The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-02 00:00:00

The rascal pretended be was 'quite unaware of our
presence. I found out afterwards that he knew that
three Englishmen were passing in just as well as we
did. I breathed more freely when the gate was
passed, and when we became entangled in the nar-
row streets. They bore us through the dirtiest parts
of the town, and passed the Yamun or police-
office, known by the horrible Imperial lion
scrawled in paint, upon the opposite wall. The
people soon began to run together. The blinds
of the chairs were sufficiently transparent to
&low them to see there was something unusual ;
perhaps the fact of the chairs being closed was
enough in itself. Then we grew bolder and opened
the blinds, and, although the crowd pressed to see,
there was no hostile demonstration. At last we
got to a better part of the city, we boldly descended
and found ourselves in the streets of Hangchau.
We now bade one of the coolies guide us to the
upper part of the city, while the chairs followed.
We passed several curiosityshops, where there were
some few things I should have bought, but, alas !
our expenses had so far exceeded our expectation
that we were already afraid our funds would fall
short—a contingency which actually occurred, for
we bad to borrow of a Chinese innkeeper. I noticed
that in one of the curiosity shops an English beer
bottle was placed among the vases in a post of
honour. As we ascended the hill we passed a tea-
house, which was the first I had seen in China hav-
ing any pretensions to ornament. This was evi-
dently the Verey of Hangchau. A Mandarin chair
was following us, and we drew up to allow the gen-
tleman to overtake us. In evident perturbation
he stopped his chair and went into one of the tem-
ples, where he doubtless expended some cash in
incense to be delivered from the barbarians. We
were now among josshouses and private residences
which I had seen from the Pagoda-hill, and from
the terrace we could see down into the courts and
houses of the lower city. It was a holiday in Hang-
chau. There were shows going on. We had heard
much firing in the morning, and we now learnt that
There had been a review of 8,000 troops, and our
informrnts added with much laughter that one of
the evolutions had been to make tke soldiers charge
right into the river up to their armpits. In this
part of Hangchau we were less thronged than I had
ever been before in China. There was no apparent
obstacle to our going where we pleased or doinc,
what we pleased. We did not venture into the
theatre, for we knew by experience, at a sing-song
on the bank of the lake, that the Chinese ladies, with
their smart robes, their painted faces (white and red
upon their cheeks and vermillion on their lips, little
enamelled stars beside their eyes, and black Upon
their eyebrows), would almost jump out of their
boxes with fright ; while the populace would
throng about us, and the actors wouldstaud still and
stare like the rest. Being a little overcome by the
sun, I strolled away by myself back to the tea-
house, and took my place at a little table as com-
placently as I should on one of the boulevards ; the
tea was exquisite—that slightly-dried, small, green
leaf which you never can taste in England ; for tea
will not keep or pack or stand the voyage unless
burnt up to the state of insipidity in which we get
it. A poet Emperor of China, Khian-Loung, has
not disdained to sing the praises of tea, and, like a
practical Chinaman, he teaches us how to make it :
" Graceful are the haves of mei-hoa, sweetly scented
and clear are the leaves of fo-cheon.. Bat place upon a
gentle fire the tripod whose colour and form tell of a far
antiquity, and fill it with water of molten snow. Let it
seethe till it would be hot enough to whiten fish or
to redden a crab. Then pour it into a cup made from the
earth of yne upon the tender leaves of a selected tea-tree.
Let it rest till the mists which freely rise have formed
themselves into thicker clouds, and until these have gra-
dually ceased to weigh upon the surface, and at last float
in their vapour. Then sip deliberately the delicious liquor.
It will drive away alll the fife causes of disquietude which
come to trouble us. You may taste, and you may feel;
but never can you express in words or song that sweet
tranquillity we draw from the essence thus prepared."
I sipped and was refreshed; but the sweat tran-
quillity was not mice. The curiousjtea-drinkers
pressed around me, and there was a waiter whose
nature it was to walk about with a kettle of boiling
water, and whose unconquerable instinct compelled
him to fill up my cup whenever it was getting three
degrees b low boiling point and was becoming pos-
sible to drink. The people were very good-tempered,
but hey came very close and the day was very hot.
I was so strict in my Chinese costume that they
could find nothing to wonder at but my physique
and my pith hat. Thsy made the most of these.
If I had been dressed in European costume I be-
lieve they would have undressed me in their ardent
curiosity.
Meantime our coolies and luggage had been
stopped at the gate we passed through. Toe offi-
cials told my man that we had acted wrong iu nut
presenting our cards and the Foo-tei's pass ; but it
was not their business, but that of another officer,
to a- op foreigners. They do not wish to stop Eng-
lishmen's luggage, but looked into the servants'
boxes. They asked where the Englishmen were
gone, and were satisfied when told th we had gone
up the hilt " to Jhinchin Joss." All this talk auout
cards and passes was of course Chinese taradlddles,
but it shows that the Chinese authorities were per-
fectly aware that they had three Englishmen among
them.

I could find no silk weaving in the city, but there
must be quarters like the suburbs of Lyons, for this
is the very centre and depot of the silk district.
After several hours in Hangchou we got into our
chairs again, and passed through the opposite gate
of the city along a dirty faubourg and over a flat to
the Tsien-tang river, which is here about two miles
wide. There is a little Custom-house, but no ships
and no commerce. Hangchou evidently depends
upon its inland trade, and seeks no communication
by sea. As we crossed the broad river I looked back
up this picturesque city, and felt that its environs
were as familiar as those of Liverpool, Cheltenham,
or Richmond.
We had five days' journey yet before us, the
greater part through country even less visited than
Hangchou itself. I should grow intolerable, how-
ever, were I to describe the rest of the route with
the same minuteness. I must not even venture to
describe the sepulchre of Yu, the founder of the
Hia dynasty, although it is the grandest sepulchral
temple in China, and boasts an ant.quity of 2,000
years, although a fierce thunderstorm burst so close
that there was a smell of fire and the gigantic
idol trembled. Perhaps I may be permitted, how-
ever, to say that nearly 100 lineal descendants of
the great Emperor who controlled the great inun-
dations and curbed the waters of the four great
rivers still live in poverty under the protection of
the Temple. Under the Ming dynasty they re-
ceived pensions ; the Tartars allow them none.
Hera is a pedigree, ye followers of Rollo. Enough
to say of Peh Kwan that the people asked us
whether we were Siamese. They had seen the
Loochooians, and we were not like them, and they
knew we were not Japanese. Chao-Ming is for
many miles round girt with sepulchral monuments.
It is to the worship of ancestor.; what Hangchou and
its lake are to Buddha. All the wharves and
bridges were crowded by all the population
of the place as we went through. The half-naked
bodies seemed countless as we moved slowly through
canals exa liy—bridges, smells, and all, like some of
the black canals iu Venice. Wepassed several nights
among the most uncultivated crowds of leJatmen
while awaiting our turn to be dragged by wind-
lasses over those dikes of slippery mud which in
China do duty for locks. We passed other nights
in passing through lakes and listening to the songs
and cymbals which told of marriages in the villages
on its banks. We watched the paddy harvest,
examined the tallow trees, with their poplar-like
leaf, their green berries, and their alder shaped
form. We saw the cotton come into flower. We
fired in vain at two eagles circling round the head
of a man who was accompanied by a lit tae dog,
which they wanted to carry off. We stopped and
interrogated a sort of Chinese Gil Blas, who was
travelling on foot (almost an unprecedented thing in
China), and who carried with him all his worldly
goods—a pair of blue breeches, '
a pipe, and a small
teapot. We investigated at Yu-Yoe the country
freen the top of the Citadel-bill, and in the dyer's
shop we examined the dye wherewith those ever-
present blue breeches are dyed. After ten days of
sight-seeing
everything seemed to repeat itself and
to revolve like the events of the Platonic year.
We became convinced at last that if we were to
journey from Hangchou to Pekin, and from Pekin
to Szehuen, we should find just the same arts and
manners and agriculture, varied only by the exi-
gencies of nature.
On the 10th of August we arrived at Ningpoo,
after some discomfort and some necessity for strong
doses of quinine, but after much exci,ement and
great enjoyment. We have passed 400 miles of
country n.ot often before traversed. We have en-
tered four first-class Chinese cities (two of them un-
known te) European travellers), many second-class
cities which in other countries might be classedes first, and innumerable towns and vlllage4.
Throughout the whole of our journey ere have re-
ceived from no Chinese an uncivil word or in-
sulting gesture. No tni-tchievous ut chin has thrown
stones • down upon. us from any one of the
hundreds of bridges we passed through. No one
stopped ue, and no one waylaid us. It is true
thet the Mandarins at Peh-Kwan sent us a message
to appear at their yainun, but when we sent answer
that we would endeavour to make preparation to
receive their visit oil bo.rd our boats, and when
Mr. Edkins had sent them a Testament, they took
the evasive answer in good part, and suffered oar
tioatrnen to proceed.
sions.
From thin journey I drew two practical conclu-

The, first is that the authorities in China are ex-
ceedi ugly anxious in no way to complicate their
present diAputes with England, and, holding in
very wholesome terror the English name, are ill-