Li Hung Chang is a tall handsome man of seventy, six feet four inches high, and was dressed in a grey plush robe. He is frequently styled the Bismarck of China, and is certainly the most prominent and influential statesman of this vast Chinese Empire. For many years Li, the Viceroy, has held his present post of Governor-General of the large Province of Chihli, and unites with it that of Grand Secretary, Guardian of the Heir Apparent, and what is most important of all to us, Commissioner for Trade, in which capacity all Foreign Affairs are referred to him from Peking. In the conversation, His Excellency placed great stress upon his sincere desire to develop closer trade relations with England, and took great interest in the details of the trade of the British Empire which C. gave him. The interview lasted about an hour, the Viceroy conducting his guests back to their chairs, and sending me his photograph.
There are two ways of reaching Peking. You may ride or drive in those terrible country carts the eighty miles, staying one or two nights in an indescribably dirty Chinese inn, or go, as we decided, in a house boat, 120 miles up the Peiho.
At two o'clock the next afternoon, we drove in jinrikishas for an hour through the heart of the native quarter. This is my first view of a real Chinese city, and my early impressions are comprised in the all-pervading, all-powerful, smothering filth and dirt, in the revolting smells and disgusting sights; my next, in the jostling of crowds of coolies wheeling enormous iron-bound bales on wheelbarrows, of carts drawn by teams of mules, donkeys or oxen, of equestrians, pedestrians, jinrikishas, and sedan chairs, crowded into a six-foot wide street, curtained with bamboo mats above, producing a bewildering pandemonium. Passing the particularly squalid corner where is situated the Yâmen, we see the twin towers of the Roman Catholic Cathedral. They stand there as a solemn reminder of the dangers which yet threaten the Settlement, and of the fanatical people they are surrounded by, for it was here in 1870 that there was that awful massacre of Roman Catholic nuns, followed by the pillage of the Convent and Cathedral.
On arrival at the bridge of boats, we find our house-boat, Chinese boy, provisions, luggage and crew of coolies safely on board, and after many objurations from the delayed passengers, a passage by the removal of one of the boats is made for us, and we begin our long journey up the Peiho.
This house-boat is very comprehensive on a small scale, for we have a sitting-room and bed-room and kitchen. There is a tiny promenade deck in the bows, then down two steps and you are in a room with a bench, a table and two stools, the door being formed of movable planks of wood. Through an elegant arabesque of woodwork, screened with paper, we can see the raised floor on which are spread our mattresses with red quilts. Behind a similar screen is the kitchen, a few square inches, under the shadow of the helm, where our clever "Boy," who is cook, valet and interpreter in one, turns out the most deliciously cooked and varied dishes, with a batterie de cuisine, consisting of a few tin saucepans and an iron brazier of charcoal. As for the crew, they sleep on deck anywhere, and keep their provisions in the hold. The flat-bottomed boat has an arched roof of matting laid on bamboo sticks. It is clean, for I only saw one black-beetle, but is only moderately air and water-tight. Our tiny domicile is dominated by an enormous sail which is hoisted up and down on running strings. We either tow or pole, or sail, according to the wind and stream.
The vast and varied river life is before us. The banks for some miles above Tientsin are lined with these ugly sampans, their tattered sails hanging in ribbons, their decks strewn with débris where the naked children disport themselves, and the women steer at the helm; for in these sampans generations are born, live, and die, and they are coated too with the dirt of many decades. There are fishermen on the bank where, projecting out of the little hut which he inhabits, is a net stretched wide on bamboo poles, baited with the white of egg spread on the meshes. He lowers it slowly up and down, and at each dip we see the little silver-scaled fish jumping about in the net. There are children dabbling in the mud, true mud-larks, and women washing their clothes. We espy a bridge over a tributary, with a single graceful arch, so curved as to be half an oval, and with some houses, a willow tree and pig-tailed Chinaman, calling to remembrance the willow-patterned plate of our childhood. We pass several covered Chinese gun-boats,—war-junks,—with their blue and white striped awnings, and a Maxim gun in the bows kept for the defence of the Peiho, and the patrolling of the river.
We get out into the country at length, between high mud banks, and by a continuous succession of villages, their brown dusty walls abutting on to the hard-trodden towing path, whilst around is that careful cultivation resembling a succession of kitchen gardens, with its plots of lettuces of enormous size, of cabbages, turnips and onions; and the vertical pole of the water tank is always amongst them. A place is hollowed out in the bank, where, from a cross plank, the bucket attached to the pole is pulled down to the water, when the weighted end bears the bucket up and the water is emptied into the channels that surround each plot. Morning and evening you see hundreds of these automatically-working figures, thus irrigating their fields. The population appear ill-disposed towards foreigners, they collect in the villages and on the sampans and point and jeer at me, for the Chinese keep their women at home, and are shocked at the way "Barbarians," as they call us, travel with their wives.
After punting for a little while, three of the coolies begin to tow, but it is tedious work, as our line has constantly to be undone or passed round the masts of other sampans. Indeed, all the way there are processions of these vessels crawling up the river heavily laden with cargoes of rice, salt, camels' hair, sheep's wool, and vegetables, with their four or six towers, whose brown figures are bent double against the line, patiently staggering along for mile after mile against the current. Our coolies are very willing and cheerful, springing ashore to begin that weary work of tacking against stream, and subsisting on scanty meals of rice, cabbage and maccaroni, which we watch them, at midday and sunset, tucking rapidly into their mouths with chop sticks. Sometimes they sing in chorus to encourage themselves, with a soft crooning chant.
As evening approaches, columns of smoke rise from the stern of the sampans, showing the preparation of the evening meal, and the mists gather low over the villages. We see the great high road to Peking, raised on a mud embankment, that now and again keeps company with the river; it is bordered here with an avenue of whispering willows, and against the orange sunset come such picturesque figures along it. Now a little lady, with her pantaloons reaching to her little feet, tippeting along as if she must fall at every step, a horseman on a shaggy white pony, running along without rising in the saddle, a big man overshadowing a tiny donkey, a jinrikisha, a country cart with oxen, or one of those ancient wooden cabriolets, all outlined in black relief against the yellow sky.
We go to sleep with the sound of the water gently gurgling against the bottom of the boat, the croaking of the frogs on the banks, whilst our patient coolies plod automatically along. They anchor for a few hours in the middle of the night opposite a large village, whence the regular muffled tom-tom of the watchman, a deep and solemn tone, is wafted across to us. At three in the morning there is a rushing sound as of wind and water, and to our great joy we find that we are sailing before a brisk wind.
The scenery of the Peiho is repelling in its ugliness, and wearisome from its extreme monotony. The country is absolutely flat, and there is nothing, now that the harvest is carried in, but a parched saline plain, of mud and yellow grass, extending for hundreds of miles all around.
The only hills are those of the graves—these unwieldy mounds of battened earth, that stand in rows along the bank, or are collected in a field—a family burial place, with mounds of varying sizes. The greater the man, the larger is the tumulus raised over him. Then there are other and more disagreeable ones, where the coffin has been temporarily earthed above ground, awaiting perhaps a favourable moment for burial, or sufficient funds to take the deceased back to the place of his birth; for this is the dearly cherished hope of every Chinaman, and often, when old age approaches, he returns to his native place to be ready to die there. An even more objectionable custom is that of putting coffins down in open fields, or along the roads. We saw one covered in red standing like this, just outside a village, and you find them in the same way all over China. There is a superstition that it is lucky to bury within sight of water or in a place which commands a view, and that is why we see such rows of graves for miles and miles by the river bank. To the Chinese their burial is the most important thing of life. They prepare their coffins and keep them in their houses for years beforehand, though their unwieldy size and solidity take up much ill-spared space, and the object of every woman of the poorest class is to save enough for her grave-clothes. It has been truly said that the whole face of China is burrowed under by these graves.
The turpid yellow waters of the Peiho swirl against our boat, particularly at the reaches, where the current is strongest. The harvest is over, the poppy fields are bare, and there are only a few tall straggly castor-oil plants along the banks. A few, very few coolies, in loose blue cotton garments, are at work, ploughing with ancient and rude ploughshares. The teams they use are delightfully mixed. You may often see an ox and horse, a donkey and a mule all pulling together. And the same useful mixture is seen in the carts that resemble old Roman chariots, crawling along the towing path, where a bull with a tandem donkey is a favourite team. These donkeys are beautiful animals; small, but with sleek grey, brown and black coats, with the well-marked neck rings, and line down the centre of the back. We meet solitary pedestrians trudging along with their heads down against the wind, and we wonder whence they came and whither they are going, for we are now only passing isolated villages at great distances. In some of the few we sail by, the mud walls surrounding the villages have a graceful openwork arabesque at the top, and in one, to the sound of much tom-tomming, a festival was progressing, at which all the inhabitants (as there were none to be seen) are evidently assisting.
The windings described by the Peiho are aggravating. The actual distance traversed, after a series of bends, being equal to about half a mile as the crow flies. Again and again we see the extraordinary phenomenon of a row of sails walking inland; and how picturesque these brown-patched sails look, as extended by the wind they glide in single file against the sky line. The wind is a subject of great anxiety on the Peiho, because if it is ahead one the crew make fast to the bank at once, and await a favourable change; and even if it is, as to-day, behind us, the river winds so much that we box every point of the compass, and so it is not always to our advantage. We watch our progress with great interest; and now we are scudding gaily before a lovely fresh breeze, with the pleasant sound of rushing water under the keel, whilst the big sail overhead balloons out and swells hopefully. To this succeeds a calm, when a little punting with the long poles is necessary, or a deep bend when the wind and stream are ahead of us, and which means a painful slow bit of tacking, when the men strain the whole weight of their bodies against the tow line, to progress at all. Again a pleasant rush, the puff of wind catching our ponderous sail, and we scud merrily past the banks. And how our coolies enjoy this; stretching themselves out, and, sunning on the deck, smoke their pipes. So it goes on all day.
We passed several gaily-decorated junks belonging to a great mandarin with the peacock's feather over the door, generally accompanied by another with the household; also the ex-French Chargé d'Affaires, Monsieur Ristelhueber, and his family, returning to France from Peking, and with whom we afterwards had the pleasure of travelling homewards for a month on the French mail.
The approach to Peking, which signifies the "Gate of Heaven," is indeed synonymous with the biblical definition in one particular, for it is narrow. This morning the Peiho has dwindled into a ditch between extensive mud flats, and we are constantly aground, our five brown coolies struggling and sweating in the quagmire of soft mud under a broiling sun. It is weary, weary work this slow progress, and we chafe at all the delays of crossing the tow line from one bank to another, to avoid the now continuous succession of sampans, many of which are in worse condition than ourselves, for the men have to get out into the water to push the boat along; for should we not arrive at Tungchau by noon, we must abandon all hope of reaching Peking to-night, as the gates close at sunset. There is a head wind, with a strong current racing down the narrow channel against us, and we sadly mark how crawling is our progress by the landmarks on the bank. And so the long hours of morning pass, and, just as we are losing hope, we see the blue tower of the pagoda at Tungchau, rising up from the plain, and there are only seven miles more with an hour to do it in, and we shall be at our journey's end. We afterwards found that, favoured by the wind, we had made almost, if not quite, a record passage of forty-six hours, and that many boats take from four to five days in coming up from Tientsin.
We find an anchorage at Tungchau among fleets of sampans, and in half an hour our boy has procured three carts, packed in our luggage, and we are ready to begin the fifteen miles journey to Peking. Let me describe these carts. The body is formed of a few planks of wood, with a hood covered in blue or black stuff. The wheels are of circular pieces of wood, they are guiltless of springs, and are drawn by mules. They resemble an old mediæval chariot, and indeed they date from and are exactly the same as were in use in the tenth century. There is no seat inside, and instead of sitting on the floor, it is easiest to ride on the shaft, with your legs hanging over; but I did not know this in time. Before you have been half an hour in this vehicle you cry out for mercy—for an instant's cessation of this agonizing mode of progression, from the unbearable bumping and concussion. And when at length you become numbed by the pain and discomfort, the intense weariness that succeeds, makes you sure that another jolt will be unbearable, until at last you close your eyes, feeling that nothing but the end of the journey is of the remotest consequence. The roads are somewhat softened by the loose dust. Still, when you tumble into a ditch on one side, with a jar that is felt to your most internal depths, and are then run up on to a bank on the other, you can have some idea of what we suffered during that journey from Tungchau to Peking. What must have been the agonies endured by Sir Harry Parkes, and our old friend Sir Henry Loch, as they journeyed in these same springless carts to Peking, but with their hands bound behind them and over the stone road that takes a more circuitous route!
We passed through the outskirts of Tungchau, through some blind lanes of mud walls, with doors in them leading to the courts, round which the houses are built. Soon we are out on the road—no, it is not a road, but a rough track with several trails, and made of millions of tons of dust, that rise in impenetrable clouds by the passing of a single donkey—dust that smells and tastes of the garbage of China proper, that envelops everything in a white mist, that, easily raised, subsides as lingeringly. The embankments are crumbling into dust, as are the numerous walls of these hideous earth villages which line the road, and are perched on the top of them. The whole face of the land is parched and burnt. The willows are streamers of dust, and the other trees are coated grey with the same. And the road: it is a succession of deep gutters, of holes, of upheavals of sandbanks, running in the middle or across the road, scarcely defined from the surrounding fields—and this is the great highway to the Great City of the unknown Emperor.
We pass cavalcades of carts, and the gaudily-dressed and painted Chinese women inside peer out curiously at us; bullock carts laden with merchandise, parties of horsemen, a caravan of camels, and endless strings of donkeys, bearing away the last of the students from the late annual examinations at the capital. Many of these wear goggle spectacles, the glasses of which are at least four inches in diameter, and enclosed in broad tortoiseshell rims. With their loose coats they tower over and bulge out above their tiny quadrupeds, but these sleek, good-looking little donkeys go cheerfully jig-jogging along, with their blue-coated owners urging them from behind. In the oasis of a few trees, the mules are occasionally watered from the tubs that stand ready filled, for the traffic along this highway is ceaseless.
The sun, as it got lower, scorched mercilessly into the hood, and the dust in its parching aridity became still more trying. The mule began to tire, and the driver cruelly flogged it, while the monotonous waste seems endless.
Absolute indifference, with a deadly weariness, had long since taken possession of me. The clammy chill of sunset was of no consequence, though I tried to huddle something round me. I was only roused by the sight, over some tree tops, of a little bit of black crenellated wall. The approach to Peking is thus an absolute disappointment, for, instead of seeing the grand walls from afar standing up out of the yellow plain, here we were creeping round a corner to them. In a few minutes we were under the gloom and darkness of this vast mass of stones, piled up on high centuries ago. But, alas! that at such a moment imagination and sentiment, increased by the difficulties and tediousness of the journey, should succumb before an increased ordeal of pain, as we now join the stone road, and jar over the great crevasses the paved way. At last, turning the corner, we enter under the massive arch or gateway, deep with many feet of thickness, called by the poetical name of Hatamen, or the "Gate of Sublime Learning." We are within the outer walls of The Forbidden City.
Then we find ourselves in a sandy waste, bordered by the wall of the Tartar City on one side and the canal on the other. Little clouds of dust rising in the distance tell of some cart or donkey, and we ourselves continue enveloped in the same as we choose any track we please, for there is, of course, again no road for another weary mile or so. Some flag-poles in the distance bring a ray of comfort, for I shrewdly hope that they mean the quarter of the Legations. Nor is my hope ill-founded, for, passing through a dirty passage, we emerge into the moving streets and are soon in Legation Street, so called from the lion-guarded entrances of the various legations, for the French, the American, the German, and the Russian Envoys are grouped here. We find accommodation in one of the numerous courts of the French hotel in this aristocratic street. The sense of comfort of sitting still and not momentarily expecting a concussion is simply delicious. We are full of admiration for the physical bravery and endurance of the many travellers, who for two days or for eighty miles go in these carts from Tungchau to Peking, through such a prolonged torture.
The British Legation is over the bridge with an entrance off the Yu-ho canal. And here, the next morning, Sir John and Lady Walsham sent for us and received us most hospitably.
This beautiful Legation was formerly a Palace belonging to a member of the Imperial Family, as is shown by its green roof. The approach to the entrance is through an aisle and raised pavement, formed by two magnificent open gateways supported by pillars, and gorgeously decorated in gold, scarlet, green, and blue. The palace wanders round the spacious enclosure of a courtyard; and the reception-rooms, with their lofty ceilings inlaid like a temple in green and gold squares, with their hanging screens of that beautiful Chinese black oak carving, are magnificent. The walls are of open work filled in with dull gold papers, and furnished, as these rooms are, with handsome brocades, soft carpets, and rich hangings, chosen to harmonize with the surroundings, the whole is truly regal.
The compound is large, and contains the bungalows and houses of the Legation Staff, and the separate apartments of the Student Interpreters, of whom there are six. And a very happy little community of twenty-two persons they appear to be, led by Lady Walsham, who is most hospitably inclined, and living their life within the four walls of the compound, which they rarely leave, except for social duties, to pass into the outside filth and dust.
From the windows of our rooms, overshadowed by the deep eaves supported on enormous red wooden pillars, we look out on a succession of peaked roofs, inlaid with green tiles and blue decorations, with rows of pretty little green dragons perched on the ridges, whilst crescent-shaped ornaments depending from the roof, wave with each breath of wind.