The Press. — London, England, 1858-09-11 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 11, 1858. 884 European has ever yet sailed upon its higher waters, or has, indeed, been much above Nankin. M. Hue has added nothing to our knowledge for commercial purposes; but I have obtained access to some reports of Chinese, who traverse the whole distance frequently with commercial objects, and I may be able to tell something mare of this river than is yet known to Englishmen. Having threaded our way through the shallows at the mouth, we are in the largest, the deepest, and the most abundant river in the world. We go for 200 nines through the rich province of Kiangsu, passing towns and anchorages less well known to ships of war. 'We will not linger at Chekiang, or even at Nankin, for these great cities are now nothing more than the seared and wasted strongholds of a piratical power. All that was beautiful in the southern capital of China—even the famous porcelain pagoda—hits been wantonly destroyed. Shut in from the land by the Imperialist besiegers, the rebels maintain themselves by plundering the rieli eouritry up and down the banks of the river, and the Imperialists are scarcely less hurdenr-ome to the country behind their camp. Commerce has fled from these parts. All we can ask of these plunderers is to let us pass in peace. Hitherto we have been in a tidal river. Henceforward, although we must still reckon its width by miles and its depth by tens of fathoms, our merchandize-laden steamer must be content to labour against an unchanging stream. We traverse the rich and thickly-peopled province of Anhui, and in our voyage or :200 miles through that province we find, besides a constant succession of towns, two first-class cities, at which we nifty tarry awhile to display our mer chandize and lighten our cargo. Now we reach the provinces of Hupeh and Honan, the former on tile north, the latter on the south bank. This is the country of the finest teas. It is here that the Oopak teas are grown, which, by an unnatural route, are forcer; itown to Canton, being borne on men's backs across the mountains instead of being sent deftly down the stream of the great river whose banks produce them. Here are lakes, and broad streams running into them, and networks of canals connecting them. But more than this, here, just at this spot, is the confluence of the Yang-tse with the great river Han, which is itself banked with large cities and heavy with commerce. At this confluence we have a congregation of enormous cities—Wuchung on the one hank, and Hannan opposite, with immense suburbs extending ter away. The popula tion of these cities is differently estimated at :1,000,000 and 5,000,000 souls ; lint, what is of still greater importance, these two cities are undoubtedly the first great emporium of Chinese commerce. Here is a market which may set all Manchester spinning, all Leeds weaving, all Sheffield grinding, and all Nottingham throwing, if we only have on board samples of what these celestials desiderate. It might be worth while, if they are ally of our new goods, to anchor a depot ship in the broad waters,—for we are told there are five miles of river from shore to shore—and accustom them to the sight of luxuries and necessaries which they may have iu exchange for their cheap and abundant first-clan teas. Surely it would be better thus to get rid of them than to send them down the Yuen river to the Tnngting lake, then by the capital city of Changteh, up the Siang river to the Ching district, across the mountain on men's backs to Loh Chang, and then down the northern river to Fatshan and Canton, for such is their present route. What charges mnst accu:tAdate upn English goods that should try to come up the long, devious route by which these tens descend. We are only half-way yet along our voyage. The river leads us through the whole province of Hupeh ; and why should we not do a little business at the great cities of Kingehow and Tchang, the walls of which we must pass? To this city of Tchaugjunks of 31K) tons burdens ascend in great numbers, and the water is still deep, though the bottom is rocky and dangerous. A little higher up than Tchang we arrive at the town of Kwei. We are now MO miles from the mouth of the Yang-tse, and here fur the present our steamer must be content to stop, fur here for the first time we meet with rapids. When the summer sun has melted the snows of Central Asia the trading junks shoot down these falls, and, empty of cargo, they can be tweed up them. But if we are ever to pursue an unbroken voyage beyond this point, John Chinaman must add one other to his at present innumer able canals, and English engineers must teach him the secret of constructing locks. . . It will nut do, however, to be stopped by these rapids. The whole basin of the Yang-tse is one vast coal-field. Frem Nankin to Sz'chuen we have difficulty in obtaining the means of locomotion. There are markets higher up, and thither, in a steamer to be put together above the falls, we must go. Let us suppose this—no great labour fur us AngloSaxous—to have been accomplished. The stream is still deep and navigable. It is crowded with junks, as M. Hue sill testify. Kwi.i wss just upon the boundary line between Seelmen and Hupell, and Sz'chuen is the last province of China. Beyond that are the snows of Thihet and the swarnra of Hannah. Sz'chuen is the finest province in all China. " You never see an ill-dressed man from Sz'chuen," says the Chinese proverb. "It grows more grain in one year than it can consume in ten," says another native authority, addicted, 1 fear, to exaggeration. This province appears to produce everything; more silk than any other province, more and better wax and tobacco, grass-cloth of the finest quality, tea of the coarsest, grain in such quantities that its supplies act upon the distant market of Hangchow. Moreover, the climate is variable, extremely hot and extremely cold, just suited for our woollens. My Chinese authority asserts that they pene trate there now even through' the difficulties of the transit from Canton ; and lie says (I su:peet with some exaggera tion ), that one half of the long ells and shirting.' landed at Canton find their tedious ray over the hills and up the ricers to Sz'chuen. We must go up, therefore, above the Kwei falls, and must pursue our voyage till we reach the confluenc e o f t e e Yang-tee with the Xifliug , a river which comes down from the north. At this confluence stands the great city Cluing king, the second great commercial etuporiuin of China. My authority states that under the walls of this city of Chung-king the lusty young Yang-tse is already as broad as the Canton river in front of the dear departed factories, and very deep anti very rapid. You may go farther if you please, fur there is the Western Soochow and'all the land of poppy-bearing Yunan higher up. But the stream grows rocky, and savage tribes from Thibet and Burnish make the way dangerous. We are getting to the western.boun dary of China Proper. We have done our work ; we have "opened up the country:" so here we will turn our steamer's head—shall we call her the Yang-tae ?—and pass swiftly back, towing our junk-loads of tea and silk and wax, and satisfied, I hope, with oar speculative voyage. I have said nothing of consuls or consular eqablishments. The merchants appear to incl►ne to the opinion that they do not want them, and are better without them. They say that Swatow and Woochow are growing into importance without consular protection, and that the want is not felt. I differ a little here. If you do not want consuls to protect, you want them to restrain. We must not allow a vagabond European population to run riot in the internal cities of China, Jr we s'►all change the peaceful character of the people. Wuchang and Chung-king might, however, well maintain each a consul or consular agent with extended jurisdiction, and this would be ample for a commencement. A consul may be a great nuisance. A fussy consul, not now in China, drove the carrying trade at one of our ports out of our hands. He made so many petty difficulties that the Chinamen wrote up and down the coast not to chatter British ships. We most have no dimes of the Circum locution-office in the Yang-tse. Equally good in its way is the description of a regular Chinese dinner given by the writer him self to some English friends at a famous hotel in Ningpo, entitled "The Gallery of the Imperial Academician," and kept by the prize cook who came out first in a Pekin competitive examina tion. In the middle of dinner the guests were startled by a loud cry of "Ey yaw," and looking up saw that— The opposite house, distant perhaps across the street about eight feet from us, presented the spectacle of a small crowded playhouse seen from the stage. It was densely crowded with half•nsked Chinamen. They were packed in a mass upon the gallery, anti they were squatted upon the roof. I believe they had paid for their places. They had sat orderly and silent all this time to see the bar barians dining. We might have dropped the grass blinds, but it would have been ill natured; the Chinese did us no harm, and the Winds would have kept out the air ; so we went on eating, like Greenwich pensihners or Bluecoat boys in public. The dinner, which consisted of an enormous variety of courses, including birds'-nest soup, sea slugs, sturgeons' skulls, sharks' tins, and ducks tongues, proved "in the highest degree whole some, nutritious, and light of digestion." The soup is described as follows : What these birtls'•nests are in their natural state I do not know, for I have uo book on ornithology, and have never been hirde-nesting in the Straits. Their existence at table is apparent in a thick mucilage at the surface of the soup. Below this you come to a white liquid and chickens' flesh. It was objected that this was a fade and tasteless delicacy. lint remark that these two basins are only the suns of little systems. The same hands that brought them in, scattered also an entourage of still smaller basins. These are sauces of every flavour and strength, from entitled tresh chilies to simple soy. Watch the Chinaman. How cunningly he compounds. The great national institution of China is " squeezing." The mandarin squeezes the trader ; the governor of the province squeezes the man darin; and the Emperor squeezes the governor; the " dangerous classes" squeeze everybody : The Chinese are a race of co-operative habits. They form societies to rob, societies to resist robbery, and societies for all or any fanciful object. But these societies all have one tendency —to "squeeze" the non-members. From the Triad Society, which was nt the bottom of the present rebellion, to the Tailors' Union at Hong Kong, the rules and regulations of which have just been published in the North China Herald, all have the same practical object in view. The " Teente Brotherhood," the " Triads," the " Heaven and Earth Society," the " Queen of Heaven's Company," the " Flood Family," the " Pure Tea Set," are all obnoxious to the general description given in a memorial published in the Pekin Gazelle. The affair of the Arrow no doubt was a squeezing job. And now that we have Yeh in our power, we are of course supposed by the population to be squeezing that potentate severely. The Chinese have little or no religion. They treat their own idols with the utmost contempt. When the ground is dry, they drag the god of rain out of doors that he may feel the effect of his own remissness. They have no morality. A lie is regarded by them, says Mr. Cooke, much as a pun is regarded by an Englishman. They have no friendship. A Chinaman " split his sides " with laughing in describing the accidental death of his most intimate friend. And another seemed highly delighted at suddenly recognizing an acquaintance among a batch of criminals. They are restrained by a selfish sense of self-interest, but that is all. How such a p eop l e as this i is s t o be influenced a problem that may puzzle the wisest heads. On this subject it is not surprisinm that Cooke is occasionally inconsistent, lie seems to think that a closer acquaintance with Western civilization will mitigate these features of the Chinese character. We confess to con s id era b le doubts upon the subject. We have absolutely no leverage. This singular people is totally destitute of the slightest sentiment of veneration. Our own axiom that habit is second nature, which here is an hyperbole, in China would seem to be a reality. What are we to do ? As for converting a people like this by selling them more cotton, the idea is a slight concession on Mr. Cooke's part to Manchester theories of the universe, but cannot be his deliberate conviction. Mr. Cooke's amusing account of his voyage to Calcutta in company with Commissioner Yeh must be too fresh in our readers' recollection to require further notice ofit now. The "governor" is now comfortably located in a villa at 'roily Gunge, and is being assiduously "coached" in international law by Mr. Alabaster. But as Mr. Cooke well says —" If we can conceive Lord Eldon to have been " taken prisoner by the Cherookies, imprisoned " in a wigwam, and instructed in the red-skin " mysteries by a juvenile medicine-man, we " should still not expect to find much of the " Cherookie learning in Lord Eldon's decisions." PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED-SEm 9. 1100K8. Fire Years of It. By Alfred Austin. 2 vols. Hope and C. Curiosities of Literature. By Isaac Disraeli. Edited by the Right Hon. B. Disraeli. Rontledge Topics for Indian Statesmen. By John Bruce Norton, Esq. Richardson, Brothers The Patna Crisis. By NV. Tayler. Nisbet and Co. A Handbook of the Principal Families in Russia. Ridgway PERIODICALS. The Photographic Art-Journal, Parts IV. to VI., Lay— The Weekly Novelist, Part 1., Ward and Lock —The Ladies' Treasury, ditto—London University Magazine, Parts XXVIII. and XXIX., Hall and Virtue. ~jUS C. THE BIRMINGHAM MUSICAL FESTIVAL. Tuts musical reunion was brought to a close yester day week, and whether we regard the festival as an encouragement offered to art, or as an agent in a laudable work of charity, it was on the whole as sec. cesstul as could have been desired. The third grand miscellaneous concert followed on Thursday evening the oratorio of The Messiah, to which our notice in last week's impression extended. Of the heterogeneous and lengthy selection of music which constituted the programme of the first part, "The Dream," a serenata, composed by Mr. Costa for the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Royal, most awakened the sympathies of the au thence. Nor will this occasion surprise, for the aim of the composer was evidently simplicity and popu larity. The serenata was well and carefully per formed ; but the gem of the evening was the solo, " 0 ! the joy of truly loving," sung with exquisite taste by Mr. Sims Reeves, and universally encored. In the second part of the concert Mlle. Victoire Balfe made a most successful hit, in "The last Rose of Summer," which is truly regarded as one of the best specimens of our ballad literature. Friday morning ushered in Mr. Henry Leslie's new oratorio Judith. As in Immanuel, this young com poser has, in his most recent work, closely followed Mendelssohn, and his very adherence to the school of this grehtest of modern masters is in itself no mean recommendation, and argues no small amount of talent. The execution of this cantata, which was directed by Mr. Leslie himself, was in all respects effective. Mine. Castellan, Mme. Viardot Mr. Sims Reeves, and Mr. Montem Smith put forth their best energies to insure success, w hile the band and chorus were painstaking to a Clegree. Despite conventional restrictions, the audience testified their admiration by bursts of applause, and "God be merciful to us," the tenor solo and chorus which concludes the first part of the oratorio, was r etie- mended by the President. After Judith the National Anthem was performed, Mme. Clara Novello singing the two first verses as solos, and the priacipl singers the last verse as a quartet. A grand dress ball in the Town-hall the same evening terminated the festival. Weippart's excellent quadrille band occupied the orchestra. The com pany consisted of three hundred, anti amongst thosiei present were the following :—The Earl o f Dartmouth and party, Sir Francis and Lady Scott and parlY, Lady Chelmsford and Hon. Miss Thesiger, Lady Bateman, the Hen. Miss Banbury, the Right lion. t" I F. i g ! 1 t i 1 I di