# Inside Canton/Chapter 7

CHAPTER VII.
From Paris to Canton, from Canton to Rome, to be well received by the shopkeeper, one must have a good deal of money to spend, for a trafficker knows at once how much a man whom he sees for the first time will bring him. This intuition seems especially to belong to a vender of curiosities,—a species of animal between the spaniel and the jackall. Go into his shop, and at a glance he guages your pockets; he knows what they contain; if his impression is favourable, it is with joyous barks and bounds that he spreads his rarities before you. He empties his closets, and brings forth from secret drawers the treasures which his avarice has heaped up there. But if, on the contrary, he has divined the emptiness of your purse, the spaniel changes into a Cerberus; the ugly beast shows his teeth; he answers only by monosyllables; and if he does not tell you plainly that his magazine is not a museum, which idlers may visit gratis, he gives you clearly to understand as much. If you were an amateur as knowing as M. Dusommerard or the Duc de Luynes, your science ​would find no favour with him. Cerberus never stops snarling till you throw him a honey-cake in the shape of a few pieces of gold; and, as I had but a very limited provision of these sops, I resolved to shelter myself behind M. de Lagrené in accomplishing my tour through the shops of Canton.
I have already said that the populace of Canton is the most violent, the most stupid, and the most inconsistent in the whole universe; and I am going to give a proof of this. When the Chinese meet in the American garden, or in the narrow alleys of the factories, any beautiful child of the Saxon race with auburn hair and blue eyes, or any beautiful little boy as rosy as a cupid of Watteau, they crowd around these charming little creatures with benevolent curiosity; they press them in their arms, and, if permitted, they would cover them with kisses and carry them away. Well, these men, animated with such sentiments towards these beautiful cherubims, nourish the most violent hatred against their parents. They can hardly bear the presence of Europeans in their suburbs; and if a woman should pass the threshold of the factories, she would probably pay for this imprudence with her life. There is thus hardly an example of any lady from the West having visited the Chinese streets; the dangerous dispositions of the populace repress the curiosity even of the most fearless.
​Notwithstanding these precedents, the Cantonal authorities gave our ambassador the assurance, that, if Madame de Lagrené desired to visit the quarter near the hongs, she would be protected from every expression of popular ill-will. This was enough for Madame de Lagrené, whose courage is by no means masculine, and triumphed over the hesitation of the ambassador; so it was decided that the next day we should visit the shops of Physic Street.
The party who conducted the ambassadress disembarked in the quarter of the hongs. On stepping out of her boat, the lady entered a chair, well closed with sliding shutters, and we set off. Issuing from the walls of the American hong, we traversed the place situated between this sort of rampart and the passage of Old China Street, a place of meeting, as I have already said, for loungers, for thieves, and for charlatans. The larger part of the ambassadorial party followed at a distance, that, in case of any accident, which happily did not happen, we might have assistance within reach. On that day, certainly the whole secret police of Canton was on foot. To give Madame de Lagrené time to contemplate through the shutters of her prison the strange scene, like a fair in a field, she was passing through, the coolies had been directed to advance very slowly, and to make, without attracting attention, as little way as possible.
​These orders were perfectly executed. Madame de Lagrené was the first lady who could, in all security contemplate the singular assemblage which, for twelve hours of the day, is to be seen at this place. It is there where are really throned the eternal heroes of the plebs! those who in all times have best comprehended its gross instincts, its incurable ignorance, its stupid credulity—fortune-tellers, charlatans, and singers of doleful ditties. It is on encountering, in every part of the world, these exploiters of the imbecility of the masses, that one becomes convinced of the unity of the human race, and feels one's heart affected by immense commisseration and sadness.
The necromancers of Canton do not, like the ancient enchanters, wear a pointed hat studded with stars and crescents; they are not even clothed with the long black gown, and they resemble only the classic sorcerers of the West by the spectacles which magisterially bestride their noses. They have even subjected this cabalistic completement of their costume to a certain improvement. Their supposed eyeglasses are often of smoked quartz, which gives to their physiognomy a very sinister aspect. By the side of these diviners are exhibited the pretended instruments of their profession—dirty books, black banners riven by thunder, mathematical instruments, pincers, a writing desk, and paper to make calculations, and write their sentences. It is round ​these strange persons that the crowd presses; while they speak, a circle of wondering gabies surrounds them. There you may see coolies with their noses in the air, others with their mouths open, and even the old burgher of grave deportment, listening with avidity to the sentences they utter, and never forgetting to pay the astrologer a tribute more welcome than that of their admiration.
These venders of orvietan and miraculous balm have more respect for popular stupidity than European charlatans. They have recourse to none of our common tricks to assemble auditors; their proceedings are more scientific. It is usually a cock with the leg of a duck, that draws the idle together. The quack doctor holds in one hand ajar or rather a stick of his unguent, and explains to the spectators that it was with this marvellous preparation that he grafted the foot of the duck on the cock. Certainly in the midst of these noodles there are many who know that the cock's leg is merely glued to the membranous skin of a duck's foot; but this does not hinder them from buying the miraculous drug, whilst the majority believe fully in the truth of the gross imposture.
The public of the ambulant singers is not less numerous than that of their rivals; but its preference for actors testifies in favour of its intelligence: The old ballads the singer chaunts may have no ​great value, but at least in placing in the hands of the bard his modest offering, the giver fixes himself his price on the pleasure he has enjoyed. I know not what the poetic merit may be of the works which in Chinese literature occupy the place which the complaint of Henriette and of the Beau Dunois occupy in ours; but I can affirm that the airs to which these productions of the popular muse are set, are charming. From a grave and slow rhythm there bursts at intervals startling notes, like flashes of lightning traversing brilliant summer nights. These harmonies resemble those which Alpine shepherds improvise in their mountains. The inhabitants of mute ahd solitary plains find them wild and monotonous, for they do not recollect that in their native country these simple melodies are accompanied by the sonorous voice of hurricanes and the noise of torrents.
In the midst of this motionless crowd of dilettanti, of benevolent and interested spectators and of mere idlers, barbers shave, restaurateurs sell soups, bird-catchers display in their cages their singing and fluttering pupils; huntsmen, the gun over their shoulders, and their victims strung together on a long cord, make their offers to passengers, and thieves carry on their trade with ardour and success.
Whilst Madame de Lagrené, shut up in her chair, contemplates these various scenes, seeing ​without being seen, an unexpected incident happened to complete the spectacle. Her chair crossed the procession of a new bride. Musicians blowing their hautboys marched at its head. Then came men carrying flags of all colours floating in the air: to these succeeded others bearing parasols of red silk, of the form of a sieve, and ornamented all round with long pendant fringes. Three gilded chairs, decorated with flowers and ribbons, followed the parasol bearers. On this sort of portable altar were exposed to the admiration of gastronomers, whole roast pigs, succulent geese, and cakes of all kinds. A few women in sedan chairs preceded the palanquin of the new bride, who was, as it were, enclosed in a sheath of satin, of the most brilliant colours. At last, children in their holiday clothes, and a few pedestrians, closed the procession.
This encounter was one of the odd incidents of our expedition. Madame de Lagrené and this young girl, meeting without seeing each other, must each of them retain an ineffaceable impression of this day. The young Chinese cannot forget the moment when she renounced her name to take that of a family till then unknown to her; and in the midst of her souvenirs of travel, Madame de Lagrené will preserve that of the emotion she must have experienced when for the first time she set her foot on a land ​veritably Chinese, and extremely hostile to the ladies of the West.
I traversed afterwards this motley, confused scene in company with an Englishman, who had inhabited Canton for many years. On our road we met with an individual who was remarkable only for his miserable accoutrements. Although the cold wind of autumn had forced his compatriots to pile on their shoulders a good part of their wardrobe, he was shivering in a cham and pantaloons of gray cloth, both dirty and torn. He dragged on his feet worn-out sandals, and his head was covered with a large straw hat. He carried behind his back, suspended to a leathern thong, an old wooden case, the lid of which was hardly held in its place by hinges which had lost half their nails.
"Do you know who that man is?" said the Englishman, pointing to the unfortunate.
"Without doubt he is a gain little," replied I; "and I expect every moment to hear him cry knives, scissors, razors, set or ground."
"You have not hit it," said the Englishman. "This man enjoys at Canton a certain celebrity; he is the possessor of a marvellous secret."
"Most certainly, he doesn't possess that of making gold," replied I, laughing.
"That may or may not be," replied the son of Albion phlegmatically; "one may want money even in making gold."
​"The deuce! does he really possess the philosopher's stone?" I asked; with ironical earnestness.
The Englishman stopped, looked at me for a moment, and then slowly, emphasising every word, gave me the following explanation:—
"By means of a powder, of which he alone knows the composition, this man draws teeth without pain, without the aid of any kind of instrument; in other words, the teeth on which he puts his powder detach themselves and fall out after a certain time."
I regarded my informant with an air which was meant to say, " My dear fellow, you are mad, or you are quizzing me." But he struck his forehead, and exclaimed:—
"Ah, pardon me! I had forgotten that you are a doctor; and naturally you are on this point as incredulous as your colleagues."
"Say, my dear sir, as the most incredulous of my colleagues," added I.
"Nevertheless, testimony is something even in your opinion, and if hundreds of persons assure you that they have seen the phenomenon of which I speak?"
"Let us first see what is this testimony. Have you, my dear sir, passed under the hand of that fellow?"
"God forbid!" cried the Englishman, showing me two rows of teeth as white as those of a shark. "But my cousin John told me."
​"Oh, it little matters what cousin John has told you," interrupted I; "although I hold him to be a very truthful lad, I will believe my own testimony rather than his, and there is a very simple mode of convincing me. Call the man, and tell him that I wish him to extract one of my finest molars."
"What folly! You expose yourself to the loss of a tooth to put to the proof a fact which everyone affirms."
"Don't be uneasy. Never will a loss be better paid than that, if the experiment succeeds. I shall then buy this secret of the man, who does not seem to be in a position to refuse my brilliant offers; I shall sell it again for many millions to the carious jaws of my dear country. But call this quack, otherwise we shall lose him in the crowd."
The cousin of Master John told the Chinese that I desired him to ease me of a molar. The rival of Fattet bade me open my mouth, and declared that on that very evening I should have in my hand the tooth which I proposed to sacrifice. He took from his box a little packet, which he sold me for thirty sapecs. He directed me to put a few particles of the contents in contact with the tooth I wished to lose, and to renew the application every hour three times consecutively. He then asked for my address, that he might visit me the next day, and took his leave.
As soon as the man was gone, I examined the ​medicament. It was simply powdered camphor, in the midst of which one might detect some seeds imperfectly pounded. I separated a few of these vegetable particles, and ascertained, by their form and their taste, that they were remnants of divers aromatic herbs related to the angelica and fennel. I followed the prescription, which the dentist had given me, with perseverance and very conscientiously; he, on his part, came to see me in our house at Thè-ki-Han, precisely as he had promised. The moment he entered, I opened my mouth; he thrust in his dirty fingers. I allowed him to do so, so great at that time was my devotion to science. He seized with his thumb and forefinger the second upper molar tooth, on which I had imprudently allowed him to make his experiments. He gave my head a shake, sufficient to dislocate the vertebræ of the neck, but the tooth braved all his efforts, and remained set in the gum as firmly as ever.
The operator then explained at length, and with much pomposity, to my interpreter, who, with a wise air, approved by gestures all he said, that the tooth was much loosened and ready to fall of itself, but that it would be better to aid it by means of a little instrument which he had in his case. And the monster advanced towards me armed with a pair of enormous pincers, and with a formidable key, which must certainly have been manufactured in the days of the first Emperors of China. The instrument was hideous ​to behold; the veterinary surgeons of the King of Siam's elephants must certainly use a more humane implement for their gigantic patients. It is needless to say that I showed the dirty quack to the door with as little politeness as possible; and I now fully appreciated the secret which the Chinese possess of detaching teeth from their gums without pain, without any instrument either of iron or steel, and simply by means of an innocent powder. In spite of this conclusive experiment, I have heard (a thousand times since) the same story; and my Englishman himself, when I informed him of the result of my adventure, repeated:
"Nevertheless, my cousin John—"
I am convinced that the intelligence of man is limited; but on the other hand, I believe his credulity and stupidity to be infinite.
After having crossed the Place of the Factories, and old China Street, we went directly into Physic Street, to a vender of curiosities, who was then the Monbro of Canton. This old man, whom the Europeans have surnamed Talkee-True, because the words "I tell the truth" are always in his mouth whenever he wishes to convince his customers of his commercial honesty, is one of those originals who denote a very advanced state of civilisation. Eccentric characters are the product of a highly developed intellectual society; barbarians and savages seem all cut out ​from the same pattern. I have never myself known the real name of this merchant; but if you ever go to Canton, and wish to visit his shop, ask, in the quarter of the factories, of the first coolie or of the first European you may meet, for the house of Talkee-True, and certainly he will take you there.
The portrait of this celebrated merchant has often been sketched, but, oddly enough, those who have undertaken to paint him have merely produced a caricature without caring at all about the resemblance. To a great number of individuals a Chinese is simply a very ridiculous animal, and therefore, according to them, every grotesque painting must resemble him. Thus Talkee-True's shop is represented as a closet in an old house full of old rattletraps, and the master himself as an old mummy just escaped from his camphor winding-cloths, clad in old rags of the time of Ming, and wearing a false queue which he has picked out from a heap of bric-brac rubbish. Unfortunately, this picture has not even the merit of this sort of productions; it is not even an exaggeration of the truth.
The house of Talkee-True is one of the finest, and his shop is certainly the most elegant one in Physic Street; his curiosities, arranged in perfect order, are, which is rare in China, protected by glasses from the dust and from indiscreet hands. But it is true that he is old and ugly; he is seventy years of age at ​least, and is thin and small; his face, stained over with dingy tints, is something like an old kid glove; he has little wrinkled eyes, which his spectacles do not hide; and his queue is too small, too white, and too worn to be false. In winter he is enveloped in a handsome furred robe, respected by the mites, and against which time has as yet waged no war; in summer he wears nankeen pantaloons and a long blue tunic. The language which he speaks with the barbarians is the Anglo-Chino-Portuguese patois, the Frank tongue of the extreme East, which these brave children of the Celestial Empire have made as soft as the Creole patois of Bourbon.
The physiognomy and the manners of the venerable old man are benevolent, almost timid; he plunders you so delicately of all your money, that when one leaves him completely cleaned out, one feels still under an obligation to him. Talkee-True is at the same time a merchant and an artist, and his antiquarian taste is continually struggling with his commercial avidity. When he sells anything, he contends with the buyer and with himself; up to the last moment, he hesitates between the dollars and the gem of art he is about to part with. He lives only in the past. A bronze figure three hundred years old is to him a modern object; his mind is perpetually ascending the stream of time; he hardly inquires about the present, which he considers bad, and cares little about the ​future, which according to him will be worse. He thus appeals constantly to ancient customs and antique probity. His ideal would be to wake one morning in the midst of the Celestial Empire of twenty ages since.
As for me, having found between the Chinese civilisation and our own more resemblances than differences, I have also learned that certain Parisian individualities have their counterparts at the other extremity of the universe. Talkee-True, at six thousand leagues distance, is the reflection of a grocer who is well-known by his quaint antique whims and opinions, as celebrated in the comic journals. The shop in Physic Street, excepting the nature of the merchandise, is the "Provençal bazaar" of Canton. Nothing is wanting—neither good commercial maxims, nor moral inscriptions, nor wise saws in verse; but as diversity is one of the laws which rule our world, resemblances never reach to identity. Talkee-True is short and thin; the Parisian grocer is tall and fat.
Talkee-True receives daily at his house all the men of letters in Canton who are devoted to the study of antique curiosities, and all the barbarous collectors of Chinese antiquities. The arrival at this celebrated shop of a palanquin borne by four coolies, the aristocratic equipage of the Kingdom of Flowers, is an event so frequent that the old merchant hardly notices it. But once, when he saw a long file of sedan chairs ​stop at the threshold of his door, and a great lady from the West descend from one of those elegant chairs, he ran forward as quickly as his old limbs would permit him. He hastened to lead Madame de Lagrene into his back shop, so as to withdraw her from the eager curiosity of the crowd, and he expressed his astonishment by all sorts of exclamations.
I am convinced that the visit of Madame de Lagrené to his shop marks the date of a new era to Talkee-True. Indeed, the traditional annals of his house had never related a like event. Preserves of all sorts were served on an old Japan tray, the bottom of which was, as it were, paved with little squares of painted porcelain. Plates of different forms, adapted to each other like a Chinese puzzle, were filled each with a different kind of fruit. In the middle of the tray was a two-pronged fork with an ebony handle, that every one might help himself without putting his hand in the dish. After the the preserves, we were offered tea in cups as light as egg-shells. Having done honour to the hospitality of old Talkee-True, we cast a glance over his museum: we visited first his principal shop, then the back shop, and afterwards the upper storey.
The curiosities of Talkee-True's warehouse may be classed thus: precious stones, bronzes, pictures on silk, old coins, bamboos, rhinoceros-horns, and ​porcelain. At the risk of fatiguing the reader by a too minute examination, I will endeavour to give an idea of the graceful fantasies and charming inutilities in which Chinese artists have from time immemorial luxuriated. This sketch will give a better idea of the scope of the civilisation of the Celestial Empire than any other details. In my opinion, the value which the enlightened classes of a nation attach to luxurious delicacies, to costly rarities, fixes the hierarchic rank they should occupy in the world. The rajahs of Malasia and the pachas of the Ottoman Empire possess, it is true, in the shape of sparkling gems and magnificent tissues, objects of great price; but they are incapable of appreciating the thousand little nothings which Westerns and the Chinese will pay for with their weight in gold.
The children of the Empire of Flowers are very profuse, in their poetry, with cascades of precious stones, rivulets of pearls, and rivers of metallic waters. In this literature, derived from the vocabulary of a jeweller, there is a mineral, the name of which is constantly recurring, both in the essays of the pupil and the works of the master. The name of this stone is, with the Chinese, "yiu;" we barbarians call it "jade;" and the learned of the West, more barbarous still, designate it by the name of double silicate, of alum, and magnesia. In all ages, the men of letters of the Academy of the ​Hau-lin have decreed that the yiu is the precious stone par excellence, and that its semi-transparent appearance, its tints, which change from milky white to deep green—its hardness, greater than that of rock crystal, may furnish matter for comparisons without end. Thus the words which fall from the mouth of an emperor, or simply from a minister, are to the poets fragments of yiu polished with corundum; the tender avowal of a young girl is soft and pure as yiu; and it is moreover understood that the discourse of a man of science has certain qualities belonging to this stone—its heaviness, perhaps. We may conceive that a mineral celebrated in song for at least 4,000 years, with a perseverance that would be very fatiguing to any people but the Chinese, must be very generally appreciated, and that artists should very often make use of it. There exist, indeed, an immense number of jade jewels. The lapidaries, by means of the corundum, give to the silicate a thousand different forms, so that the most humble coolie, as well as the Emperor, possess objects formed of this material. The yiu is in China what gold is in Europe—it has not fallen in esteem by becoming popular; and though very often the bracelet of a waterman is of this precious stone, the wife of the mandarin and the mandarin himself does not disdain to wear a similar one.
The shop of Talkee-True contains all sorts of little trinkets of this stone—snuff-boxes, rings, pins, cups, ​statuettes, and you-i. This last object, which is the emblem of friendship, is a sort of sceptre, about a foot long. The you-i represents in reality a lotus-leaf, whose stem is covered with allegorical figures or characters. One may reasonably suppose that it is not only the emblem of friendship, but also a symbol of authority. In all family pictures, the person who exercises power holds in his hand this species of sceptre. It is perhaps a souvenir of the pastoral staff of the first rulers of peoples—an evident proof that all civilisations have commenced with a moderate use of the ferule! Happy those who in their decline do not fall again under the instrument which has chastised them in their youth; for that which merely bruises the skin of the child, breaks the bones of the old man. There are you-i's in lacquer, in porcelain, and even in bronze. Callery speaks of one of these latter, inestimably valuable on account of its antiquity. The difficulty experienced in cutting the yui stones gives great value to statuettes of this material. But the Chinese sculptors only carefully finish pieces of large dimensions, representing mythological personages—the Virgin Kouanin in her lotus, or the god of riches and of pleasure with his hand on his abdomen. As to the figures, flowers, and insects which the Chinese ladies suspend from the handles of their fans, they are particular in giving them graceful forms—graceful according to their taste, but nothing more. The ​Chinese tobacco-vases, though very elegant, do not resemble those charming little boxes of agate and cornelian set with gold, in which our great-grandmothers carried the perfumed snuff of Spain. They are simply little flasks of quartz, like our smelling-bottles. They are round or flat; their aperture is very narrow; to the cork is affixed an ivory spoon, to get at the scented dust. The Chinese take snuff like the peasants of Britanny and Provence: they place it first on the back of the hand, and then sniff it up with their nostrils. There are snuff-flasks of a very high price: their value depends upon the rarity of the stone of which they are made, and upon the time employed by the artist in fabricating them. I have seen a flask of yellow yiu which represented a cedar with five branches, commonly called the "Hand of Buddha." The sacred fruit was imitated with marvellous truth. Profiting by the sinuosities of the stone, the artists cleverly improvise all sorts of subjects, which they cut in relief, after the manner of cameos. Talkee-True had in his museum one of these vases, which excited our admiration; its surface was covered with insects, half-withered leaves, and fragments of plants, the execution of which—full of nature as it was—had been directed merely by the course of the coloured veins in the agate. Of course, the snuff-vases which the common people use, are not of hard stone: they are generally of coloured glass or ​of porcelain, and they assume the same form, and often the same colours and the same designs, as those of a high price. The same thing occurs in France, where the vulgar snuff-box of papier mach, represents certain historic incidents, and presumes to contend with delicate productions, and the most precious materials. In the middle of an official dinner, Ki-In, in a moment of amicable expansion, offered M. de Lagrené the flask he was using on that day. It was of rock-crystal, marked with a character which expressed the name of the Imperial commissary's child—a charming diminutive which maternal tenderness had invented for him.
Nearly all the Chinese of any distinction wear a ring on the thumb of the right hand, which embraces the whole of the second joint. No mandarin in an official visit can dispense with this ornament. It is a Tartar fashion which the conquerors have imposed on the dignitaries of the Empire, as they have imposed the long queue on the rest of the nation. Pan-se-Chen, as a skilful courtier, often showed one of those agate rings called pan-chi, which the viceroy of the two Kuangs had given him. There was but one thing remarkable about it: it was formed of three concentric circles of equal width and different colours; the first was red; the second, white; the third, black. These gems were arranged with such precision, that a practised hand could not ​have drawn them better. Toun, the obtuse Tartar soldier, had a pan-che of rock crystal, as transparent as the button of his cap. Clasps of quartz stones are also made, which would be very successful in France, if the ladies of our nation had the bad taste to dress themselves like the Roman women of the first empire. The Emperor of China, who has taken upon himself the puerile task of regulating his officers' costumes, has decided upon the shape of the buckles of their belts. That of Ki-In was of jade, on account of his rank as viceroy; but none of the mandarins who assisted him had a right to wear a similar one.
The Chinese not only make you-i, snuff-boxes, bracelets, clasps, and rings with the hard coloured stones, but they also make use of them to execute pictures, which amongst us belong exclusively to painting. By means of fragments of jade, quartz, lapis-lazuli, and cornelian, they form landscapes, grand compositions, in which the men, houses, plants, and mountains are of stone; they are mosaics in relief, which render the lapidary style of their poets quite palpable. These singular pictures are excessively dear; and without exactly knowing why, they are liked and much sought after. Certainly these designs have no truth in them, as regards colour and arrangement, but if I may venture to give utterance to such heresy, I should say that it is ​in this their merit lies: they cause the impossible to be appreciable to the senses, and this realisation of the Chinese ideal is not without its charms. There are human figures with faces carved in yellow nephritis, clothed in turquoises or pieces of jet, there are women without feet, cut in transparent amber, who resemble the bulbs at the ends of bulrushes. These fantastical creatures live in jasper houses built upon mountains of granite; the parks of these châteaux are shaded by trees with lapis-lazuli trunks and branches, and crystal leaves and fruit. The sky, earth, and sea correspond with these strange compositions; the clouds are of jade, and cast green reflections; heavy silver junks sail upon the sea, the waves of which are golden, and the ground is strewed with mineral spangles, which reflect the solar rays in brilliant sparks. Since my return from China, every time I have looked at the moon through a telescope, I have fancied that the stone landscapes of the Celestial Empire were a faithful representation of the inhabited parts of that planet.
Articles in bronze abound in Talkee-True's shop: they are in general sacred vases, incense burners, and idols, which Chinese indifference has abstracted from the hereditary chapels of their homes, or which some bonzes—they are quite capable of it—have removed from some renowned pagoda. Although there are many places in China where antiquities are manufactured, ​those in the shop in Physic Street were almost all authentic. The old broker, in his character as retired connoisseur, took pleasure in revealing the secrets of the trade to M. de Legrené, and in pointing out to him the means by which an antique may be distinguished from a modern imitation. As these details did not interest me in the least, I gave my whole attention to the objects which presented themselves to our curiosity, to whatever age they might have belonged. Generally speaking, the Buddhist gods had that placid expression which becomes revealers, who teach that man must, through infinite transmigrations, continue the annihilation of his own personality; and the Houanins seated in the calyx of the lotus, the symbol of festivity, eloquently represented the saints of that material religion—their faces, devoid of expression, seemed to say that woman in this life is but the passive agent of eternal regeneration. According to the Llaman doctrine, matter alone is regenerated, and does not die, and the intervention of an immaterial agent is not essential to eternal procreation. However, notwithstanding the religious intention which had inspired these sacred images, they were of much less value as works of art than the perfume pans and incense burners. These vases—of all shapes and sizes, round, oblong, and square—as humble as a bird's nest, and as magnificent as a funeral urn—were for the most part very remarkable pieces of workmanship. ​The leaves which formed festoons oa the exterior, the curling vine, and the bamboo stalks which formed the handles, seemed to have been cast in lava which had become solidified on a luxuriant vegetation, of which it had preserved the impression after having reduced it to ashes. The Chinese bronzes deserve a special historian to give us the means of determining their ages, and to teach us how to distinguish the works of the masters from those of their clever imitators. It is probable that this gap will be filled, as Callery is engaged upon a work which will treat particularly of the arts in China.
The artistic genius of the Chinese is particularly evinced in those cases where constant application and great manual precision are necessary; difficulty overcome being, in the eyes of the children of the Land of Flowers, the principal merit in a work of art. A poor workman, who gains but a few francs a day, shut up in a garret or in the dark corner of a shop, is absorbed in his work, and early accustoms himself unhesitatingy to improvise subjects, which one of our most skilful artists would hardly dare to attempt. The consequence of this habitual boldness is, that a metal worker or wood engraver works with great ease. On a silver cup, between two knots on a bamboo stick, on the uneven horns of stags or oxen, they carve groups of people, animals, fruits, plants, and landscapes, the designs for which originally ​existed only in their imagination. At Talkee-True's we admired a great many of these carvings, and particularly about twenty rhinoceros' tusks, which were beautifully cut. These master-pieces by unknown hands, would have made our renowned artists jealous; the latter would certainly have greatly admired the original conception of the subject—the execution and the clearness of the engraving. One of these remarkable carvings was, I think, obtained by M. de Lagrené for fifty piastres; but had he paid its weight in gold it would not have been dear. It represents a fragile plant, the slender branches of which, perfectly separate from one another, bear delicate leaves, on which insects are crawling, and moths, with gauze-like wings, are sporting. In the midst of the interlaced stalks hangs a cup, which by its weight alone bends down the delicate branches to which it is fastened. This magnificent work is more than a foot long ; it rests on an ebony stand, which is carved with rare delicacy.
That day Talkee-True, whom the ambassador's purchases had probably put into a good humour, was gracious enough to give me, for the small sum of three piastres, a little cup made from the tusk of a rhinoceros, which is nevertheless a master-piece, in my opinion. This little vase is in the shape of a lotus leaf. On its foliaceous disks, bitten by insects, aquatic worms are crawling, and a jigger, clinging to ​the edge, the lower part of its body fastened to the exterior, is trying to drink out of the empty cup. Tantalus, in his eternal bath, doubtless has the same piteous expression as my thirsty and disappointed jigger. This little composition did not cost the artist much labour: it is engraved very slightly in relief, but the effect is strikingly truthful. A hundred times have I seen this poor lotus leaf torn from its stalk, its edges eaten away, floating on the rivers of India; I recognise these aquatic worms—these nereïeds with their flexible waists; and this flat-bodied jigger, endeavouring to get to the edge of the cup again, is certainly that silent guest in the houses of Malacca and Singapore, who seems to be glued to the ceiling of the apartments by some viscine liquid. Every time I examine this little artistic gem, I call to mind a popular belief among the Malays: they say, that when the jigger falls upon the naked flesh of a man, it somehow buries itself in the skin, and nothing in the world, not even the death of one of the subjects, can separate them.
Formerly the tusks of the rhinoceros were only used for one purpose: cups were made of them, out of which the nobles drank. It was because of the marvellous properties attributed to this horny substance, that the high functionaries of the Celestial Empire adopted these utensils for their libations. A strange thing, which shows how weak and prone ​to error our nature is. It would seem that erroneous belief and foolish prejudices enjoy the privilege of universality in this world! Thus, the absurd opinion, which in China assigns valuable properties to cups of rhinosceros' tusk, exists also in Abyssinia and among the kings who govern the nations on the shores of the Nile. I will relate a conversation on this subject which I had on my last journey to Egypt with one of my best friends, Colonel Arnaud, the superintendent of the fortifications of Damietta, who went up the White Nile nearly to its source, and explored a hundred leagues farther than any one else. When I took leave of this learned man, he searched in a tortoiseshell, and drew out something wrapped in a silk bag, doubtless embroidered in a Stamboul harem, and presented it to me, saying, in the most solemn manner, "Here, my friend, examine the treasure I give you; I have waited till the moment of your departure to deprive myself, for your sake, of the most precious thing I possess in the world."
I took what Arnaud offered me, and drew it cautiously from its bright wrapper, but I was disappointed on finding in the charming little bag a kind of bowl,—a nasty little wooden cup,—brown streaked with white, which seemed to have been used for a century to quench the thirst of some wretched fellah family; the case was worth a hundred times as much as its contents. I turned it over every way, hoping ​to find something which might justify the many thanks which I considered it necessary to address to my friend; but seeing nothing—positively nothing—remarkable in it, I pretended to believe that it was an antiquity, and I exclaimed, endeavouring to give my exclamation a very decided expression of enthusiasm, "You were right in calling that a treasure! It is, I am sure, the cup which the cynic threw away, when he saw the thenian boy drinking from the hollow of his hand!" . . .
"Stop!" interrupted Arnaud almost angrily, "this is worth a hundred times as much as Diogenes' cup! It is enchanted. I only give it away because you are returning to France. If, unfortunately, in that country of political metamorphoses, you should be made king, you may laugh in your sleeve at any schemes of your direct heirs, if they should chance to wish to raise you to the rank of an immortal being too abruptly." . . .
"But you," I interrupted in my turn, "you, my friend, are exposed to the same dangers. In this barbarous country, it is more easy than in France to acquire supreme rank. Keep, then, the talisman."
"I expected this refusal from your delicacy," said Arnaud; "but re-assure yourself: I have twice refused the crown; and if I should one day wish to reign, I should just go to one of my neighbours, a friend of mine, who is a king not six hundred ​leagues from here, and ask him for a cup like the one I have just sacrificed. This worthy potentate breakfasts every morning on the brain of rhinoceros for such is his good pleasure."
"Ah, then, this is a cup made from a rhinoceros' tusk?" cried I.
"Certainly; and if a poisonous liquid be poured into it, were it as limpid as the water which flows from the glaciers of the Alps, it would instantly be troubled; at least this is what was told me by a negro monarch, who received me hospitably in his royal baoba. He had the cup I offer you placed before me to express that I might eat and drink in his house without apprehension."
"My dear friend," I replied, "I know that old story, and Talkee-True of Canton, who is neither king, nor emperor, nor even minister, related it to me with the habitual prolixity of an old broker. But in China the subject of such tales is ornamented sculpture, carefully executed, in order to induce incredulous purchasers to pay dearly for the treasure. On the shores of the White Nile, I see that the story is served up to travellers denuded of all artifice. This does credit to the simplicity of the inhabitants."
"Your Chinese are horrible sceptics," cried Arnaud; "they gild the idol in which they no longer believe, in order to insure admirers for want of worshippers. If you share their incredulity, at ​least keep my cup as a proof of the simple belief of these poor tawny people, who sell their children for a bottle of arrack, and in remembrance of me place the earthen cup of faith opposite the golden cup of incredulity."
Thus I possess two cups of rhinoceros' tusks, without, however, considering myself safe from the mortal attacks of badly tinned saucepans. Speaking of saucepans, I ought to mention an industrial process which the Chinese employ in art, and which I think will only be usefully applied when it is exclusively consecrated to kitchen utensils—I mean enamelled copper. They thus make thousands of fancy objects which are very ugly, and are intended to rival the same things made in China. The corners of Talkee-True's shop were crowded with immense vases, bowls, water jugs, and boxes tolerably well-shaped; but it was necessary to see them at a distance in order to attribute to them any artistic merit. These were the large enamelled copper things which a few frantic admirers of every thing which comes from the Celestial Empire have praised so highly. As a rule, these things are badly painted; the colours are false, and the surface indented and irregular. The two first faults result from the artists in enamel being much less expert than the workers in porcelain, owing to the difficulty of pouring the enamel smoothly on to the copper vase. It is well ​known that mineral substances of the same nature, reduced to a paste by means of a liquid, have a tendency to settle in lumps on the same spot before they have been fixed by baking. This is caused either by the attractive properties of the atoms, or simply by their obeying the laws of gravitation; and the Chinese have not found a way of preventing this. We paid but little attention to this coarse enamel. We unanimously agreed that this art, almost peculiar to the workmen of the Celestial Empire, will first be usefully applied when it replaces tin in our kitchen utensils. This mineral layer, interposed between the copper and the food, would at least guarantee our intestines from the fatal verdigris, which is guilty of sporadic cholera oftener than we think. Yet it seems that formerly, in China, the enamellers were real artists. All Paris has admired the antique vases which M. de Montigny, the consul at Shanghai, brought back from his travels; but like many other things in this world, on becoming popular and mixed up with the coarse habits of life, enamelled copper has lost its delicacy and distinction.
I will not detain my readers any longer at old Talkee-True's. Further on, I will make them acquainted with other artistic and industrial curiosities in the Empire of Flowers, but I shall communicate to them these wonders of Chinese art gradually, as I discovered them myself.