# Through China with a camera/Chapter 8

The Japanese in formosa—Cause of the invasion—The River Min—Foochow Arsenal—Chinese gunboats— Foochow city and great bridge—A city of the dead— Its inhabitants—Beggars—Thieves—Lepers—Ku-shan monastery—A hermit—Tea plantation on paeling hills —Voyage up the Min—Shui-kow—An Up-country Farm—Captain Sheng and his spouse—Yen-ping City— Sacrificing to the dead—Shooting the Yen-ping rapids —A native rassenger-boat.
The island kingdom of Japan is to all appearance destined to afford an unparalleled example of progress. She has indeed preferred, to quote Professor Tyndall's words, "Commotion before stagnation, the leap of the torrent before the stillness of the swamp;" and we have just seen, in Formosa, how such leaping torrents in their impetuous courses cut out new channels in the mountain sides, spread fertility over the plains below, and even reclaim the land from the barren domain of the ocean with the debris which they sweep down.
There is vigorous life and hope and high promise for the future in the busy movement that is carrying Japan from darkness into civilisation and light; and the impetus, if we mistake not, which she is gathering in her onward course will clear away mighty obstacles and check stagnation and decay in other quarters as well as her own.
​"The invasion of Formosa by Japanese troops was a fact full of deep significance, and more righteous grounds for such aggressive action it would be impossible for any government to possess. Scores of Japanese sailors, wrecked from time to time upon the Formosan coasts, have there been plundered and murdered by the savage tribes; and as these barbarities were perpetrated on Chinese soil, redress was applied for at Peking. The members of the Imperial Cabinet, in a moment of weakness—moments of not infrequent occurrence in Chinese history— appear to have conceded the right for the Japanese to proceed to Formosa and seek redress for themselves. It would be extremely interesting to know what share the aborigines of Formosa have really taken in the cold-blooded massacres of castaways that have been reported from the island. It seems pretty clear that it was the Kalee tribes who put the crew of the "Rover" to death; at the same time it is equally certain that the murder of the captain and sailors of the "Macto" was perpetrated by Chinese villagers at Takow. If we are thus to believe that pure motives of humanity gave rise to this invasion of Formosa by the Japanese, it would be only just to award to the Mikado and his ministers the highest meed of praise; but perhaps it ought to be borne in mind that the Japanese have not yet forgotten their ancient feuds against China, and still fall somewhat short of that almost unattainable pitch of national virtue, which would induce them to enter upon costly expeditions to redress outrages committed upon native crews. However the matter ends, its results will as I should anticipate, be advantageous. China may get off by paying the cost of the expedition—a proceeding which, while it humbled her national vanity, might stir her up to imitate and rival Japan, so as, if possible, to outstrip her in the march of ​progress, from the sheer necessity of self-preservation; and I have no hesitation in saying that China, petrified and stagnant as she is, and has been for so many centuries, yet contains within herself all the material elements that will one day win her a proud pre-eminence among the nations of the earth. Truth even now is busily at work loosening the earth about the ancient foundation of classical lore and superstition on which her venerable wall of fossil institutions is reared; and that wall, ere long, will be lowered stone by stone, or over- thrown with some violent shock, till a way has been opened across it for the purer institutions of progressive government. Should war be the alternative, it will probably only hasten the work of regeneration." This is a fairly accurate forecast which I made some years ago, of the position which China has taken as a fighting power, shown in the result of the late Chino- Japanese war. It is extremely doubtful if the lesson taught by the issue of the conflict will lead to the introduction of any serious measures of reform. Since the date of the Japanese raid on Formosa the Chinese have practically done nothing to strengthen their position and secure themselves against the attack of even a third-rate power.
I will now take leave of the island of Formosa and cross again to the mainland of China, where, in the province of Fukien, I gathered some information relating to the supposed progress made by the Chinese in the arts of natural defence and the construction of implements of war.
The river Min, flowing through the heart of the Fu-kien province, is one of the main outlets for the drainage of the mountainous region where the celebrated Bohea hills stand, and is also the channel down which the produce of one of the richest tea districts in China is conveyed for exportation. The ​stream, however, although a broad one, is not navigable for large vessels beyond the town of Shui-Kow, which stands on its left bank, at the foot of dangerous rapids, one hundred miles from the coast. The entrance to the Min by the south channel is nearly opposite to a group of islands known as the "White Dogs." There are, however, two other channels now in use; the most northerly between Sharp Peak Island and the mainland, and only available for vessels of light draught ; while the middle channel to the south of the Sharp Peak, has a breadth of about three-quarters of a mile, and is nearly three fathoms deep at low tide. The south channel is not quite so roomy, nor yet so direct, except for vessels trading south. A lighthouse built on the "White Dogs" proves of great advantage to the port. The Kin-pai and Min-Ngan passes, through which the anchorage is gained, recalled the approaches to the Pearl river. The harbour is about thirty miles from the mouth of the river, and is wide enough to contain the entire merchant fleet of China. This spot is called '* Pagoda Anchorage," and takes that name from a small island crowned with an old pagoda, which forms a conspicuous object in the landscape. But for this purely Chinese edifice, one might readily suppose oneself transported suddenly to a scene on the river Clyde. There stand the houses of a small foreign settlement, and yonder are a dock, tall chimneys and rows of workshops, whence the clang of steam-hammers and the hum of engines may be heard. Here, in fact, is the Foochow Arsenal, on a piece of level ground redeemed from an old swamp, and looking in the distance like an English manufacturing village. This was destroyed by the French in 1884, and has since been reconstituted. A French mission under the direction of M. Doyere has just been intrusted with its reorganisation. But side by side with the ​ residences on the hill, there is a crescent-shaped stone shrine of imposing proportions, designed to correct the Feng-shui, which has been seriously disturbed by the construction of an arsenal after a foreign type.
This arsenal, like all the others on Chinese soil, was raised simply because the authorities deemed it expedient to remodel their military equipments with all possible speed, and then Feng-shui, or the Geomantic luck of the locality, was treated with but scant consideration. Feng-shui, indeed, had to yield to the stern necessity of the times, and was relegated to this very humble station on the hill-side. By steps like this the fanatic dread of the common people will readily be overcome ; for they account their scholarly mandarins much better judges of Feng-shui and its influences than they themselves can pretend to be. But let us visit the Chinese foreign arsenal. The first building we enter when we land, reminds us, by its lofty roof and general appearance, of a plain English railway-station. It is constructed of brick on a solid granite foundation, and is enclosed by a wall, which is also of granite and which rises about five feet above the floor. Passing in through a spacious doorway we make our way along an iron avenue, lined on both sides with smiths ' forges, whose blast is supplied by steam. The engine which ministers to these forges has a driving-wheel of colossal proportions, and may also be seen quickening a row of steam-hammers, with forces mighty enough to forge a shaft for the biggest steamer afloat, or so delicate as to straighten a pin. Strange as it may appear, these giant tools when first seen working, produced but little impression on their Chinese spectators. The next workshop we visit is as spacious as the preceding one, and contains the half-formed skeleton of a mammoth engine for rolling out sheet-iron and steel armour​ plating for iron-clad ships. An iron driving-wheel, eighteen feet in diameter, is to be seen there, propped up in position. We next cross a broad paved court having a line of railway along one of its sides, used in conveying materials to the different workshops which run parallel to the rails and face the river. In these shops practical engineering and shipbuilding in its various branches are being carried on ; and in one there is a sort of school, where mechanical drawing and modelling are taught by French masters. These instructors, all of them, remarked to me on the wonderful aptitude displayed by the Chinese in picking up a knowledge of the various mechanical appliances employed in the arsenal. Many of the men who are there working at the steam-lathes and guiding the planing- machines, had two or three months before been ordinary field labourers. In one apartment a powerful machine is punching rivet-holes in boiler-plates. In another department we found men at work, making wooden patterns for iron castings; and others constructing models of steam-engines, to be used in educating the pupils of this training-school. There are indeed many admirable specimens of complicated work carried out solely from drawings ; the whole betokening an advanced degree of skill and knowledge on the part of the workmen. All these results have been achieved under the guidance of European foremen. For my own part, from what I have seen in these arsenals, I firmly believe that when the Chinese find it convenient to throw off their grossly superstitious notions regarding foreign inventions and appliances, they will excel in all that pertains to the exact sciences, and in their practical application to the construction of machinery. The mandarins connected with the arsenal look with pardonable vanity at the steam gun-boats that have been built under their own eyes, and sent into commission ​
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from their own naval and shipbuilding yards. A gunboat had been launched from the patent slip a few days previous to our visit, and the sister vessel was already on the stocks.
Proceeding on board the former, we are received by the Chinese captain and his lieutenant, with great courtesy, and conducted all over the ship. This a nautical friend present pronounced to be an honest, solid, masterly piece of work throughout. The woodwork of the cabin is simply varnished, and relieved with narrow gold mouldings. The officers' cabin and mess-room are finished in the same unpretending and yet not inelegant style; and in the sailors' quarters we notice that each seaman is supplied with a strong teak bunker to hold his effects and to serve him also instead of a couch or chair. This gun-vessel carries one huge Armstrong gun on her upper deck, and is to be fitted with the same weapons throughout. Her armament, therefore, will render her a formidable enemy to pirates, though not perhaps of much service in a combat with any European power.
Our next visit is to a vessel in commission lying off the arsenal, and manned throughout, from captain to cabin-boy, by an entirely Chinese crew. Stepping on deck from the gangway, we are saluted in military style by a Ningpo marine, who in- forms us in tolerable English that we shall find the captain in his cabin. The dress of this marine is admirable, consisting of a black turban, blue blouse, pantaloons with red stripe, and a pair of neat and strongly made native shoes. A well-kept belt fastens in the blouse at the waist and supports also a cartouche- box and side-arms. An officer of marines next welcomes us on board, and says, ** S'pose you likee my can show you my drill pidjin," an offer which we gladly accept. "My hab got two squab, one too muchee new, other olo, can saby drill pidjin." ​He means to say that he has two squads, one well trained and the other raw recruits. It wants still fifteen minutes to drill time, so, at the captain's request, we will take a peep into his cabin.
In most respects this resembles that of some English gunboats; but on a small table, supported by graceful brackets, we note a strange assortment of foreign nautical instruments spread around a small idol. This idol was the only visible token of native superstition, and was used in conjunction with the baro- meter and thermometer to avoid coming storms, or to find out lucky days for sailing. Having partaken of wine with our hospitable entertainer, we next return to the upper deck to see the marines at drill. The bugleman sounds to quarters, and the men, with Enfield rifles in their hands, fall, or rather tumble into position, six or eight at a time. Then one more dilatory than his fellows, pops his head out of a hatchway, in order to satisfy himself that his company could not be dispensed with, scrambles on deck as he drags himself into his blouse and pan- taloons, and fixes his belt as he falls in. Some, too, have mis- placed their rifles, but all have now fairly got into line, and all appear orderly enough, until one unlucky fellow, feeling perhaps a sudden twinge of itch, drops his weapon to have a scratch. A comrade politely leaves the ranks to clear his throat over the side; and so the drill proceeds, its forms seemingly well understood by most of the men, but its object, so far as we could judge, almost entirely ignored. Thus there is a marked absence of the discipline we always associate with naval or military training.
The opticians make ships' compasses, portions of sextants and the brass work of other nautical instruments. How they acquired these arts it is difficult to make out, as their foreign ​
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P. Giguel was the chief director of this establishment.
The Viceroy Tso, under whose auspices the arsenal was built, is also deserving of some credit, although he was not the first to see the need for a change in the construction of the warlike implements of his nation. The monthly expenditure of the whole establishment was reported at about ;^ 17,000. It appears that the authorities discharged the foreign employes, though what may have been their reason for this step, which happened just before the Japanese invaded Formosa, it is impossible for me to say, and as may be supposed, the step has proved far from beneficial.
Foochow city, one of the great tea marts of China, stands about seven miles above the arsenal and the harbour where the vessels load tea. Of all the open ports this is perhaps the most picturesque, and its stone bridge of *'ten thousand ages" proves that the Chinese, had they so chosen, might have left monuments behind them more worthy of their civilisation and prowess than their great unwieldy wall monuments, which would have shed a gleam of truth across the obscure pages of their bygone history. This bridge was erected, it is said, about 900 years ago, and displays no pretensions to ornamentation except in its stone balustrade. It is indeed evident that its builders had convenience and durability alone in view; and the masses of solid granite then employed, still but little injured by the lapse of time, bear high testimony, in their colossal proportions, to the skill of the ancient engineers who raised them up out of the water and placed them in position on the stone piers above. The bridge is fully a quarter of a mile in length, and the granite blocks which stretch from pier to pier are, some of them, forty feet long. ​ The foreign settlement is separated from Foochow city by the great bridge, and by a small island which here rises in the middle of the stream. The site was formerly that of an old Chinese burial-ground, and abundant disputes arose in conse- quence when plots had to be purchased for the erection of houses, the natives being loath to see the dwellings of living
hallowed dead. But money, which exercises as potent an influence here as elsewhere, procured a solution of the difficul- ties; even"^ the spirits of the departed were to be consoled by timely offerings at their shrines; and so now, on these hills, the dust of the long-forgotten dead is trodden under foot by the hated foreign intruder, and mingles with the roses with which his garden is adorned. Even the tombs have, some of them, been turned to account. Living occupants have entered into joint tenancy with the silent inhabitants who repose beneath, and pigs or poultry may be seen enjoying the cool shade and shelter which the ample granite gravestone supplies. But I need not give any detailed description of the foreign residences at Foochow.
This notice of the graves in the foreigners' quarter may be supplemented by some account of the living tenants to be met with in a city of the dead close by; but before proceeding to describe the condition of these wretched beings, it may be as well to give the reader a notion of the condition of the poor in Foochow. In China the beggar pursues his calling unmo- lested, and has even won for himself a protection and quasi- recognition at the hands of the civic authorities. The fact is that the charitable institutions of the country cannot cope with a tenth part of the misery and destitution that prevails in populous localities. No poor law is known, and the only plan ​
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ing customers with ornaments for shrines and food for the gods. The bearer, with cool audacity, proceeded to light his pipe and smoke until he had been paid to remove the cripple. A still worse case was narrated to me by an eye-witness. A silk-mercer had refused to contribute his black-mail, and accord- ingly received a domiciliary visit from a representative of the chief. This intruder had smeared his bare body with mud, and carried a bowl slung with cords and filled with foul water to the very brim. Having taken up his stand in the shop, he commenc- ed to swing this bowl round his head, without indeed spilling a drop of its contents, yet so that, had anyone attempted to arrest his arm, the water would have been distributed in a filthy shower over the silks piled upon the counter and shelves.
But there is still another and a worse class of beggars — outlaws who own allegiance to no prince or power on earth — and these were the men whom I visited and found dwelling in the charnel-houses in a city of the dead. Many of the little huts in this dismal spot were built with brick and roofed with tiles. They contained coffins and bodies placed there to await the favourable hour for interment, when the rites of Fengshui might be duly performed, and the remains laid to rest in some well-situated site where neither wind nor wave would disturb their sacred dust. But poverty, death, distress, or indeed a variety of causes, not infrequently intervene to prevent the surviving relatives from ever choosing this happy site and bringing the final ceremonies to a consummation; and thus the coffins lie forgotten and moulder into dust, and the tombs are invaded by the poor outcasts, who there seek shelter from the cold and rain, creeping gladly to slumber into the dark corners of a sepulchre, and then most happy when they most imitate the dead. On my first visit to this place I recollect being ​ adopted to palliate the evil is to tolerate begging in public, and to place the lazzaroni under the local jurisdiction of a responsible chief. In Foochow the city is divided into wards, and within the limits of each ward a head-man is appointed, able to trace his descent from a line of illustrious beggar chiefs, who, like himself, exercised the right to keep the members of their order under their own management and control. During my stay in Foochow I was introduced to one of these beggar kings; he was an inveterate opium-smoker, and consequently in reduced circumstances. I afterwards visited the house of another head-man. His eldest son received me at the entrance and conducted me into a guest's chamber; and while I was seated there two ladies dressed in silks passed the door of the apart- ment in order to steal a glimpse at its inmate. These were the chief and second wives of this Lord of the Lazzaroni, who was himself unfortunately absent on business. I afterwards secured his photograph.
Beggar chieftains of this kind have it in their power to make an agreement with the business men of the streets in their re- spective wards, under which they levy a kind of fluctuating poor- rate for the maintenance of themselves and their subjects. A composition thus entered into exempts the streets or shops whereon the chief has placed his mark, from the harassing raids of his tattered troops. Woe betide the shopman who has the courage to refuse his dole to these beggars! The most loath- some and pertinacious specimens of the naked tribe will be de- spatched to beset his shop. Thus, while walking along one of the best streets of the city, I myself saw a revolting, diseased and filthy object carried on the shoulders of another member of the fraternity, who marched into a shop and deposited his
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attracted to an ominous-looking tomb by hearing some one moan there. It was growing dark and I may have, perhaps, felt a little superstitious as I peeped in and beheld what seemed to be an old man clad in rags too scant to cover his frame. He was fanning a fire made up of withered branches, but he was not the only tenant; there was a coffin too, looming out from the darkness within, and I almost fancied he was the ghost of its owner. But no ! there was no mistaking the moan of suf- fering humanity. The cold wind was chilling his thin blood and racking his joints with pain. Administering some temporary relief and passing on to a tomb where I could hear sounds of mirth, I found four inmates inside, the members of a firm of beggars. I visited them again next morning and came upon the group at breakfast. The head-man — a lusty, half-naked lout — was standing in front of the entrance, enjoying a post-prandial pipe, and he offered me a smoke with the air of a Chinese gentleman. After this he invited me in to inspect the interior, where his partners were busily engrossed with chopsticks and bowls of reeking scraps collected on the previous day. They were chatting noisily, too, forgetful of their cares and of the coffins that surrounded them. One, the jester of the party, was seated astride a coffin, cracking his jokes over the skull of its occupant.
While at Foochow, after visiting the beggars, I thought I might as well see what the detectives are like. These men are commonly known as the "Ma-qui" or "Swift as horses," and are attached to the yamens of the local authorities, receiving a small stipend out of the Government supplies, but obtaining the bulk of their earnings from persons who seek to recover stolen goods, or even from the thieves themselves.
The Ma-qui is supposed to know personally all the professional ​ robbers of his district ; and one wishing to recover his property from the thieves must make a Hberal offer to the Ma-qui, at least one half the value of the articles lost; failing this, it is probable that he will never hear of his goods again. But trans- actions of this kind are generally effected through the Ma-qui, who simply acts as a broker, and takes his heavy percentage from both sides. Should the thieves refuse to yield up the property at the price he offers, they run the risk of being imprisoned and tortured. I photographed a thief who had just escaped from gaol; he had been an unprofitable burglar, a bad constituent of the Ma-qui, and was accordingly triced up by the thumbs until the cords had worn the flesh away, and left nothing but the bare bones exposed. It was told of this detective, who might more appropriately be called the chief of the thieves, that he, one day, fell in with an old thief whom he had known and profited by in former times, but who was now respectably clad and striving to lead an honest life. He at once had the man conveyed to prison, and there, in order to impress upon him the danger to which he exposed himself in falling into honest ways, suspended him by the thumbs, stripped off his clothes, and discharged him with one arm put out of joint. When a thief is not in the profession and cannot be discovered, the Ma-qui is liable to be whipped. He then whips his subordinates, and they in turn whip the thieves. Should this plan fail, it is reported that the police have been whipped and that the stolen property cannot be found.
A word about leprosy and the leper villages of the Chinese. This disease — not an uncommon one in China — may be seen in a variety of its loathsome forms in the public streets of almost every city. This disease, however, is not held to be
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physicians, who have had to prescribe for the sufferers, and, for my own part, I am inclined to adopt their view. It has also been proved that the malady, although to a certain extent hereditary, will at last die out of a family. Thus, in the Canton leper village there are direct descendants of lepers, now alive, who are entirely free from the disease ; and in the leper settlement at Foochow I was informed that the inhabitants were permitted to marry and rear families; and the statement was evidently true, for we found there many parents surrounded by children, some of whom, though they had reached maturity, were still free from the fearful blight that had fallen on the wretched community around.
The village to which I allude is a walled enclosure, standing about a mile beyond the east gate of the city ; I set out with the Rev. Mr. Mahood to pay a visit to this asylum. It was now about four in the afternoon; a drizzling rain had already set in and a sudden darkness overcast the heavens as we entered the gate of the village. The dreariness of the weather and the gloominess of the gathering clouds overhead, intensified the wretchedness of the scene; and we were soon surrounded by a crowd of men, women and children, some too loathsome to bear description, and all clamouring for alms to buy food to sustain their miserable lives; nor did their importunity cease until the governor of the place, himself a leper, came out to keep his subjects in order. It would appear that the original idea of the institution, like the majority of native institutions in China, had been lost sight of, and that it is now made as much the means by which the officials extort money from wealthy lepers, as of conferring a boon upon the community by keeping the lepers shut up and cut off from contact with the outer world. The poor among them, who are unable to pay ​ for their own maintenance, are allowed a nominal annual sum by government, sufficient to support them probably one month out of twelve, and for the rest they are daily sent adrift into the public highways, and I believe, as in the case of ordinary beggars, certain shops and streets may unite together and purchase freedom from their most objectionable visits. This little settlement numbered something over 300 souls, and had once contained a theatre for the amusement of its inhabitants, but that edifice had long fallen into decay.
The streets of Foochow are so similar to the streets of all the other cities of Southern China as to require no description here. Foochow, too, has its parade-grounds, its yamens, its temples and its pagodas ; all of great importance to the citizens themselves, and of comparatively little interest to the stranger from outside, unless to one who wishes to make himself ac- quainted with an endless variety of dry details as to religion, Feng-shui, or local jurisdiction ; none of which subjects could possibly be digested into a volume of such dimensions as mine. I will therefore only remark as I quit the town, that the visitor must not fail to observe the oysters — oysters which are not only very good, but very remarkable too in their way. It may be said that a bamboo rod is not the '* native climb" of that highly-prized shell-fish; and yet, in the main thoroughfares at Foochow, one finds an endless array of fish-stalls where oysters are served out to passing customers, and these oysters are grown in clusters on bamboo rods, stuck into the beds at the proper season, pulled up again when mature, and brought in this fashion to market.
There are a number of trades which are peculiar to this city, and among the most interesting is that of the lamp-maker. One lamp, of a very pretty though fragile kind, is made up of thin ​ rods of glass, set so closely together as almost to imitate basketwork. The light shines through these rods with a very effective lustre; and though no lamps of the sort, so far as I know, have yet been introduced into this country, they would form very attractive novelties at a garden fete.
There are many charming resorts in the vicinity of Foochow ; but to my mind *'Fang-Kuang-Yen-tien-chuan," better known as the "Yuan-fu" monastery, is the most fascinating of them all. It was my good fortune to visit that retreat as the guest of a foreign merchant, who made up a party for a cruise on the Yuan-fu branch of the river Min. Intense cold with drifting sleet made the prospect ahead unpromising. The bold moun- tains known to the natives as the " Wu-hu " or " five tiger " range, were wrapped in a thin veil of mist ; but it was nearly mid-day before the last shred of vapour had withdrawn from the rugged overhanging crag, which has been called the ** Lover's Leap." The mountains rise to a considerable altitude about this part of the river, and terminate in bold rocky cliffs ; but beneath, wherever an available patch of soil is to be found, it has been terraced and cultivated up to the very face of the rocks. Two days were spent amid a ceaseless diversity of grand river and mountain scenery ; and on the third morning, at a short distance above the first rapid, we landed to make the journey to Yuan- fu monastery. My friends had brought their sedans and bearers with them; as for me, I hired one at the nearest village, my dog, as was his custom, at once scrambling inside, and stowing himself comfortably beneath the seat. The chair being intended for mountain use, was so small that I had to sit in a cramped and awkward position. At one spot there is a flight of 400 steps (I had the curiosity to count them as our progress was slow), and this brought us to the entrance of the ravine overlooked ​by the monastery, which was also perhaps the most romantic bit of scenery to be encountered there. Above these steps the path winds beneath a forest, and around a rich undergrowth of ferns and flowering shrubs, and finally seems suddenly to terminate in a cave. This cave in reality forms the passage through which the dell is approached. A small idol stood at the foot of the rocks, on the right of the entrance, and there was incense burning before its shrine. As we ascended a narrow path cut in the face of the rocks, we obtained a full view of the monastery. There it stood with its broad eaves, carved roofs and ornamental balustrades, propped up on the face of a precipice 200 feet in height, and resting above this awful abyss on nothing more durable than a slender-looking framework of wooden beams.
There were only three monks in residence here; one a mere boy, the second an able-bodied youth, and lastly the abbot, who was old, infirm and blind. I was accommodated with an apart- ment commanding a good view of the valley far beneath, and built out of thin pine planks, plastered over with lime. Inside this chamber were a pine table, a pine chair and a pine bed, and on the latter the same unyielding wooden pillow which forms its usual cheap and durable appurtenance. As for the bedstead itself, it was a kind of square chocolate-coloured well of wood; and in this unluxurious contrivance I had to pass the nights, which were here extremely cold. My coolies slept in the apartment beneath, packed together like sardines, to keep themselves warm. Every evening at about sunset, my friends, dressed in their yellow canonicals went up into the temple to pray. The fervour of a long-winded prayer was much impaired in my eyes when I found that it was meaningless mummery to
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an image known as the ** Laughing Buddha," the god of longevity ; and before this jovial-looking idol a joss-stick timepiece had been set up. This timepiece consists of a series of thin fire- sticks, placed parallel to each other over a flat clay bed con- tained in a box of bronze. Each stick will burn for twelve hours, and a fresh one is ignited when the one already burning is about to expire. Thus the time of day or night might be ascertained at a glance. This fire, like the vestal fires of Rome, so the old monk assured me, had been smouldering uninter- ruptedly for untold years before he came to the place.
below Foochow, and forms part of a range that rises abruptly out of the level, cultivated plain. The mountain enjoys a wide celebrity, as the great **Ku-Shan" monastery is built in a valley near its summit, on a site said in ancient times to have been the haunt of poisonous snakes or dragons, able to diffuse pesti- lence, raise up storms, or blight the harvest crops. One Ling- chiau, a sage, was entreated to put a stop to these ravages; so the good man, repairing to the pool in which the evil serpents dwelt, recited a ritual called the Hua-yen treatise, before which, like wise serpents, they took instant flight. It must indeed have been a powerful composition, for not even deadly snakes would risk a second recital, and the Emperor, hearing of the miracle, erected the Hua-yen monastery on the spot, in the year 784.
The establishment, though repeatedly destroyed, has been constantly rebuilt on its original foundations, receiving consider- able additions from time to time, until at the present day it accommodates 200 monks. The ascent from the plain is a steep and tedious one, but many picturesque views of the surround- ing country are to be obtained en route^ and we reach the ​monastery itself at length, through a grove of ancient pine-trees, 2,500 feet above the level of the sea. Inside the main entrance sit four colossal images of the protectors of the Buddhist faith. Ku-Shan monastery, like almost all such edifices in China, is made up of three great detached buildings, set one behind the other, in a spacious paved courtyard ; and opening inwards from the walls which surround this enclosure, we may see the apart- ments of the monks. At this shrine a number of relics of Buddha are shown, and it is said that they annually draw crowds of weary pilgrims from afar. Sacred animals too are maintained in the grounds, and if there be any member of the brute creation that has shown more than usual instinct, it will find a welcome reception here.
The "Three Holy Ones," the chief images of every Buddhist temple, were here as conspicuous as usual in the central shrine ; each figure being in this instance more than thirty feet in height, and rising up behind the customary altar bespread with cande- labra and votive offerings of various sorts.
I remained three days in this place, and occupied some of my leisure in visiting the rooms of the priests, one among them more frequently than the rest. Having mounted the ladder by which access to this chamber was to be gained, we entered a bare apartment, lit by a small window above and furnished with a deal table and a chair. Within I was always certain to find some member of the order improving himself by sitting like an image, meditating on the precepts of his sect, and at long intervals tolling a bell suspended in a tower above. Then again, some distance from the central temple, in one of the many beautiful avenues on the mountain-side, was a water-bell, that could be heard tolling there night and day. Against the foot
$_{THEMORNINGBELL-YUEN-FUMONASTERY.}$
$_{OPIUMSMOKING2.}$
on a stony ledge inside. I was thinking it was about the finest thing of the sort I had seen for some time, when the head moved forward, the limbs unbent, and the idol descended from its perch — "Venus incessu patuit Deus?" No, I can hardly venture to affirm so much of this bald-headed, yellow-robed god. "Tsing, tsing, sir, good morning; what side you come.?" was his greeting, as he lighted on the ground. Less awe-stricken than might perhaps have been expected, I returned the enquiry, and asked: "What side you come.?" to which his response was quickly vouchsafed: "Long time my got this side." This, then, was the hermit, of whom report had said so much. It turned out that he had been an Amoy trader, and after years of strife with the world, had come to end his days and repent him of his sins within this mossy dell
The nearest tea-plantations in this province are in the Paeling Hills, about fifteen miles north of Foochow. These I visited in company, as the guest of two of my Foochow friends. We put up at a small temple on one of the farms, and made a three days' stay in the locality. Here some foreigners who had visited the district before us, had imparted a very limited and confused acquaintance with the English tongue to the priest who presided at the shrine. It therefore startled us when we approached the edifice, to be met by this ragged follower of Buddha, evidently proud to parade his knowledge of our language, with the salutation: "Good morning, can do! you bet!" Can do what, we enquired; but alas! our friend's vocabulary was limited to this single phrase.
The farms are usually small, seldom exceeding a few acres in size, and are rented by the poor from capitalists who pay the land tax. To these landowners the tenants undertake to ​dispose of their crops at a certain stipulated price. Thus the men who grow that tea which is a source of so much wealth to China, very rarely possess any capital at all themselves ; and like millions of their labouring fellow-countrymen, they can earn but a hard- won sustenance out of the luxury which they thus produce. At the proper season — that is usually in the beginning of April — the first picking of the leaves takes place. These leaves, when gathered, are partially dried in the sun, and then offered for sale in baskets, at a kind of fair, at which all the neighbourhood attends. The native buyers from the foreign ports — usually Cantonese — here enter upon a keen competition, and buy up as much as they can of the leaves. In the end the lots bought from a variety of these small farms are mixed together by the purchaser, and then subjected to the firing already described, up-country, in houses hired specially for that purpose.
Thousands of poor women and children are next employed in picking out stems and stalks; after which the leaves are winnowed, the cured portion is carried away, and the uncured left behind to be subjected again to the fire. When the firing process is completed, the tea is sifted, and separated into two or three different parcels, or "chops" as they are called, the quality of each parcel varying with the quantity prepared at a time. Thus the first and highest *' chops" consist of the small- est and best-twisted leaves; the second is somewhat inferior; while the third is made of the stalks, dust and siftings. This last, which is perfectly innocuous and wholesome, is used in this country to mix with better sorts of teas and thus to produce the cheap good teas of commerce.
These parcels or chops are next packed into chests of about 90 lbs., half-chests of 40 or 45 lbs., and boxes of 21 lbs., ​lined each of them with lead, and thus forwarded to the open ports for sale. Most of the Bohea teas are brought down to Foochow by the river Min — a voyage, as we shall presently see, requiring no ordinary nerve and skill. The cargoes, as a rule, begin to arrive at about the end of April; but at the time I speak the market, for two or three seasons past, had not been opened till some time in June. The year before the mandarins gave native dealers credit for the duties on the leaf, and thus aided them to hold back their teas until scarcity should force the market into rates highly favourable to China. The Europeans do not seem to succeed in banding together, like the Chinese, to secure the tea crop on profitable terms. The probable advantage to be gained by being first in the market presents a temptation too great for the impetuous foreign merchant to resist. But although the Chinese sellers enjoy many facilities, such as borrowing money from the Foreign banks in Foochow against the " chops " which they hold, they have to pay high rates of interest, and the up-country competition among themselves too, is strong ; so that they are not unfamiliar with losses — and heavy ones too sometimes.
But now let us proceed up country and gather some notion of the difficulties which beset the transit of this precious herb. I made an excursion for 200 miles up the Min, as far as Yen-ping city, in the company of Mr. Justice Doolittle, whose valuable book on the "Social Life of the Chinese" is the result of years of painstaking labour and careful observation among the people of this district. Armed with the requisite passports, we started for Shui-kow, at mid-day on December 2, in a yacht kindly placed at my disposal by one of the English merchants at Foochow.
Boating on a Chinese river and with a Chinese crew is ​always a trying experience to the temper of a European, except where the men have been bound by contract to perform their work for a fixed price and within a given period of time. If this precaution has been neglected the notion takes possession of the boatmen that foreigners are by nature wealthy, and that as a duty to themselves — who are always, both by birth and by necessity, extremely poor — they must take the most of the rare opportunity which good fortune has cast in their way. Inspired by such considerations as these, the men set themselves to enjoy a good deal more than their usual scanty leisure, a good deal more food, a longer spell of the opium-pipe and deeper drains out of the sam-shu flask. Hence in one's diary such jottings as the following by no means infrequently recur: " The men have been amusing themselves all day long, running the boat on to sandbanks and eating rice." *' Tracking-line entangled again with that of another boat ; two crews quarrelling for half an hour, another half-hour spent in apologies, and a third in disentangling the lines. "
Sunday we spent quietly at a place called Teuk-kai, or Bamboo Crags. Here I had a walk ashore with my boy Ahong, and stopped for awhile to rest on a green mossy bank, whence our boat could dimly be made out through a sheet of mist that rose above the river, like the steam from a cauldron's mouth. We next passed over a lovely bit of country, through olive and orange plantations, where the trees bent down beneath their fruit, and the air seemed laden with perpetual fragrance. In one orchard we fell in with a watchman ensconced in a snug little straw hut, containing a bamboo table, a tea-pot, two chairs and a fine cat and kittens. The old man had been watching the place, he said, for more than half a century; he showed us the
$_{UpcountryFarm,FukienProvince.}$
the group of picturesque well-built brick houses of which the settlement was composed. When we had left this place and had sat down on a hill-side to talk over old times and former scenes of travel, Ahong confessed to me, among other matters, that he had no particular religious views at all. He had at one time been a Christian in Singapore, but had got bullied out of his change of faith by his friends. In a general way he thought it a good thing to have plenty of pork while aUve ; then to be laid in a comfortable coffin and buried in a dry place, and hereafter to have one's spirit fed and clothed continuously by surviving sons.
Next day we reached Shui-kow and found it built on the slopes of the hills, on the left bank of the river. This town was unlike any which I had seen on the plains. There was something new in its piles of buildings towering story above story, and in its picturesque situation; and here, too, I found that a water system had been elaborated out of a complex series of bamboo pipes and gutters, which passed from house to house, and brought constant supplies of water from a spring more than a mile away, in the hills. At Shui-kow I hired a '* rapid-boat " to take us on to Yen-ping-fu. Our captain was Cheng-Show, or rather his wife, a lady who had a great deal to say both for him and herself too. Thus, when we ascended the first rapid, there was Mrs. Cheng to be seen well to the fore; at one moment nursing her baby, at another the child had been tossed into a basket, and the mother was fending her boat with a long pole from destruction on the rocks. Then to her brat again, or to cooking, cleaning, or husband- baiting; to each and every pursuit she was found equal, as fancy prompted or necessity compelled. Ours was a small boat, like all the others, carrying a high bridge and a rudder in the shape of a long oar, which ​swung on a pivot aft. This oar was nearly as long as the boat itself, and its effect when used was to make the vessel turn at once in its own length. The craft is built entirely of pine, is as strong as it is light, and admirably adapted in every respect for the navigation of the perilous rapids which begin to show themselves about half a mile above Shui-kow. We anchored for the night close to a military station, if two or three shanties and the half-dozen miserable-looking soldiers armed with match- locks, who occupied them, could be honoured with so dignified a name.
Next morning, as usual, there was a thick fog upon the river. This prevented our seeing more than two or three feet around the boat, and put a stop to all traffic till within an hour of noon. Our halting-place that evening was the village of Ching- ku-kwan; and there Mr. Doolittle and myself went ashore to inspect a Snake Temple. There was no image of the snake to be seen in this shrine; but the tablet of the snake king was there, set up for worship in a holy place, and we learned that during the seventh month a living snake becomes the object of adoration. Next day Mrs. Cheng and her husband had a little conjugal disagreement. As for Captain Cheng, he sat meekly smoking his pipe, a true example of marital equanimity, waiting till the storm should be over-past. Half an hour later his wife was working away as busily as ever. Each night the boat is arched over, waggon-fashion, with a telescopic arrangement of bamboo matting, forty feet long, ten feet wide and four feet high, which covers the entire deck. My friend and I occupied a small space at the bow. Ahong, the cook and fourteen boatmen were stretched out amid-ships, a small space at the stern being curtained off for the captain and his spouse. The
$_{RapidsnearYen-PingCity,RiverMin.}$
does almost nothing except smoke; and his pipe, a bamboo- cane with a knob at the end of it, he cherishes with wonderful affection. On his head is a relic of antiquity as venerable as himself — the tattered framework of a greasy-looking felt hat ; while as for his thickly-padded jacket, it is reported that he removes that garment from his person about once a week, in order to destroy the small colonists that disturb his repose. For upwards of half a century he had been learning to swallow the smoke of his pipe, but with only partial success. Once or twice I fancied that he had fairly choked himself, and was about to expire ; but he came to himself again by-and-by, and was seen puffing more vigorously than before.
As soon as the roofs were drawn over for the night, smoking commenced— the entire crew, Mrs. Cheng and all setting to work in business-like fashion; and as there was no outlet for the fumes, the atmosphere can be imagined much more easily than it could be endured. On the following day we passed a newly- wrecked boat, which had struck a sunken rock and then gone down. We also encountered a second boat dashing down the same rapid with a fatal way on her. She was bearing straight for the breakers, away from the main channel; the helmsman could not alter her course, and so she too struck and settled down, but not before the crew had had time to scramble out on the rocks and make the wreck fast with a cable. At one little village where we went ashore, a number of small-footed women were washing clothes in the stream. At our approach they fled with startling celerity, scaling the rocks and finding foothold where only cloven-hoofed goats might have been supposed to make their way.
On Sunday we reached Yen-ping, in time for service at the ​Methodist Mission Chapel in that place, which stands on a hill and faces the main stream at a point where it is fed by two nearly equal tributaries, the one flowing from the Bohea Hills and the other from a source further to the south-east. The town contains a population of about thirty thousand souls, and does a considerable trade in paper, lackered ware, baskets and tea. The foot of the hill was encircled by a high wall, from within which rose an inclined plane of roofs, broken here and there by groves of trees and temples, but still almost appearing one solid slope of tiled steps, over which an Alpine tourist might scramble to the outermost wall above, whose top could be seen in a faint line sweeping round the heights that closed in the city from behind. Beyond this hill, which looked as if it had been made for the town that covers it, a high range of moun- tains rose up in a deep purple belt, like a great protecting barrier. The Mission House in the main thoroughfare was a miserable place enough, and we learnt that no one would let a decent house to Christians. The native missionary when we entered the chapel was conducting the morning service in the midst of an attentive congregation. He resided here with his family, and looked happy and contented ; although, as I have said, his abode was a poor one, built and partitioned off with bamboo-laths and plaster, so thin that one could have pushed one's fingers through the walls ; while the roof was festooned with cobwebs and admit- ted more dayUght and air than was either necessary or agreeable. The interior beneath, however, wore a clean and even cheerful look. The back of this dwelling, like many others, was perched upon the city wall; and there was a path running beneath the fortifications, along which I picked my way with caution, and yet narrowly escaped being tripped up by a herd of pigs, as they rushed to banquet upon some filthy refuse dropping down ​from a house above. Yen-ping was a Chinese city, and yet one could breathe pure mountain air on its upper wall, and encounter some very pretty sights. On one occasion, when taking a view from a steep hill on the other side of the river, and while making my way up to a level space, I slipped my footing and caught hold of some grass that stood twelve or fifteen feet high there. The blades of this grass are furnished with an array of sharp teeth, that ripped my hands up like a saw ; but at the same time it saved me a rapid descent of about two hundred feet, and a final plunge of a clear hundred more into the river below. Near this place, in a small village, we found the two widows and family of a deceased mandarin, sending a complete retinue to the spirit of their departed lord. A pile of huge paper models of houses and furniture, boats and sedans, ladies-in-waiting and gentlemen-pages were brought down to the banks of the river and there burned before the wailing widows. These effigies are supposed to be transformed by fire into the spiritual reality of the things which they represent. Many of the articles were covered with tin-foil, and when the sacrifice was over a seedy- looking trader bought the ashes, that he might sift them and secure the tin that had refused to put on an ethereal shape.
Many of the men hereabouts appeared deformed, but the deformity was due to the small charcoal furnaces which they carried concealed beneath the dress, and used to keep their bodies warm. As there are no fire-places in the houses, these portable furnaces prove very convenient substitutes. At first, when I saw so many humps about, I supposed that some special disease must be common in the place, or else that the sufferers had gathered themselves together from different parts of the empire to test the efficacy of some curative spring, like those hot wells near Foochow, where I have seen crowds of feeble ​and infirm folk bathing in the healing vapours. But the little copper furnaces encased in basket-work supplied a less melancholy explanation of the mystery.
When I watched the coolness, pluck and daring with which these poor river navigators will shoot the rapids of the river Min, risking their lives in every voyage — in a country where there are no insurances, except such as the guilds may chance to afford, and where no higher reward is to be gained than a hand-to-mouth subsistence on the most wretched fare — I began to get a truer insight into the manly and hardy qualities latent in this misgoverned Chinese race. In some of these watery steeps the channel winds and writhes from right to left, and forms acute angles among the rocks at every two or three boats' lengths. Once, when we descended, our frail craft tearing down these bends at a fearful speed, I thought for a moment that our fate was sealed, for it seemed impossible that the helmsman could ever bring the vessel round in time to clear a huge rock which rose up right ahead. There he stood on the bridge, calm and erect, with an iron grasp on the long rudder, impassive until we were just plunging on to the rock ; and then, as I prepared to leap for life, he threw his whole weight on to the oar, and brought the boat round with a sweep that cleared the danger by the breadth of a hair. Thus we shot onwards, down! down! down! like a feather tossed to and fro by the caprice of the irresistible waves. As we passed down stream we saw a great number of men fishing with cormorants. These fishermen poled themselves about on bamboo-rafts, and on each raft was a basket and two or three cormorants, trained to dive and bring up fish for their owners. As I intended to take some pictures on the way down to Foochow, my friend, who was pressed for time, determined to find his way home in a native ​
$_{FISHINGWITHCORMORANTS.}$
$_{KNIFEGRINDER.}$
dinner I accompanied him on board, not without a last vain effort, as he was but in feeble health, to persuade him to complete the voyage in the yacht or house-boat in which we had come. A Chinese passenger-boat makes a pretty swift trip, and may be very suitable for natives, but it does not quite come up to our European notions of comfort. Thus the steerage accommodation consists of a long low cabin, in which one can scarcely kneel upright; and within this narrow space we found about fifty persons stowed away. Many were pedlars, carrying their wares along with them for sale ; and the air of this packing-box was strongly tainted with garUc, tobacco, sam-shu, opium and a variety of other Chinese perfumes, which issued from the mass of humanity that writhed and tumbled about in fruitless efforts to discover places for repose. When they were a little settled, we had literally to grope our way over a reeking platform of half-naked limbs and bodies, and amid a torrent of cursing and abuse, in order to reach the state cabin, where my stout friend, after sundry efforts, succeeded in depositing himself at last. This cabin measured about four feet by three. The door was shut, and there he was in a sort of locker with one or two openings to admit the air, or rather the stench and din of the unwashed, noisy crowd in the steerage. So we parted to meet again and recount our adventures in Foochow.