A similar sacrifice takes place at the spring solstice, with the same ceremonies, at the northern altar, but the motive is the special prayer for a prosperous harvest, whilst the winter sacrifice is offered for a blessing upon the whole empire.
We cannot see the ruins of the Summer Palace, the Yuan-ming-yuan, or Round and Splendid Garden, and which is distant about ten miles from Peking. "It is a delightful park with a rich variety of groves, temples, lakes, palaces and pavilions," and must from the photographs be very beautiful. It stands there for ever, as a memorial left to embitter the Chinese against us, yet who could say but that Lord Elgin, by destroying the Palace of their thrice sacred monarch, brought home to them a fit and righteous judgment?
But our greatest disappointment of all is that we must give up a five days' expedition to the Great Wall if we would take the French mail from Shanghai. "Fancy going to Peking and not seeing the Wall!" I can hear someone exclaim. Well, we shall not be all unique in this, for three-fourths of the hundred foreigners who live in Peking have never been, nor ever intend to go. An artificial interest, all out of proportion to the reality, is created by its great antiquity. Finished in 204. B.C. (for it took ten years in building) for 1500 miles this great wall, which was intended to keep out all the enemies of China, runs up and down the northern face of the country, in one place over a peak of 5225 feet high. It is constructed of earth and stones. It has been truly said: "that looking over the surface of our globe, it is the only artificial structure that would arrest the gaze."
The grapes are sour. For after all, the visitors who go do not see the real Great Wall, but only a spur of more modern date. Also the walls of Peking are considerably higher and more imposing.
As is only fit and proper, for they are the most interesting feature of the city, we make our farewell to Peking from those grand Walls.
CHAPTER XI.
SHANGHAI AND HONG-KONG
We left Peking at dawn. Through the silent streets of the Tartar City we drove, passing for the last time through the Gate of Sublime Learning on to the sandy waste outside, jolting along under the great Walls, with the sun rising to meet us.
We are returning to Tungchau by the Canal, and so saving the penalties of the road and the dust, but owing to the numerous locks, we have to transship no less than five times from one boat to another. This waterway is in connection with the great Imperial canal, another, like the Great Wall, of those time-enduring monuments of the industry of a great people—and serves to transport the tribute of rice from the south to Peking. The locks are very picturesque, being built of yellow blocks of stone, over which the running water forms a waterfall overshadowed by trees. It is a quaint slow mode of travelling, gently rippling along over the mirror surface of the water, past great rustling beds of pampas grass twelve feet high, opposite one of which some Chinese sportsmen, with their matchlocks and lighted fuses, are crouched ready to fire at the wild ducks that abound in these watery marshes. Amongst the groves of trees, which look golden in their autumn foliage against a clear blue sky, we see many memorial peilaus, and those other monuments of stone pyramids springing from the back of a huge tortoise. The air is still and clear as early autumn, and the sounds from the mud villages we pass, are borne clearly to us. The walls of Peking, with their crenellated gateways, are just fading away into the blue haze.
Five hours of tedious progress makes our eyes glad to see the beautiful carved bridge of Palikiao, where the combat in 1860 took place, and the damage then done to the bridge has never been repaired. In a few minutes more the pagoda of Tungchau looms up, and the canal rapidly narrows.
We reach Tungchau in a veritable dust-storm, that blows the loose sand by the banks into spiral columns and pillars, and embark once more on the house-boat. It seems quite like coming home. Then we begin the Peiho's weary succession of winding reaches, with the endless continuation of mud banks and yellow water.
The prospect next morning was disheartening. The wind was strong and dead ahead, and though our men had worked all night, certain landmarks told us that our progress was far from satisfactory. All through that long day we crawled along; weary work it was for our poor tired crew. As bend after bend opened out before us and receded, each one so exactly like the other, we registered a hope that we might never more see the Peiho. Evening closed in, night succeeded, and we yet vainly looked for the lights of Tientsin. As so often happens after a long watching, we seemed to arrive suddenly. Our plank door was removed, and we found ourselves at Tientsin and the Bridge of Boats, and amid the grateful "kotows" of our men for a gratuity well earned by such patient toil, we sped in jinrikishas through the dimly-lighted city, where everyone carries his own swinging coloured lantern, to the Consulate once more.
We found a China Merchant's steamer, the Shin Sheng, leaving Tientsin the next morning, and embarked at once. Two unsuccessful attempts at turning the steamer opposite the wharf we made; the third succeeded, but when she was broadside across the stream, stem and stern touched the banks. We passed safely through the perilous bends of the river, only grounding occasionally, but once the bows of the Shin Sheng ran up on to the bank, and cut clean away quite ten feet of it. A little mud-house stood on the angle, and the old village harpy to whom it belonged, came out and shook her fist at the captain on the bridge, showering imprecations on his head, and small wonder, for some time previously the bows of his ship had gone into her house and wrecked it! We breathed more freely when the forts of Taku passed, the Bar, or "Heaven-sent Barrier," crossed, and the pilot left behind, we emerged without mishap into the Yellow Sea.
We had a fearful tossing in the Gulf of Pecheli. At Chefoo we called for cargo. It is a pretty seaside place, with a splendid beach and bathing sands, a boon to the residents of Shanghai, who either come here or go to Japan for the summer months. It was too rough for the lighters to come off, so we anchored for the night. The next morning a gale was blowing in the roadstead—the breaking of the north-east monsoon—and we had to move round under the lea of the bluff. Our hearts sink within us, and we despair of catching the French mail, which means waiting at Shanghai a week for the P. and O. Returning when the gale moderated, the agent sent off to say that we were to start at once and not wait for the cargo, so we have wasted eighteen hours rolling and knocking about for nothing.
We had not gone more than two miles out, when the engineer sent to say that a valve was leaking; this necessitated putting back again, and a further delay. At last we get really off. Certainly we have endured much to see Peking. Two days afterwards we are in the mouth of the Yangtze, anxiously looking for the black funnels of the Messageries boat. We know she should have left at noon to-day, and it is just that hour. Yes, it is all right. She is still there, surrounded by lighters, and we steam close to find out that she sails in twenty hours. There has been a delay of one day, luckily for us.
We proceed up the Woosung tributary of the Yangtze. It is a glorious morning. The junks, painted in gaudy colours, with the all-seeing, staring white and black eye, glide past us. The banks are lined with a fort, factories, dock and ship-building yard, a gay scene of thriving commercial activity. Before us now opens out the bright green lawn of the Bund, of Shanghai, with its blue-roofed pagoda for the band, backed by a row of handsome oriental-looking houses and "hongs," with green blinds and deep verandas. There is the buff and grey of the German consulate, and the grey and red of the Japanese, whilst the French tricolour flies over, and indicates the French settlement, and in the far corner, to the right, is the British flag over our own consulate and garden. The numerous tributaries of the Yangtze are bridged over, and join the quay together.
One of the prettiest sights in coming up to Shanghai, or "upper Sea," is to see the men-of-war and gun-boats of all nations, lying side by side in the river before the Bund. There are English, American, French, German, Spanish, and Japanese men-of-war and a Chinese gunboat, each floating their star and stripes, tricolour, Union Jack, Black Eagle, red ball on a white ground (Japanese) and the Imperial Dragon.
Shanghai is a gay, bright clean place, where upwards of 4000 Europeans reside, the majority being British. These claim for it the title of the Paris of the East, and the shops and broad well-kept streets make it worthy of the name. You have, too, the picturesque element of Chinese life without the accompanying dirt and squalor, for the typical Chinese town with its filthy narrow streets is relegated to the back of the settlement. All life centres on the Bund, which we and everyone else are always passing up and down; and here amongst the smart little broughams, that are like Indian gharries, and the Victorias, dog-carts, and phaetons, with their scarlet-clad mafoos and syces, mingle the sedan-chairs of magnates, the Chinese wheelbarrow, with the passengers balancing on either side, and the brightly lined green and red jinricksha. There is the same cosmopolitan crowd on the pavements overflowing into the road, for the white "ducks" and flannels of the Europeans, mingle with the bright blue, green, maroon, crimson, brown and yellow coats of the merchants and compradores. For many of the hongs (as the places of business are called) are on the Bund—whilst the loose coats and shiny trousers of the Chinese ladies, with their smooth coils of black hair interlaced with green jade hair-pins and long pendant earrings, are seen side by side with the flowing robes and turbaned heads of an Indian.
We called at the British consulate, which lies in an enclosure of spacious green lawn with palms and flower-beds. There stands here a superb granite cross erected to the memory of the five victims, and companions of Sir Harry Parkes, and to avenge whose murder, the Summer Palace was burnt and looted by the French. Further along, on the Bund, is the statue to Sir Harry Parkes, a little man with large whiskers, but a very able diplomatist, whose death was universally mourned by the Europeans in China. The English cathedral and deanery lie at the back of the Bund. The streets are so broad and clean, the roads so firm, that it is a pleasure to be on them, particularly after those of Peking. It is because they are under the supervision of an English Municipal Council, and they deserve for them the greatest credit.
At four o'clock we went to a meet of the Tandem Club, the last of the season, held in front of the bank. There are fifteen members, but ten only turned out, and were led off by the only tandem of horses. The other teams were all of the short-necked, thick-set, Chinese ponies driven in a modified dog-cart. Then we strolled along on the grass under the trees to the gardens, to listen to the Manila band. These gardens slope with green lawns to the water's edge, and the wandering paths lead by beds, bright with heliotrope, geraniums, chrysanthemums, and tropical growths of banyan trees, palms, magnolias, indiarubber and castor-oil plants, amidst which pale-faced children are playing in charge of their Chinese amahs. In the evening we dined with Mr. and Mrs. Robert Little. He is the able editor of the North China Daily News.
On a lovely Sunday morning we embark on the steam tug, and once more, for the third and last time, go down to Woosung. In an hour we are on board the Messageries Maritime's s.s. Calédonien, critically surveying our home for the next five weeks.
The Messageries line has the advantage of the P. and O. in that they are more generous in giving separate cabins, the cuisine is said to be better, and indeed they take trouble to make it so, sending the cooks every two years back to a restaurant in Paris. It is also an immense boon (which everybody who has travelled much will appreciate) to have fixed places for dinner only, and at the other meals a free choice of companions. The saloon is spacious, and there is a splendid promenade deck, which is, however, somewhat spoilt by the influx of too numerous, second-class passengers, who share the privilege of using it.
The north-east monsoon is with us, and in two days and a half from leaving Shanghai, and after passing through the Straits of Formosa, between the mainland of China and the island of that name, past Foochow and Amoy, which are too far distant to be seen, we anchor at Hong Kong at midnight. Though dark, it is a starlight night. Hong Kong, or "Good Harbour," presents itself to us in bright electric arches of light, thrown far up on the sides of the peak, whilst its beautiful harbour is traced out for us by the twinkle of lights from the sampans, moored in hundreds along the wharf, by the swiftly moving jinricksha lights coursing along the road of the sea-shore, and the dots of lights on the rocking masts or the gleaming eyes of steam-tugs in the harbour.
We have decided to give up Canton, see what we can of Hong Kong in the time the steamer stays, and not wait a week for the next mail.
I was once told that no one has ever done justice to the beauties of Hong Kong, and as we landed at sunrise on the quay I was inclined to agree to this. The deep verandas of the Eastern-looking houses, with their pale pink and drab tints, the cool arcades, and above all the tropical wealth of vegetation, makes Hong Kong the prettiest of Eastern cities.
Leaving Queen's Road, we are carried up in chairs under a lovely overhanging avenue of banyan trees, whose huge knotted roots lie round the path, whilst from the grateful shade of their thick leaves above, depend the long thread-like tendrils, forming a transparent curtain. Past the grey, weather-stained cathedral we go, hidden away in a little recess under the hills, past the barracks, whence sound the bagpipes of Princess Louise's Highlanders, to the station of the mountain railway up the peak. "The Peak"—what would Hong Kong be without this prominent feature? True, by keeping off the sea-breezes and by penning the town in the narrow strip between the harbour and the mountain, it makes it steamy, unhealthy, fever-stricken and well-nigh uninhabitable in summer, but then it provides a sanatorium on the many summits of its heights, where every available platform is occupied by a house.
Unflinchingly straight up runs the line of the railway, and as we ascend, we look down on the roofs of the houses, perched without any sequence, up and down the side of the hills, into gardens and tennis courts, and the green waters of a reservoir below; over the black and white speckled mass that stands for the town, further out to the harbour, a blue pond studded with black spots by the steamers, whilst the sampans are brown dots. The range of barren rocky mountains close round the harbour, and there is Koolong, with its wharves and godowns, on the Chinese mainland, whilst we are on the Island of British soil. It is a beautiful view, this bird's-eye panorama of the town and harbour, from Victoria gap.
You must see the Peak to realize its real height, its scarcely sloping shoulders, covered with tropical growth in the valley, growing scantier and scantier, until you reach the summit, bare and rocky. Two enormous hotels, and many houses, populate the spacy crest. And the peep over the other side of green rounded hills, running down to the sea, is simply lovely, whilst the views from every point are far-reaching and exhaustive. We take chairs and go to the point, but one degree lower than the topmost one, where stands the signal station, to the bungalow of Government House. Early as it is, and late in the season, we find the heat terrific. Everyone is obliged to come and live up here in the summer, the nights in Hong Kong bringing no relief, and the difference in the temperature is often as much as 9°. As we return we meet all the business men, in the coolest of white costumes, being carried in chairs by coolies in smart uniforms of white with blue or scarlet sashes, to the station, going down to town for the day's work.
In descending, we return to the main thoroughfare of Queen's Road, and after some shopping, go to the City Hall, and the marble palace of the Shanghai and Hong Kong bank, where I wait outside to watch the ever-varying stream of passers-by. Chinamen in their cool cotton jackets and glazed pantaloons, coolies with their bamboo-slung burdens, sedan-chairs, jinrickshas, wheelbarrows, chairs, Sikh policemen with their scarlet turbans, Cinghalese, Parsees, mingling with our own officers and soldiers, under the shadow of the trees.
And then we drive out to the Happy Valley, and come suddenly upon that beautiful green lawn, lying so naturally in the midst of luxuriantly wooded hills. It is truly a felicitous little spot, with its racecourse marked out by white railing and its Grand Stand. But it is the cemetery which fills us with admiration, and one would fain that the Happy Valley were not desecrated by the racecourse, but rather consecrated to the peaceful repose of the dead. They are separated only by the breadth of the road.
Of all the God's acres in all parts of the world, including the beautiful one of Mount Auburn, at Boston, but perhaps excepting the English cemetery on the heights of Scutari, at Constantinople, or that at Cannes, this one of the Happy Valley is the most perfect. Entering by a gate in the walls, you find yourself in a tropical garden, skilfully laid out, and growing around you in profuse luxuriance,—palms with graceful waving arms, mighty clumps of feathery bamboos, delicate spreading tree ferns, crotons of orange and yellow and variegated green, hibiscus with their single blood-red blossom, colias, camellia and azaleas, bushes of flowering wax-like alamanders, trailing masses of purple buganvillea, all the hot-house flowers we prize at home, and that grow so unwillingly with us, when compared to this almost oppressive wealth of nature. Amongst the bright gravel paths and green lawns, rise massive pillars, granite crosses and cenotaphs, memorials erected by soldiers and sailors to their comrades—to many who, alas! have perished from the deadly effects of a climate which yet produces all this beauty that is around us.
We return to luncheon at Government House, on the kindly invitation of General and Mrs. Barker, the acting-governor until Sir William Robinson arrives next month. With a scramble, and the aid of the Government steam-launch, we just catch the Calédonien as she weighs anchor. We passed out through the southern passage of the Island, on our way to Saigon, the capital of French Cochin China.
CHAPTER XII.
COCHIN CHINA
For the last two days we have been in sight of the coast of Annam.
When shall we be at Cape St. Jacques? Shall we lose the tide? This is the question which one asks of the other on board. And by 6 a.m. we find ourselves at rest, waiting outside the bar of the river Dannai, for the tide to turn, to ascend inland to Saigon. Saigon is the French capital of Cochin China, or Indo-China, as it is called, and is the chief city of the provinces of Annam, Tonquin, and before long of Gambogia, when the present King dies.
Cape St. Jacques is a pretty green foreland, jutting out into the sea, fringed with cocoa-nut palms, and has a large white hotel, built by the Pilot. Surely by this roadstead upon the hills, courting the breezes of the north-east monsoon, with the ample anchorage in the rear, the French might have fixed the capital of Cochin China. But no. They placed it, as in olden time, far up a tortuous river, with a narrow channel. The delay, and the pilotage, frighten away the ocean greyhounds of commerce.
We weigh anchor. It is one o'clock. The sun is blazing hot, and there is not a breath of air. But it is cool, they say, compared to what Saigon will be. We shall see. Now we are in the winding channel. North, south, east, west, we steer. Larboard! Triboard! Four hours we steam up the river Dannai, with its flat banks of mangrove swamps, and tangle of tropical vegetation, where they say tigers come out to sun themselves on the sands. We sight at length the cathedral towers of Saigon. They are to the right of us. In another instant they will be to the left. Then we appear to have passed them, for we see the town on the starboard quarter.
But at five we are at the quay, which is shaded by avenues of trees, with the hibiscus, blossoming garden of the agent's house opposite—an old temple with rows of fierce-tailed dragons guarding the roof. On the wharf, the usual motley crowd thickening every minute as the news of our arrival spreads, whilst Victorias, drawn by those beautiful, though rat-like, ponies that are bred in Tonquin, are in waiting. These latter only come out at five in the evening, and in the daytime we must be content with the malabars, as the shuttered gharries are called, from the Annamite name of the coachman.
We take the fashionable drive of Saigon, the tour d'inspection. Off we go, flying as the wind, past some native houses, built on piles over a green swamp, with waving palms above them. Here flourish the Cochin China pig, the real pig of original breed, with its pink, bow-shaped back, and earth-touching stomach, and the bright-plumaged Cochin China fowls. We should like to buy specimens of the animals that have made Cochin China celebrate at home, but doubt the warmth of our reception on board-ship if we return with them. We cross the bridge, and look over the hundreds of sampans that swarm up this creek of the river; then drive along for a few yards by the steam tramway which connects the China town of Cholons with Saigon, out under the cool wide avenues of the Quai du Commerce, with its arsenal and Bureaux d'Affaires. The roads are as flat and firm as a billiard table.
Beautiful boulevards, wide streets, great cafés, where pale-faced Frenchmen sip absinthe and petits verres. It is Paris. Bravo, La France! But it would be much better for these gay causeurs, to play lawn-tennis, and football, cricket, rackets and rounders, as do the English at Hong Kong, Singapore, and Colombo, thus defying, in large measure, or at least postponing, the action of the tropics. It is thirty years since the French acquired Saigon and Cochin China. At one time it promised to be a prosperous colony. But that day is past. Commercial depression reigns supreme, and France wearies of the large subsidies swallowed up without results by Tonquin. That, though, is not our business. We rather admire the feats of engineering, of laying out, and the horticultural skill.
We see this in perfection in the Jardin d'Acclimitasion, but with a wealth of natural vegetation, how easy it is to make a garden such a paradise as is this. In the deep bend of the river are the green lawns and forest-trees of this botanical garden. There are banyan trees with their trellise curtains of roots sweeping the ground, cacti in a mighty spiky group, standing apart. Single aloes, with their blooming crests, and the palms—they form a palmery of themselves, with the various specimens of cocoa or tree palms, their straight grey stems tufted at the top; of sago palms, with their graceful curving arms, shadowing the lawns; of travellers, with their hands of mighty fingers outspread from the single stem, all and every kind luxuriantly magnificent, a single one of which would assist in making the fortune of a London florist, such as we who see them dwarfed and frozen when exiled to our northern climes, are scarcely able to realize that they are of the same species. There are magnolias and camellias, growing to the height of our forest trees, bamboo clumps, whose single-jointed stems spring equally high, and mimosa trees, with their tender sensitive leaf, as spreading as our chestnuts. And all these trees are banked up with and grow out of brilliant beds of variegated green and yellow crotons, of caladiums, with their enormous boat-shaped leaves of pink oleanders, of crimson hibiscus, and purple bougainvillea, and cconvolvulus, whilst orange and lemon trees, India rubber and mangoes, mingle with the heavy green and yellow melon-like fruit of the pommelo. In the midst of this is an aviary, and cages of rare animals, natives of these tropical regions. We particularly notice the white pigeon, with the single blood-red spot on the bosom.
We wander about in the dusky growth of overpowering luxuriance, which to us appears so supremely beautiful, but which they say in its monotonous green, palls upon you when you live amongst it. We come upon a cool arbour, formed of green lattices overgrown with creepers and passion flower, containing an exquisite fernery, damp and green, with a collection of orchids of the rarest kinds—indeed, we saw several specimens of the hardier ones in purple and yellow, growing on the trees near the wharf. The twilight of this little open-air conservatory is made darker by the enormous bananas outside, under whose pale green sword-like leaves, cluster such heavy bunches of fruit, fifty or sixty on a single stalk.
Night though closes quickly in, and if we would see the Annamite suburbs we must give rein to our impatient little black steeds and bowl swiftly out into the country, by some fields of brilliant pale green rice, where the monster grey water buffaloes, with branching horns laid backwards, strong and patient, are being driven home from working in them, by coolies, hidden under bamboo hats the size of umbrellas. The marshes have been in a measure drained, but the miasma rises thickly from the rice fields, near which cluster the wretched huts of thatched bamboo.
On we go, now through an avenue entirely composed of the glossy leaved magnolia or another of feathery mimosa, broken only by groves of tufted cocoa palms. Then we reach the military boundary, and returning homewards another way, pass the cemetery where many a Frenchman lies low. Along these shady avenues, deep and cool, we see the walled compounds and overgrown gardens of the bungalows of officers and merchants, of whom about 1700 reside in Saigon. We meet many of them out for their evening drive, flying along in Victorias, to gain as much air as possible. There are many smart-looking officers in white uniforms, with their wives by their side—pale French ladies, but in Parisian fashions. Poor things, they appear sickly and enervated, yet robust compared to the shop-keepers, who look, if they do not say so, as if it was trouble enough to rise on the entrance of a customer, without serving them.
But it should be a great colony. The Governor-General's palace is magnificent—a Versailles, with its long flights of steps and spacious balconies. But his Excellency is always at Hanoi, vainly endeavouring to get things straight in Tonquin. The Cathedral, with its dim aisles and stained glass; the Grecian colonnades of the Palais de Justice; the post-offices; the theatre, with its bi-weekly performances; the Officers' Club, where the punkahs are lyslow waving to and fro in the balconies,—all betoken the great intentions of its founders.
And there are statues of Francis Garnier, the intrepid and disavowed explorer of the way to south-western China, and in the centre of the great boulevard, leading to the Governor's palace, we distinguish a very large stout man on a great pedestal, his stomach far protruding. When we come near, we see whom it represents: Gambetta in the fur coat worn in the balloon whence he escaped from Paris during the siege, to instil life into France, with his outstretched finger pointing in the direction of Tonquin, as in the memorable day when he came to the Chamber, and said, 'Messieurs, au Tonkin!' A dying soldier, in the act of falling, is on one side, and a sailor, with a bayonet peeping round as if in search of the enemy, on the other. The reverse side of this fine monument bears the legend: "À Gambetta, le patriote, défenseur de la politique coloniale."
In the evening some went to the opera, Traviata, played by the subsidized company, to distract the garrison. The sight, however, of the house with its myriad waving fans, was enough for us. We could not face the heat.
What an awful night we passed on board! Four steam winches in charge of seventy shouting French, with ports shut, tropical heat, and mosquitoes by the million. It was over at sunrise like a bad dream. But a sorry sight, the languid heavy-eyed passengers, with not a face but was severely wounded, presented next morning; for none had slept, and all had come off worsted in the conflict with those venomous brutes. Glad we were of daylight to go on shore, and set off in a gharry at seven o'clock to the open arcades where the curio shops are. The black woodwork inlaid with mother-of-pearl that comes from Tonquin is very pretty, but otherwise we only see curiosities common to other countries. We drive past gardens, which, as in France, are unrailed and open to the public, to the market square, with its deep red-roofed market hall, where a busy scene of buying and selling is progressing. We notice many French cafés, the familiar little marble-topped tables, looking strange among the palm trees of the gardens. There are many French officers, in solar topees and cotton umbrellas, strolling in the streets, but though the French element predominates, there is a wonderful mixture of races—of Chinese, Annamites with their heads bound in red cloths, Cinghalese with high tortoiseshell comb, and Indians in sarong; and the languages are as varied, for here the Chinese and natives have learnt French, instead of pigeon English.