Travels in China, Sir John Barrow [phonics readers txt] 📗

varieties of the tea plant, taken out of the ground and potted by our own gardener; and which, being in good growing order, were intended to be sent to Bengal as soon as occasion might serve after our arrival at Canton. Knowing we should be hurried away, as usual, in the morning and wishing to procure a few young plants of the varnish tree, I prevailed on our good friend Van-ta-gin to dispatch some person for that purpose, to add to those of the tea plant and the Camellia Sensanqua. Van made application to the men in office at this place, with the best intention of serving us, but these gentry, either conceiving that their compliance might be treason to the state, or else, in the true spirit of the nation, determined to play a trick upon the strangers, certainly procured the plants and sent them on board in pots, just as we were departing the next morning. In a short time they all began to droop, the leaves withered and, on examination, it was found that not a single plant among them had the least portion of a root, being nothing more than small branches of trees which, from the nature of the wood, were not likely nor indeed ever intended to strike root.

From Kan-tchoo-foo the face of the country became more uniform and suitable for the labours of agriculture; and, accordingly, we found a very small portion of it unoccupied. Wheat about six inches above ground and extensive plantations of the sugar cane fit for cutting, were the chief articles under cultivation: and the farther we advanced to the southward, the more abundant and extended were those of the latter. The canes were remarkably juicy and their joints from six to nine inches in length. To express the juice from them and convert it into a consistent mass, temporary mills were erected in different places among the plantations. The process was very simple. A pair of cylinders, sometimes of stone but more generally of hard wood, placed vertically, were put in motion by oxen or buffalos and from the foot of these the expressed juice was conveyed, by a tube carried under the floor, into a boiler that was sunk in the ground at the end of the apartment; where it was boiled to a proper degree of consistence the expressed canes serving as fuel. Though unacquainted with the process of refining sugar, the natural tendency that the syrup possesses of forming itself into crystals in cooling had suggested to them the means of obtaining very fine and pure sugar-candy which, in the market of Canton, is sold in a pulverized state as white as the best refined sugar. The coarse syrup, usually called treacle or molasses, and the dregs, are not employed, as in the West India islands, in the distillation of rum, but are sometimes thrown into the still with fermented rice, in order to procure a better kind of Seau-tchoo or burnt wine; the chief use, however, of the molasses is to preserve fruits and other vegetable productions; and particularly the roots of ginger, a conserve of which the Chinese are remarkably fond.

The bed of the river having, in the lapse of ages, settled to the depth of twenty, thirty, or even forty feet below the general level of the country, it became necessary to employ some artificial means of obtaining the water for the purpose, of irrigation. The contrivance made use of to raise it to the height of the banks was simple and ingenious; and from hence it was conveyed in small channels to every part of the cane plantations. Of the useful machine employed for this purposes consisting of a bamboo wheel which I understand has been adopted in America, a view and section may be seen among the plates accompanying Sir George Staunton's authentic account of the embassy. I shall therefore content myself with observing in this place that, the axis excepted, it is entirely constructed of bamboo, without the assistance of a single nail or piece of iron; that the expence of making it is a mere trifle; that in its operations it requires no attendance, and that it will lift, to the height of forty feet, one hundred and fifty tons of water in the course of twenty-four hours[58]. Every plantation near this part of the river had its wheel and some of them two; and the water raised by them was sometimes conveyed at once into the plots of canes and some times into reservoirs, out of which it was afterwards pumped, as occasion might require, by the chain-pump and carried to those places where it might be wanted along small channels coated with clay.

The women of this province were more robust than ordinary and well suited, by their strength and muscular powers, to endure the hard labour and drudgery of the field, which seemed to be their chief employment. This sort of labour, however, might be the cause, rather than the consequence, of their extraordinary strength and masculine form. The habitual use of hard labour, to which the women are here brought up, fits them best to become the wives of the peasantry in the neighbouring provinces; and accordingly, when a Chinese farmer is desirous of purchasing a working wife he makes his offers in Kiang-see. It was here that we saw a woman yoked literally by traces to a plough, whilst the husband or master had the lighter task of holding it by one hand and drilling in the seed with the other. The exertion of labour together with the constant exposure to the weather, in a climate situated under the twenty-fifth to the twenty-ninth parallel of latitude, have contributed to render more coarse and forbidding the features of the fair sex of Kiang-see, in the formation of which, indeed, Nature had not been too bountiful. Like the women of the Malay nation, with whom they most probably are derived from one common stock, they fixed their strong black hair close to the head by two metal skewers. Their dress, in other respects, was the same as that of the men, and like these they wore straw sandals on their feet. Thus far, by avoiding the pain attendant on fashionable feet, and enjoying the free use of their limbs, they might be said to have the advantage of the city ladies. It was, indeed, observed that even such as were not employed in the labours of the field, but kept constantly at home for domestic purposes, were, in this province, equally exempted from the barbarous fashion of cramping the feet.

On the 9th we again entered a narrow defile and here with difficulty the vessels were forced along against a strong current; and over the pebbly bottom, against which they were constantly striking. At Nan-gan-foo, where we arrived in the evening, the river ceases to be navigable. Indeed the whole of the three last days' navigation might, with propriety, in England be called only a trout stream; upon which no nation on earth, except the Chinese, would have conceived the idea of floating any kind of craft; they have however adapted, in an admirable manner, the form and construction of their vessels to the nature and depth of the navigation; towards the upper part of the present river they drew only, when moderately laden, about six inches of water. They were from fifty to seventy feet in length, narrow and flat-bottomed, a little curved, so that they took the ground only in the middle point. Yet, in several places, the water was so shallow that they could not be dragged over until a channel had been made, by removing the stones and gravel with iron rakes. The length of this river, from its source at Nan-gan-foo to the Po-yang lake, is nearly three hundred English miles. The banks in the low part of the province of Kiang-see consisted of a deep soil of black earth, supported on clay of a dark red or brown colour; denoting the presence of iron. The mountains were chiefly of red sand-stone; and the soil of the hills, producing the Camellia, was a brown loam mixed with particles of mica.

We had now before us another land-journey, over the steep and lofty mountain of Me-lin, whose summit is the boundary between the two provinces of Kiang-see and Quan-tung; on the south side of which commences the river Pei-kiang-ho that flows by the port of Canton; and whose mouth is familiarly known in Europe by the name of the Bocca Tigris. The ascent of this mountain, which some undertook on horseback and others in chairs, was made by a well-paved road, carried in a zig-zag manner over the very highest point, where a pass was cut to a considerable depth through a granite rock; a work that had evidently not been accomplished with any moderate degree of labour or expence. In the middle of the pass was a military post, much stronger than ordinary, and it was defended or, more correctly speaking, it was supplied with two old pieces of cannon, that had been cast, in all probability, near two hundred years ago, perhaps by the Jesuits who first taught them an art which they seem already to have forgotten or neglected.

The view from the summit towards the southward, over the province of Canton, was as rich and enchanting as that on the opposite side was dreary and barren. In descending the gradual slope of about twelve miles, before the mountain had blended with the general surface of the country, there was a constant succession of dwellings; so that this whole distance might almost be considered as one continued street. Half of the buildings consisted, however, of places of convenience to which passengers might retire to obey the calls of nature, and the doors, or rather the openings into such erections, were always invitingly fronting the street. To each single dwelling, whether alone or joined with others, was annexed a fabric of this description. Each was constructed upon a large terrace cistern, lined with such materials that no absorption could take place; and straw and other dry rubbish are thrown in by the owners, from time to time, to prevent evaporation. In one of the streets of Canton is a row of buildings of this kind which, in so warm a climate, is a dreadful nuisance; but the consideration of preserving that kind of manure, which by the Chinese is considered as superior for forcing vegetation to all others, has got the better of both decency and prudence.

All the passengers we met upon this road were laden with jars of oil expressed from the Camellia. In the course of eighteen miles, which is about the distance from the summit of Me-lin to the city of Nan-sheun-foo, we passed at least a thousand persons on their way to Nan-gan-foo, each bearing ten or twelve gallons of oil and among these were a number of women.

Having now traversed five of the provinces of China, that are considered among the most populous and productive in the empire, a general sketch may be drawn, by taking a retrospective view, of the state of agriculture and the condition of the people; of their habitations, dress, diet and means of subsistence; and some conclusion drawn as to the population of the country.