragment of salt fish ; and when times are good, they even indulge in the luxury of a little bit of pork fat. It is surprising how they stand the cold, more especi ally in the northern regions, and how a drop of spirits will send the warm blood tingling through their veins and cause them to display a muscular power and a strength of endurance not easily accounted for, when one considers the simple nature of their food. Millions of these hardy sons of toil live from hand to mouth, and are only kept from starving, from piracy, and from rebellion, by the cheapness of their staple food, and by the constant demand for their labour. But there are pirates to be found in this very river ; our crew themselves told us of it, and added, that for anything they knew to the contrary there might be a swarm of them in the boats among which we moored at night. At Ying-Tek city I fell in with a spectacle which fully confirmed this assertion, and at the same time produced in me a sensation of horror that it will be impossible ever to forget. Ying-Tek stands on the right bank of the stream. Beneath its outer wall there stretches a bank of reeking filth and garbage, which at mid-day must pollute the air for miles around. We picked our way over slimy treacherous paths and across putrid-looking pools, till we passed through the gateway into the main street of the town. 224 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. It was an exceedingly narrow thoroughfare, and had at one time been paved, but the pavement was now broken and disordered ; while, as to the people, they looked sickly, sullen, dirty and dispirited. But it was in the market-place we beheld the most shocking sight of all. There the bodies of two men were exposed to the, public gaze, their position indicated by swarms of flies, and the air telling that decomposition had already set in. One of these malefactors had been starved to death in the cage in which he stood, and the other had been crucified. Beyond the rapids of this part of the river we reach vast cultivated plains, out of which isolated limestone rocks and parallel ranges of mountains rise up in shapes most fantastic, and disorder most picturesque. It was from a hill above the Polo-hang temple that we obtained the finest view of the country. The cultivation hereabouts was of a kind I had never seen before. ' In the foreground were a multitude of fields, banked off for the purposes of irrigation, but already shorn of their crops. Here and there was a mound covered with temples and trees ; and beyond, reaching to the base of the distant mountains, were groves of the pale green bamboo rocking their plumage to and fro in the wind, like the waves of an emerald sea. The bamboo is reared in this and other districts, and forms a valu able article of commerce, the wealth of a landowner being frequently estimated by the number of clumps which he, has on his estate. Its growth is rapid and in dependent. It requires neither care nor tillage, and is a source of abundant riches in this part of the country. When looking on this scene my old Chinaman, Akum, came up. I do not think he has yet been intro- THE KWANG-TUNG PROVINCE. 225 duced to my readers. He was a faithful servant, or boy, as they are here called, about forty years of age, who had been in my employment in Singapore, and afterwards turning trader, had lost his small capital. 'Well,' he said, ' what are you looking at, Sir?' 'At the beautiful view,' I replied. ' Yes,' he said ; ' I wish I had the smallest of these hills ; I would settle LOOKING NORTH FROM THE PO-LO-HANG TEMPLE, KWANG-TUNG. there, on the top, watching my gardeners at work below, and when I saw one labourer more industrious than the rest I would reward him with a wife.' He spoke to me often afterwards about this ideal hill on which he hoped one day to sit, and reward the virtue of his servants. Hereafter I may say something as to the multi tudinous uses to which the bamboo can be applied. Q 226 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. There is good snipe and pheasant-shooting in this quarter. We noticed quantities of the reeds employed for making Canton mats. Mats of this sort are manu factured extensively in three places,1 viz. Tun-kun, Lin-tan, and Canton. They afford occupation to many thousand operatives, and are indeed an important industry of the province of Kwang-tung. About 1 1 2,000 rolls, measuring 40 yards apiece, are said to " be annually exported from Canton. About two hundred miles above Canton we visited the most remarkable object which we had encountered in the course of our journey. This is the celebrated grotto of Kwan-yin, the goddess of mercy, formed out of a natural cave in the foot of a limestone precipice which rears its head high above the stream. The mouth of the cavern opens on the water's edge, and the interior has been enlarged in some places by excavation, and built up in others so as to render it suitable for a Buddhist shrine. A broad granite platform surmounted by a flight of steps leads us into the upper chamber, and there the goddess may be seen seated on a huge lotus-flower ; sculptured, so they tell us, by no human hands, and discovered in situ within the cave. The priests placed implicit faith in the story, but they could not be persuaded to believe that the flower might be the fossil of a pre-historic lotus of monstrous dimensions. Barbarians might credit such childish fables as that flowers or fishes can be turned into stone, ' but not the enlightened followers of Buddha : No ; they say the lotus was created in the 1 China Review, 1873, P- 255- THE GODDESS KWAN-YIN 227 cave for Kwan-yin to sit upon ; there was no getting over that. According to their account, this goddess of mercy has a marvellous history. She first appeared on earth in the centre of the world, that is China, as the daughter of a Chinaman named ' Shi-kin,' and she was made visible to mortal eyes as a child of the Emperor Miao-Chwang. The sovereign ordered her to marry, and this she steadfastly refused to do, thus violating the native usages, whereupon the dutiful parent put her remorselessly to death. But this measure, con trary to Miao-Chwang's expectation, only caused his daughter to be promoted into the proud position she now fills. Afterwards Kwan-yin is said to have visited the infernal regions, where the presence of such trans- cendant goodness and beauty produced an instantaneous effect. The instruments of torture dropped from the hands of the executioners, the guilty were liberated, and hell was transformed into paradise itself. The goddess now looks down with a benign ex pression from her seat upon the lotus throne, but she seems to be urgently in need of repairs. The priests who dwell within the cave sit over looking the river from an opening in the upper face of the rock, which serves the purpose of a window. As we see them with the sun at their backs they appear to be like a row of badly-preserved idols, so motionless do they sit, and so unconscious, to all seeming, of the presence of foreigners. But when we confront them and display a bright coin, they wake up, and manifest an unholy zeal to appropriate it. The money is offered and accepted, and then a venerable member of the order shows us through the Q 2 228 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. interior of the cave. A number of smaller idols, the attendants of Kwan-yin, are ranged along niches in the rock ; a little lighted taper burns in front of each, while cups of sam-shu and votive offerings of food are spread out before them. A group of stalactites hangs in front of the window ; above and around them hover a number of pure white doves, that descend at the call of the aged priest, and feed out of his hand. It was interest ing to notice the outstretched hand of the old man ; it was withered, shrunken, and encumbered by a set of long yellow nails that looked dead, and were already partly buried beneath the unwashed encrustation of a lifetime. This recluse said that the spotlessness of the doves is emblematic of the purity of the goddess, and admitted that for anything he knew to the contrary these doves might contain the departed spirits of former monks. Judging from the appearance of our vener able unwashed friend, the spirits of departed monks would feel extremely uncomfortable in their new quarters, having exchanged their filthy robes and filthier bodies for the spotless plumage of the dove. It is harvest- time, and the grain in many places is already cut, and has been piled up in farm-yards in stacks, to be thrashed with flails, or trodden beneath the heavy-footed ox. The season has been a plenteous one, and the farmers are full of joy, praising the god of agriculture for the abundance of this their second crop, from a soil which has yielded produce during centuries of constantly recurring harvests. The Chinese are careful farmers, and were probably the first to understand that their land requires as much consideration as their oxen or their asses ; that the substnce which it gives up to a crop has to be re HAR VEST-TIME. 2 2 9 placed by manure, and that it requires a time of rest after a season of labour, before it will yield its greatest increase. How the Chinese acquired this knowledge, and at what epoch, are questions which Confucius himself would probably have been puzzled to answer. There is no doubt that they succeed in raising green crops and grain alternately from their fields at least twice in the year. But this extraordinary fertility is due in part to the small size of their farms, which are, most, of them, of so limited an area that the pro prietors can cultivate them personally with unceasing care, and partly also to the abundant use of manure in fashion among the peasants of China. We see evi dences of the social economy of the people in a multitude of instances and a variety of ways. Thus, when the farmer is near a town, he pays a small sum to certain houses for the privilege of daily removing their sewage to his own manure-pit. This sewage he uses, for the most part in a fluid state, often to fertilise poor waste lands which have been leased to him at a low rental. If his farm is some distance from villages or towns, he is careful to use every opportunity for securing cheap supplies of the manure which he so much needs, and accordingly he erects small houses for the use of way farers along the edge of his fields. His neighbour is equally careful to have houses of the same description ; and they vie with each other in keeping them as clean and attractive-looking as possible. I returned to Canton alone from San Shui, in a small boat, leaving my friends to find their own way leisurely back. At one place there were only a few inches of water above the bed of the stream, so I had to hire an open canoe, while my baggage was carried 230 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. overland to the next bend of the river. In this canoe I descended, or rather raced, down to Fatshan amid a number of similar craft whereon Chinese traders were embarked. The distance was about twenty-five miles. We contrived to reach the town about half an hour ahead of the rest, and passed at once down the narrow channel between the crowded boats. This was by far the most disagreeable experience of the journey. At tempting to land quietly and have a look at the town, I was assailed on the bank by a mob of roughs, who drove me into the river, where I was taken into a boat by a couple of good-natured women, and by them rowed down stream till I could succeed in engaging a fast-boat to convey me as far as Canton. Canton and the Kwang-tung province, as my reader is doubtless aware, continued for many years to be almost the only places in the vast Chinese Empire with which Europeans were acquainted. I need hardly do more here than refer those of my readers who take an interest in the obscure and checquered history of Canton to an elaborate and interesting account, trans lated and published in China by Mr. Bowra, of the Imperial Customs. In this narrative it is stated that the first authentic notice of Kwang-tung province is found in the native writings of the Chow dynasty B.C. 1 122. The fifth century of our era is set down as the date at which Buddhist missionaries introduced their religious classics, and not only founded the sect which now predominates in the country, but led to the estab lishment of commercial relations between the Empires of India and China. The intercourse which the Chinese have ever since that time carried on with other nations has been subject to periodical interruptions, CANTON STEAMERS. 231 and its history has been one of endless strife ; China, on the one hand, adhering steadfastly to her policy of exclusiveness, and throwing all kinds of barriers in the way of foreign trade ; while outside communities, with equal persistence, applied a pressure to which the Chinese have been gradually giving way, and thus the mutually advantageous treaty relations have by tardy steps been established. The city of Canton stands on the north bank of the Chu-kiang or Pearl River, about ninety miles inland, and is accessible at all seasons to vessels of the largest tonnage. Communication between the capital and the other parts of the province is afforded by the three branches which feed the Pearl River, and by a network of canals, and creeks. A line of fine steamers plies daily between the city and Hongkong, and the submarine telegraph, at the latter place, has thus brought the once distant Cathay into daily correspondence with the western world. It is a pleasant trip from Hongkong up the broad Pearl River. .From the deck of the steamers one may view with comfort the ruins of the Bogue forts, and think of the time and feelings of Captain Weddell, who, in 1637* anchored the first fleet of English merchant vessels before them. From this point the gallant captain, through the misrepresentation and slander of the Portuguese, had to fight his way up to Canton, where he at last obtained cargoes at rates so unprofitable that the trade was abandoned for a quarter of a century afterwards. The Chinese cabin in the Canton steamer is an interesting sight, too. It is crowded with passengers every trip ; and there they lie on the deck in all imaginable attitudes, some on mats smoking opium, others on benches fast asleep. There 232 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. are little gambling parties in one corner, and city merchants talking trade in another ; and viewed from the cabin-door the whole presents a wonderfully con fused perspective of naked limbs, arms and heads, queues, fans, pipes, and silk or cotton jackets. The owners of these miscellaneous effects never dream of walking about, or enjoying the scenery or sea-breeze. I only once noticed a party of Chinese passengers aroused to something bordering on excitement, and it was in this Canton steamer. They had caught a countryman in an attempt at robbery, and determined to punish him in their own way. When the steamer reached the wharf, they relieved the delinquent of his clothing, bound it around his head, and tied his hands behind his back with cords ; and in this condition sent him ashore to meet his friends, but not before they had covered his nakedness with a coat of oil-paint of various tints. My readers will remember the celebrated Governor Yeh of Canton, who was carried prisoner to Calcutta. He would almost be forgotten in this quarter were it not for a temple erected to his departed spirit. It may be seen on the bank of a suburban creek. A very pretty monument it is to remind one of our lively intercourse with the notorious Imperial commissioner in 1857, an intercourse marked by trouble and bloodshed throughout, and which ended in the capture of that unfortunate official in an obscure yamen. Yeh's temple is a handsomely finished, pretty edifice, among the best of its kind in Canton, and it conveys to a visitor an excellent notion of the temple architecture now in vogue at that city. The Fatee gardens, so often described, are still to YEH'S TEMPLE, CANTON THE FATEE GARDENS. 233 be found, almost unchanged, at the side of a narrow creek on the right bank of the river. These gardens are native nurseries for flowers, dwarf shrubs, and trees. Like most Chinese gardens they cover only a small area, and have been contrived to represent landscape gardening in miniature. Thus the walks are intentionally narrow. Here and there are dwarf trees and stunted shrubs, little rockeries crowned with temples and pagodas equally diminutive in their proportions, while small pools set out like lakes are spanned with dainty little marble bridges in their narrower parts. In the Fatee nurseries, besides rare and beautiful flowers, a great attraction is found in the shrubs trained to form small barges, dwellings, and dragons ; some have even been turned into bird cages, where living birds might find a more congenial home than in the bamboo cages in common use. It is interesting to notice the dwarfing of trees. An or dinary tree is selected, and around a suitable branch the gardener binds a bag of mould, which he is careful to keep moist until, at length, the branch strikes roots into the mould. It is then cut from the parent stem and planted to form the trunk of the dwarf, that soon bears leaves, and flowers, and fruit. Some distance below the Fatee creek, on the same side of the river, a number of Tea Hongs and tea-firing establishments are to be found. To these I now venture to introduce the reader, as he must needs feel more or less interest in the tea-men, and their mode of preparing this highly-prized luxury. Passing up the creek along the usual narrow channel, between densely- packed rows of floating craft, we land on a broad stone platform, cross a court where men are to be seen 234 INDO CHIAA AND CHINA. weighing the tea, and enter a large three-storied brick building, where we meet ' Tan Kin Ching,' the pro prietor, to whom we bear an introduction from one of his foreign customers. One of the clerks is directed to show us over the place. He first ushers us into a large warehouse, where thousands of chests of the new crop are piled up, ready for inspection by the buyer. The inspection of this cargo is an exceedingly simple process. The foreign tea-taster enters and places his mark on certain boxes in different parts of the pile. These are forthwith removed, weighed, and scrutinised as fair samples of the bulk. The whole cargo is shipped without further ceremony should the parcels examined prove satisfactory ones ; and, indeed, ' nowadays it seldom happens that shortcomings in weight and quality are at the last moment detected, for the better class of Chinese merchants are remark able for their honesty and fair dealing. I am the more anxious thus to do justice to the Chinese dealers, because the notion has recently got abroad that, as a rule, they are most notorious cheats ; men who never fail to overreach the unsuspecting trader when an opportunity occurs, and upon whose shoulders must fall the full weight of the charge of preparing and selling those spurious or adulterated teas which have recently reached this country in a condition not fit for human food. It seems clear to me that the Chinese manufacturer of this sort of rubbish is by no means the most reprehensible party in the trade. He it is, indeed, who sets himself to collect from the servants of foreigners or natives, and from the restaurants and tea- saloons, the leaves that have been already used, and to dry them, cook them, and mix them with imitations of THE TEA TRADE. 235 the genuine leaf. This process completed, he next adds pickings, dust, and sweepings from the tea-factory, and mixes the whole with foreign materials, so as to lend it a healthy surface hue. Lastly, he perfumes the lot with some sweet-smelling flower — the chloranthus, olea, aglaia, and others ; and thus provides a cheap, fragrant, and polluted cup for the humble consumers abroad. They, poor souls, are tempted by the lowness of the cost; while, as for the grocer from whom they buy their pennies'-worths of the dear herb, or whatever we ought to call it, he probably knows about as much of the chemistry of tea and of the science of tea-tasting as he does of the spectroscope and the composition of a comet. He might just as reasonably, in some instances, be fined for ignorance of the chemistry of the stars as for unacquaintance with the properties and composition of the tea he sells. I must not, however, be under stood to say that the retail dealer is ignorant of the market value of the tea he buys. I only affirm that he is fairly entitled to take it for granted that tea on which duty has been paid, and which is offered to him for sale, is fit for human food. The evil will only be cured when the market for such stuff is closed in China, and when those who traffic in it shall be content to follow the legitimate course of trade, and to compete with the foreign tea-merchants who are armed with a staff of highly-trained, honest assistants, and who buy only what they themselves know to be sound and good. The tea-trade is more or less a speculative one, always full of risks (as some of our merchants have found out to their cost) ; and though a vast amount of foreign capital is annually invested in the enterprise, it is probably only every second or third venture that 236 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. will return, I do not say a handsome profit, but any profit at all. Tea-mixing is also carried on, to a certain extent, at home, in order to meet the taste and means of European consumers ; but the materials which form the spurious class of teas to which I have already referred are brought from the Central Flowery Land ; and it may be set down as a guide to the public that tea pure and simple cannot be sold in England at much under two shillings, or two shillings and sixpence a pound, although cheaper teas or mixtures may at the same time be obtained of a perfectly harmless quality. We will now proceed to another apartment and see the method adopted in the manufacture of gunpowder teas. First the fresh leaves of black tea are partially dried in the sun. These are next rolled either in the palm of the hand, or on a flat tray, or by the feet in a hempen bag ; then they are scorched in hollow iron pans over a charcoal fire, and after this are spread out on bamboo trays, that the broken stems and refuse may be picked out. In this large stone-paved room we notice the leaves in different stages of preparation. The labour required to produce the gunpowder leaf is the most curious and interesting of the many processes to which the plant is subjected. We are surprised to notice a troop of able-bodied coolies, each dressed only in a short pair of cotton trousers tucked up so as to give free action to his naked limbs. One feels puzzled at first to conjecture what they are about. Can they be at work, or is it only play ? They each rest their arms on a cross beam, or against the wall, and with their feet busily roll and toss balls of about a foot in diameter (or the size of an ordinary football) up and SHAMEEN. 237 down the floor of the room. Our guide assures us it is work they are after, and very hard work too. The balls beneath their feet are the bags packed full of tea leaves, which by the constant rolling motion assume the pellet shape. As the leaves become more com pact, the bag loosens and requires to be twisted up at the neck, and again rolled ; the twisting and rolling being repeated until the leaf has become perfectly globose. It is then divided through sieves into different sizes, or qualities, and the scent and bouquet is imparted after the final drying or scorching. Most of the tea shipped from Canton is now grown in the province of Kwang-tung ; formerly part of it used to be brought from the ' Tung-ting ' district, but that now finds its way to Hankow. Leaves from the Tai-shan district are mostly used in making ' Canton District Pekoe ' and ' Long Leaf Scented Orange Pekoe,' while Lo-ting leaf makes ' Scented Caper and Gunpowder ' teas. In order to see the foreign tea-tasters prosecuting a branch of science which they have made peculiarly their own, we must cross the river to Shameen, a pretty little green island, on which the foreign houses stand ; looking with its villas, gardens, and croquet-lawns, like the suburb of some English town. There is a neat home-like church there, too, and near it resides the Archdeacon, who is constantly being found engaged in some tender-hearted self-sacrificing mission to the poor foreign sailors that frequent the port. We as cend a flight of steps in a massive stone retaining wall with which Shameen is surrounded ; and this done, we might wander for a whole day, and examine all the houses on the island, without discovering a trace of a 238 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. merchant's office, or any outward sign of commerce at all. Those who are familiar with the factory site, and who can figure what that must have been in olden times, when the foreign merchants were caged up like wild beasts, and subjected to the company and taunts of the vilest part of the river population, and to the pestilential fumes of an open drain that carried the sewage of the city to the stream, will be surprised at the transformation that has, since those days, been wrought. The present residences of foreigners on this grassy site (reclaimed mud flat raised above the river) are substantial elegant buildings of stone or brick, sur rounded each by a wall, an ornamental railing, or bamboo hedge, enclosing the gardens and outhouses in its circuit. Except the firm's name on each small brass door-plate, there is nothing anywhere that tells us of trade. But when we have entered, we find the dwell ing-house on the upper story, and the comprador's room and offices on the ground-floor ; next to the offices, the tea-taster's apartment. Ranged against the walls of this chamber are rows of polished shelves, covered with small round tin boxes of a uniform size, and bearing each a label and date in Chinese and English writing. These boxes contain samples of all the various sorts of old and new teas used for reference and comparison in tasting, smelling, and scrutinising parcels, or chops, which may be offered for sale. In the centre of the floor stands a long table bestrewed with a multitude of white porcelain covered cups, manufactured specially for the purpose of tasting tea. The samples are placed in these cups, and hot water of a given temperature is then poured upon them. The SPURIOUS TEA. 239 time the tea rests in the hot water is measured by a sand-glass ; and when this is accomplished, all is ready for the tasting, which is a much more useful than elegant operation. The windows of the room have a northern aspect, and are screened off so as to admit only a steady sky light, which falls directly on to a tea-board beneath. Upon this board the samples are spread on square wooden trays, and it is under the uniform light above described that the minute inspection of colour, make, general appearance, and smell, takes place. All these tests are made by assistants who have gone through a special course of training which fits them for the mysteries of their art. The knowledge which these experts possess is of the greatest importance to the merchant, as the profitable outcome of the crops selected for the home market depends, to a great extent, on their judgment and ability. It will thus be seen that the merchant, not only when he chooses his teas for exportation, but at the last moment before they are shipped, takes the minutest precautions against frau dulent shortcomings either in quality or weight. It is possible, however, for a sound tea, if undercooked, or imperfectly dried, to become putrid during the home ward voyage, and to reach this country in a condition quite unfit for use. This I know from my own experi ence. I at one time was presented with a box of tea by the Taotai of Taiwanfu in Formosa, and when I first got it I found that some of the leaves had a slightly green tint, and were damp. I had intended to bring this tea home to England ; it was of good quality, but it spoiled before I left China. Judging from the quantites of tea that have been recently condemned, the importation of 240 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. spurious cargoes can hardly be a lucrative trade, and it might probably be done away with altogether were competent public inspectors appointed to examine every cargo as it arrives. Although Chinese commercial morality has not run to such a very low ebb as some might imagine, yet the clever traders of the lower orders of Cathay are by no means above resorting to highly questionable and ingenious practices of adulteration, when such practices can be managed with safety and profit. Thus the foreign merchant finds it always necessary to be vigi lant in his scrutiny of tea, silk, and other produce, before effecting a purchase. But equal care requires to be observed in all money transactions, as counterfeit coining is a profession carried on in Canton with mar vellous success ; so successful, indeed, are the coiners of false dollars that the native experts, or schroffs, who are employed by foreign merchants (Mr. W. F. Mayers assures me), are taught the art of schroffing, or detect ing counterfeit coin, by men who are in direct commu nication with the coiners of the spurious dollars in circulation. In many of the Canton shops one notices the inti mation ' Schroffing taught here.' This is a curious system of corruption, which one would think would be worth the serious attention of the Government. Were counterfeit coining put down, there would be no need for the crafty instructors of schroffs ; and at the same time the expensive staff of experts employed in banks and merchants' offices could be dispensed with. But the dollar in the hands of a needy and ingenious Chinaman is not only delightful to behold, but it admits of a manipulation at once most skilful and . SPURIOUS DOLLARS. 241 profitable. He will set to work and saw it in two, rewarding himself for his patience and labour by appro priating everything but the silver shell and super scription. He will then fill up the two halves with baser metal, and solder them together in such a way that, both in sound and appearance, the coin will seem good to all but the trained expert. Devices more daring still he frequently resorts to,, when only the outer mould and colour of the dollar are furnished to resemble the true coin. 242 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. CHAPTER IX. Canton — Its general Appearance — Its Population— Streets— Shops- Mode of transacting Business — Signboards — Work and Wages — The Willow-pattern Bridge — Juilin, Governor-General of the two Kwang— Clan Fights— Hak-kas— The Mystic Pills— Dwellings of the Poor— The Lohang-tang — Buddhist Monastic Life — On board a Junk. Canton is by no means the densely packed London in China which some have made it out to be. The circuit of the city wall very little exceeds six miles, and if we stand upon the heights to the north of the city, and turn our faces southward, we can trace the outline of these fortifications along a considerable por tion of their course. This, then, is the entire area strictly included in the limits of the town ; but there are large straggling suburbs outside the walls which spread for no little distance over the plain. In these suburbs there are many open spaces. Some, shaded by trees and orchards, form the parks and gardens of the gentry ; others, again, display the carefully tended pro duce of the market-gardener ; while military parade grounds, rice-fields, and ponds where fish are bred, are scattered at intervals between more thickly populated ground. There is, indeed, nothing in the whole picture of this southern metropolis suggestive of a teeming land population, save the centre of the city itself. But to the south of the wall there is the broad Pearl River, and communicating with this stream a network of PAWNSHOPS, CANTON. 243 canals and creeks, the whole more densely populated perhaps than the city. In the boats which crowd these water-ways a vast number of families pass their lives, and subsist by carrying merchandise or conveying pas sengers to different parts of the province. The popu lation of Canton is computed at about a million souls, although the official census returns it at a figure con siderably higher. As in Peking, so at Canton, the space within the walls is divided into two unequal parts, the one occu pied nominally by the Tartar garrison and official residences only, and the other containing the abodes of the trading Chinese population. But the descen dants of the old Tartar soldiers, too proud to labour, and too haughty to stoop themselves to the mean artifices of trade, have become impoverished in process of time, and have disposed of their lands and dwellings to their more industrious Chinese neighbours. As to the houses themselves, they everywhere preserve one uniform low level, but the monotonous appearance thus produced is at rare intervals broken by some tall temple which rears its carved and gilded roof from amid a grove of venerable trees, or by the nine-storied pagoda, or lofty quadrangular towers that mark the pawnshop sites. The pawnshops in this strange city rear their heads heavenward as proudly as church steeples, and indeed at first we mistook them to be temples. What was our surprise, then, to discover in them the Chinese reproduction of that money-lending establishment which is found in the shady corners of our own bye streets, beneath a modest trinity of gilded balls, and whose private side entrance stands invitingly open — the refuge of the widow or the fatherless, when R 2 244 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. they creep thither at the last moment, in the twilight, to part with jewels whose paltry lustre perhaps gleams with many a bright memory to them. But there is no romance about these Canton pawnshops. They are square bold-looking edifices, lifting their benevolent grey brick heads to a height which positively, in Chinese eyes, invests them with sanctity. Ah-sin, and Ah-lok, indeed look up with something akin to veneration at their plastered walls, narrow stanchioned windows, and at the huge rock boulders poised on the edge of the roof above, ready to drop down upon any robber who might dare to scale the treasure-sheltering sides. I recollect visiting one of these places for the purpose of seeing within, and to obtain a view of the city. Armed with an introduction from a leading Chinese merchant, I presented myself one morning before an outer gate in the high prison- looking wall which encircled the tower. My summons was answered by a portly gate-keeper, who at once admitted me inside. Here I found a number of military candidates going through a course of drill ; the porter was himself an old soldier, a sort of drill-sergeant, and was now instructing pupils in the use of the bow, and how to lift up heavy weights. After exhibiting one or two specimens of their powers, we were taken to a narrow barred gate at the base of the tower. The office for transacting business was on the ground-floor, and above this a square wooden scaffolding, standing free of the walls, ran right up to the roof. This scaf folding was divided into a series of flats, having ladders which lead from one to the other ; the bottom flat was used for stowing pledges of the greatest bulk, such as furniture or produce ; smaller and lighter articles occu pied the upper flats, while the one nearest the roof THE BRITISH CONSULAR YAMEN 245 was devoted to bullion and jewellery. Every pledge from floor to ceiling was catalogued, and bore a ticket denoting the number of the article, and the date on which it was deposited. Thus anything could be found and redeemed at a moment's notice. Such towers are places for the safe custody of the costly gems and robes of the wealthy classes of the community, and are really indispensable institutions in a country where brigand age and misgovernment expose property to constant risks. Besides this, a licensed pawnbroking establish ment makes temporary advances to needy persons who may have security to lodge ; the charge being three per cent, per month on sums under ten taels, save in the last month of the year, when the interest is reduced to two per cent. If the amount of the loan exceeds ten taels, the rate is uniformly two per cent, per month. The pledges are kept for three years in the better class of pawnshops. It is the custom of the poor to pawn their winter and summer clothing alternately, redeeming each suit as it may be required. Not far below the Heights in the Tartar quarter of the city, is the British Consulate or Yamen. This edifice stands in the grounds of what was once a palace, and is made up of diverse picturesque Chinese buildings, environed by a tastefully laid out garden and deer park. Hard by is the ancient nine-storied pagoda ascribed to the reign of the Emperor Wu-Ti, in the middle of the sixth century of our era. It is octagonal in shape, and 170 feet high. In 1859 some British sailors, weary of shore life, and longing to go aloft, managed, at the risk of their necks, to scale this crazy-looking monument an event which greatly disgusted the Chinese, for they hate to have their dwellings overlooked from a height,, 246 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. more especially by a pack of foreign fire-eating sailors. Descending from the height, and passing southwards down to the main street of the town, we are struck by the appearance of the closely-packed shops, which differ from anything we have ever seen before. We observe that the folks who lounge about, even in the meanest looking dwellings, are, most of them, good- looking — the men tall and shapely, and the women in no instance disfigured by small bandaged feet. There are also a number of soldiers, not far from the parade ground — fellows who, erect and muscular, carry themselves with a dauntless military air. These are the remnants of the once powerful Tartar camp. They have been instructed in foreign drill, and are said to make good soldiers. They certainly contrast favourably with many of the troops I saw in other quarters of the Empire. As to the shopkeepers, they are all Chinese, but their small-footed consorts are nowhere to be seen ; the fact is, they keep them strictly secluded. Some of these handsome Tartar matrons have their children seated in bamboo cages at their doors, and pretty little birds they make, too. One is almost bewildered by the diversity of shops, and the attractive wares which they display. There are so many things that one would like to carry home. Everything is so beautiful, everything so costly, and not unfrequently cumbrous too. Then the shop keepers are so very fascinating in their manners. Have a good look at them ; they are about the best class of men in China — honest, industrious, contented, and refined too, some of them. A short time back a curious though not uncommon sort of lottery was got up among the shop keepers of Canton.1 Wang-leang- 1 See China Review, 1873, p. 249. SHOPKEEPERS. 247 chai, of the Juy-Chang boot shop in Ma-an street, seized with a passion for poetry, organised a sort of literary lottery, and offered the stakes as prizes to the suc cessful composer of the best lines on five selected subjects. Frequently, on entering a Canton shop, you will find its owner with a book in one hand and a pipe or a fan in the other, and wholly absorbed in his studies. You will be doomed to disappointment if you. expect the smoker to start up at once, all smiles and blandness, rubbing his hands together as he makes a shrewd guess of what he is likely to take out of you, and receiving you obsequiously or with rudeness, accordingly. Quite the reverse ! Your presence is ap parently unnoticed, unless you happen to lift anything ; then you hear that the fan has been arrested, and feel that a keen eye is bent on your movements all the while. But it is not till you enquire for some article that the gentleman, now certain you mean to trade, will rise without bustle from his seat — show you his goods, or state the price he means to sell at — with a polite yet careless air which plainly says ' If it suits you, we make an exchange, I take the money, you the goods, conferring a mutual benefit on each other ; but if not agreeable, depart and leave me to my pipe and book.' After all, by adhering to this independent style, I believe they sell more, and make better profits, than if they were perpetually soliciting patronage by word and gesture. On our way homewards we pass through Physic Street, or Tsiang-Lan-Kiai. Here the shops are nearly all uniform in size, a brick party-wall dividing each building from its neighbour. All have one front apartment open to the street, with a granite or brick 248 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA*. counter for the display of their wares. A granite base also supports the tall upright signboard, the indispen sable characteristic of every shop in China. Opposite the signboard stands a small altar or shrine, dedicated to the god who presides over the tradesman and his craft. This deity is honoured regularly when the shop is opened, and a small incense-stick is lighted, and kept burning in a bronze cup of ashes placed in front of the shrine. ; The shops within are frequently fitted with a counter of finely-polished wood and finely-carved shelves, while at the back is an accountant's room, screened off with an open-work wooden partition, so carved as to resemble a climbing plant. In some conspicuous place stand the brazen scales and weights, ever brightly polished, and adorned with red cloth.. These scales are used for weighing the silver-coin bars, and fragments of the precious metal, which form part of "the currency of the place. When goods are sold by weight, the customer invariably brings his own balance, so as to secure his fair and just portion of the article he has come to buy. This balance is not unlike an ordinary yard-measuring rod, furnished with a sliding weight. It is a simple application of the lever.; But the tendency of this simple mechanical, contrivance is not calculated to elevate the Chinese in our estimation..' It proves a universal lack of confidence, which finds its way down to the lowest details of petty trade, for which the governing classes may take to themselves credit. The people are in this, as in many other. matters, a law unto themselves. A ceaseless struggle: against unfair dealing has, therefore, like other native institutions, become a stereotyped necessity. A STREET IN CANTON SIGNBOARDS. 249 It is by no means pleasant to be caught in one of these narrow streets during a shower, as the water pours down in torrents from the roofs and floods the pavement, until it subsides through the soil beneath. The broadest streets are narrow, and shaded above, in some places, with screens of matting, to keep out the sun. So close, indeed, are the roofs to each other in the Chinese city, that, viewed from a distance, they look like one uninterrupted covering — a space entirely tiled over, beneath which the citizens sedulously conceal themselves until the cool of the evening, when weary of the darkness and of the trade and strife of the day, they swarm on the housetops to gamble, or smoke, or sip their tea until the shades of night fall, and they retire again to the lower regions, to sleep on the cool benches of their shops. The signboards of Cantonese shops are not only the pride of their owners, but they are a delight to students of Chinese. The signboards in the engraving may be taken as fair examples of Chinese street literature. In the high-flown classical, or poetical phrases by which public attention is drawn to the various shops, one fails to see, in most instances, the faintest refer ence to the contents of the establishment. Thus, a tradesman who sells swallows' nests for making soup, has on his board simply characters signify ing Yun-Ki, sign of the Eternal. But here is a list, translated by Mr. W. F. Mayers from the signboards in the picture. Kien Ki Hao — the sign of the symbol Kien (Heaven) Hwei-chow, ink, pencils, and writing ma terials. This is, indeed, a very high compliment to literature. 250 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. Chang Tsi Tang (Chang of the family branch designated Tsi). Wax, cased pills of .select manu facture. Chang is evidently proud of his family con nection, and probably offers it as a sufficient guarantee for the quality of his pills. Tien Yih (Celestial advantage). Table-covers, cushions for chairs, and divans for sale. Now what ' Celestial advantage ' can a customer be supposed to derive from table-covers or cushions, unless, indeed, one supposes that the downy ease conferred by the use of these cushions is almost beyond the sphere of terrestrial enjoyment. There must be some notion of this sort associated with upholsterers' shops, as we have here another sign embodying a high-flown phrase, flavoured with a little common sense. Tien Yih Sh£n (Celestial advantage combined with attention). Shop for the sale of cushions and ratan mats. Yung Ki (sign of the Eternal). Swallows' nests. Money-schroffing taught here. K'ing Wen T'a'ng (the hall of delight in scholar ship). Seals artistically engraved. Notwithstanding the narrowness of the streets of Canton, they are extremely picturesque ; more espe cially those in which we find the old curiosity-shops, the silversmiths, and the silk-mercers ; where the sign boards present a most attractive display of brilliant and varied colours, as, indeed, in the one through which we have just been passing. Striking thence by a narrow alley into a back lane, we find ourselves in a very poor neighbourhood, with dingy, dirty hovels filled with operatives, who are busily at work ; some weaving silk ; others embroider- WORK AND WAGES. 251 ing satin robes ; others, again, carving and turning the ivory balls and curios which are the admiration of foreigners. Entering one shop, we are shown an elaborately carved series of nine ivory balls, one within the other. It is commonly believed that these balls are first carved in halves, and then joined to gether so perfectly as to look solid. But as we watch a man working on one of them the mystery is gradually solved. The rough piece of solid ivory is first cut into a ball ; it is then fixed into a primitive- looking lathe, and turned with a sharp tool in various positions, until it becomes perfectly round. It is then set again in the lathe and drilled with the requisite number of holes all round. After this one hole is centred, a tool bent at the end is passed in, and with this a groove is produced near the heart of the sphere ; another hole is then centred, and after that another ; the same operation being carried out with all the holes until all the grooves meet, and a small ball drops into the centre. In this way all the balls one within the other are ultimately released. The next operation is carving the innermost ball ; this is accom plished by means of long drills and other delicate tools and in the same way all the rest of the balls are carved in succession, the carving gradually becoming more easy and elaborate until the outside ball is reached, and this is then finished with a delicate beauty that resembles the finer sorts of lace. Close by these ivory-turners are men designing patterns for em broidery, and shops full of children, sewing the most beautiful patterns of birds, butterflies, and flowers on satin robes. The wages of the people who do this lovely work are very small indeed. The artist who 2S2 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. furnishes the designs receives about i/. $s. a month, and the following table gives the average at which skilled labourers are paid. £ s d Shoemaker IS 0 a month, with food Blacksmith . 1 0 0 „ First-class ivory carver . . 2 8 0 „ Skilled embroiderer IS 0 „ Silversmith . 1 12 0 „ Painter .... 18 0 „ It takes about ten days to complete the embroidery of a pair of shoes ; and these, when soled and finished, fetch fifteen shillings a pair. The wages of the em broiderer, according to this calculation, would amount to six shillings or thereabout, and the balance, to cover cost of material and making, would leave but a modest profit to the master ; but then embroidered shoes are in constant demand, and a lady of rank will require some thirty pair for her marriage trousseau alone. Some ladies embroider their own shoes, but the practice is by no means a common one. The dress shoes of the men are embroidered too, and are used by all except the poorest class. It will be seen from the foregoing notes that skilled labour is so cheap in China as to give artisans a great advantage in all those various branches of native industry which find a market abroad ; and this will one day render the clever, careful, and patient Chinaman a formidable rival to European manufacturers, when he has learned to use machinery in weaving fabrics of cotton or silk. Many of the beautifully embroidered stuffs we see in our shops at home are made by hand in China, and yet they can be sold in London at prices that defy competition. The opposition to the introduction of the machines used in Bradford and Manchester comes SKILLED LABOUR. 253 mostly from the operatives themselves. The masters, who understand the foreign markets, would many of them be glad to set up European looms, and even to use steam to drive them. But the poor operatives, who earn their miserable pittance by their handwork, would strike and starve rather than tolerate two or three new wheels and spindles, which, as they believe, would throw them out of employment. I was assured by one Chinese silk merchant who accompanied me to his factory in the country, that he once tried to in troduce a foreign contrivance to his reeling machines ; but his people left him in a body, and perseverance in the innovation would simply have involved him in ruin — so at least he said. This gentleman employed the greater portion of the men, women, and children, of a whole village — a rare thing in China, where labour is so minutely divided, and where nearly every house holder is his own master. But these villagers were only hired to reel and dress the silk during certain months of the year ; and they, most of them, had small farms where they cultivated the raw silk on their own account. It is perfectly astonishing to see what these Cantonese can accomplish on their own inferior looms. Give them almost any pattern or design, and they will contrive to weave it, imitating its imperfections with as much exactness as its beauties. I like to linger over these shops, and to meditate on these scenes of ceaseless industry, where all goes on with a quiet harmony that has a strange fascination for the observer. Amid all the evidences of toil, the poorest has some leisure at his command. Then, seated on a bench or squatting tranquilly on the ground, he will smoke or chat with his neighbour, untroubled by the presence of 254 INDO-CHINA AND CHINA. his good-natured employer, who seems to grow fatter and wealthier on the smiles and happy temperament of his workmen. Here, too, one can see how the nucleus of this great city is more closely populated than at first sight one would suppose. Most of the workshops are kitchen, dining-room, and bed-room too ; here, the workpeople breakfast on their benches ;