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

Visible change in the Character of the People.—Rugged Mountains.—Collieries.—Temple in a Cavern.—Stone Quarries—Various Plants for Use and Ornament.—Arrive at Canton—Expence of the Embassy to the Chinese Government.—To the British Nation—Nature and Inconveniences of the Trade to Canton—The Armenian and his Pearl.—Impression of the Officers of Government instanced.—Principal Cause of them is the Ignorance of the Language.—Case of Chinese trading to London.—A Chinese killed by a Seaman of His Majesty's Ship Madras.—Delinquent saved from an ignominious Death, by a proper Mode of Communication with the Government—Conclusion.

We had no sooner passed the summit of the high mountain Me-lin, and entered the province of Quan-tung, or Canton, than a very sensible difference was perceived in the conduct of the inhabitants. Hitherto the Embassy had met with the greatest respect and civility from all classes of the natives, but now even the peasantry ran out of their houses, as we passed, and bawled after us Queitze-fan-quei, which, in their language, are opprobrious and contemptuous expressions, signifying foreign devils, imps; epithets that are bestowed by the enlightened Chinese on all foreigners. It was obvious, that the haughty and insolent manner in which all Europeans residing at, or trading to, the port of Canton are treated, had extended itself to the northern frontier of the province, but it had not crossed the mountain Me-lin; the natives of Kiang-see being a quiet, civil, and inoffensive people. In Quan-tung the farther we advanced, the more rude and insolent they became. A timely rebuke, however, given to the governor of Nau-sheun-foo by Van-ta-gin, for applying the above mentioned opprobrious epithets to the British Embassy, had a good effect on the Canton officers, who were now to be our conductors through their province.

This contempt of foreigners is not confined to the upper ranks, or men in office, but pervades the very lowest class who, whilst they make no scruple of entering into the service of foreign merchants residing in the country, and accepting the most menial employments under them, performing the duties of their several offices with diligence, punctuality, and fidelity, affect, at the same time, to despise their employers, and to consider them as placed, in the scale of human beings, many degrees below them. Having one day observed my Chinese servant busily employed in drying a quantity of tea-leaves, that had already been used for breakfast, and of which he had collected several pounds, I inquired what he meant to do with them: he replied, to mix them with other tea and sell them. "And is that the way," said I, "in which you cheat your own countrymen?" "No," replied he, "my own countrymen are too wise to be so easily cheated, but your's are stupid enough to let serve you such like tricks; and indeed," continued he, with the greatest sang froid imaginable, "anything you get from us is quite good enough for you." Affecting to be angry with him, he said, "he meant for the second sort of Englishmen," which is a distinction they give to the Americans[68].

The city of Nan-sheun-foo was pleasantly situated on the high bank of the river Pei-kiang-ho. The houses appeared to be very old, the streets narrow, large tracts of ground within the walls unbuilt, others covered with ruins. While the barges were preparing to receive on board the baggage, we took up our lodgings in the public temple, that was dedicated to the memory of Confucius, being, at the same time, the college where the students are examined for their different degrees. It consisted of a long dark room, divided by two rows of red pillars into a middle and two side aisles, without furniture, paintings, statues, or ornaments of any kind, except a few paper lanterns suspended between the pillars; the floor was of earth, and entirely broken up: to us it had more the appearance of a large passage or gang-way to some manufactory, as a brewhouse or iron foundery, than of the hall of Confucius. On each side, and at the farther extremity, were several small apartments, in which we contrived to pass the night.

The barges in which we now embarked were very small, owning to the shallowness of the river. The officers, assembled here from different parts of the country, detained us a whole day in order to have an opportunity of laying their several complaints before our physician, at the recommendation of Van-ta-gin, who had felt the good effects of his practice. Here, for once, we had an instance of Chinese pride giving way to self-interest, and usurped superiority condescending to ask advice of barbarians. We sailed for two days in our little barges, through one of the most wild, mountainous, and barren tracts of country that I ever beheld, abounding more in the sublime and horrible, than in the picturesque or the beautiful. The lofty summits of the mountains seemed to touch each other across the river and, at a distance, it appeared as if we had to sail through an arched cavern. The massy fragments that had fallen down from time to time, and impeded the navigation, were indications that the passage was not altogether free from danger. Five remarkable points of sand-stone rock, rising in succession above each other with perpendicular faces, seemed as if they had been hewn out of one solid mountain: they were called ou-ma-too, or the five horses' heads. The mountains at a distance on each side of the river were covered with pines, the nearer hills with coppice wood, in which the Camellia prevailed; and in the little glens were clusters of fishermen's huts, surrounded by small plantations of tobacco.

Within the defile of these wild mountains, we observed several extensive collieries, which were advantageously worked by driving levels from the river into their sides. The coals brought out of the horizontal adits were immediately lowered from a pier into vessels that were ready to receive and transport them to the potteries of this province, and of Kiang-see. Coal is little used in its raw state, but is first charred in large pits that are dug in the ground. Coal dust, mixed with earth, and formed into square blocks, is frequently used to heat their little stoves, on which they boil their rice.

At the city of Tchao-tchoo-foo, where we arrived on the 13th, we exchanged our flat-bottomed boats for large and commodious yachts, the river being here much increased by the confluence of another stream. The boats before this city were mostly managed by young girls, whose dress consisted of a neat white jacket and petticoat and a gipsey straw hat. Having for so great a length of time scarcely ever set our eyes upon a female, except the heads of some at a distance, peeping from behind the mud walls that surround the houses, or labouring in the grounds of Kiang-see, the ferry girls, though in reality very plain and coarse-featured, were considered as the most beautiful objects that had occurred in the whole journey. To the occupation of ferrying passengers over the river it seemed they added another, not quite so honourable, for which, however, they had not only the consent and approbation of their parents, but also the sanction of the government, or perhaps, to speak more correctly, of the governing magistrates, given in consideration of their receiving a portion of the wages of prostitution.

In this mountainous district a few fishermen's huts and those of the colliers were the only habitations that occurred; but the defect of population was abundantly supplied by the number of wooden dwellings that were floating on the river. Small huts, to the number of thirty or forty, were sometimes erected upon a single floating raft of fir baulks, lashed together by the ends and the sides. On these rafts the people carry on their trade or occupation, particularly such as work in wood.

Our conductors directed the yachts to halt before a detached rock, rising with a perpendicular front from the margin of the river to the height of seven hundred feet. In this front we observed a cavern, before which was a terrace that had been cut out of the rock, accessible by a flight of steps from the river. Proceeding from the terrace into the cavity of the rock, we ascended another flight of stairs, also cut out of solid stone, which led into a very spacious apartment. In the centre of this apartment sat the goddess Poo-sa upon a kind of altar, constituting a part of the rock, and hewn into the shape of the Lien-wha or Nelumbium. A small opening, next the river, admitted a "dim religious light," suitable to the solemnity of the place, which we were told was a temple consecrated to