The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peeps Into China, by E. C. Phillips.

"As true as possible. Mother told me her very own self," was the emphatic reply.

Two children, brother and sister, the boy aged ten, the girl three years older, were carrying on this conversation in the garden of a country rectory.

"But really and truly, on your word of honour," repeated Leonard, as though he could not believe what his sister had just related to him.

"I hope my word is always a word of honour; I thought everybody's word ought to be that," Sybil Graham replied a little proudly, for when she had run quickly to bring such important news to her brother, she[10] could not help feeling hurt that he should refuse to believe what she said.

"And we are really going there, and shall actually see the 'pig-tails' in their own country, and the splendid kites they fly, and all the wonderful things that father used to tell us about? Oh! it seems too good to be true."

"But it is true," Sybil repeated with emphasis. "And I dare say we might even see tea growing, as it does grow there, you know, and I suppose we shall be carried about in sedan-chairs ourselves." She was really as happy as her brother, only not so excitable.

At this moment their mother joined them. "Oh, mother!" the boy then exclaimed, "how beautiful! Sybil has just told me, but I could not believe her."

"I thought the news would delight you both very much," Mrs. Graham answered. "Your father and I have been thinking about going to China for some time, but we would not tell you anything about it until matters were quite settled, and now everything seems to be satisfactorily arranged for us to start in three months' time."

"Oh, how very beautiful!" Sybil exclaimed. "I like my father to be a missionary very much. He must be glad too; isn't he, mother?"

"Very glad indeed, although the joy will entail some sadness also. I expect your father will grieve a good deal to leave this dear little country parish of ours, and the duties he has so loved to perform here, but a wider field of usefulness having opened out for him, he is very thankful to obey the call."[11]

"And father will do it so well, mother," answered Sybil. "I wonder whether I shall be able to do anything to help him there?"

"I think you have long since found out, Sybil," was her mother's loving answer, "that you can always be doing something to help us."

Sybil and Leonard had as yet only learnt a part of the story. They had still to learn the rest. This going to China would not be all beautiful, all joy for them, especially for Sybil, with her very affectionate nature and dread of saying "Good-byes," for she and Leonard were only to be taken out on a trip—a pleasure tour—to see something of China, and to return to England to go on with their education at the end of six months.

It was no easy matter to go as a missionary to China. This Mr. Graham well knew, for his father, although only for a short time, had been one over there before him, and had discovered—what so many other later brother missionaries have found out also—that to obtain even a hearing on the subject of religion from a Chinaman, who has been trained and brought up to be a superstitious idolater, very vain of his wisdom and antiquity as a nation, and to look upon Europeans as barbarians, is often a most difficult matter.

Eighteen years before Mr. Graham the elder went out to Peking as one of the first missionaries to China, and his only son, who had then just qualified for the medical profession, accompanied him. A year later, the father dying, his son returned at once to England, but with a changed mind, determined now to seek holy orders and enter the ministry, instead of following his profession,[13] so as by thus doing to add one more to the number of earnest clergy that his short stay in China had shown him were so much needed. To carry out his resolution, he went to Oxford to prepare, and soon after his ordination he married, and settled down, in the little country village, where we find him, surrounded by his little family.

Often since then had he contemplated leaving England for missionary work, but until now he had been prevented from carrying his wishes into effect.

His knowledge of medicine had not been lost to him, for many a sufferer in the little, yet wide-spreading country parish, who lived at too great a distance to send for the doctor for a slight ailment, had been very thankful, when the clergyman came in to read and pray with him, to learn from him what his slight ailment was, and how he could prevent its becoming a great one.

And this knowledge would be most helpful and invaluable in China, where Mr. Graham knew that the science of medicine was held in veneration by the inhabitants, and gained a ready admission to those who were glad to be cured of bodily ailments, but knew not how sick their souls were.

The missionary's slight acquaintance with the Chinese dialect, which, when time permitted, he had endeavoured to keep up, would also be of service to him when he arrived in China; for although the dialects of the south, where he was going, were very different from those of the north, the Mandarin, or Court language, spoken by the officials, was understood in every part.

"That's why father's been reading all those books lately with the pig-tail pictures in, and wonderful kites, and why he has been studying the language without[14] an alphabet," Leonard said, when he and his sister were again alone. "If I hadn't been at school so much, I expect I should have found out what was going to happen."

"I don't believe we should ever find out anything that father did not wish us to know, however much we wanted to do so," answered Sybil. "But isn't it splendid?—all but one thing, and that is having to leave everybody, and my best friend Lily Keith. I shan't like doing that at all."

"And I shall miss my friends too, of course," said Leonard; "but then I expect we shall make some new ones; and I thought you were so fond of writing letters. Why, you could write splendid ones from China, and tell Lily what we see, and perhaps mother would draw you some pictures for them, for she can draw anything, you know."

Sybil was comforted, for she was very fond of writing letters, and her friend, she knew, would be very glad to have some from China.

Directly after the six o'clock dinner was the children's hour with father, who, being a very busy man, had to regulate all his time; but this one hour a day belonged entirely to his family, and unless anything unforeseen happened, they had and claimed every moment of it.

Sybil came down-stairs first, and going up to her father, who was sitting by a large bow window, gazing out of it, with a very serious look on his face, she said with surprise as she kissed him: "You look sad, dear father. Aren't you glad to go to China?"

"Very glad, my darling," was the answer; "but I was just picturing to myself some farewells that[15] will have to be taken. I shall be very sorry, too, to say 'Good-bye' here, where our lives have been so blessed and our prayers so abundantly answered. We cannot help feeling sorry to leave our old friends, can we?"

"But you don't look, father," she continued, "as if that were all that you had been thinking."

"I dare say it was also about the work in which I am so soon to engage, for that, Sybil, is full of grave responsibility; but now I think it is my turn to ask what your thoughts are," he went on, for at that moment Sybil was looking quite as grave as, just before, her father could have looked.

"I was remembering two verses of a piece of poetry that I learnt last term at school, which I think must have been written for missionaries," she replied.

"Thank you, Sybil," said her father. "I am sure you will make a capital little missionary's daughter some day."

"To what part of China are we going, father?" she then asked; "to the same place where you were before?"

"No; quite in another direction. You know when I was last in China I was at Peking, in the north, and now I am to be in Hong-Kong, an island in the south; but we shall not go there direct, as I wish to take you to see several places before finally landing."

"Wait a minute, please, father," Sybil then exclaimed, "while I just fetch my map to look them out as you tell them to me." And as she spoke she ran off, to return the next minute with an atlas, in which she found these places as her father mentioned them: Shanghai, Amoy, the Island of Formosa, Swatow, Hong-Kong, Macao, and Canton.

"I wish, father, you would tell us some day all you can remember about Peking," then said Leonard, as he ran in and joined his father and sister, having till now been very busy, first coaxing his good friend the gardener to help him cut and put up some roosts in the fowl-house, and then showing his handiwork to his mother. "You[18] know what I mean: something like what you used to tell us."

"I will try to arouse up my memory, and tell you what I can on board ship, when we shall have, I[19] suppose, seven or eight weeks with very little to do, and when you will, no doubt, be glad of some true stories to while away the time."

"I wish we were going to start to-morrow," rejoined Leonard, who was, I am afraid, a boy without a particle of that virtue which we call "patience." He wanted his mother now to go into the poultry-yard with him to see the roosts he had, and as she liked to enter into all his pleasures and useful occupations, she was very pleased to go.

Before either of them came in again, Sybil had heard "the rest" from her father; that she and Leonard were, after a six months' long holiday in China, to return to England to continue their education. It was a terrible blow to her, to whom a long separation from her parents seemed almost like an impossibility. Her bright eyes filled with tears.

"It must be for a time, my darling, till your education is completed, as your mother and I both wish you to remain at the school where you are, but when school-days are over, about four years hence, I hope to be able to have you out with us. It will be longer for poor old Leonard, won't it?"

"Oh yes you do, Sybil," was the answer; "you like your father to be a missionary very much, you know, do you not?" Her mother had repeated this saying. "And, my child," he continued, "you know that it must be a dreadful trial for so very good and loving a mother as yours to part from her children; but now[20] that a call has come to me to do my Master's work in a foreign land, and she is helping me to obey it, you would not make her trial greater, would you, by letting her see you sad? Oh no! I know you would not; but you would help us to do our duty more bravely. Is it not so, my child?"

Sybil buried her face on her father's shoulder, and sobbed, but on seeing her mother coming up the garden towards them, she quickly wiped her tears away, and tried to look cheerful. Her father had gone wisely to work in giving her such a reason for trying to overcome her sorrow, and he knew that now she would set herself bravely to work to help, and not to hinder, her parents' undertaking.

And they were not to be parted for nearly another year, she said to herself, and meanwhile they were to have all sorts of enjoyments with their parents.

Mrs. Graham brought a message from Leonard for Sybil to go and see his roosts, which she at once obeyed, affectionately kissing her mother as she passed her. That was to say that she knew, and a great deal more.

Another piece of news Sybil now conveyed to Leonard, and as she told it, even he could not tell that it made her very unhappy. I wonder if he believed at once this time!

CHAPTER II.

As far as money was concerned, Mr. Graham had no anxieties, for being the only son of a very wealthy man, who had lost his wife some time before he died himself, Mr. Graham had, at his father's death, inherited the whole of his large fortune.

"Now, father, don't you think it's high time you began to tell us about old Peking?" Leonard said, a few days after they had sailed. "I did not ask you at first, because we had plenty to do to look about us, but now that there's nothing in the world but water to see anywhere, we should so like to hear some stories; so please begin, if it won't trouble you too much."

And sitting on deck, with Sybil on his right and Leonard on his left, Mr. Graham did as he was requested, and gave his children what they considered[22] a very interesting description of a portion of that vast empire which they were so soon to visit. "The Chinese," he began, "are a very ancient race, so ancient, indeed, that the origin of their monarchy is not known."

"Do you mind waiting one minute, father, just to tell me a thing I have forgotten, and you told me once?" Leonard asked. "What does the word China mean?"

"The ancient name for China, Tien-sha, means 'inferior only to heaven.' Chinese history begins with the fabulous ages, two or three million years ago, when the Chinese say that no land but theirs was inhabited, and gods reigned upon the earth, which was made for them. After the gods, they tell us, came mythical kings, who were giants, had the power of working miracles, and lived for thousands of years; but it is really supposed that the first people who passed beyond the deserts of Central Asia settled in the province of Shen-si, which borders on Tartary, and here laid the foundation of the present monarchy of China.

"Some Chinese historians think that their first mortal Emperor was Fuh-hi, whose date of coming to the throne is fixed as early as 2,852 years b.c. He is described as possessing great virtues, and was called by his subjects the 'Son of heaven'—a title which is still given to Emperors of China, who are foolishly supposed, by some of their subjects, to be of celestial origin. He is said to have taught them how to keep laws and to live peaceably, also to have invented the arts of music and numbers. Certainly the Chinese have understood music from very early ages, and class it among the chief of the sciences.

"They have at least fifty different kinds of wind and string musical instruments, made of wood, stone, or metal,[24] and they play a great deal, but especially upon their fiddle instruments. They do not like our music at all.

"But now we must go back to a little more Chinese history. There is nothing to prove that the Chinese existed as a nation before the time of Yu the Great, whose date of accession is said to be 2,285 years b.c., and he is also included in the Legendary Period to which Fuh-hi belongs. After the Legendary Period came the Semi-Historical Period in Chinese history; the really Historical Period dating from the early part of the eighth century before Christ.

"Different dynasties succeeded each other, till from the years 500 to 200 b.c. many petty kings, reigning over various provinces, waged war against one another. At length a fierce warrior, named Ching-wang, went to war with, and conquered, all of them, and made himself master of the whole empire, about 200 years b.c., his government comprising about the northern half of modern China. He was the first monarch of the dynasty called Tsin, or Chin. Next he turned his arms against the Tartars, who were a portion of those people whom we read of in history by the name of Huns, and who were now making constant inroads into China. They were capital soldiers—I believe every Tartar has now to be a soldier—and as the Chinese dreaded them very much, the Emperor thought out a way to keep them off. He erected a great wall along the whole extent of the northern frontier of China, of very great height, thickness, and strength, made of two walls of brick many feet apart, the space between them being, for half the length of the wall, filled up with earth, and the other half with gravel and rubbish. On it were square towers, which were erected at about a hundred yards' distance from[25] one another. Some say this wall extended 1,500 miles from the sea to the most western provinces of Shen-si; McCulloch says it is 1,250 miles in length. It was carried over mountains and across rivers. Six horsemen could ride abreast upon it. But there was great cruelty practised in its construction, for the Emperor obliged every third labouring man in the kingdom to work at this wall without payment.

"It took five years to finish, and has now existed for more than two thousand years. It is called Wan-li-chang, or Myriad-mile Wall."

"No; the little Emperor Tsai-tien, born in 1871, and now on the throne, is, I believe, a descendant of theirs. He is called Kwang-su, which means 'Continuation of glory.'"

"No; the ablest or best son is generally chosen. Ching-wang seemed to think that he was master of the whole universe, and called himself Che-Hwang-ti, or First Emperor; and then to try to show that he was the founder of the monarchy, he had, as he thought, all the historical documents burnt that could prove otherwise, but did not succeed, for some that had been hidden behind the walls of houses were found after his death."

"Yes; the material in the Great Wall, including the earth in the middle of it, is said to be more than enough to surround the circumference of the earth, on two of its great circles, with two walls of six feet high and two feet thick. Guards are stationed in the strong towers by which the wall is fortified; every important pass having a strong fortress."

"About twenty feet; and there are steps of brick and stone for men on foot to ascend, and slanting places for the cavalry."

"I shall like to see Chinese soldiers," Leonard said. "Did you ever see them at drill, father?"

"I remember very well seeing a regiment of artillery at gun-drill one day, but I believe there has been a new armament of Chinese artillery since my time. I suppose[28] you know, children," then said Mr. Graham, "that Peking ranks——"

"For the number of its inhabitants," Sybil said quickly, "as the second city in the world, only London having more inhabitants, Paris about the same number."

"Yes; and as Peking was built many centuries before the Christian era, it is a very old city. The name Peking means Court of the North. After the conquest by the Tartars of the kingdom of Yen, of which Peking was the capital, it became only a provincial town, when, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, it was again made the capital of China. The Chinese sovereigns used to live at Nanking, but when the Tartars had so often invaded the country, they removed to the northern province, to enable them the more easily to keep out the invaders."

"On our Chinese umbrella that we had in the dining-room fireplace at home," said Sybil, "there was, I remember, a picture of Peking, and some water was close by it, but I cannot remember what river Peking is on."

"It is situated in a large sandy plain on the Tunghui, a small tributary of the Peiho. This city is again divided into the Chinese and Tartar cities, the Imperial city, in which live the Emperor and his retainers, and another in which the court officials have their residence.

"Like all other Chinese cities, they are surrounded by high walls. At the north, south, east, and west sides of towns are large folding-gates, which are often further secured by three inner gates. The one in the south is that of honour, through which the Emperor passes, but which is usually kept closed at other times.[29]

"The wall of Peking, which is sixteen miles round, has two gates on three sides and three on the other, of which the principal is Chean-Mun, at the south of the Tartar city. Over the gate is a building occupied by soldiers, who are there for purposes of defence.

"The streets in Peking are very broad; we shall find them much narrower in the south of China. They are raised in the centre, and covered with a kind of stone, to form a smooth, hard surface. In summer they are often, I remember, very dusty, and during the rainy seasons very dirty. At the end of each street is a wooden barrier,[32] which is guarded day and night by soldiers. The barrier is closed at nine o'clock at night, after which time the Chinese are only allowed to pass through if they have a very good reason to give for being out so late.

"Order is well kept in the streets of Peking by the soldiers and police, who may use their whips on troublesome customers whenever they think it necessary to do so.

"The principal streets, or main thoroughfares, extending from one end of the city to the other, are its only outlets. Trees grow in several of these streets. Houses, in which the inhabitants live, are in smaller streets or lanes, the houses themselves being often shut in by walls.

"Pagodas (which, you know, are temples to heathen gods, built in the form of towers), monasteries, and churchyards, are all outside the walls, and the city itself is principally kept for purposes of commerce."

"We know what pagodas are like," Leonard said, "because we had two at home for ornaments. I think we know many things through being so fortunate as to have a father who has travelled."

"There is a great noise in some of the streets," Mr. Graham went on: "for instance, in the Hata-mène-ta-kie, where many people are to be seen bustling about and talking very loudly to one another. Tents are here put up in which rice, fruit, and other things are sold, and any one wishing for a pretty substantial meal can be supplied with it in the Hata-mène-ta-kie, for before stoves stand the vendors of such meals, who have cooked them ready for purchasers. Other tradesmen carry hampers, slung across their shoulders, in which they keep their goods,[33] whilst they call out, from time to time, to let people know what these hampers contain. Carts, horses, mules, wheel-barrows, and sedan-chairs pass along, the whole place seeming to be alive with buyers and sellers.[34] The cobbler is sure to be somewhere close at hand in his movable workshop, and first here and then there, as may best suit himself and employers, the blacksmith pitches his tent, which sometimes consists of a large umbrella; whilst, again, people can refresh themselves, if they do not care for a heavier meal, with some soup or a patty at a soup stall.

"And the barber does not forget that he is a very useful person. There, in the open streets, he communicates, by the tinkling of a little bell, the fact that he is ready to shave the heads and arrange the cues or pig-tails of those who may require his services; and as one man after another takes the seat that has been put ready for him, the barber not only shaves and plaits, but also frequently paints his customer's eyebrows and gives his clothes a brush."

"Father, why do Chinamen wear pig-tails?" here broke in Leonard, who, with Sybil, was very much interested in what he heard.

"After they were conquered by the Tartars they were obliged to wear them, to show that they were in subjection to their conquerors; but now the pig-tail is held in honour, and the longer it will grow the better pleased is the Chinese gentleman who wears it. Some very bad criminals have their tails cut off as a great punishment and disgrace.

"Well, what should you like to hear now?" Mr. Graham asked, after a little pause.

"Most of those in China are quite open in front; where we are going I suppose we shall see very few, if any, shop-windows at all, but in Peking many of the shops have glass windows. In China there are certain[36] streets for certain shops, where the different branches of trade have generally their own sides of the road. A shop is called a hong. Sometimes the master sits outside, waiting for his customers to arrive.

"At the door of each hong are sign-boards, upon which are painted in gold, or coloured letters, a motto instead of a name, and what the shop offers for sale.

"I do not think," Mr. Graham then said, drawing, as he spoke, a little representation of a sign-board out of his pocket-book, "that I ever showed you this."

On another piece of paper Mr. Graham pointed out to them the following interpretation:

"The three first large characters, which form the motto, may be taken to signify that 'Heaven favours the prudent.' The other smaller characters designate the nature of the business, a cushion and matting[38] manufactory; the last character, without which no sign-board is complete, meaning shop or factory."

"I shall like to see these sign-boards very much when we get to China," Sybil said. "I should think they must make the streets look very pretty."

Mr. Graham had illustrated several things which he had told the children by some pictures which he had brought on board with him.

Leonard was now looking again at that of Chean Mun, or Chean Gate, for Mun means gate.

"I have been noticing, father," he then said, "that all the carts in this picture have only two wheels."

"I never saw any in China with more," was the answer. "Both shut and open carts (the latter being used as carriages) have all two wheels. Those in common use are made of wood, the body of the cart resting on an[39] axle-tree, supported by the wheels. Horses and mules are very little used in China, except for travelling and for conveying luggage long distances. I remember also noticing that horses and ponies require very little guiding in China. Sometimes they go without reins, when their masters will perhaps walk beside them, carrying a whip. I have also seen very polite drivers, who, whenever they met a friend, jumped off their carts and walked on foot to pass one another.

"Government servants generally use ponies, but as[40] China is so densely populated—having, it has been estimated, about four hundred million inhabitants, and people find it so hard to obtain enough to support themselves and families—they keep as few beasts of burden as[41] possible. The farmer employs the bullock a great deal, and in the north of China the camel is also much used.

"Much trade is carried on by boats, and where there is no water, and farmers are without other conveyances, they will sometimes push their wives along the roads in wheel-barrows, sons giving their parents similar drives. There are but few carriage-roads in many parts of China."

"They cannot afford to do so, because to make them bread-producing land would have to be done away with."

"What a number of rivers and bays there are in China!" said Sybil, who was again examining her map. "And I see the Great Wall crosses the Hwang-ho."

"And that's the fifth largest river in the world," Leonard answered. "Only the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, and Yantze-kiang are larger; and the Grand Canal in China is the very largest canal in the world."

"I learnt once, too, that Hwang-ho meant 'Chinese sorrow.' Why is it called that?"

"Because it has altered its course, which has caused great loss and inconvenience to the Chinese."

"Why do so many Chinese rivers end in ho and kiang?" he then asked, looking over Sybil's map.

"Both words mean river—the Yantze and the Hwang rivers. And the Chinese have all kinds of boats for use on their rivers. Here, my boy, is a picture of a Chinese junk. Look at it well, and see if you can discover anything peculiar about it."[42]

Leonard looked for some time. "It has sails," he answered, "like butterflies' wings."

"But the kites are what I want to see so much," said Leonard, as though the sails had reminded him of them again. "What are the most peculiar of them like?"

"Like birds, insects, animals, clusters of birds, gods on clouds: all kinds of things, in fact, are represented by these kites, which the Chinese are most clever in making, and also in flying. I have seen old men, of about seventy years of age, thoroughly enjoying flying their kites. The Chinese do not care much for your, and my, favourite games, Leonard: cricket and football."

"They are very fond of battledore and shuttlecock, but instead of using a battledore they hit the shuttlecock with their heads, elbows, or feet. Seven or eight children play together, and nearly always aim the shuttlecock rightly. Girls play at this game too, in spite of their small feet. Tops, balls, see-saws, and quoits are also favourite toys and games amongst the Chinese."

"I remember," Sybil said, "a girl at school having a Chinese shuttlecock, and that was like a bird."

"Puppet-shows for one thing I remember, which they exhibit in the streets, as we do 'Punch and Judy.' The pictures in these shows are exhibited by means of strings, which are either worked from behind or from above the stand, and as the people look through a glass, the views are displayed to them. A man standing at the side calls out loudly, and beats a little[43] gong to summon people to attend the show. And now I think, as I am rather tired for to-day, I shall beat a little gong to dismiss you from the show," Mr. Graham said, smiling, as he turned towards his children, who never seemed to grow tired of listening.

"Very well, father; we will go now, and let you rest," Sybil replied, standing up. "Thank you so much. To-morrow, you know, we shall come to the show again, so please remember to sound the gong in good time." And off they bounded, leaving Mr. Graham at liberty to go and seek his wife, who was then lying down in her cabin.

CHAPTER III.

"I will try to do so," was the answer; "but I think what you hear may puzzle you a good deal, for they have very strange creeds."

"Very few indeed; but then he was one of our very first missionaries to Peking, so was most thankful for the very little which he was enabled to do.

"I remember two men for whose conversion from Buddhism he often gave thanks. One was a citizen of Tientsin, where we landed on our way to the capital.[46]

"This good fellow, who was then a very questionable character, was smoking his pipe in a most indifferent manner, when my father, through his teacher, first addressed him. Missionaries in China, you know, have teachers of the dialects."

"Of course. Well, this man would not listen at all at first, and was very angry at my father's interference; but after a while we met him again at Peking, and in time both he and his wife learnt to believe, and to long for Christian baptism, before receiving which they not only left off worshipping their family idols, but even destroyed them. A short time ago I heard that this man had become a native lay teacher, and was a great help to the mission, as he could, of course, always make himself understood to his own countrymen, who were also not unlikely to be won by his example."

"Li-Hung. He was a much older man, and was sitting, I remember, the day we first saw him, in a field, resting from his work, and as he caught sight of my father he began to call him all sorts of names, amongst which was to be heard very often that of 'foreign devil.' I believe he even looked for stones to throw at us. Your grandfather—always a very quiet, self-possessed man—just dropped some tracts at his side, translated into Chinese. We often saw Li-Hung again, and though he gave us much trouble, a month before my father died he had the happiness also of witnessing this man's conversion to the true faith."[47]

"He was; but I think now I have something rather interesting to tell you of our journey from Tientsin to Peking. We went in carts drawn by two mules, one in front of the other, and at night we slept at inns, where, I think, you would like to hear about our sleeping accommodation. It was winter, and as the Peking winter is cold, people there, to make themselves warm at night, sleep on kangs. As these were different at both inns to which we went, I will tell you about both.

"In one the kang consisted of a platform built of brick, so much larger than a bed that several people could sleep on it at once. A kind of tunnel passed through the platform, which had a chimney at one end, whilst at the other end, a little while before bed-time, a small quantity of dry fuel was set on fire, when the flame passed through the tunnel and out of the chimney. In this way the kang was warmed, when felt matting was put upon it. Here we lay down, and were covered over with a kind of cotton-wool counterpane.[48]

"The kang in the other inn was warmed by a little stove from underneath, which also served in the day-time for cooking purposes, when the bed-clothes were removed from the kang, on which mats, and even little tables, were also sometimes put, until it became a sofa; so it was very useful."

"Oh, do let us hear just a little more about Peking and Tientsin first," Leonard answered. "How far is Tientsin from the capital?"

Leonard considered. "It must be an important one, I should think, as it carries things, doesn't it, from the sea-coast to near to Peking?"

"It is only a river of secondary importance, but the principal one of the province of Pe-chili. Now for its name." Sybil referred to her map.

"The Pei-ho, of course," they exclaimed together. "And I suppose there is ever so much traffic on it?" Leonard said; "with no end of ships to be seen?"

"Yes, a good many may be seen there. I have a picture of boats on the River Pei-ho."

"What sort of flags do Chinese boats have, father? I do not see any hoisted here."

"The Imperial Navy is divided into river and sea-going vessels, the former consisting of 1,900 ships, the latter of 918; and there are 188,000 sailors. Ships in the Imperial Navy generally fly a flag at the main, on which red lines are drawn, or sometimes a tri-colour is hoisted there instead. Red would, I suppose, be for safety, as[50] this is the 'lucky' colour of the Chinese. At the stern of the vessel I remember seeing the name of the official who directs and superintends the ship."

"Yes; for the treaty of June 26th, 1858, between the Chinese and British, some of the terms of which were that the Christian religion should be protected by Chinese authorities, that British subjects should be allowed to travel in the country for pleasure or business, under passports issued by their consul, and that the Queen might acquire a building site at Peking."

"Very well; but you must pay great attention to what I say, or you will not understand. Most of the Chinese are either Confucianists, Buddhists, or Taouists, although there are also Jews and Mahometans amongst them. At one time it is supposed that the people of China had really a knowledge of the true God, and that when they worshipped, in much the same sort of manner as did the patriarchs, Him whom they call Wang-teen, or Shang-ti, which means Supreme Ruler, they worshipped God.

"But mixing with this an idolatrous worship of departed ancestors, they nearly lost sight of the Supreme Ruler, the jealous God, Who, we know, claims all our worship.

"About the latter half of the sixth century before Christ, Confucius, a great and clever philosopher of China, who was born 551 b.c., wrote and put together books that held very moral and good maxims, afterwards called 'The Classics.'

"He taught that men must always be obedient to those to whom they are in subjection: people to prince, child to parent, filial piety being enforced before every other duty. He was very anxious to improve the manners of the people; but women he ranked very low. Confucianism is—but perhaps you will not understand this—more a philosophy than a religion. Its followers have no particular form of worship, and no priesthood. The Pearly Emperor, Supreme Ruler, is their deity, but worship is seldom offered to him, and then only by a few.

"Although Confucius disapproved very much of idols, after he was dead many of his followers worshipped him.[52]

"Confucianists do not believe in a future state of rewards and punishments, but think that their good and bad deeds will be rewarded here by riches or poverty, long or short life, good or bad health. Conscience[53] is to lead people aright, and tell them when they do wrong.

"The high mandarins and literary people are generally Confucianists; school-boys also worship an idol or tablet of the sage, in which his spirit is supposed to dwell.

"There is a temple to the honour of 'The Great Teacher' in every large town; and on great occasions, and always in spring-time and autumn, sacrifices are here offered, the Emperor himself, as high priest, presiding at these two ceremonies in Peking, the chief mandarins of his court giving him assistance. In temples of Confucius idols are very seldom to be seen.

"The Confucianists are taught that man was originally good, his nature being given by heaven, and that sin came through union of the soul with matter."

"Chinese officials, of which there are many grades, and many in each grade, all of whom are paid by Government. To every province there is a viceroy, to every city a governor, and to the village a mandarin, who is elected to rule over it for three years; and all these, again, have many officers under them. There are also a great many military mandarins. A great mark of imperial favour is to allow mandarins, civil or military, to wear a peacock's feather in their caps, which hangs down over the back, and the ball placed on the top shows, by its colour and material, the rank of the wearer. Soldiers fighting very bravely are often buoyed up with the hope of receiving one of these feathers.

"Mandarins, who stand in a sort of fatherly relationship towards their people, although they do not always[54] behave like fathers towards them, look for implicit obedience from them."

"Can a mandarin be punished when he does wrong?" Leonard asked. "And what sort of dress does he wear?"

"He can be punished when he does wrong; and as well as I can remember, those mandarins that I saw, who were in high office, wore a long, loose robe of blue silk, embroidered with gold threads. This reached to their ankles, being fastened round their waists with a belt. Over this was a violet tunic, coming just below the knees, which had very wide, long sleeves, usually worn turned back, but if not, hanging over the hands."[55]

"Will you please go on about the religion now, father?" Sybil then said. "You had just told us that the Confucianists were taught that man was made good."

"Yes; and their worship is paid almost entirely to their ancestors, which worship they look upon as a continuation of the reverence they had been taught to show them while on earth. I will tell you more about ancestral worship presently.

"Many people, as you can well understand, were not satisfied with Confucianism as a religion, as it could not satisfy their spiritual wants, especially as the Pearly Emperor, or Supreme Ruler, generally looked upon as the highest divinity worshipped by the Chinese, might only be approached by the Emperor and his court; so another sect sprang up, having a philosopher named La-outze, who was born 604 b.c., for its founder. He thought that to grow perfect he must seclude himself from other people, and in his retirement was always looking for the Taou-le, the meaning of which you will hardly understand—the cause or the end of all things. His followers are called Taouists. This philosopher says in his book that 'it is by stillness, and contemplation, and union with Taou, that virtue is to be achieved'—Taou here meaning a principle and a way. He said that virtue consisted in losing sight of oneself, and that man should love even his enemies, and go through life as if none of his possessions belonged to himself. The Taouists say that 'Taou is without substance, and eternal, and the universe coming from him exists in the silent presence of Taou everywhere,' and that only those who become very virtuous are happy.

"La-outze is now worshipped by the Taouists as the[56] third of a trinity of persons, called 'The Three Pure Ones.'

"He is said, when born, to have had long white hair, and is therefore represented as an old man, and called 'old boy.' The Chinese assert that his mother was fed with food from heaven, and that when he was born he jumped up into the air, and said, as he pointed with his left hand to heaven and his right hand to the earth, 'Heaven above, earth beneath: only Taou is honourable.' The Taouist trinity are supposed to live in the highest heaven; and Taouists used to spend a great deal of time in seeking for a drink that they thought would make them live for ever. Subduing evil is by some of them supposed to secure immortality to the soul.

"Their priests are often very ignorant men, but they are believed in by the people, and are employed by them to perform superstitious rites."

"Oh, father! Isn't it a dreadful pity that they should believe so many things like Christians, even in a trinity, and the duty of loving one's enemies, and only be heathens after all?"

"It is indeed; but the more we see of heathens, Sybil, the more we shall notice how they cannot help feeling after truth and grasping some parts of it, which seem as though they were a very necessity to religion. These Taouist priests are often called in by the people to exorcise, or drive away, evil spirits, to cure sick people and commune with the dead."

"Oh, father! I do so like this Peep-show. Please tell us now about the people of the other sect."

"They are the Buddhists, who also worship a trinity; indeed, Taouists are thought to have taken that idea from them. As early as 250 b.c. Buddhist[58] missionaries came over from India to China, but the religion did not really take root until an emperor named Hing, of the Han dynasty, introduced it, in the first century of the Christian era, about 66 a.d. This emperor is said to have seen in a dream, in the year of our Lord 61, an image of a foreign god coming into his palace, and in consequence he was advised to adopt the religion of Buddha, when he sent to India for an idol and some priests. Towards the end of the thirteenth century there were more than 4,200 Buddhist temples in China, and more than 213,000 monks. The Buddhist trinity is called Pihte, or the Three Precious Ones: Buddha Past, Buddha Present, and Buddha Future, and dreadfully ugly idols they are. The Buddhist's idea of heaven is Nirvâna, or rest, or more properly speaking, extinction. The Chinese Buddhist thinks that a man possesses three souls or spirits, one of which accompanies the body to the grave, another passes into his ancestral tablet to be worshipped, and the third enters into one, or all, of the ten kingdoms of the Buddhistic hell, into which people pass after death, there to receive punishments according to the lives they have led upon earth. From the tenth kingdom they pass back to earth, to inhabit the form of a man, beast, bird, or insect, as they may have deserved, unless during life a man has attained to a certain state of perfection, when he mounts to the highest heaven, and perhaps becomes a god or buddha. But even from the Western Paradise a spirit has sometimes to return to earth. Should a man have been good in all the various lives that he has lived, he is supposed to attain, I believe, to this Nirvâna, or extinction."

"What a wonderful belief!" Sybil said. "So they cannot believe at all in the immortality of the soul?"[59]

"I dare say you will see a good many when you get to China. They live together in monasteries, sometimes in great numbers, and these monasteries are prettily situated, surrounded by lakes and gardens. They consist of a number of small buildings, to the principal of which is a large entrance, that has inscriptions on either side of the gateway."[60]

"Very often, I am afraid, just the reverse; but this is not to be wondered at, for criminals in China, to escape from justice, will sometimes shave their heads, and seek refuge by becoming Buddhist priests. When they take their vows—some taking nine, some twelve—for each one a cut is made in their arms to help them to remember it. Some of the vows resemble the commandments setting forth our duty towards our neighbour. A Buddhist priest, in China, wears a wide turn-over collar; when he officiates he often dresses in a yellow robe made of silk or cotton,[62] but he is only allowed to wear silk when he does officiate. At other times his garments are of white or ash colour, or he wears a long, grey cowl with flowing sleeves. Buddhist priests shave all their hair two or three times a month. They think it is of great use to repeat their classics very often to the gods, and keep an account of the number of times they say them on their beads. I fancy they use brooms wherewith to sprinkle holy water. There are four special commandments for Buddhists, both priests and people: not to destroy animal life, not to steal, not to speak falsely, and not to drink wine. In monasteries the refectories of the priests are very large, and they have all to sit at dinner, so that the abbot, who is at their head, can see their faces. They are called to breakfast and dinner by a gong, where they have to appear in their cowls. Gongs are very much used in China, and are to be seen at all the temples. When the priest, who presides, comes in, they all rise, and putting their hands together, say grace. After the food has been so blessed, some is put outside as an offering to the fowls of the air. During dinner the priests may not speak, and on the walls of the refectory are boards, on which are written warnings, such as not to eat too quickly; also the rules of the monastery."

"That would not have done for you, Leonard, when you thought you would be late for school, and gobbled your dinner anyhow," said Sybil.

"So many that it would be impossible to say, and the Celestials (as the Chinese are often called, from naming their country the Celestial Land) are not[64] particular how they worship them; Taouists, for instance, worshipping those who are peculiarly Buddhist divinities, and Buddhists invoking, in return, their gods. Indeed, the three religions have so borrowed from one another, and people have believed so much as they liked, that the Chinese themselves often do not know to which religion they belong, and are either all or none, pretty well as they choose. The Buddhism of China is not at all the pure Buddhism, and has been much corrupted by its professors."

"An Indian prince, of beautiful character, born 620 b.c., and called Shâkyamuni Buddha, who left wealth and luxury to go about relieving suffering wherever he found it. After he died his followers believed that he was transformed into a god, having three different forms."

"A god of rain; a god of wind; a god of thunder; a god of wealth, the latter worshipped very much by tradesmen; a god of thieves; a goddess of thunder; a guardian goddess of women and little children, called Kum-fa, whose ten attendants watch over children, helping them to eat, and teaching them to smile and walk; a god of wine; a god of fire; a goddess of mercy; a goddess of sailors; a goddess of children, called 'Mother'; a god of the kitchen; a god of measles, a god of small-pox. Then the Confucianists worship two stars, who are supposed to look after literature and drawing, the former called the god of literature. And besides household gods belonging to every family, there are a god of the passing year, and numerous others. Many of the gods are deified persons who once lived on earth."[65]

"What a number!" Sybil said. "But who, then, is the great Lama? You have not told us anything about him yet, and I heard you speaking about him the other day."

"There is another form of Buddhism, called Lamaism, and this, though it prevails principally in Thibet and Mongolia, has also its followers in Peking. The Great Lama, or Living Buddha, is the head of this."

"Yes; but his soul is said never to die; therefore, when he dies it is supposed to pass into an infant whom the priests select by a likeness that they trace to the late Lama. I one day saw worship going on in a Lama temple."

"Have you a picture of it, father?" Leonard asked, who was getting a little tired of these descriptions, which Sybil liked so much.

"Yes, and I think it a very good one. In the centre, facing the worshippers, is a very large idol indeed of Buddha. To the right and left of the temple are smaller idols. Some gods in temples do not receive worship, but guard the doors. Incense is burning in front; the high priest, to the right, is lifting up his hands in adoration, whilst the people offer scented rods and tapers to Buddha. As they light their offerings they kow-tow, or hit their heads upon the floor. This is the Chinese way of reverent, respectful salutation. The devotees are grouped in squares.

"Then I forgot to tell you that the Sun and Moon are also worshipped. Whilst in Peking, I went to a temple of the Moon. It was on the day of the autumnal equinox, when, at six o'clock in the evening, a very solemn sacrifice is offered, and the great ladies of the capital meet[67] to burn their tapers. I approached this temple by a long avenue of beautiful trees. The temple was large; but I noticed that more women than men had come to attend the ceremonies."

"I thought the Chinese were clever people," Sybil said; "if so, how can they believe in so many gods?"

"They have been trained to do so. They feel, I suppose, that they must offer worship, and until a real knowledge of the true God can be planted in their midst, they will remain slaves to idolatry. Many of the more enlightened heathen, I believe, only regard their idols as representations of the Deity they are feeling after, and not really as the Deity Himself; although I fear many of the simpler sort, in different degrees, regard their idols with great religious awe. Then, many a Chinaman, again, will so often seem to have no religion at all!"

"It is very difficult to find words, in their language, clearly to bring home to them the great truths of the Bible; and Confucius having for nearly twenty centuries held such a sway over their minds, they do not care to listen to new teachers."

"I am so glad the Bible is now translated into Chinese, and that you are taking some copies out with you. But how old these people must be!"

"The Chinese are a very ancient race, and had a literature 700 years before Christ. They are very fond and proud of their country."

"The Church Missionary Society, at her six chief stations of Hong-Kong, Foo-Chow, Ningpo, Hang-Chow, Shaou-hing, and Shanghai, now numbers 4,667 native followers, and 1,702 communicants, of whom nine are native clergymen and 174 native Christian teachers. In China altogether there are 40,000 Christian adherents. But what are these, when we think that this vast empire alone contains 400,000,000 people, one-third of the human race?"

"They will listen to you, father," Sybil said, looking up very brightly. Sybil was a child who thought that there was nobody, except her own mother, in the whole world to compare with her father.

"Some have pig-tails, but some parents allow just a tuft of hair to grow on a boy's head until he is eight or ten years old, and shave the rest. Sometimes he wears the tuft longer; and I have also seen girls wearing it on one or both sides of their heads."

"I know little babies of three days old often have their wrists tied with red cotton cord, to which a charm is hung, which is, I suppose, to bring it prosperity or drive away from it evil spirits. At a month old its head is shaved for the first time, when, if its mother does not shave it, a hair-dresser has to wear red in which to do it.[70] A boy is shaved before the ancestral tablet, but a girl before an image of the goddess of children called 'Mother,' and thank-offerings are on this day presented to the goddess."

"It consists of a piece of wood or stone, which is meant to represent the dead. As I told you, one of the spirits of a dead man is supposed to enter the tablet, and the more this is worshipped the happier the spirit is supposed to be. On this tablet are names and inscriptions, which sometimes represent several ancestors. After a certain time (I think the fifth generation) the tablet is no longer worshipped, as by that time the spirit is supposed to have passed into another body."

"Thank you. I understand that now," Sybil said. "Does anything else happen on the grand shaving day?"

"Presents of painted ducks' eggs, cakes, and other things are sent to the baby, and when it is four months old 'Mother' is thanked again, and prayed to make the child grow fast, sleep well, and be good-tempered." Sybil and Leonard laughed. "On this day the child also sits for the first time in a chair, when his grandmother, his mother's mother, who has to give him a great many presents, sends him some soft kind of sugar-candy, which is put upon the chair, and when this has stuck the baby is put upon it, and I suppose his clothes then stick to it also."

"What a fashion to learn to sit in a chair!" Leonard said. "And what's done on his first birthday?"

"Another thank-offering is presented to 'Mother,' more presents come, and the baby has to sit in front of a number of things, such as ink, pens, scales, pencils, tools,[71] books, fruit, gold, or anything the parents like to arrange before him, and whatever he catches hold of first will show them what his future character or occupation is likely to be.

"But the worst part has now to come. As soon as the poor little fellow can learn anything, he is taught to worship 'Mother' and other idols, before which he has to bow down, and raise up his little hands, whilst candles and incense are burnt in their honour. So it is no wonder that as he grows older he learns his lesson thoroughly. At sixteen children are supposed to leave childhood behind them, and there is a ceremony for this."[72]

"In some parts of China there are, I believe, a few schools for young ladies, and instruction is given to them by tutors at home; but although two or three Chinese ladies have been celebrated for great literary attainments, these are quite the exceptions, and there are only a very few schools for any girls in China, except the mission schools. Those for boys abound all over the country."

"Yes, into several, where I saw many a little intelligent-looking boy working very hard at his lessons. One little boy, named Yuen-Shuh, told me that he meant to get all the literary honours that he could. Chinese boys are not allowed to talk at all in school-hours. Each boy has a desk at which to sit, which is so arranged that he cannot speak to the boy next to him. Little Yuen-Shuh had been to school since he was six years old.

"Another boy was saying a lesson when I went in, and therefore standing with his back to his teacher. Boys always say their lessons like this, and it is called 'backing the book.' The teacher, as they repeat their lessons, puts down their marks. When learning their lessons they repeat them aloud. There are higher schools into which older boys pass, and the great aim of the Chinese is to take literary honours, as nothing else can give them a position of high rank; but even a peasant taking these honours would rank as a gentleman."

His father, having promised to do so, went on[74] to say to Leonard: "Parents are very particular as to their choice of a schoolmaster, who must be considered good, as well as able to teach; and to qualify himself the master must, of course, know the doctrines of the ancient sages. After all has been settled for a boy to go to school, the parents always invite the schoolmaster to a dinner, given expressly for him. Then a fortune-teller is asked to decide upon a 'lucky' day for the boy to make his first appearance at school, when he takes the tutor a present. No boy ever goes to school first on the anniversary of the day on which Confucius died or was buried. On entering school, he turns to the shrine of Confucius—an altar erected to his honour in every school—and worships him, after which he salutes his teacher very respectfully, hears what he has to do, and goes to his desk."

"At the new year and in the autumn there are always holidays, but children also go home to keep all religious festivals, to celebrate the birthdays of parents and grandparents, to worship their tablets, and at the tombs of ancestors. Very often schoolmasters are men who have toiled very hard at their books, and yet have not succeeded in taking a very high degree, but sometimes having done so, they choose teaching for their profession. Children are very much punished in China when they break school-rules. Perhaps the punishment they fear most is to be beaten with a broom, because they think that this may make them unlucky for the rest of their lives."

"And they can never have an alphabet to learn," Sybil said, "when they first go to school, as there is not one."[75]

"No; instead of letters and words, they have to learn, and master, characters. In some schools children learn names first; in others they have reading lessons, where all the sentences consist of three characters. As soon as possible they are set to learn the classic on 'Filial Piety.'"

"Those of the richer classes are surrounded by a high wall, and composed of a number of rooms, generally on one floor. In large cities some houses have another storey; but the Chinese think it 'unlucky' to live above ground."

"The Chinese seem to think everything either lucky or unlucky," Sybil said; "it does seem silly. I do not wonder that you always told me not to say that word. I don't think I shall ever want to say it again now; and I used to say it rather often, usen't I? But I did not mean to interrupt you, so please go on now."

"Some houses are very large, which they have to be, in order to accommodate several branches of the same family, who often live together in different parts of them.

"There are generally three doors of entrance to a house, of which the principal, in the centre, leads to the reception hall, into which visitors are shown. I have seen the walls of rooms hung with white silk or satin, on which sentences of good advice were written. All sorts of beautiful lanterns hang from the sitting-room ceilings, sometimes by silk cords. The furniture consists principally of chairs, tables, pretty screens and cabinets, with many porcelain ornaments, and fans are very numerous in a Chinese household. Most houses have[77] very beautiful gardens; even the poor try to have their houses surrounded by as much ground as possible. Many houses also have verandahs, where the Chinaman likes to smoke his evening pipe. Indeed, women, even ladies, smoke pipes in China. I have a picture of a verandah scene in the south of China."

"You were saying the other day, father, that Chinese people smoke something else besides tobacco?" Leonard then asked.

"The juice of the poppy, which, after being made into a solid form, is boiled down with water."

"You shall hear all about it, and then judge for yourself. The opium-smoker, whilst engaged with his pipe, thinks of, and cares for, nothing else in the whole world besides, and generally lies down to give himself up to its more full enjoyment. Holding his pipe over the flame of a small oil-lamp beside him, he lights the opium, and then gently draws in the vapour which proceeds from it. Sometimes people smoke in their own houses, and sometimes they resort to horrid places regularly set apart for opium-smoking. In Hong-Kong, where we are going, there will be many an opium-smoker who will buy this drug in quantities when he cannot even afford to purchase clothing.

"If a man make a practice of smoking opium at stated times, even should these times not be very frequent, he so acquires the habit of smoking, that if, when the[79] pipe be due it is not forthcoming, he is quite unable to do his work, and wastes all his time thinking of and longing for his pipe. The habit is sometimes acquired in less than a fortnight. Opium may first be taken in a small quantity to cure toothache; the small quantity leads to large quantities; the large quantities, or even small ones taken regularly, lead at last to the man becoming an habitual opium-smoker: and this means that the victim's health becomes injured, and that he is unfit for any work. If he then leave off his opium, he becomes ill, has dreadful pain, which sometimes lasts till he smokes again; he has no appetite for food, cannot sleep at night, and looks haggard and miserable. Sometimes if opium cannot be procured by him he dies.

"And these men make themselves slaves for life to this horrid drug, knowing before they touch it what it will do for them.

"Opium-smoking makes rich men poor, honest men thieves, and poor people even sell their children to obtain the drug."

"Medical aid has been brought in to help them, but it generally fails; and every now and then we hear of an opium-smoker becoming a Christian and then overcoming the vice, but this is also very rare indeed. And what does this teach us, children?"

They thought. "Never to acquire bad habits, I suppose," said Sybil, "for fear they should grow upon us."

"Yes; and because they do grow upon us. Everything to which we very much accustom ourselves grows into a habit; therefore it is so very important for both Chinese and English, for both grown-up and little[81] people, to cultivate good habits. And more especially is this important in the case of young people, because so many of our habits, which remain with us and influence our whole after-life, are formed in our childish days."

"They do, indeed; and some children are so filial that they will even sell themselves for the good of their parents. There is very little that a Chinaman will not do for a parent. One of their superstitions is that if a father or mother be ill, and the child should cut away some of its own flesh to mix in the parent's medicine, a cure would be effected; and children have been known to cut pieces, for this purpose, out of their own arms."

"What would happen," Sybil asked, "if a child were to do anything very dreadful to a parent in China?"

"If a son kill a parent, he is put to death, his house is torn down, his nearest neighbours are punished, and his schoolmaster is put to death; the magistrate of the district would also suffer, and the governor of the province would go down in rank."

"To show how great the man's sin is. The schoolmaster is punished because it is thought that he did not bring up his pupil properly. Of course, it is very unfair, but the Chinese are often very cruel in their chastisments, and many criminals prefer death to some of the other punishments. A great many also suffer capital punishment; sometimes as many as ten thousand people in a year."

"Oh! oughtn't we to be careful, then, Leonard? Fancy when we do wrong people blaming father or mother!"

Leonard was then very anxious to hear more about Chinese punishments, so his father told him an occurrence that he had once witnessed.

"A very usual way of punishing small offences," he began, "is by beating with a bamboo; and whenever a mandarin finds that any one, under his jurisdiction, has transgressed, he can use the bamboo. Parents use it on their children even when they are thirty years of age. The poor Chinese culprits used to be subject to very horrible tortures, such as having their fingers or ankles squeezed until they made confession; but I believe a good many of the worst tortures have now been done away with. One in common use is the canque, which is a collar made of heavy wood, with a hole in the centre for the head to come through. It is fastened round the neck, and is worn from one to three months, preventing its prisoner from lying down day or night. The captive remains in the street instead of in prison, and is dependent upon his friends to feed him."

"What a shame!" Leonard said. "I'd like to be a magistrate in China, to put that sort of cruelty down."

"But now I am coming to a trial that I witnessed myself. I remember, as I went into the Provincial Criminal Court, one day, seeing the judge sitting behind a large table, covered with a red cloth. Secretaries, interpreters, and turnkeys stood at each end of the table, only the judge having a right to sit down. Soon after I arrived the prisoner was led in by a chain[84] who immediately threw himself down on the ground before the judge. The crime brought against him was robbing an official of high rank. It was thought that he could not have committed the robbery alone, and was asked how it was effected, and who were his accomplices. He would not say. Then he was beaten; but still this brought no answer. Both an arm and a leg were then put into a board, which made it almost impossible for him either to walk, or sit, or stand. His poor back must have ached terribly; and while one man dragged him[85] along by a chain, another held a whip to urge him forward.

"And he had never committed the robbery after all, but gave himself up in place of his father, a man named Wang-Yangsui, who was really the culprit."

"Sons have been known to allow themselves to be transported to save their parents, and then only to have felt that they did their duty."

"And did they not let him off," Leonard asked, "as the son had suffered so much for him?"

"No; they put him into a cage in which were holes for his head and feet, but in which he could neither sit down nor stand upright. Round the cage was an inscription relating the nature of his crime."

"That I was not able to hear, but the day he was incarcerated I saw his daughter feeding him with chop-sticks. These, which consist of two sticks that people hold in the same hand wherewith to feed themselves, instead of knives and forks, the Chinese always use when they eat. She must have found it difficult to get to him, as she was carrying a basket, as well as a baby on her back, for she had small feet, and women with small feet cannot walk any distance, even without a load at all. It is not the rule for lower class girls to have their feet made small, though in some cases it is done. This woman had once been better off."

"But, father," Sybil put in, "please tell us first what became of that poor old man. I am so sorry he stole."

"I heard that great poverty had tempted him to do so, but that he afterwards bitterly repented of the crime which he had committed. How long he remained in the cage I was never able to ascertain; but I really think now that we must close our 'Peep-show' for to-day."

"After we've heard about the small feet ladies, father. I think you have just time for that."[87]

"The feet of Chinese women would be no smaller than, perhaps not as small as, other women's feet, were they not compressed."

"So it is. When very young, a little girl's foot is tightly bandaged round, the end of the bandage being first laid on the inside of the foot, then carried round the toes, under the foot, and round the heel till the toes are drawn over the sole, in which an indentation becomes made and the instep swells out. After a time the foot is soaked in hot water, when some of the toes will occasionally drop off. Every time the bandage is taken away another is put on, and tied more tightly. For the first year there is, as we can imagine, dreadful pain, but after two years the foot will become dead and cease to ache. You can therefore understand that it is very uncomfortable for Chinese ladies to walk, and if they go any distance they are carried on the backs of their female slaves."

"Are all Chinese parents so silly as to have their little girls' feet bandaged?"

"A few are strong-minded enough to break through the rule, and all the Tartar ladies have natural feet. Anti-foot-binding societies have now been formed by the Chinese gentry in Canton and Amoy."

"Some people think that it was first done to help husbands to keep their wives at home; others say that it was to copy an Empress who had a deformed foot which she bandaged; but whatever the[88] reason may have been, we cannot but wish very, very strongly, that the cruel custom might be soon completely done away with!"

"I shall like to see the ladies being carried on their slaves' backs," Leonard said. "That will be fun!"

"You will soon see it now," was his father's answer, "for we have been six weeks at sea, and the captain says we may expect to be at Shanghai in another ten days' time, so I think I had better not tell you any more, and let you find out the rest for yourselves."

"I think we might have just one more 'Peep-show,'" Sybil replied, "and hear how we get our tea-leaves. I think we ought to know about that before we arrive."

The missionary smiled, and the next time his children wanted a "Peep-show" very much, only a very little persuasion was required to make him sit down between them and let them have it.

CHAPTER V.

"How far did you get?" he asked, as he sat amongst the group of father, mother, and children, for Mrs. Graham had also come to "the show" to-day.

"That tea was an evergreen plant, something like the myrtle," Sybil said, laughing; and all laughed with her.[90]

"Then I have it all to do, it seems. Well, the tea-plant yields a crop after it has been planted three years, and there are three gatherings during the year: one in the middle of April, the second at midsummer, and the third in August and September. I suppose it will do if we begin here. The plant requires very careful plucking, only one leaf being allowed to be gathered at a time; and then a tree must never be plucked too bare. Women and children, who are generally, though not always, the tea gatherers, are obliged to wash their hands before they begin their work, and have to understand that it is the medium-sized leaves which they have to pick,[91] leaving the larger ones to gather the dew. When the baskets are full, into which the leaves have been dropped, they are carried away hanging to a bamboo slung across the shoulders, which is a very usual way of carrying[92] things in China. The tea-plant is the most important vegetable production of the 'Flowery Land.' But as there are, you know, several kinds of tea, I think I had better tell you how that called Congou, which, I suppose, you generally drink yourselves, is prepared. The leaves are first spread out in the air to dry, after which they are trodden by labourers, so that any moisture remaining in them, after they have been exposed to the air or sun, may be pressed out; after this they are again heaped together, and covered for the night with cloths. In this state they remain all night, when a strange thing happens to them, spontaneous heating changing the green leaves to black or brown. They are now more fragrant and the taste has changed.

"The next process is to twist and crumple the leaves, by rubbing them between the palms of the hands. In this crumpled state they are again put in the sun, or if the day be wet, or the sky threatening, they are baked over a charcoal fire.

"Leaves, arranged in a sieve, are placed in the middle of a basket-frame, over a grate in which are hot embers of charcoal. After some one has so stirred the leaves that they have all become heated alike, they are ready to be sold to proprietors of tea-hongs in the towns, when the proprietor has the leaves again put over the fire and sifted.

"After this, women and girls separate all the bad leaves and stems from the good ones; sitting, in order to do so, with baskets of leaves before them, and very carefully picking out with both their hands all the bad leaves and stems that the sieve has not got rid of. The light and useless leaves are then divided from those that are heavy and good, when the good are put into boxes lined with paper."[93]

"Oh, father! I am so glad that there's something you have to ask," Leonard said, "as you seemed to know everything."

"The leaves of scented Orange Pekoe," the merchant answered, "obtain their fragrance by being mixed with the flowers of the Arabian jessamine, and when scented enough, they are separated from the flowers by sieves. Scented Caper Tea is made from some of the leaves of this Orange Pekoe.[94]

"Those leaves which are prepared at Canton are black or brown, with a slight tinge of yellow or green. The tea-leaves growing on an extensive range of hills in the district of Hokshan are often forwarded to[95] Canton, where they are made into caper in the following manner. But I wonder if Leonard knows what 'shan' means?" the merchant interrupted. He did, for he had seen in his geography that "shan" meant[96] mountain. "A tea-hong," the merchant continued, "is furnished with many pans, into which seventeen or eighteen handfuls of leaves are put. These are moistened with water, and stirred up by the hand. As soon as they are soft they are put into coarse bags, which, tightly fastened, look like large balls.

"These bags are moved backwards and forwards on the floor by men holding on to wooden poles, and standing upon them. In each bag the leaves take the form of pellets, or capers.

"The coarse leaves, gathered from finer ones, thus made into Caper, after being well fired, are put into wooden troughs, and chopped into several pieces, and it is these pieces which become the tea which we call Caper."

"Tea-merchants are most particular, before buying and selling tea, to taste it and to test its quality.

"And before it is shipped away it is also very carefully weighed, when I myself, I know, for instance, sit by, watching the process, and taking account of the result."

"I suppose tea isn't ever sent about in wheel-barrows?" then said Leonard, who liked very much indeed the idea of wheel-barrows with sails up, such as he had heard about.

"I never saw it," was the merchant's reply; "but if you are interested in wheel-barrows, you might like to hear about one that I once saw in China. It was conveying not only goods, and the scales wherewith to weigh them, to market, but the family also to whom the goods belonged. The family party made a great impression upon me. The master of the barrow was pushing it from behind, a donkey was pulling it in front, and on the donkey rode a boy; a woman and two children were driven in the wheel-barrow, besides the goods for market. I thought the man and donkey must have a heavy load between them, but both seemed to work most[99] cheerfully and willingly; and a sail in the centre of the wheel-barrow, gathering the full force of the wind, must have been a great help to them.

"The donkey was guided by no reins, only by the voice of the boy on his back, who carried a stick, but had no occasion to use it, although every now and then he just raised it in the air. Sometimes the boy ran beside the donkey. Anyhow suited the willing little beast, who was as anxious as his master to do his best. A dog completed the number of the party.

"The man told me that he was truly fond of this dog, and gave him 'plenty chow-chow' (plenty to eat), and that he considered he owed all his wealth to him, as he had once come to the house, and had since then remained with the family.

"A strange dog coming to, and remaining at, a house is looked upon by the Chinese as bringing good luck to the family, but a strange cat coming is a bad omen."

"This man certainly treated his dog very well, as do some few of his countrymen; but, alas! alas! so many poor little faithful dogs in China, as in other countries, lead anything but happy lives!"

CHAPTER VI.

Shanghai seemed, and was, a very busy place, but not a town of very great importance in itself, owing, really, its recent prosperity to having opened its port to foreign commerce. The custom-house, through which the Grahams' boxes had to be passed,[101] struck the children as a very strange and beautiful building, quite different from anything that they had seen before; and there was a great noise of chattering going on outside, which sounded most unintelligible. Coolies were carrying bales of silk and tea to and fro; there were also, ready at hand, some of the sedan-chairs that Sybil had longed to see, and everywhere "pig-tails," or cues, as they were called, seemed to meet Leonard's gaze.

But the ships! Watching them was what he enjoyed better than anything else. The town of Shanghai is situated on the River Woosung, a tributary of the Yangtse-kiang, just at that point where it joins the great river, and about one hundred ships were anchored before this busy, commercial city. Many families resident there have their junks and a little home on the river. There were some very pretty buildings to be seen at Shanghai, and at one of these our little party stayed—on a visit to another missionary from the Church of England—for the three days that they remained there.

At some cities and towns, on the banks of rivers, floating hotels are to be seen; and as people generally have to travel by water, and the Chinese are not allowed to keep open their city-gates after nine o'clock at night, these hotels prove very useful to those arriving too late to enter the city. Lighted with lanterns, they look very pretty floating on the water, and both Sybil and Leonard were very pleased to be taken over a large floating hotel before they left Shanghai. Leonard was very anxious to know how long this town had been open to foreign commerce, and was told since the Opium War, which lasted from 1840 to 1842, when the British,[102] having occupied several Chinese cities, and having captured Chinkiang in Hoopeh, were advancing to Nanking, and the Chinese suing for peace, a treaty was concluded which opened the ports of Amoy, Foochow, Shanghai, and Ningpo, in addition to Canton, to the British, who were henceforward to appoint consuls to live in these towns.

The Chinese are very polite to foreigners in Shanghai; and as the kind missionary who bade the Grahams welcome to his home endeavoured, during their short stay, to interest and show them sights, they enjoyed themselves very much. Sybil and Leonard could not help noticing how very many people they met in spectacles, but they were told that the Chinese suffer very much from ophthalmia, and that when they wear spectacles, some of which are very large, they often have sore eyes.

"There is one thing I cannot understand the Chinese doing," Leonard said one day to Sybil: "and that is, everybody that we have seen, as yet, spoiling their tea by not taking any milk or sugar in it; and father says all the Chinese drink tea like that, and call milk white blood, and only use it in medicine."

"Tea like that would not suit us," Sybil answered, "as we like plenty of both milk and sugar; but I dare say they think we spoil our tea by putting such things into it."

A visit to some rice-fields, a little sight-seeing, a little more watching of ships carrying rice and other products away, and then it was time for the Grahams once more to take their seats on board.

We can imagine how both children strained their eyes, as they steamed farther and farther away from[104] Shanghai, to see what that port looked like in the distance, and how Sybil examined her map as they left the province of Kiang-su, to see at what port, and in what province, they would next touch.

This was Ningpo, in Che-kiang, but they did not land here; neither did they go on shore at their next halting-place, Foochow, in the province of Fu-kien. It was at Amoy, in the same province, where their father had a missionary friend, who had invited them to pay him a few days' or a week's visit, as would suit them best, that they next purposed landing, and this they did about four days after they left Shanghai.

"Whoever thought," Sybil said one day on board, "that we should actually be on the Yellow Sea ourselves? It seems almost too good to be true now."

"I never knew people like to stare more at anybody than they seem to like to stare at us here," Leonard thought to himself when first at Amoy.

He and Sybil were then being very carefully observed by a group of natives of that place, but Leonard had yet to become accustomed to being stared at in China.

"And, father," he said later, "I wonder why so many of them wear turbans? I did not notice people doing this at Shanghai."

Mr. Graham did not know the reason of this either; but he and Leonard were later informed that the men of Amoy adopted the turban to hide the tail when they were made to wear it by their conquerors, and that they never gave it up. Leonard was also told that they were good soldiers, which, he said, he thought they looked. One thing remarkable about the people of Amoy was that the[106] different families seemed to consist almost entirely of boys. A great many of the inhabitants were very poor, living crowded together in dirty houses very barely furnished. Mrs. Graham had not to be long in China to discover that cleanliness is not a Chinese virtue. Sybil bought some very pretty artificial flowers of some of the inhabitants of Amoy, which they had themselves made. They manufactured them principally, she heard, to be placed on graves.

Like other Chinese, these people were very superstitious. Here and there large blocks of granite were to be met with, which were regarded by them with reverence, and looked upon as good divinities. On one the Grahams saw inscriptions, which related some history of the place.

Granite seemed to abound here, for the temples and monasteries were, for the most part, erected on the heights between rocks of this description.

Two days after reaching Amoy, Sybil was dreadfully distressed, and shocked, to see a little girl named Chu, of eleven years old, put up for sale by her own parents. At ten dollars (£1) only was she valued;[107] and for this paltry sum the parents were ready to sell her to any one who would bid it for her. They were very poor, and could not afford to keep her any longer. She had four sisters and only two brothers; the youngest of all, the baby, was to be drowned by her father, later on in the day, in a tub of water. They had never done anything like this before: this man and woman had never killed a child, although they had had five girls, and many of their neighbours had thought nothing of destroying most of their daughters so soon as they were born; but now, as the man was ill, and able to earn so little, they had resolved to rid themselves of two of them that day. If the baby lived, the mother comforted herself by saying, she must be sold later, or grow up in poverty and misery.

Parents think it very necessary that their children should marry, and sometimes sell, or give them away, to their friends, when they are quite little, to be the future wives of the sons of their new owners.

If sold, they will then fetch about two dollars for every year that they have lived; so a child of five years old would fetch ten dollars; and this little girl, put up for sale, was now eleven years old; therefore she was being offered, poor little thing, below half price. And some little girls of Amoy have been even offered for sale for a few pence!

It seemed incomprehensible to Sybil, as it must to us, that a mother could wish either to kill or to sell her little child, but neither the one nor the other event is uncommon in some parts of China, where the parent is poor; and even amongst the well-to-do classes little girls are sometimes put to death, if the parents have more daughters than they care to rear,[109] not only at Amoy, but at other places in the neighbourhood; and even Chinese ladies will sometimes have their poor little daughters put to death.

"Why do people not kill their boys too?" Sybil asked, when she heard all about this.

"Because when they grow up they can earn money that girls could not earn; and not only can they help to support their parents when old, but they can worship their ancestral tablets and keep up the family name."

It seemed that the very day before Mr. Graham[111] arrived in Amoy, a widow lady there had had her little baby girl destroyed, and then, in her widow's dress, had sat down quietly to talk matters over with her sister-in-law, who thought that she had acted very wisely. Killing a daughter, in China, is hardly looked upon as being sinful. A widow's mourning consists of all white and a band round the head, white being Chinese deepest mourning.

Whilst Mr. Graham stood by, a purchaser for little Chu stepped forward, holding the ten dollars in his hand; but the missionary was before him, and through a teacher,[112] whom he had already been able to engage, offered the father twice that sum not to sell the little girl at all, but to let him have her for a servant. He hesitated, as though he would rather sell his child right off to any Chinaman than trust her to a foreign "barbarian." But the sum tempted him; and although he could not understand how receiving it did not give Chu altogether to her purchaser, he seemed to be contented, especially when the teacher explained that she would not be a slave, but would be paid for what work she did. Little Chu was well off to have stepped into so happy a service, and the baby was rescued also. A certain sum was to be[113] paid weekly to the father, towards her support, until he recovered his health, if he would only spare her; and both parents, who really fondly loved their children, were very glad to spare their baby, fifth girl though she was. Her name was Woo-Urh, which means fifth girl.

It did not take long to have little Chu tidily dressed, with money that her new master supplied, and her poor mother, who had some beads stowed away, now looked them out and also put these on her. Chu was only eleven years old, but poverty and care had given the little one an old expression beyond her years. Chinese children of from ten to sixteen years of age—about which time they are supposed to marry—have a fringe cut over their foreheads, and Chu wore this fringe now. It has to grow again before they marry.

That evening Chu was sent round to Mr. Graham's brother missionary's house, where, as Sybil's little maid, she was housed for the two or three days longer that they would spend at Amoy; and though Chu had come to live with foreigners, in the family of a "barbarian," as her father thought, we can well imagine that she had never been so happy in her life. Mr. Graham had told her parents that when they reached Hong-Kong he should send her to the mission school.

"And the father would have killed the baby himself!" said Sybil. "How could he have done so?"

"That is the marvel; but it is generally the fathers who commit the deed; other people might be punished if they interfered."

Three more persons were now added to the travelling party—the teacher, a Chinese maid, and little Chu, the latter having already begun to show herself really useful.

There is but little fun in travelling, and one does not see half there is to be seen unless one climbs; and as the Grahams were all bent on having fun and seeing as much as they could, on reaching the port of Takow, in Formosa, they ascended a very high mountain, called Monkey Mountain, because it is the home of very[115] many monkeys, and they were rewarded by having, from its height, a capital view of the entrance to the port. To the front of the mountain were some European houses, belonging to English merchants from Amoy. The port of Takow is a very difficult one at which to anchor, and is closed for commerce during six months of the year, whilst the wind is blowing in an adverse direction; but when the wind and tide are favourable, barks pass between some rocks at the entrance to the port. It is only at the north that the water is deep enough[116] for merchant-ships to pass by. Here Leonard saw men fishing quite differently from what he had ever seen people fish before; and as they walked in the water behind their nets, which they seemed to manage very cleverly, he wished so much that he could have been there with them.

Takow is one of the four ports in Formosa which, through treaties, have been thrown open to foreign trade, the others being those of Kelung, Tamsui, and Taiwan-fu.

Formosa, as its name implies, is a very lovely, picturesque island, and the Spaniards, who first made it known to Europeans, named it "Isla Formosa," which, in their language, means "beautiful island." Takow seemed to abound in tropical vegetation, palm-trees being very conspicuous. The gong, used everywhere in China, was much in use here also; and as in other places men carried things by balancing them across their shoulders, so also they did here. But as Mr. Graham's special object in coming to this island was to visit Poahbi, the first centre of the population of a tribe of aborigines, whom the Chinese have named Pepohoans, or strangers of the plain, he moved on thither[117] as quickly as he could. The country through which they now passed was very beautiful, palm-trees and bamboos overshadowing the way.

Although it was the month of November, the weather was hot here, and women, wearing white calico dresses, were hard at work in the fields. Many of the women of Formosa had compressed feet, and most of the children wore charms round their necks.

The Pepohoans used to live in fertile plains, but when greedy and grasping Chinese drove them from[118] the rich and beautiful lands that were then theirs, and had belonged to their ancestors before them, they took shelter, and made themselves homes, in mountain fastnesses.

Sybil and Leonard were charmed with the people of Poahbi, and thought both their faces and manners very pretty. Although some of the people stared at the foreigners, and laughed at them, many wished to make them welcome in their midst. One woman gave them shelter for the night—a very kind-hearted woman, with a dear little baby, and a very clean and comfortable home. She was a Christian.

At Poahbi Mr. Graham saw a little Christian chapel, which the natives had not only built, but which they also kept up, themselves. Pepohoans are good builders, and do also much work in the fields. They have a most affectionate remembrance of the Dutch, who were once their masters, but who were afterwards expelled from Formosa by a Chinese pirate.

The huts, or bamboo cottages, of the Pepohoans, raised on terraces three or four feet high, looked very picturesque, and consisted first of a framework of bamboo, through which crossbars of reeds were run; the whole being thickly covered over with clay. The houses were afterwards whitened with lime. A barrier of prickly stems extended round the huts, throwing a shade over them, whilst these dwellings often had for roofing a thatch of dried leaves. Most things in Formosa were made of bamboo, such as tables, chairs, beds, pails, rice-measures, jars, hats, pipes, chop-sticks, goblets, paper, and pens. Many of the Pepohoans' habitations were built on three sides of a four-cornered spot, with a yard in the centre, where the families sometimes[120] passed their evenings together. The natives assembled here, in numbers, at about nine o'clock, where they made a fire when it was cold. Old and young people here often formed a circle on the ground, sitting together with their arms crossed, smoking, and talking. It was not unusual for dogs also to surround them. These people were fond of singing, but played no musical instruments. Sybil said, directly she saw them, that they were just the sort of people she liked, but this was before she heard that they ate serpents and rats. The women had a quantity of hair, which they wound round their heads like crowns. None of them painted their faces. Some of the men were very badly dressed. All Pepohoans seemed to have very beautiful black eyes. In the different villages the inhabitants were different, and where they had most contact with the Chinese they dressed better, but were less affable. They seemed to be a very honest race.

The Pepohoans are subject to the Chinese Government. Some of them, like the Chinese, have been ruined by opium. The aborigines, consisting of different tribes, talk different dialects. The people of one tribe, the most savage of all, are very warlike, and think nothing of killing and eating their Chinese neighbours when they get the chance to do so; therefore, they are held in great terror. Sybil and Leonard would not have liked to have visited this tribe, for they also hate Europeans.

There was a grandness of beauty in this island of Formosa which could not fail, more and more, to charm Mrs. Graham, and many a pretty sketch did she here make, both for herself and for Sybil's letters. Sybil also liked being here very much; "but if she had only seen," Leonard said, what he and his father saw one[122] day, when they went for a ramble through the mountains, whilst Sybil was helping her mother to sketch by keeping her company, and making clever little attempts at sketching herself, "she would want to be off that very moment."

There were caverns in Formosa, and they were walking along, exploring some, Leonard some little way in front of Mr. Graham, the teacher, and a native guide, who followed a few yards behind, when the English boy suddenly caught sight of two huge, yellow serpents twined round the branch of an overhanging tree. No one but Leonard was near enough to see them, and as the first creature stretched its dreadful-looking head out, hissing towards him, the brave, self-possessed little fellow, who held a stick in his hand, struck his deadly foe with it with all his might, and hit and aimed so well that he had the satisfaction, the next moment, of seeing the serpent roll over and over down the rock. But then the further one (which, although rather smaller than the other, measured about six feet) wound, in a moment, its wriggling body round the branch of the tree, stretching its head out almost within reach of Leonard, when the boy-guide and Mr. Graham, the same instant, came upon the spot. The boy, accustomed to such encounters, at once dealt the snake a blow, that caused it to lose its balance, and thus all were able to pass on their way in thankfulness and safety.

When Sybil heard of the adventure she was very proud of her little brother; but, as he had imagined when she heard that Formosa was inhabited by serpents, she was glad also to think that it was settled for them to leave that island for Swatow in two days' time.

That evening was spent very pleasantly comparing[124] notes of adventure with an English gentleman, who had been in Formosa for some time, and now called upon Mr. Graham and his family, who were staying at the consul's. He had seen and done a good deal, he said, but he spoke very highly of Leonard's brave exploit.

In the course of his wanderings, he told them, he had visited the village of Lalung, which is situated on the narrowest part of a large river. During the rainy season the waters would here rise and cover a vast bed, opening out a new passage across the land, and flowing away towards the eastern plain. Great mountain heights[125] surrounded the bed of the river, and the violence of the torrent carried away very large quantities of all sorts of rubbish, which the sea would collect, and deposit, along the eastern coast. Mr. Hardy explained to Leonard how this would account for the port of Thaï-ouan disappearing, and that of Takow forming lower down.

"Formosa," he continued, "shows very plainly how the violence of waters can quite transform the physical aspect of a country."

Mr. Hardy then told them that he, with a guide, had once visited the bed of the river of Lalung, during the dry season, as an explorer, when he had taken off his boots and socks, so as to be able to walk wherever he chose, and fathom the depth of the water in different parts.

How Leonard wished he had been with him on this occasion, which seemed to him a regular voyage of discovery!

Two days later, as arranged, the Grahams made sail for Swatow. In crossing the channel, which separates the island from the mainland, Leonard, as usual, had some questions to ask.

"No; mountains are on the east, and to the west are flat and fertile plains, and all the ports."

"I suppose you know, Sybil, that there are some wild beasts in Formosa?" Leonard went on.

"I think it's my turn to ask a question now," Mrs. Graham said. "I wonder if you and Sybil can tell me what grows principally in Formosa?"

"Cotton, tobacco, silk, oranges, peaches, and plums," Leonard ended. "We saw most of these things growing ourselves, so we ought to know."

"Yes; and flax, indigo, camphor, and many fruits that you have not mentioned."[128]

"The Chinese part of the island, I suppose, belongs to Fukien?" Sybil said, "as it is painted the same colour on my map."

Mr. Graham answered this question by telling her that he believed they had no priesthood at all.

"What a pity it is," Sybil said, "that a number of missionaries could not be sent out there. I do so like the Pepohoans!"

"How long is it now since the Dutch were driven away?" Leonard asked. "And how long were they in Formosa?"

"About 1634 the Dutch took possession of the island, and built several forts, but a Chinese pirate drove them out in 1662, and made himself king of the western part. In 1683 his descendants submitted to the authority of the Chinese Emperor, to whom they are now tributary. The Chinese colonists, however, often rebel."

"People have not known very long, have they, that the island of Formosa is important?"

"I am afraid that is not very much; but if you notice things that you come across, and try to remember what you hear and what you read, you will soon gain plenty of knowledge and useful information."[129]

"I wonder what Swatow is like?" Leonard then said; but he had not long to wait to find out, for a week after leaving Formosa they landed at Swatow, the port of Chaou-Chou-foo, in the province of Kwang-tung, where once again, for a fortnight, they were made very welcome: this time by some friends of the missionary with whom they had stayed at Amoy.

Their home, for the present, was very prettily situated on a range of low hills. Many pieces of granite were scattered about on the summit of these hills, as they were about Amoy, which some people say have been caused to appear through volcanic irruptions. On them also were Chinese inscriptions. Leonard was delighted because the Chinese teacher cut his name[131] on one of these pieces of granite. The houses of Swatow were built with a kind of mortar, made of China clay, and attached to some of them were very pretty gardens.

In front of the Consulate, which was a very large building, was a flag-staff, with a flag flying.

The ceilings of the house, in which the Grahams stayed, was painted with flowers and birds, and some of the windows were also painted so as to look like open fans. The Chinese are fond of decorating their rooms and painting their ornaments, and the people of Swatow seemed to be better painters than the Chinese; but they kept their pictures hidden, only a very few of them producing any to show our friends. The people of Swatow are also noted for fan-painting.[132]

Sybil thought some of the women of Swatow rather nice-looking, but, like other ladies of the "Flowery Land," they had a wonderful way of dressing their hair. One woman, Leonard declared, had hers done to represent a large shell. A young lady, to whom Sybil was introduced, had the thickest hair that she had ever seen. She and other Chinese girls wore it hanging down their backs in twists. She was just fifteen, and Sybil was told that she was going to be married in about a year's time, so she would soon have to begin to let her fringe grow. She was the daughter of a rich man, and had such pretty, dark eyes.

Round a girl's and woman's head, or to fasten up her back hair, ornaments are generally worn. E-Chung wore rather a large one round her head. Sybil was allowed to spend an afternoon, and take some tea, with this young lady, but they could not talk much together. E-Chung knew, and spoke, a little of what is called pidgin, or business English, because many business, or shop, people and those who mix most with the English, speak this strange language to them; but Sybil could understand hardly any of it. Before E-Chung heard that Sybil had a brother, she said to her, "You one piecee chilo?" meaning to ask if she were the only child. Then she was trying to describe somebody to Sybil whose appearance did not please her, so she made an ugly grimace and said, "That number one ugly man all-same so fashion," meaning "just like this." Another time she meant to ask Sybil if she were not very rich, so she said, "You can muchee money?"

The hair down Sybil's back was such a contrast to her friend's, as was also her rather pale complexion. E-Chung wished very much to enamel Sybil's face, as[133] she did her own, and could not understand why she should so persistently refuse to have it done.

Chinese ladies seldom do without their rouge, and often keep their amahs, or maids, from three to four hours at a time doing their hair.

CHAPTER VIII.

A very large bridge crosses the Han River at this place, a picture of which the teacher had, and showed to the children. It is made of stone, and composed of many arches, or rather square gateways, under which ships pass to and fro. On the bridge, on each side of the causeway, are houses and shops.[135]

Nor would the teacher, he replied; for they did not look, and were not supposed to be, at all safe.

Two pieces of wood are suspended between the arches, which the inhabitants take up in the day-time and let down at night, to prevent, as they say, evil spirits passing under their homes and playing them tricks.

It was a very happy fortnight that was spent at[137] Swatow, and Sybil was sorry to leave this port to go on to Hong-Kong. Somehow, although they were not going to settle down now, and had still Macao and Canton to visit, it seemed like bringing the end nearer—going much nearer to it, when they went to Hong-Kong even for a few days, for there her parents were to be left behind when she and Leonard returned to England. This English colony, the little island of Hong-Kong, about eight miles in length, is separated from the mainland by a very narrow strait, in the midst of a number of small islands.

The Bishop of Hong-Kong had kindly invited Mr.[138] Graham and his family to stay at his residence, St. Paul's College, during the few days that they now remained at Hong-Kong, before continuing their tour and returning to settle down, and the kind invitation had been gladly and gratefully accepted.

The missionary's party landed in a boat, or rather, in a floating house, for the people to whom it belonged lived here, and it was their only home.

The children had heard that there were so many[139] inhabitants in China that for very many of them there was no house accommodation, and that these lived in boats, and were called the boat population; and Leonard was delighted to be travelling in one of these house-boats himself, and seeing the homes of the boat people. Their very little children were tied to doors, and other parts of the boat, by long ropes. Those who were three or four years old had floats round their backs, so that if they fell overboard they would not sink, and their parents could jump in after them. Most care seemed to be taken of the boys. Instead of being dedicated to "Mother," boat-children, soon after they are born, are dedicated to Kow-wong, or Nine Kings, and for three days and nights before they marry, which ceremony takes place in the middle of the night, Taouist priests chant prayers to the Kow-wong.

The boats in which live the Taouist priests, for the boat population, are called Nam-Mo-Teng. These are anchored in certain parts, that the priests may be sent for when needed. Their boats look partly like temples, and have altars and idols, also incense burning within them. The names of the priests who live there, and the rites they perform, are written up in the boats. The boat people can have everything they require without going on shore at all. There are even river barbers and policemen, which latter are very necessary, considering that there are so many pirates.

It seemed strange to Sybil and Leonard to think that boat-children never went on shore, might never do so, and would even marry on board their boat homes; but it did not seem at all strange to the little children themselves, who played about on board quite as happily as did children on shore.[140] They looked strong, and seemed to be fond of one another. One woman going along was very angry with one of her children, and for a punishment threw him into the water, but he had a float on his[141] back, and was quickly brought back again. These women often carry their children on their backs, but this is a most usual way of carrying children in China, both amongst the land and water people.

Sybil had already often had her wish fulfilled, of travelling in sedan-chairs, and as that is the regular mode of travelling in Hong-Kong, directly they arrived here coolies were to be seen, standing and sitting, on the pier beside their chairs, waiting for a fare. Very eager they seemed to be to secure either people or their baggage. And Sybil liked being borne along in these chairs even better than she had expected.

The sedans were made of bamboo, covered with oil-cloth, and carried on long poles. A great many sedan-chair-bearers have no fixed homes, living day and night in the open air, and buying their food at stalls on the road. They take care to keep their chairs in very good condition, ready to hire out whenever they are needed. Leonard was charmed with his bearers. They spoke such funny pigeon English to him, and made him wonder why they would put "ee" to the end of so many of their words. When Leonard once wished to speak to his father, who was on in front, and succeeded in making his bearers understand this, one of them said "My no can catchee." They admired the boy very much, and wanted to persuade him to let them carry him one day to a "handsome face-taking-man," but he could not understand at all, at first, that they wanted him to let them carry him somewhere to have his portrait taken. "My likee," one said, pointing to Leonard's face, "welly much." The Chinese do not paint pictures very well, and sometimes, instead of a brush, will use their fingers and nails.[142]

The chair-men called Leonard "Captain" several times, which seemed to be a common way of addressing strange "gentlemen."

They then asked him how Mr. Turner was, but he shook his head to show that he knew nobody of this name. They either did not understand or believe him.

Thinking that if he tacked a double "e" on to all his words he would be speaking the language they talked so much, he said "No-ee know-ee," and shook his head again. I think it was the expression on his face, and the shake of his head, which made them understand at last what he wished to say to them.

It seems that the natives of Hong-Kong, as well as other parts of China, think that every Englishman must know every other Englishman; having, indeed, such very small ideas of our important country, that they really think our wealth consists in our possessing Hong-Kong.

The first view that the Grahams had of this little island was a chain of mountains rising in the background to lofty peaks, and diminishing as they approached the sea into small hills and steep rocks. Not so very long ago, Sybil was told, Hong-Kong used to be a deserted island, though it now contained flower-gardens, orchards, woods, large trees, beautiful grass slopes, and very many buildings. The English town of Victoria was built along the sea-coast. As Hong-Kong belongs to Great Britain, the Government here was, of course, English; there were Christian temples, as well as Buddhist, and many European edifices were conspicuous in the Chinese streets. Then there were also large European club-houses, and, best of all, the[145] Cathedral. The sea-shore stretched round towards a very beautiful port, which opened out to the west by a pass called Lyce-moun, and to the east by the Lama Pass.

"I do think, do you know, Leonard," Sybil said, as she wished her brother "Good-night" the evening after they had arrived at Hong-Kong, "that China is rather a 'Flowery Land' after all. I do not think I shall ever forget Formosa, at all events."

"We have seen pretty sights since we came to China," Leonard said, agreeing with his sister.

The next day Sybil and he were taken into the Queen's Road, which crossed the town from west to east, to the right of which was a regular labyrinth of streets, some leading into very fine roads. In one part of Hong-Kong nothing but shops and houses of business were to be seen. One of its principal ornaments was the tall clock-tower, which made even high trees beside it look quite small.

The most ancient houses of the colony are in a street that leads to the clock-tower, and close by it is also the hotel of Hong-Kong. Into this Sybil and Leonard were taken to have some tiffin, or lunch, whilst their sedans and bearers waited for them not far off, under some trees.

Leonard took a good view afterwards of a man in a turban whom they passed, because, as he was so important a person as a policeman, he thought Sybil might like to describe him in one of her letters, and she might perhaps forget what he was like.

Sybil had, as yet, only written one of her promised letters, but this had been full of news, and had told of rides in sedan-chairs, little Chu and Woo-urh, and all sorts[146] of things; and before they moved on to Macao, she had determined to write another letter, and tell of Leonard saving himself from the serpent, and what they saw in Hong-Kong. This seemed to be a very busy place. Steamers were always either coming or going; and here, too, telegrams were constantly arriving. Besides English merchants, Chinese, American, French, German, Hindoo merchants, and others also traded with the little island, and shared what wealth she had. Hong-Kong is very English-looking, compared with other places in China, and the people are not only governed by English laws, but their crimes are tried by English judges. But even at Canton, Shanghai, and other ports where the English have settlements, they now claim, and have a voice in trials for crime. It is only because Hong-Kong belongs to the English that telegraph-wires are to be found there, as the Chinese will not have them anywhere else, because they think that they would offend the ghosts, or spirits, of the places through which they would pass. For the same reason also the Chinese have hardly any railroads. Even children could easily recognise here the introduction of English ways and manners.

Lily Keith was very fond of shopping, therefore in her next letter Sybil not only gave an account of Leonard's bravery, of which she was really more proud than Leonard himself, but also described a visit that she had paid to some shops.

"We went to some of the best of all the shops in Hong-Kong to-day," she wrote, "and as we were going into the door of one, the proprietor came to meet us. Father said he was a merchant. He spoke English, and was very grandly dressed in silk, and wore worked shoes.[147] His shopmen also wore very handsome clothes, and served us standing behind beautifully polished counters. In one part of the shop were all kinds of silk materials, and some stuff called grass-matting. We went down-stairs to see furniture and beautiful porcelain. The principal curiosities had come from Canton, so I suppose when we get there we shall find still better things; and in Canton people paint on that pretty rice paper. Across the road were meat, fish, vegetable, and puppy-dog shops. Yes, the Chinese do eat dogs: in some shops in Hong-Kong we have seen a number for sale; and they eat cats and rats too. We could tell a shop in which clothes were sold some little distance off, because an imitation jacket, or something of that sort, was hung up outside, as well as the long sign-boards, which told what kind of shops they were. Leonard says I am to tell you that a policeman was outside. He always knows policemen now by turbans that they wear, and they often hold a little cane in their hands; and on the pathway a man sat, wearing a hat just like one of those funny-looking things, with a point, that we wore for fun sometimes in the garden. There are no windows to the shops.

"Oh! but some of the Chinese do believe such strange things. The other day our amah told Leonard and me to chatter our teeth three times and blow. We could not understand what she meant us to do until she did it first. We had heard a crow caw, so she thought if we did not do this afterwards we should be very unlucky. The other day a coolie fell down and broke a number of things. He had not to replace any of them, but the master had to buy all the things again because it was fine weather. If it had been dirty and slippery,[149] the boy must have bought them. None of us could understand the meaning of this till it was explained to us. If it had been a slippery day, the boy ought to have taken care, and it would have been very careless of him to fall; but if he did so in fine weather, some god must have made him slip, they think, and therefore he could not help it. The heathen Chinese have such a number of gods and goddesses.

"The other day we passed the Temple of Kwan-Yin, the goddess of mercy. The Hong-Kong people think an immense deal of her, and her temple is in such a pretty place, with many trees round it. She is a Buddhist divinity. A number of beggars were outside begging, and they nearly always get something here. Very many Chinese beggars are blind, and there are also lepers in China. Barriers were put up to keep visitors, who were not wanted, such as evil spirits, from going in. People say that evil spirits only care to go through a straight way, and never trouble to go anywhere in a crooked direction. Over the doorway were some characters, which father's teacher has written out for me. They were, being read from right to left, backwards: 'Teën How Kov Meaou,' and signify, 'The Ancient Temple of the Queen of Heaven.' Tien-How is the goddess of sailors, and often called 'The Queen of Heaven.' To the right was a doctor's shop, where prescriptions were sold to the priests; and to the left an old priest was selling little tapers which the worshippers were to burn. We looked in for a few moments, and saw people kneeling down and asking the goddess to cure their sick friends. She was seated at the end of the temple, behind an altar, on which were bronze vases, candles, and lighted[151] sticks of incense. A gong was outside, and on the walls of the temple were different representations of acts of mercy that the goddess was supposed to have performed. On the roof were dragons. The dragon is the Chinese god of rain.

"Leonard says I am to tell you that some of the Celestials thought once that he was going to beat them because he carried a walking-stick. Chinamen, excepting policemen and mandarins, are only allowed to carry them when they grow old.

"We saw a very strange sort of show the other day, called a shadow-show. A man, inside a kind of Punch and Judy house, made, with the help of a lantern, all sorts of figures, or rather, shadows, appear on the top of the Punch and Judy. It looked so strange, but Leonard said he thought the people looking at it were stranger still, what with the hats they wore and the funny way they did their hair. He declared one woman had horns. I never saw such pretty lanterns as the Chinese have. Father says that on the fifteenth day of their first month (which is not always the same, as their New Year's Day, like our Easter, is a movable feast regulated by the moon) there is a feast of lanterns, when all people, both on land and on the water, hang up most beautiful lamps, some being made to look like animals, balls of fire, or even like Kwan-Yin herself holding a child.

"Is it not strange New Year's Day next year will be on the twenty-ninth of January, and in 1882 on February eighteenth?

"I seem to have ever so much more to tell you, but I am too tired now to write it. I am glad you liked mother's pictures that I sent last time. I could only write that one short letter in Formosa. We are going[152] on to Macao (it is pronounced Macow) the day after to-morrow, then we stay at Canton, and then come back here. It will be so dreadful when that time comes, but I try not to think about it. Dear mother does sometimes, I can see. We all went to the Cathedral on Sunday.

"I hope I shall soon have a long letter from you.
"Believe me, dear Lily,
"Always your affectionate friend,
"Sybil Graham.

"Hong-Kong, December, 1880."

CHAPTER IX.

Macao was not as full now as it had been during the summer months, when many people resort thither from Canton for change of air and to enjoy the fresh sea-breezes. A beautiful walk, called the Grand Parade, surrounds its picturesque bay.

As Macao belongs to the Portuguese, a great many of the inhabitants speak that language.

Mr. and Mrs. Graham and their children stayed, whilst at Macao, at the Grand Hotel, which was situated on the Parade, where was also a very pretty jetty, on which Sybil and Leonard liked very much to walk. Here, again, the houses were painted. In a pretty street close by the Grand Parade, protected on both sides by walls, the Grahams were shown houses whose[154] windows used to have barriers of iron. These houses, they were told, were a kind of prison, called Emigration Agencies, but where in reality poor coolies were kept for sale. This traffic had, happily, now been done away with.

Some of the houses in Macao seemed to be painted all colours, and many of the windows were bordered with red, the favourite colour. Most of the houses could boast of large rooms. Not very much commerce seemed to be carried on here. Leonard was one day taken to pay the European troops a visit in their garrison.

At four o'clock in the afternoon many people walked upon the Parade. Most of the Christians here were Roman Catholics, which was natural, considering that the place belonged to the Portuguese. Bells, calling people to church, rang two or three times a day, and these, and the bugle-call from the garrison, were the principal sounds heard. It was interesting to visit Macao, because here, in its quiet prettiness, the poet Camoens, when banished, spent some of his lonely years, and wrote a great part of his epic poem "Lusiad;" and here also a French painter, named Chinnery, had produced some of his pretty paintings and sketches. Sybil was old enough to care about such things, and to find both pleasure and interest in visiting any places once made memorable by the footprints left there of either good or great men; and when she had heard the poet's story, she was very sorry for him!

Camoens, who was the epic poet of Portugal, was born in Lisbon in 1524. An epic poet is one who writes narratives, or stories, which often relate heroic[156] deeds. When banished by royal authority to Santarem, Camoens joined the expedition of John III. against Morocco, and lost his right eye in an engagement with the Moors in the Straits of Gibraltar. People in Lisbon, who would not admire his poetry, now thought nothing of his bravery. Sad and disappointed, he went to India in 1553; but being offended by what he saw the Portuguese authorities doing in India, he wrote a satire about them, called "Follies in India," and made fun of the Viceroy. For doing this, he was banished to Macao in 1556, where he lived for six years, writing "The Lusiad." On being recalled, he was shipwrecked, and lost everything that he had in the world but this epic poem, which he held in one hand above the waves, while he swam to shore with the other; and after suffering many misfortunes, he arrived in Lisbon in 1569, possessed of nothing else. He dedicated his poem to the young king Sebastian, who allowed him to stay at the court, and gave him a pension. But when Sebastian died he had nothing at all, and a faithful Indian servant begged for him in the streets. At last he died in the hospital at Lisbon, in 1579. Sixteen years later Camoens was appreciated, and people hunted for his grave, to erect a monument to his memory, but had much difficulty even in finding it.

The "Lusiad" celebrates the chief events in Portugal's history, and has been called "a gallery of epic pictures, in which all the great achievements of Portuguese heroism are represented." The poem has been translated into English, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Polish.

"The last place but one," Sybil could not help whispering to Leonard on board. "When we next arrive—" she went on, but tears starting into her eyes seemed to drown the rest of the sentence. However, as some very happy weeks had yet to be passed at Canton, neither she nor we must anticipate. A long visit of two months was to be spent here at the residence of a personal friend of Mr. Graham, the English consul of the place.

A servant was stationed on the steps leading round to the Consulate, or Yamen, to await the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Graham and their children.

This house was situated on a height, and occupied the site of an ancient palace. It consisted of a suite of buildings, surrounded on one side by a pretty garden, and on the other by a park, in which deer grazed. Both Sybil and Leonard thought the deer very pretty; and quite near to the Yamen was a pagoda of nine storeys, which the Emperor Wong-Ti, who reigned about the middle of the sixteenth century, is supposed first to have constructed.

"How little," Sybil and Leonard said to one another, "we ever thought, when we examined our little ornamental pagodas at home, that we should ever live quite near to a real one!"

A story relating to this pagoda, being told to Leonard, interested him a good deal.

In 1859 some English sailors climbed up the old building, which was then in so tottering a condition that it was a really perilous ascent, and when they reached the top the Chinese were dreadfully angry, for two reasons: first, because they looked upon it as sacrilege; and secondly, because from the height the[159] sailors could look down upon their houses, and the Chinese dislike very much indeed to be overlooked, especially by "barbarians."

The consul and Leonard were soon very good friends, and the elder friend very kindly did not weary of answering questions put to him by the little boy.

"This word means the same as does consulate, the official residence of the consul."

The consul smiled. "To protect your interests and those, commercial and otherwise, of every English citizen resident here."

"He died a few years ago, and was viceroy of Canton. He made so good a governor that those provinces over which he ruled generally prospered under his administration. It is in a great measure through his influence that peaceable relations have, for some time, been established between China and foreign countries. The Emperor Tau-Kwang, who came to the throne in 1820, thought so well of him that he made him one of his ministers. Later he became general of the Tartar garrison at Canton, and soon after he was made viceroy. He established order in a very troublesome district, where he made the clan villagers at last acknowledge some authority, and so put the people and their property in much greater security."

Leonard said Canton was the place for him, for here he saw ships and fishing to perfection. In Canton alone, the consul told him, it was estimated that 300,000[161] persons had their homes on the water. One Canton boat-woman, in whose passenger-boat they travelled, said that her husband went on shore during the day to work, whilst she looked after the passengers; but he seemed to be rather an exception, for most of the boat population never went on shore at all, and as people on land go to market to buy vegetables and other food, so everything in this line, that they required, was brought, by boat, to them. Then, besides boats, there were floating islands, on which people lived, and these consisted of rafts of bamboos fastened together, with a thick bed of vegetable soil covering the rafts. Here the owners set up houses, cultivated rice-fields, and kept tame cattle and hogs. Swallows and pigeons here built their nests in pretty surrounding gardens. Sails were put up on the houses, and oars were often used to propel the islands along. Women worked them frequently, with their babies fastened to their backs; and little boys and girls would here also play together, having smaller brothers and sisters thus attached to them. These floating islands, Sybil and Leonard were told, were to be seen on almost all Chinese lakes. Many floating houses were moored to one another.

Sometimes the boat population made such a noise. They seemed a good-natured set of people, but every now and then they quarrelled, and this was done very noisily. Then if a storm came on, they would call out with fear. Those people who lived in river streets, where their houses were close against the river, often complained of the noise that they heard during the night. The boat population are often looked down upon by the Chinese who live on land, and may not go in for the literary examinations.[162]

There were very many fishing villages about, and nothing made Leonard happier than to be taken to one or another of them; he was so fond of boats of all kinds. Fishing-boats in China had to obtain a license from Government. Some of these sailed two and two abreast, at a distance, from one another, of about three hundred feet, when a net was stretched from ship to ship to enclose the fish. Names cut in the boats had generally reference to good fortune. The name on one, which Leonard had interpreted for him, was "Good Success."

In fishing as well as in other villages men go about hawking things for sale, and carrying them, by ship, from one village to another. In the bows of[163] fishing vessels are large pairs of shears, which can be either raised or lowered. A large dip-net, fastened to the shears, is drawn up after remaining some time in the water, when the fish it contains are emptied into a little hole in the middle of the ship, like a large cistern, into which fresh water flows. The fishermen anchor their boats, and then lower their dip-nets into the water by means of these shears, which are made of bamboo, and attached to wooden platforms, resting[164] on posts. Huts are sometimes erected near the dip-nets, so that the fishermen can shelter themselves from the hot sun. A great deal of fishing with birds called cormorants is also carried on in China, when one man will, perhaps, take out a hundred birds to fish for him, fastening something to their throats to prevent them from swallowing the fish when caught. As they return with them, they are given a little piece that they can swallow.

After young fish are caught, they are fed with paste in the tanks, or wells, into which they are put, and when they grow older little ponds are made for them.

Sybil and Leonard were taken very often on the Canton river in all kinds of boats, both large and small. In the stern of very many was an altar, concealed generally behind a sliding door, but which, night and morning, was drawn aside to admit the altar to view, and display the images of household gods that were upon it.

Here were also small ancestral tablets, which were regularly worshipped, and offerings of fruit and flowers were constantly offered to the guardian god of the boat and the tablets when they were worshipped. Tien-How, Queen of Heaven, also called Ma-chu, and other names, is much worshipped by sailors, but each boat has its special guardian god. Incense is burnt night and morning at the bow of the boat. The Grahams very often travelled in a small ship called a sampan, which had a mat roofing over the centre, and was driven forward, very frequently by women, with two oars and a scull.

"I have seen just the sort of thing for you to sketch, mother," Sybil said one day. Like her mother, she[165] greatly admired what was beautiful, and now, with her fellow-excursionists, the consul, her father, and brother, returned home, from a ramble, very tired; "a dear little pagoda, seven storeys high, very near to the banks of the river, with mountains at the back and trees near to it, and a little village in the distance; and on the opposite side of the river we saw two men and a[166] boy: the boy seemed to have a kite, but we thought it belonged to one of the men, and he was just carrying it for him."

Mrs. Graham sometimes did not feel equal to long expeditions, of which her children never grew tired, so then she would remain at home, or walk through the pretty gardens and park.

The Canton, Chu-kiang, or Pearl River, has a great many names and branches. The great western branch is called Kan-kiang, the northern branch Pe-kiang, or Pearl River, and the eastern one Tong-kiang. On the western branch the children found themselves surrounded by lovely mountain scenery. From Canton to Whampoa it was called the Pearl River; from Whampoa to Bocca Tigris, or Tiger's Mouth, Foo-mon; and beyond Shek-moon towards Canton, the Covetous River. The passage to Macao was the Wild Goose River. It was some time before Sybil and Leonard could understand anything at all about these divisions.

One day, on the Pearl River, they came to a very pretty spot, where the water was almost entirely land-locked by high ranges of hills, and here they asked to be allowed to remain stationary, for a little while, to look about them.

Another day they went very far indeed with their father and mother, crossing the Fatchan River, where Leonard heard, with interest, that Commodore Keppel engaged in a memorable battle in 1857. The river divides the town of Fatchan into two equal parts. Then again they went so far that they could not even think of returning home the same day, and stayed the night on the road to a village called Wong-tong, which was very countrified and pretty.[167]

And once more they went—father, mother, and all—to a place quite different from anything that they had yet seen, which was the village of Polo-Hang. Here they found themselves in the midst of vast plains, on the outskirts of which were to be seen lovely-looking hills of limestone and rows of wonderfully-shaped mountains. Standing on one of these mountains, they had a capital view of the Temple of Polo-Hang and its surroundings, consisting of bare fields traversed by canals; and, at the foot of the mountains of thickets of bamboo, whose light, feathery branches swayed gently to and fro. Bamboo was very largely cultivated here, and Sybil thought it such a fairy-like growth. Must not this scene have been very lovely? Sybil was so glad that her mother[168] had come to see it. Then other hills appeared, covered with trees, and dotted here and there with temples.

Mr. Graham was looking very serious. This was a scene calculated to leave a deep impression upon the beholders.

"Canton, January, 1881.

"My Dearest Lily,—We saw such a strange sight yesterday; and we could not help liking to see it, although, of course, it was very dreadful. We went inside[170] a Buddhist temple at Canton. These temples are often called joss-houses; this one was the Temple of Five Hundred Gods. Fancy five hundred gods! and these idols were all there, arranged in different lines. They all seemed to look different, and some were dreadfully ugly. I saw beards on a few of their faces. In the part of the temple where, in a church, our altar would be, there was a terrible-looking thing: I suppose a very special god.

"We saw one of the priests. He had his beads in one hand, and a fan in the other. Some of the priests are men who have committed great crimes, and have escaped to a monastery and had their heads shaved, so as not to be caught and punished.

"Some of the idols were as large as if they were alive, and they had their arms in all sorts of different positions. Some held beads, and a few wore crowns; I think they were disciples of Buddha. The buildings of the temple, and the houses of the priests, were surrounded by lakes and gardens.

"We have been able to get you a picture of part of the inside of the temple, so I send it to you; but Leonard says that he thinks as you'll have the picture (and he considers it a very good one) that you ought to know that this temple is said to have been founded about 520 years a.d., and to have been rebuilt in 1755. Fancy people wasting prayers before these images! Isn't it a pity that they don't know better? There are more than 120 temples, or joss-houses, in Canton.

"The Chinese never eat with knives and forks, but with chop-sticks. These are generally small square pieces of bamboo, as large as a penholder, which they hold between the thumb and first finger of the[172] right hand. I can't eat with them at all, nor can mother; and the other day, when she went out to lunch with some Chinese ladies, they sent for a knife and fork for her.

"Chinese ladies in Canton never seem to be with their husbands in public, and they never walk in the streets with them. Some of them think us such barbarous people because we are so different from what they are.

"The Chinese have such a funny way of paying formal visits, that I think I must tell you about it. They often go in sedan-chairs. Officers of the highest rank may have eight bearers, people of less rank have four, and ordinary people two. The state sedan-chair of an official is covered with green cloth, and the fringe on the roof and window-curtains has to be green too. So much seems to go by rank in China. For the first three ranks, the tips of poles may be of brass, in the form of a dragon's head; the fourth and fifth rank would have a lion's head. On the top of these chairs is a ball of tin. Leonard and I can tell the chairs very well now. Private gentlemen have blue cloth, and the ends of their poles are tipped with plain brass.

"Father says when an official calls upon another official in Peking, his servant sends in his visiting card. The official who is being called upon then sends out to know how his visitor is dressed, and if he hears that it is in full costume, he dresses himself in the same way, and then goes to the entrance of the house, and asks his visitor to get out of his carriage or chair, and come in. As they pass through a door of the gate, the gentleman, to whom the house belongs asks the visitor to go first, but he always says 'No' until he has been asked three[174] times, and then he walks first to the reception-hall, when the two stop again, and ask one another to go first. When they have come into the hall, father says, they kneel down, and knock their heads on the ground six times. This is performing the kow-tow. When they get up from this performance, the host arranges a chair for the other, and asks him to sit down, but he must not do this even till he has bowed again. I am sure I should forget when I had to make all these bows, and should be sure to do them at the wrong times.

"After they have had a little talk, a servant is told to make some tea. I suppose the host would then say 'Yam-cha' to the other, for this means 'Drink tea.' Before either gentleman drinks, both bow again, and soon afterwards the visitor gets up, and says, 'I want to take my leave.' They walk together to the grand entrance, but at every door-way the visitor has to bow, and ask his friend not to come any farther, although of course he must go, or it would not be polite. And then he stands at the entrance door till the carriage has driven off. The Chinese do bow so often, and little children have to do it too.

"The consul told Leonard that when school-boys go to see their masters, they have to arrange the chair-cushions for their masters and themselves. The boy has to stand outside the visitor's hall till his master comes, and when he has been asked to go in, he gives him for a present a tael of silver, about 2s. 8d., which he holds up with both his hands. Then he looks towards the north, kneels, and knocks his head twice upon the ground, when the master bows. The boy asks how his teacher's parents are, who also asks after the boy's. He then invites his little guest to sit down;[175] but every time the boy is asked a question by his teacher he has to stand up to answer it. When he leaves, he goes to the entrance door by himself. At school, the boys have to make a bow to the schoolmaster whenever they go in and out of the room.

"You asked me in your letter if people have very many servants in China. Some have a very great number. Ordinary Chinese gentlemen might have a porter, two or three footmen, coolies for house-work, sedan-chair bearers, and a cook. Women servants are often bought by their masters. A rich man will have sometimes twenty or thirty slaves. People called 'go-betweens' generally buy them for the masters. We have very few servants of our own now, as we are on a visit. Mother's maid shows dear little Chu what to do. Female slaves attend upon the ladies and children, and we have often seen them carrying their mistresses with small feet. It does look so funny. In good families, father says, they are very well treated, but some maid-of-all-work slaves often run away because they are so unhappy.

"Children are sometimes stolen to be slaves. Great-grandsons of slaves can buy their freedom. I am so glad I have my little Chu, because she cannot be bought or sold now: father made that agreement. I should not know nearly so much about the servants and slaves if I had not wanted to know what might have become of little Chu if we had not had her. Sometimes servants stand in the streets to be hired.

"In a suburb of Canton, in a street called the Taiping Kai, we saw one morning a number of bricklayers, journeymen, and carpenters, waiting to be hired. The carpenters stand in a line on one side, and bricklayers[176] on the other. Father said they had been there since five o'clock.

"Another day we saw men carrying baskets, in which they were collecting every bit of paper they could find about the streets, which had been written upon. The Chinese have such respect for every little piece of paper, on which have been any Chinese characters, that they will not allow any parcels even to be wrapped up in them. When all these scraps have been collected, they are burnt in a furnace, and the ashes are put into baskets, carried in procession, and emptied into a stream. Slips of paper are pasted on walls, telling people to reverence lettered paper. Chinese characters are called 'eyes of the sage;' and some people think that if they are irreverent to the paper, they are so to the sages who invented them, and they will perhaps, for a punishment, be born blind in the next world.

WAITING TO BE HIRED.

"Men become famous in China when they write very beautifully. They write with a brush and Indian ink. Father's teacher says there are three styles of writing Chinese characters, and that the literature of China is the first in Asia. A Chinaman writes from right to left, and all the writing consists of signs or characters. I cannot think how Chinese people understand either their writing or their conversation. One word will mean a number of things, and you know which word they mean by the sound of the voice and the stress on the word. Leonard asked the teacher one day what soldier was in Chinese, and he said, 'ping;' but he also told him that 'ping' meant ice, pancake, and other words too. 'Fu' is father, and 'Mu' mother. They think we have no written language.[177]

"Canton is entered by twelve outer, and four inner, gates. The name means 'City of Perfection.' Leonard and I are now going for a walk, with father, to the Street of Apothecaries, and to-morrow we are to see a bridal procession.

"There are such a number of narrow streets in Canton, and religious worship is carried on in the open streets, in front of shrines; and before the shops lighted sticks, called 'joss-sticks,' are put at dawn and sunset. The natives live in the narrow streets.[178] Those in the European settlement, where we are, are larger.

"The ports, which are open to foreign commerce, have European parts where the European inhabitants live.

"Always your affectionate
"Sybil Graham."

The shops opened right upon the street, which was very gay indeed with sign-boards. Just in front of the shops were granite counters, on which goods were shown to purchasers.

Many of the sign-boards rested on granite pedestals. On one side of each shop was a little altar, dedicated to the god of wealth, or the god supposed to preside over the special trade carried on within. Every heathen Chinese merchant and shopkeeper has some little spot set apart for this worship, although all the shops have not an altar, but many only a piece of red paper pasted upon a wall, on which the characters meaning "god of wealth" are written, and before which incense and candles are burnt. Every day, as soon as the shop is opened, worship is paid to this divinity.[180]

The counters and shelves inside these hongs were very handsome. The accountant's desk was at the end of the hong, and here again the red colour was not absent, for the scales and weights of the shop were covered with cloth of that hue.

Beggars (some miserably and scantily dressed) are very numerous in China, people making quite a profession of begging, when they visit shops in companies, and there make a great disturbance until they receive what they demand. These beggars are often governed by a head-man, who was really first appointed to rule over them by the mandarin, to save himself trouble. A head-man will sometimes make an agreement with a hong proprietor, that if he will pay a sum of money down beggars shall not molest him; and when he agrees to this, a notice on red paper, stating the arrangement made, is hung up in the shop, after which any native beggar applying for aid can be shown this, turned out of the hong, and upon refusing to go, he can be beaten. But unless such an arrangement has been made, beggars may neither be beaten nor turned out of a shop, whatever annoyance they may offer, unless they steal, or break some other law. Therefore it is that poor shop-keepers feel themselves bound to pay money in order to avoid such annoyance. When the head-man is paid a sum of money, he is supposed to divide it amongst his band.

"I never heard such a shame!" Leonard exclaimed, when he saw one of these beggars very troublesome in the Street of Apothecaries, and heard the law with regard to them. "I wish I were a mandarin. I'd very soon put a stop to poor shop-keepers being so persecuted."[182]

That evening both Sybil and Leonard, feeling tired, went very early to bed, as they wanted to be up in very good time in the morning, so as to see the whole of the bridal procession, for the bridegroom sends very early indeed in the morning for his bride. The bridal-chair which he sends for her is often painted red. The one which the Grahams saw was of this colour, and over the door were also strips of red paper. Before the bride took her seat in the sedan, which was brought into the reception-room of her home for her, she having eaten nothing that morning, and having kow-towed very often to her parents, they covered her head and face with a thick veil, so that she could not be seen. The floor, from her room to the sedan, was covered with red carpet. When in the sedan, four bread-cakes were tossed[183] into the air by one of the bridesmaids as an omen of good fortune. In front of the procession two men carried large lighted lanterns, having the family name of the bridegroom, cut in red paper, and pasted on[184] them. Then came two men bearing the family name of the bride, who were, however, only to go part of the way. Other men followed, some carrying a large red umbrella, others torches, and again some playing a band of music. Near the bridal-chair brothers or friends of the bride walked. Half-way between the two houses the friends of the bridegroom met the bride, and as they approached the procession stopped.

The children were very much interested in watching what happened next. The bride's friends brought out a large red card, on which was written the bride's family name, and the other party produced a similar one, bearing that of the bridegroom. These were exchanged with bows. The two men at the head of the procession then walked, with their lanterns, between the sedan-chair and the lantern-bearers, who carried the bride's family name, and returned to their places in front, when the bride's party turned round and went back to her father's house, carrying home her family name, she being supposed to have now taken that of her husband. Even her brothers went back also, and then the band played a very lively air whilst the rest of the procession took her on.

Fireworks were let off along the road, and a great many outside the bridegroom's door when the bride arrived. Her bridesmaids, who have to keep with her throughout the day, accompanied the procession.

As the sedan-chair was taken into the reception-room, the torch-bearers and musicians stayed near the door, and where it was put down the floor was again covered with red carpet. The bridegroom then came and knocked at the bridal door, but a married woman and a little boy, holding a mirror, asked the bride to get[185] out. Her bridesmaids helped her to alight. The mirror was supposed to ward off evil influences.

Sometimes, much for the same purpose, a bride is carried over a charcoal fire on a servant's back, but this[186] was not done on this occasion. All this time the bride's face was hidden by her veil. She was then taken into a room, where the bridegroom was waiting for her, and here they sat down together for a few minutes, without speaking a word. Sometimes the bridegroom sits on a high stool, while the bride throws herself down before him, to show that she considers man superior to woman.

He then went into the reception-room, where he waited for his bride to come to worship his ancestral tablets with him. A table was put in front of the room, on which were two lighted candles and lighted incense. Two goblets, chop-sticks, white sugar-cocks, and other things were on the table, when the bride and bridegroom both knelt four times, bowing their heads towards the earth. This was called "worshipping heaven and earth." The ancestral tablets were on tables at the back, on which were also lighted candles and incense. Turning round towards the tablets, they worshipped them eight times, and then facing one another, they knelt four times.

Wedding wine was now drunk, and the bride and bridegroom ate a small piece from the same sugar-cock, which was to make them agree.

The thick veil was now taken off the bride, but her face was still partly hidden by strings of pearl hanging from a bridal coronet.

It often happens that the bridegroom now sees his bride for the first time, the two fathers having perhaps planned the marriage, asked a fortune-teller's advice, sent go-betweens to make all the necessary arrangements, chosen a lucky day, without the bride or bridegroom having a voice in the matter. This was the case with the young couple, a great part of whose wedding[187] ceremony Sybil and Leonard had witnessed. Both Chinese boys and girls marry sometimes when they are sixteen years of age; these were very little older.

Many other ceremonies had to take place, such as kneeling very often before the bridegroom's parents, when at last it was time for the bride's heavy outer garments to be taken off, together with her head-dress, so that her hair could be well arranged; but she was not allowed to eat anything at all at the wedding dinner. Indeed, on her wedding-day, she is hardly expected to touch food at all.

Many people came in to see her, and on this day she must be quite natural, and wear no rouge at all. She has to stand up quietly to be looked at, blessed, and have remarks made upon her appearance. Presents are sent to the bridegroom's family. For three days the bride's parents send her food, as she may not, during that time, eat what her husband provides. In some districts of the province of Canton the bride leaves her husband, and goes home again for a time after she is married, but after marriage she is generally considered to belong almost entirely to her husband's family, in a wing of whose house she lives with him, and to whose parents she is supposed to help him to be filial. On many other days the ancestral tablets have to be worshipped by the bride and bridegroom, and amongst other gods and goddesses, those of the kitchen have adoration paid to them.

"Canton, February, 1881.

"My Dearest Lily.—Father took us to a lovely farm the other day" (Sybil wrote in another letter), "where we saw a little donkey, who was so well cared for that he seemed like one of the family. Leonard and[189] I fed him for some time. We both thought that the farm-house was something like a Swiss cottage. Father said the walls were made of clay, and on these walls were scrolls, which were supposed to have power to keep the fox and wild cat away.

"There were a few bullocks and cows here, but not many; their stalls were quite near to the house. We liked the village, to which we went, very much, and it was surrounded by high trees. Father says that the stables of the Chinese are like cart-sheds, but each stable has an altar in honour of the ruler of horses. In this city there is a large temple to this god.

"We saw a number of bean, pea, rice, and cotton-fields, and had some sugar-cane given us to eat. Sugar-cane is grown in Canton, and we had some bean-curds to drink. We liked them very much. Mother says she was told that they were made in Canton overnight, and generally sold very early in the morning. The beans are ground to flour, which is strained, and then boiled slowly for an hour. I wonder if you would like it?

"The Chinese are so fond of sugar-cane, and it grew in China before it grew anywhere else. Ever so many fruits and vegetables grow also in China, but there seem to be more rice-fields than any other. I will tell you a few of the vegetables: sweet potatoes, yams, tomatoes, cabbages, lettuces, turnips, and carrots; and some fruits are apricots, custard-apples, rose-apples, dates, oranges, pomegranates, melons, pumpkins, and ever so many others. Canton is in the tropics, but it is not hot here in the winter. There are such pretty water-lilies here, not only white, but also red and red-and-white. The Chinese look upon this lily as a sacred[190] plant. Some shop-keepers use the leaves, in which to wrap up things, instead of paper.

"Chinese people do very funny things. Because they think that their birds sometimes like change of air, they carry their cages out of doors with them for a walk. But I do so wish that they did not eat dogs! You see them being sold in the shops, and in one district of Canton a fair is held, where they are regularly sold for food. Many people like black dogs best. At the beginning of summer nearly everybody eats dog's flesh, when a ceremony takes place. If people eat it, they think that it will keep them from being ill in the summer. I am glad, for that reason, that I shall not be here in June, as the dogs are cruelly beaten the day before they are killed. Fancy, poor little things! I suppose that is to bring luck too! And yet the Cantonese think that they displease the gods when they eat dog's flesh, and we have seen it written on Buddhist temples that people ought not to eat 'their faithful guardians.'

"The Cantonese must not go into a temple to worship till they have been three whole days without eating any dog. One of the 'boys' here—he is a footman; but in China all these sort of people are called 'boys'—eats rats. He says he is getting bald, and if he eats them his hair will grow again. Horses are sometimes eaten too; and worms that spoil the rice-fields, father told me, are sent to the markets and sold to be eaten. Isn't that nasty? And a kind of swallow's nest is eaten even by ladies. It is lined with feathers, which are first removed; then it is scraped, washed, and pulled to pieces, when it looks white. People say it is something like blancmange. I should not like to eat it. Does it not[191] seem greedy, when people have so much to eat, to take poor little birds'-nests which have been made with such pains by their owners?

"There is a bird in China that has such a long tail: it is called the Golden Pheasant. The feathers of the cock bird are most beautiful. His throat and breast are like purple velvet, and his back looks like gold. The upper part of his very long tail is scarlet, and the rest yellow. When this pheasant lifts his head and neck-feathers he shows such a tuft!

"There are a good many deer in China, which are also supposed to bring good fortune. Some Chinese are very cruel to animals. We have seen them carrying pigs, ducks, and geese fastened to a pole, hanging with their heads downwards; and some of their dogs look so hungry, and their beasts of burden so tired. We saw a dreadful thing one day, almost too dreadful to write about—a poor little dog running yelping through the streets with its tail cut off! A Taouist priest had cut it off, so that it should run screaming through all the house in which evil spirits were supposed to be, because this would drive them out; then the poor little dog rushed into the streets, where we saw it, and, fortunately, father was near enough to have it killed at once.

CHINESE LADIES.

"The people listen more to father than they do to many missionaries, because he goes to the dispensary and helps to cure them when they are ill.

"I forgot to tell you that when we first went to the farm nobody saw us, because the farmer, his wife, daughter, and a labourer were all listening to a man reading to them. We thought he must have got hold of some of the Chinese classics. The pigeon-English people talk sometimes is so funny. They are so fond[192] of the word 'piecee.' Instead of 'one child,' they say 'one piecee chilo;' and if they had many children, I expect they would say 'piecee muchee.'

"Leonard makes very good shots at pigeon-English, and can talk it much better than I can. What we generally do is to put 'ee' at the end of our words; but when we spoke to the farmer he could not understand, and so said, 'You talkee me. Very good talkee.' When he wanted to tell us that his house was very large, he said, 'Number one largee, handsome howsow;' and for 'There is a child up-stairs,' he said, 'Have got chilo topside.'

"You asked me how the Chinese dressed, so I must try to tell you this, although I have written you such a long letter already.

"Gentlemen and ladies seem to dress very much alike; and people cannot change their clothes as they choose, because there is a minister of ceremonies, who says of what colour, stuff, and shape things are to be made, and when winter and summer things are to be changed. Even a head-dress may not be altered as people like, or they might be breaking a law. And it is so funny about the nails; some people let some of their nails grow as long as they can, and are so proud when they are very long. No Chinaman wears a beard till he is forty. The outside robe of a gentleman is so long that it reaches to his ankles, and it is fastened with buttons. The sleeves are first broad, and then get narrower and narrower. A sash is tied round his waist, and from this chop-sticks, a tobacco-case, fans, and such-like things hang. The head-dress is a cap with a peak at the top. Men do not take off their hats to bow; indeed, they would put them on if they[194] were off. In-doors they wear silk slippers, pointed and turned up at the toes. Chinese men are admired when they are stout, and women when they are thin. Women also have two robes, the top one often being made of satin, and reaching from the chin to the ground. Their sleeves are so long that they do instead of gloves. They always wear trousers, and often carry a pipe, for women smoke a great deal in China. Some, I think, are pretty. They have rather large eyes and red lips.[195] Old ladies wear very quiet clothes. Mother says the Chinese are not at all clean people, and ought to change their clothes much oftener than they do. People wear shoes of silk, or cotton, with thick felt soles. The women spend hours having their hair done into all sorts of shapes, such as baskets, bird-cages, or anything they and their amahs can manufacture. Then besides ornaments in their hair, they wear ear-rings and bangles. Even boat-women wear these; and the ladies almost always[196] paint their faces, to do which they have a kind of enamel. Chinese ladies have little useful occupation, and spend a great part of their time, mother says, when they are not doing embroidery, in gambling and adorning themselves.

"The peasants wear a coarse linen shirt, covered by a cotton tunic, with thin trousers fastened to the ankles. In wet and cold weather they make a useful covering of net-work, into which are plaited rushes, or coarse dry grass, and they put on very large hats, made in the same way. The Chinese are not at all lazy people, for father says after their shutters are shut, and all looks dark from the outside, they are often at work, and they get up early too. When men grow old their tails get so thin. I saw such a wrinkled old man the other day, with hardly any tail at all. I think he must have been very sorry about that; he was an old villager.

"Coolies wear their tails twisted round their heads. They do all the heavy work, and are porters, common house labourers, and sedan-chair bearers.

"Leonard says if I write any more stuff he is sure you will not read it; but I hope you will think it interesting stuff, at all events, and, therefore, not mind my letter being so long. There seems to be so much to tell you when you have not been to China, and it seems selfish to keep all the pleasure of seeing such new things to myself. I meant to tell you about the New Year, which we have just kept, but I have not room. I hope you will write to me very soon. We all send love to you, and

"Believe me,
"Your very affectionate friend,
"Sybil Graham."

CHAPTER XI.

"Please, father," she said, "tell me all that the Chinese do when anybody dies."

"I do not think I could tell you all," was her father's reply, "because it would take too long, and I do not know all myself; but I dare say I can tell you quite enough to satisfy your curiosity. When a Chinese thinks that a relation is likely to die soon, he places him, with his feet towards the door, on a bed of boards, arranging his best robes and a hat, or cap, quite close to him, that he may be dressed in[198] these just before he dies. It would be considered a dreadful thing if he were to die without putting them on. Soon after he is dead, a priest—usually a priest of Taou—is called in to ask the spirit to make haste to Elysium, and to cast the man's horoscope, so as to see how far the spirit has got on its journey."

"Finding out the hour of a man's birth, and then foretelling events by the appearance of the heavens. More clothes are then put upon the dead man, who, if he be a person of rank, would wear three silk robes. Gongs are beaten, and when the body is placed in its coffin, every corner of the room is beaten with a hammer, to frighten away bad spirits. A crown is also put on any person of rank. Widows and children, to show their grief, sit on the floor instead of on chairs for seven days, and sleep on mats near to the husband and father's coffin. On the seventh day letters are written to friends, informing them of the death, when they send presents of money to help to defray the funeral expenses. I saw a very strange letter of thanks yesterday, a copy of which had been sent to each giver of a present, and besides money, food is sometimes given or priests are sent. The letter, as far as I can remember, ran thus: 'This is to express the thanks of the orphaned son, who weeps tears of blood, and bows his head; of the mourning brother, who weeps and bows his head; of the mourning nephew, who wipes away his tears and bows his head.' Then a letter is also written to the departed, and burnt, that it may reach him, whilst cakes and other presents are also sent to him by means of burning.

"On the twenty-first day after death a banquet[200] is prepared in honour of the spirit, which is supposed, on that day, to come back to his home, when the entrance doors are shut, for fear any one should come in and vex the spirit. On the twenty-third day three large paper birds are put on high poles in front of the house, to carry the soul to Elysium; and for three days Buddhist priests pray to the ten kings of Buddhist hell to hasten the flight of the departed soul to the Western Paradise.

"The coffin is kept in the house for seven weeks, where an altar is set up, near to which the tablet and portrait of the deceased are put. Banners, which are looked upon as letters of condolence, are fixed upon the walls, and on these the merits of the dead man are inscribed.

"Pictures of the three Buddhas are also to be seen in the house. A lucky place and day have then to be fixed, by fortune-tellers, for the burial, and should these not be forthcoming, the coffin would be placed on a hill till they can be found. Burial is considered of so much importance, that should a man be drowned his spirit would be called back into a figure of wood or paper, and buried with pomp. Before the grave-diggers begin their work, members of the family worship the genii of the mountain, and write letters to these gods, asking them to be so kind as to allow the funeral to take place."

"Those were the relatives in deep mourning, white, you remember, being the deepest, white and blue lesser, mourning."[201]

"And he says he is sure he saw his friend Che-Yin among the mourners. You know, father, Che-Yin is really a great friend of Leonard's, though he is so much older than himself, and now he is taking great trouble to teach him to play on the musical instrument which he plays so well himself. I believe if Leonard were going to stay longer here he would really learn to play it quite well. Is it not kind of Che-Yin? But I must not interrupt you any more," Sybil went on, "and this is so interesting. Leonard said he wondered so much what could be happening once when he heard a tremendous noise, and saw people rushing out into the streets screaming."

"I think I know what that meant," was the missionary's answer. "On the day of burial the relatives weep and lament very loudly. They carry a long white streamer, called a soul-cloth, to the ancestral hall, for the spirit to say 'Good-bye' to its ancestors. At three or four o'clock in the morning all decorations, that have been put up in front of the door, are taken down, and a banquet is made ready, of which the spirit is invited to partake. You remember I told you that they believe one spirit is buried with the body. Well, some kind of paper is now again burnt, while the spirit is asked to accompany the body, and the tablet and portrait of the dead man are put in a sedan-chair by his eldest son, over the top of which is a streamer of red satin, on which his name and titles are written.

"Distant relations remain standing out in the streets; but I expect what Leonard saw was people rushing out of the house, dreadfully frightened, for fear that after all the day might not be lucky, and the[203] spirit should be vexed, and send trouble to them, in consequence.

"As the coffin is brought out offerings are also again presented to the spirit. Two men walk first, carrying large lanterns, on which are written the name, title, and age of the man who has died. Then come two other men with a gong, which they beat from time to time."

"Then follow musicians, and behind these some men walk with flags, others with red boards, on which are inscribed, in golden letters, the titles of the ancestors of the deceased."

"Offerings made to the dead are carried under gilded canopies, and these canopies also follow the ancestral tablets. The portrait of the dead man is in one sedan-chair, and his wooden tablet in another.

"I believe somewhere about here are more musicians, then comes a man scattering pieces of paper fastened to tinfoil. This is supposed to be mock-money for hungry ghosts, the souls of those people who have died at corners of the streets, and this money is to make peace with them, so that they shall not injure the soul of the man now being buried. The eldest son carries a staff, whilst a person walks on either side to support him."

"But Leonard said he saw a white cock, when he could not help laughing. What could this be for?"

"The cock is also carried to call the soul to go with the body. Behind the eldest son comes the bier, carried by men or drawn by horses.

"Many other persons follow. All the people that can,[204] go in the procession. Women with small feet, unless carried on their slaves' backs, can only go a short way. At the grave, grains of rice are scattered over the coffin, when the priest and all the people lift the cock and bend their bodies forward three times. The tablet is taken out of the chair, on which the nearest relation makes a mark with a red pencil; then the sons kneel down, and a priest, if present, addresses them."

"No; sometimes only a man skilled in geomancy is present. Geomancy is a kind of foretelling things, by means of little dots first made on the ground and then on paper. The tablet is marked, I believe, to bring good luck to the sons, and then every one knocks his head on the ground and does homage to it."

"Oh, father!" she said, "how much you, and other missionaries, will have to teach these people! What a pity it is that they cannot know that the soul is never buried, and that they can't learn to worship and pray to God, Who would send them such real happiness in answer to their prayers!"

"And is anything more done for the dead after this except worship being paid to them?"

"Yes; for many days feasts are prepared for the departed relative, hot water is carried to him to wash his face and hands, and I have also heard of another way that the Chinese have of 'conveying' spirits to the kingdoms of Buddhistic hell. Little sedan-chairs are made of bamboo splints and paper, with four[205] little paper bearers, and sometimes there is a fifth little paper man, holding an umbrella. These are burnt like the paper mock-money; and sometimes, after the death of another friend, a little paper trunk, full of paper clothes, is supplied for one already dead, and burnt, when the senders believe that the person who died last is conveying this trunk to the other in safety for them."

"They think that people need a great many things in the other world, then," Sybil said. "And do children often worship at their parents' tombs?"

"Yes; at certain seasons of the year they make pilgrimages to the tops of high hills, or to other distant parts, where they prostrate themselves, this being supposed to continue the homage and reverence which they showed to them on earth; and they believe that in a great measure the happiness of the spirits depends upon the adoration and worship which they pay to them, whilst those who render it secure for themselves favour from the gods. Twice a day do children also pay adoration to their dead parents, before a shrine set up in the house to the memory of departed ancestors."

"But what is the use of preparing feasts for the dead?" Sybil asked. "They cannot think that the dead really eat the food?"

"They seem to do so, and not only lay a place for them, but even put chop-sticks for their use."

Another procession Sybil and Leonard saw one day, and this Sybil described in the last letter that she wrote to her friend, before she left China. Some men carried an image of the Dragon King, others carried gongs, drums, and green and black and yellow and white flags, whilst boys, walking in the procession, called out loudly from time to time.[206]

The children could not possibly imagine what this procession could be all about.

One man who, as Leonard thought, had a very happy, smiling face, had a pole slung across his shoulders, from which hung two buckets of water. In his hand he held a green branch of a shrub which, from time to time, he dipped in the water, and then sprinkled the ground; while he also continually called out something. Other men were carrying sticks of lighted incense. Most of the people, in the procession, wore white clothes, and white caps without tassels.

Sybil and Leonard were afterwards told that this was praying for rain, because for some time there had been none.

The Dragon King was carried, because he is supposed to be the god of rain. Besides the Dragon King there is a River Dragon, who is both feared and worshipped.[207] His mother, Loong-Moo, is often worshipped by people engaged in river traffic.

The men and boys were calling out "Rain comes!" The yellow and white banners were to represent wind and water, and the green and black, clouds.

The inscription on the flags was, when translated, "Prayer is offered for rain."

CHAPTER XII.

One lady, whom Sybil visited, astonished her very much, because she had an only boy, who was very pale-looking and delicate, and she called him all sorts of names, and seemed to treat him so unkindly. When Sybil had been ill herself, her mother had always treated her with such extra love and care, and she fancied that all mothers behaved like this. Then the Chinese love their boys so much, that one would therefore have thought an only boy would be so very precious. The next time that she saw the lady she had given away her child to be adopted by some one else. Mrs. Graham heard the explanation to this unnatural conduct, and gave it to Sybil. The woman really loved her boy most fondly, and would have given anything she had to have him well, but she fancied that the gods were malicious towards him, and that if she pretended to them that she did not care for the child they would let him get well again. All that conduct was to deceive the gods.

Mr. Graham had several times dined out at Chinese houses, and sometimes his wife had accompanied him, but as Cantonese ladies never dine with their husbands in public, where her doing so was likely to give any offence, even though she were invited, she never went; but many Chinese very well understand that there are quite different laws for Europeans than there are for them, and these seemed to be glad to admit English ladies, with their husbands, to be guests at their houses.

When Mr. and Mrs. Graham went to one of these dinners, knives and forks were borrowed for them, and the other English visitors, in place of chop-sticks. A china spoon and a two-pronged fork were set before each person, and there were china wine-glasses. The[210] table-napkins were of brown paper. Basins of fruit, from which all helped themselves as they liked, were in the middle of the table. There were a great many soups and other courses. Every now and then the host took something out of a basin with his chop-stick, and offered to put it into the mouths of his guests. Out of politeness they were bound to accept these gifts. There was not any beef, as no Chinaman eats beef. Music was played, and slaves fanned the people during dinner.

Once when Sybil visited some of her young Chinese friends, the tea was brought in to them in covered cups, and when they wanted more, tea-leaves were put into the cups and boiling water was poured upon them. She had learnt now to be able to drink tea without milk or sugar, but she could not like it.

A two months' stay at Canton brought the children to the end of four months and a half of their stay in China, and left but six weeks more before they were to return to England. It was the middle of March when the Grahams said "Good-bye" to their kind friends at the Yamen, and returned to Hong-Kong. Sybil could not bear to say this farewell, as it was the last but one, and she knew how very quickly six weeks would pass.

They had all enjoyed their stay in Canton very much, and often thought about the New Year's Day which had been kept, while they were there, with such grand rejoicings. At midnight, on the last day of the old year, a bell, never used except on this occasion, pealed forth, when, at the signal, people rushed into the streets in crowds to let off fireworks.

Every temple and every pagoda was lighted up, and[211] people burnt incense before idols in their own homes. Some streets are lighted in Canton by lanterns, but, as a rule, the smaller streets are in darkness, with the exception of paper lanterns, which hang, every now and then, from before shops or private houses, and even these are put out by half-past nine o'clock. Paraffin lamps are now being introduced along Chinese city streets.

All New Year's night a great noise was to be heard, and in the morning friends dressed in their best to call upon, and salute, one another.

In the streets they were to be seen prostrating themselves upon the ground. Rich and poor alike had great rejoicings on New Year's Day, the rich often keeping up their holiday for ten days.

Latterly Mr. Graham had been several times backwards and forwards to Hong-Kong, where he had made his final arrangements.

The missionary, whose place he was about to fill, would, when he left the island, take with him to England, besides his own family, Sybil and Leonard Graham. Until they sailed, the Grahams would all stay with them at the Mission House, when it would be handed over to Mr. Graham.

The other missionary had three children of his own, two daughters, twelve and ten years old, and a son of nine, but as they had been absent from Hong-Kong when the Grahams had been there before, the children had not yet made one another's acquaintance.

The eldest, Katie, now became Sybil's very useful interpreter, for as she had been born in China and lived there all her life, she could understand, and speak, many Chinese dialects.

Sybil now knew several Chinese words herself.[212] "Che-fan," or "Have you eaten your rice?" was "How do you do?" though, as a rule, when people said "How do you do?" to her it was "Chin-chin mississi?"

When she went out visiting, questions such as the following were generally put to her, "What honourable name have you?" "What is the name of your beautiful dwelling?" and "What age have you?" Had she been grown up, this question would probably have been, "What is your venerable age?"

Leonard was often told to "catchee plenty chow-chow," which means "eat a very good dinner," but as somehow he generally seemed able to do this, he hardly needed the kind advice.

Mrs. Graham's amah amused Sybil very much. She had been a great traveller, having visited both England and America, and she liked England much the best. One day she said to Sybil: "Melicā no good countly. Welly bad chow-chow. Appool number one. My hab chow-chow sixty pieces before bleakfast. Any man no got dollar, all hab got paper. Number one foolo pidgin. No good countly. My no likee Melicā. My likee England side more better." This meant: "America is not a good country. It has very bad food, but first-rate apples. I ate sixty before breakfast. No one has any dollars there, all use paper money. Very foolish business. Not a good country. I do not like America. I like England better."

Some pleasure or another was always forthcoming for Sybil and Leonard, and the few last "Peep-shows" were very precious.

One day, when they were out, they saw a "Sing-Song," as the performance was called. Under a canopy, in the open streets, children were acting and dancing.[214] To do so, they had dressed up in very gorgeous costumes, their ornaments and head-dresses being grander, Leonard said, than anything he had ever seen before; and the little Chinese actors themselves seemed to be thoroughly at their ease, and quite at home, in their grand attire.

"Why did that policeman come after you to-day, father, and take down the name of the boat that we got into?" Leonard once asked, when he and his father had been out together, and were returning home.

"Policemen have done that several times, if you had only noticed," was the reply. "That was to guard us from pirates. They took the name of our boat, so that the owner could be held responsible if we did not return safely. The Chinese are dreadful pirates, and are generally on the look-out for opportunities to rob. Sometimes a band of them will take their passages in a ship, and when fairly out at sea will all rise in mutiny against the captain and his officers, and perhaps murder them, so as to be able to plunder as they choose."

"I should think the boat-policemen had plenty of work to do," Leonard then said.

"Father, do you remember well when you were just eleven?" the child then asked suddenly, going, as it seemed, right away from his present subject. "Did you ever want to be a sailor then? ever think for certain you would be one?"

"Well, I have had it over and over again, and thought that there could not be anything better in the world than going about in ships, and seeing different places. I've wished to be a sailor for ever so many years; but, you know, I don't wish it now."[215]

Mr. Graham smiled. I expect it was Leonard's "ever so many years" which made him do so.

"Something, father, I'm not half good enough for," the boy answered, thoughtfully. "A missionary! Oh, father, I do so want to be a missionary now, and come to China, as you and grandfather have done! Shouldn't you like it too? I know mother would; and perhaps the Church Missionary Society would send me out if I asked them."

A few minutes later Leonard was out of doors again, flying himself one of the "wonderful kites," which a Chinaman had made for, and given to, him, and his father was watching his little fellow with pleasure almost amounting to pride.

Was this his impulsive boy's own thought, he wondered, or had his sister suggested it to him.

Quite his own; but no doubt the quiet, gentle influence which Sybil exerted over her younger brother was very good for him.

"Do you think, Sybil, that the heathen Chinese could teach the Christian English anything?" Mr. Graham asked his daughter, as they sat and talked together the very last evening.

"I am sure they could," she answered quickly; "many things. Filial love and obedience for one, respect and reverence for old age for another; and then, though they do believe such silly, superstitious things, there seems to be such a reality, so much earnestness, about the way some of them carry out their religion.[217] They do not mind how early they get up and go out to keep a religious festival, and they seem to ask a sort of blessing, from their gods, on everything they do, and keep their fasts and feasts so very regularly; but I think their love for their parents beats everything. 'Boy' asked for a holiday yesterday, because it was his mother's birthday, and got up very early to do his work before he went." "Boy" was a kind of footman.

"Yes; parents' birthdays are kept up much more than are those of children. Sometimes on their birthdays they will sit under a crimson canopy, whilst their children kneel and perform the 'kow-tow' to them. The fifty-first birthday, and every ten years afterwards, is celebrated with great pomp, when religious ceremonies are often performed at the Temple of Longevity. I believe thirty Buddhist priests will then sometimes return thanks for three days.

"When a man is eighty-one, the fact is occasionally communicated to the Emperor, who may then allow money to be given for a monumental arch to be erected to the old man's honour.

"After parents are dead their birthdays are still celebrated in the ancestral hall, where their portraits hang."

"When they begin to get old the best present that a child can, and does, make a parent, and one which he values more than anything else, is a coffin, because, you know, a Chinaman thinks that unless his body be buried properly his spirit cannot rest.

"The Chinese are strange contradictions," Mr. Graham went on. "Although they are very courageous[218] in bearing torture, they are dreadful liars, and a great liar is generally a great coward. Then they are sober and industrious, but slaves to the opium drug; meek and gentle, but, at the same time, treacherous and cruel; most dutiful to their parents, but often very jealous of their neighbours; and then, perhaps strangest of all, is their love towards their children, but yet their readiness to put their girls to death."

Sybil was silent for several minutes. "Oh, father!" she then said, "isn't the time dreadfully near now? Fancy leaving you and dear mother! How can we?"

"You must go to your work, darling, and we must stay here to do ours. Is it not so?" Mr. Graham asked, in the dear, kind, soft voice that Sybil loved so much, and which she always called his "preachy voice." "But what shall give us comfort? what shall we think about when we are trying to do our several duties, though apart, I hope contentedly and well? That it is God who has called us to our several duties; it is His Almighty will which we have now and always to obey; but remember, not alone, not unaided, dear Sybil. Who will be our guide, stay, and comfort, when we are separated from one another?"

"Your mother and I," Mr. Graham went on, "in commending our children to the Fatherly love and care of Him Who gave you to us, know that we place you in the safest keeping; and you yourselves have also both learnt, have you not, how to go to our Father and 'Supreme Ruler' in earnest prayer, whenever tempted to do what would displease Him? A missionary, you know, is one who is sent on a mission—to fulfil a duty.[220] A missionary's children must not shrink from fulfilling, must not fail to fulfil, the mission on which they are sent, must they?"

Sybil looked comforted. She liked this last "Peep-show" very much, and kissed her father to show him that she did.

A few minutes later she said, "Do you know, father, I believe little Chu is really beginning to believe and understand properly, for the other day, when I was saying my prayers, she came and knelt down beside me, and she would never kneel to our God before, even when she saw the Christian woman at Poah-bi do so, with whom we stayed, and with whom she was such good friends. I shall often remember that woman and her dear little baby, which she tied to herself so funnily, because I liked them so very much.

"Poor little Chu!" Sybil then went on. "I shall be so glad to see her again when I come back to you, but I do not think she will like me to go away."

"Chu will have to be a great deal at school now. She has her work to do too, you know."

"How I shall think of you, father, and the Hong-Kong Mission on Intercession Day, when it comes round, shan't I?"

"Yes, Sybil; and not only on Intercession Day, but always in your prayers, you must remember to pray very fervently, both for Chinese and other unbelievers, and not only for me, but for all who are seeking their conversion."

"And to give thanks for too. Here in Hong-Kong we have great cause to be thankful."[221]

"What a dear old lady that was who was baptized on Sunday! but what was the Christian name she chose? I could not hear it."

"That was a beautiful name, wasn't it? And there were a number of communicants for here too. How many native communicants are there in Hong-Kong?"

"Between sixty and seventy; and what is so comforting is that the communicants seem to be really devout, and to realise what being a communicant means for, and requires of, them, and it is no easy matter at all for natives of China to embrace Christianity. Sometimes they have to leave all their relations, and suffer much persecution in consequence."

Although the results were far from what the zealous missionaries would fain have seen them, Mr. Graham was right in saying that the Mission from the Church of England to Hong-Kong had cause to take hope and be thankful.

Several men and women were now under instruction both for baptism and confirmation. The mission schools for boys numbered more than 190, and for girls more than thirty, and here the children were religiously as well as secularly instructed.

There were, although only two European missionaries and one native clergyman, twenty-three native Christian teachers, and 183 native Christians. The Mission comprised, besides St. Stephen's Church and the agencies around it in the island of Hong-Kong, many out-stations[222] in the province of Quangtung occupied by native agents.

The Prayer Book, and, still better, the Holy Bible, translated into their own tongue, were now circulated among the people, some of whom were really learning to love and value them; and not only were the services for the Christians well attended, but every evening the heathen were to be seen in numbers going to hear sermons that were to be preached for them.

"How much you will have to do, father," Sybil said, "if you go to the Medical Missionary Institution so often, and do all your other work besides! But the people seem to be very grateful to you. 'Boy' said yesterday that you were 'a hundred man good,' and I know what that means: 'The best of men.'"

"I like, and it is good for us all," he said, "to have plenty to do; and one work, you know, may help on the other."

All day long the child had spent beside her much-loved mother; now, for another hour, she sat on and talked with her father, receiving good, kind counsel, when Leonard, who had been closeted with his mother, listening to her dear words of best advice, came in, with eyes swollen from crying, and then the four sat together till it was long past bed-time; but what of that? To-morrow, on board ship, there would be nothing to keep them up late,[223] when they could make up for to-night, and go early to bed.

To-morrow came, as happy and sad to-morrows all alike will come; when the mother gave her children their last kisses, the father their last kisses and benedictions, and Sybil and Leonard Graham started on their homeward voyage to England, leaving their parents very grateful for having such good, kind friends to whose care on board ship to entrust them.

Both children were to return at once to their former schools, and spend their holidays together at Mrs. Graham's brother's house, who was also the rector of a country parish, and where she knew they would very soon feel quite at home.

Sybil and Leonard Graham, the children of brave parents, were brave children themselves, and as they had promised not to grieve more then they could help, they at once did battle with their tears, and before long were talking really cheerfully with their friends.

"Who knows," Sybil said once to Leonard, when she and her brother found themselves alone, "but what they might come over for a small holiday-trip in two or three years' time? and if not, I believe when I go out you are to go with me for another 'Peep-show' holiday, and to see them!"

"Of course I ought to go whenever I can," Leonard answered, "as I'm going to be a missionary out there myself."

Sybil had said "them" because she could not yet say, without crying, those two dear, sacred words, father and mother, which stand alone in the vocabulary of every language, and have no peers.

Mrs. Graham herself was then alone, shedding bitter[224] tears, which she had stifled until her children left her, but which she could keep back no longer.

Yet, though her mother's loving heart was very sad and sore, she would not weep long, but would, to the very best of her ability, go forth at once to help her husband—who could not but feel sad now too—in the good work in which she had encouraged him to embark, counting all the costs beforehand.

And Sybil, who had said "I like my father to be a missionary very much," would not unsay the words now, though it took both her parents so far away from her and Leonard. Oh no! since she had seen the great need that there was for missionaries to China, she liked, even better than before, her father "to be a missionary!"

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CHAPTER		PAGE
I.	The Country Rectory	9
II.	The First Peep	21
III.	The Religions of China	44
IV.	Chinese Childhood	69
V.	The Merchant Showman	89
VI.	Little Chu and Woo-Urh	100
VII.	Leonard's Exploit in Formosa	114
VIII.	The Boat Population	134
IX.	At Canton	153
X.	A Bride and Bridegroom	179
XI.	Processions	197
XII.	The Last Peep	208

Teën
Yee
Shun
Fung	Poo
Seih	Tian
Tëen

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peeps Into China; Or, The Missionary's Children

PEEPS INTO CHINA;

The Missionary's Children.

BY

E. C. PHILLIPS,

CHAPTER I.