Baron Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford Redesdale

“ Standing among these groves of [63] trees the brilliant colours and fantastic designs of the Chinese architecture have a wonderfully pleasing effect. The wall of the imperial palace, covered with highly glazed yellow tiles, with towers at the corners shining like gold in the sun, is especially striking. Whichever way one turns there is something grotesque and barbarous to be seen, and the signs of decay and rot do not detract from the picture. In fact Peking is like a vast curiosity shop, with all the dust and dirt which are among the conditions of bric-à-brac. ”

“ Besides the forts, which in themselves are dreary enough, there are but a few Chinese mud huts and an hotel, principally patronised by pilots; and the French are cut off even from these by the Peiho, than which no more filthy little stream ever defiled a sea. Its banks at the mouth are vast plains of mud, lying flush with the water, and so bleak and sad-looking that one almost wonders that the very wild-fowl should be induced to stop there. Mud forts, mud houses, mud fields, and muddy river—everything is mud. ”

“ The pass itself, considering that it is the highway between Mongolia and China, is a very miracle of bad roads. It is as if nature had in some stupendous convulsion burst a passage through the mountains, leaving all the débris in the most glorious confusion, which man has been too idle to reduce to order. Huge boulders of rock at every step obstruct a way which is difficult enough already, and the overhanging cliffs seem as if they were on the point of throwing down more masses to block up the road. ”

“ Frenchwomen are so fond of, a Chinese dignitary is borne along, attended by five or six policemen in white caps and red tassels, nearly upsetting a small-footed lady, who has just time to totter out of the way on her rickety legs. If there is a clear space, you may be sure there is a doctor or fortune-teller peering into his patient’s mouth, like a groom examining a horse’s teeth, or tapping his head mysteriously with a fan, to the wonder of a small gaping circle. ”

“ The filth of the furs which the poorer Chinese wear surpasses belief. It is a common sight to see the sunny side of a wall occupied by half a dozen of the natives who have deliberately stripped themselves and are eagerly hunting after the vermin with which they swarm. The principal streets are crowded with sellers of cast-off clothes, rags that would be rejected by a respectable paper factory. They toss these about, singing a sort of monotonous rhythmical chant all the time, after the manner of Chinese hucksters, and they do a thriving trade in filth. ”

“ For Japan has stopped short at nothing; not content with adopting the cocked hat, which as we all know is the very marrow of all good government, giving the entrée to the comity of nations, she has actually invented a full and complete peerage. Far more astute is the mandarin. Such wily anachronisms as Li Hung Chang and his compeers know full well that under the sun of Western civilisation they must melt away, and it is no matter for surprise that they die hard. ”

“ Germany is in honour bound to exact exemplary retribution for the murder of her minister, the deadliest insult that could be offered to a great nation. If she were minded to take Shantung, where she might establish a flourishing colony, she would act as a buffer state between Central China and Russia, who has already to all intents possessed herself of Manchuria, and has for many a year cast longing eyes upon Chihli; and after all, if Russia were to annex Chihli with Peking would the world have any great cause for lamentation? ”

“ There are courtyards upon courtyards, huge empty buildings with red pillars, used as covered courts, state approaches guarded by two great marble lions, and a number of houses with only a ground floor, each of us inhabiting one to himself. When the Legation first came to live here the whole place was put into repair, and redecorated in the Chinese fashion with fluted roofs of many colours, carved woodwork, kylins of stone and pottery, and all the thousand and one fancies with which the Chinese cover their buildings. ”

“ A thunderstorm in Mongolia is indeed a trial to one’s nerves. To put the finishing touch to our misery, when we arrived at Llama Miao drenched, cold, and hungry, inn after inn refused to take us in, and we were for near an hour riding through the wet streets, the people howling at us, and a whole pack of curs yelping and snapping at our dogs. ”

“ A Mongol swell, riding over the plain, gorgeous in yellow and vermilion, and with his jolly moon face beaming out of [285] a yellow cap, red-buttoned and trimmed with sables, is a sight to see. The ladies are great customers with the Peking jewellers for coral, pearls, and jade ornaments. A woman, be she never so poor, is sure to have some piece of finery in the way of ear-rings or head-dress from Peking. If she cannot afford real jewellery she buys sham.
The widow Apakwai could speak no Chinese, but as every one about the camp came in to idle away an hour, we had no lack of interpreters. ”

“ In the old days when the opium trade was unlawful, and therefore at its height, when the rival houses had each their fast sailing clippers racing against one another from Bombay and Calcutta, and the first to arrive would lie hidden round the corner of the bay, and send a man on shore across the hills with the all-important intelligence, only showing itself when a price had been made, the life of a man of business at Hong-kong must have been one of untold excitement. ”

“ Above all, the representatives of European powers, instead of being boxed up in Peking like rats in a trap, would in the not improbable event of their having from time to time certain demands and requisitions to make of the Chinese Government, be backed up by the presence of their men of war on the spot. It is wonderful how distance weakens a threat, and how wholesomely the sight of power acts upon the Oriental mind. ”

“ A pleasanter addition to my personnel, and a sweeter, for he does not eat garlic nor smoke opium, is a small Manilla poodle, Nou-nou by name, whom I have inherited. He has consoled the exile of a succession of diplomatists at Peking, and has finally fallen into my hands. He is the jolliest little dog, and has the most companionable ways. Although only a shade bigger than your Tiny, he is as plucky as Tom Sayers, and is the terror of strange dogs and Chinamen; indeed his valour being much too great for his body often brings him to trouble. ”

“ So soon as we had passed the dusty streets and suburbs obstructed by carts and camels, whose bells and dull tramp irritate one’s ears, while the dust they shuffle up blinds and chokes one, the ride became delightful. The fresh green of the budding trees and young spring crops and the tints of the distant hills were new life to eyes tired with the monotonous grays of a Peking winter. ”

“ They are so stay-at-home that they hardly seem to care even to go down on to the plain. And as to going to Peking, none but the better-to-do monks dream of such dissipation. You may imagine what a state of crass ignorance they live in. For faces expressing brutal stupidity there is nothing to equal the Chinese monks, except the Thibetan llamas, between whom and drivelling idiotcy there is no missing link. My friend here, Fo Kwo, is a brilliant exception. Monks and laymen alike—all our neighbours—vie with one another in civility to us. ”

“ In one of these, at a place called Pa Ti, half farmhouse, half inn, we slept, I in a sort of barn, my bed on the ground, my dressing-table a nether millstone, and my washhand-stand the carcase of an old cart. The sun was rising when we started down the valley, which really is the grandest thing I have seen in China, and barring the attractions of snow and ice, it seems to me the Alps have nothing finer to show. Rocks more grim and uncouth there cannot be. They take every conceivable shape—men’s heads, tigers, lions, citadels with turrets and battlements of living rock, are easily conjured up. ”

“ For what can a Chinese gentleman think when he sees the filthiest beggar pass freely without let or hindrance in parts of the city where the presence of the minister of the proudest nation in Europe would be deemed a pollution? We have been tolerated in Peking as a necessary evil—accepted we have never been. The receptions at court have been so rare, and made such a great favour of, that they have been a mere farce, and in some cases, such as the visit of the ladies of the Corps diplomatique to the Empress Tsŭ Hsi, a degradation. ”

“ Sir Harry Parkes is a man of extraordinary determination and energy; his knowledge of the Chinese language, customs, and character have given him an immense influence over the natives. He is in every way a remarkable man, and great things are expected of him, even by those who differ from him in opinion. It is only fair to say, that there are many men of judgment and experience out here who do not agree with him in holding that our trade with China stands on a solid footing. ”

“ At a place called Pok Fo Lum, about four miles off, several of the rich merchants have built bungalows to which in summer-time, after stewing all day in their offices, it is their wont to resort of an afternoon, and let the fresh sea-breeze clear their brains of tea, opium, silk, rises and falls, and such-like cobwebs. On a fine evening these gardens are a very pleasant lounge. At the back rises the Peak, a fine bold rock some 1700 feet high; all around are sweet-scented tropical flowers teeming with strange, many-coloured insects and gorgeous butterflies ”

“ Peking, as Southey said of Exeter, “is ancient and stinks.” The “Beggar’s Bridge,” which we have to pass every time we go into the Chinese city, and nearly every time we go out, is the most loathsome and stinking exhibition that it ever was my fate to come across. Here every day a hundred or two of the most degraded specimens of humanity congregate and beg. ”

“ Bamboos spring up close to the water’s edge, and the hills are lower, less savage-looking, and more fruitful. Ruined forts, destroyed when we forced our trade upon the unwilling Chinese, numberless boats and junks, here and there a pagoda with different sorts of plants peeping out of its many stories, tell us that we are drawing near a town, and after about four hours and a half we reach Wampoa, a miserable place, with about as dirty and degraded-looking a population as could be seen anywhere. ”

“ But every one is excited and flurried, and in the happiness of realising the [2] luxury of being on land, we feel kindly towards all mankind, and bid a cordial farewell to our fellow-passengers. In a short while we are in harbour, and the little colony, planted at the foot of wild and rugged hills matching those of the mainland opposite, lies before us. A crowd of boats plying for hire, and partly manned, to use a bull, by women often pulling away lustily with a baby slung across their backs, hail us with cries of “Wanchee boat?” “Wanchee big boat?” These Chinese boatwomen are real wonders. ”

“ We are only two—Saurin and myself. We rise at any hour after daybreak, breakfast at eight, dine at three; after dinner we go for a ride, or a scramble over the mountain, and come home to tea at about eight or nine. We sit smoking our cheroots for perhaps an hour, talking always about home and watching the fire-flies, that, according to Chinese tradition, served as lamps to Confucius and his disciples. A visit from or to the Russian Legation, who have got a temple at about an hour and a half’s ride from here, is the only break to the monotony of our daily life. ”

“ As the road is a perpetual zigzag one is constantly coming upon fresh surprises and new forms. To-day’s ride would have been perfect had it not been for a storm of wind and sand which destroyed our pleasure. We rested at Hung Tu̔ng Tien, and our abode for the night was at Lao Wo Pu̔, a quiet little place, where the inn, which stands at a turn of the road, is perfectly circled by hills, as if it were in a devil’s punch-bowl. ”

“ It is difficult to conceive anything more desolate; there is neither tree nor shrub, nothing taller than a few dwarfish buttercups and campanulas; there is not so much as a stone to sit down upon; for miles and miles there is no trace of human habitation or handiwork; for miles and miles one travels without meeting a soul, except by chance a stray Mongol lumbering heavily along on his camel, or a bullock-cart carrying tea; of beasts we saw a flock of Hwang-yang antelopes, that scampered off almost before there was time to recognise them ”

“ It is very provoking to be kept out of really interesting sights by the brutality of travelling bullies who will force their way into places where they have no right to go.
All we can do now for our visitors is to show them the panorama of the two cities from the walls, the top of which forms a ride or walk right round Peking, and where the wonderful observatory of the old Jesuit fathers, with its beautiful bronze instruments, still stands, and to take them through the streets and over the curio shops—braving offence given to eyes and nostrils. ”

“ From the top of the tower, which contains a large perpendicular slab of marble painted red, there is a beautiful view over the country, with the thirteen palaces of the dead each in its niche in the hills; it is really a scene of rare and striking beauty. Just behind the tower is an artificial mound covered with trees and verdure; this, I believe, is where the body lies—a few old bones to all this magnificence. There is a Chinese proverb which says, “Better be a living beggar covered with sores than a [162] dead emperor.” ”

“ It must be remembered that Japan has never originated anything. All that she knew, up to the time of her first real intercourse with foreigners forty years ago, she owed to China. Buddhism, which replaced and in some sort throve hand-in-hand with the old ancestor worship, the Shintô, reading and writing, every art and accomplishment, from music and dancing down to the game of football, all filtered through Corea from China to Japan, and the dates of their advent are solemnly recorded as important facts in the O Dai Ichi Ran. ”

“ Hong-kong presents perhaps one of the oddest jumbles in the whole world. It is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red-herring. The Government and principal people are English—the population are Chinese—the police are Indians—the language is bastard English mixed with Cantonese—the currency is the Mexican dollar, and the elements no more amalgamate than the oil and vinegar in a salad. The Europeans hate the Chinese, and the latter return the compliment with interest. ”

“ We amused ourselves the while in watching a swine-herd’s vain endeavours to make his flock swim the stream, the opposition being led by a stubborn little curly-tail, with a majority in his favour. The consumption of pork at Peking must be something fabulous. The streets swarm with pigs, and yet from every direction we saw large herds being driven into the town. The Chinese who can afford it eat pork at nearly every meal. We found an encampment of Mongols on the river-bank. They were on their way homeward from Peking, where they had been selling horses. ”