Four Young Explorers Part 35

"Leaving the Grand Ca.n.a.l and the Great Wall, we will pa.s.s on to the lakes of China. They are not on a large scale, like the rivers; and they are insignificant compared with those of our own country. The Tung-ting Hu appears to be the largest, mostly in the province of Hunan, which is sixty-five or seventy miles long. The others are Po-yang Hu, in Chiang-hsi, and the Tai Hu, which is noted for its romantic scenery and numerous islets.

"The temperature of the various provinces is on the average lower than any other country in the same lat.i.tude. There is every variety of climate in the vast territory of China. The natives consider the three southern provinces, including the island of Hainan, less healthy than the other portions of the country; but foreigners find no difficulty in residing in them. In a region taking in over twenty degrees of lat.i.tude, the productions vary from those of the tropics to those in the lat.i.tude of central New York, from bananas and pineapples in the south to wheat and Indian corn in the north.

"About all the common grains are raised in the north, and rice is the staple product of the south. All sorts of vegetables and herbs, ginger, and various condiments, are produced and largely used; though I believe the people are not so hot, gastronomically, in their taste as we found them in Batavia and some other places in the islands. They raise the cane and make sugar in Formosa and the southern provinces. All the fruits of our own country, including Florida and Louisiana, are grown in different parts of China. Opium, which formerly came into the country only from India, is now produced even in Manchuria.

"The Chinese are pre-eminently agriculturists, and farming is their occupation above anything else. In the spring the emperor turns over a few furrows in a sacred field, introducing the work of the season; and the chief official in every province does the same, keeping the importance of farming pursuits always before the people. The tools they use are very primitive; the hoe being the princ.i.p.al hand-tool, and the plough of ancient use for animal power. There is an extensive application of irrigation, which is found to be so necessary in some of our extreme Western States. In the north wells are used; and various simple machinery is employed to raise water when the ca.n.a.l or river is below the level of the field where it is needed, which you may have an opportunity to see.

"No kind of fertilizer is wasted, and some are used which are often neglected in other countries. A great deal of fun and sarcasm is applied to the food of the Chinese, but most of us rather approved the dishes set before us by our host of the Flowery Nation in Singapore. In some articles used for culinary purposes, Parisians go beyond the Chinese, as in the use of horse-beef. I have been in a provision store in Paris where nothing else was sold; and every part of the animal was economized, including the liver, kidneys, and tongue, and sausages of this meat were on view and for sale to epicures in this flesh. But I believe the Chinese do not eat the horse, unless it be in a season of famine; and they had to eat cats in Paris during the siege of 1870.

"When you go into the markets you may see whole dogs dressed for food, or cut up into pieces ready for cooking. These are not common yellow dogs, such as you saw in the capital of the Turkish empire; but they are the peculiar Chinese breed, sleek and hairless, which are carefully fatted, and prepared for market. I have no doubt that your stomachs revolt at the very idea of eating dog; but I cannot see that it is any worse than eating pork and fowls, which feed more or less on animal food. However, I do not hanker after dog-meat.

"The Buddhist religion prevails to a great extent here, which diminishes the quant.i.ty of beef used, though not so much as the kindly feeling towards the creature that is so useful in tilling the soil. Pork is the most common in use for meat, and the number of pigs raised is enormous.

Geese and ducks are abundant, artificially hatched as in ancient Egypt, and to a considerable extent in America, and are largely used for food.

"The sea, rivers, and lakes supply fish in all needed quant.i.ties. They are taken in nets, and also by a novel method of fishing with which you cannot be familiar. A boat goes out with a number of cormorants trained for the purpose, which are fishers by nature. The birds dive and bring up the fish, which they deposit in the hand-nets of the boatman.

"Dr. Legge says the Chinese are not gross feeders, as generally represented, except the very poor, and that a Chinese dinner of twenty-seven courses 'may hold its own with the most luxurious tables.'

He adds that the famous bird's-nest soup is a misnomer; but he admits that nests from the Indian Archipelago are sliced into other soups, in his opinion without improving the flavor.

"For a drink, tea has superseded every other beverage, and is taken without sugar or milk. It was not used at all in ancient times, but its use is universal at the present time. The plant is not grown in the north. Black tea comes from the central provinces, and green from two eastern mainly. Next to silk, if not equal to it, tea is the princ.i.p.al article of export. The doctor says that tea-drinking promotes the temperance of the people more than any other influence. Alcoholic liquors are distilled from rice and millet.

"From the twelfth century B.C. the literature of the nation abounds in temperance lectures, warning the people against the injury of strong drinks; but tea has done vastly more to prevent their use than anything else. As a people at home the Chinese make little use of liquors, though that is not always the case with those who live in New York. They do not sit down to tea as we do, but keep it at hand at all times, and treat their visitors with it. Tea is written in the vernacular of the natives _ch'a_. When it was first imported into England it was called _t'ay;_ but those who gave it the name were doubtless Irishmen, and they still stick to it.

"There is no doubt that silk was first produced in China; and silk, linen, and cotton form the clothing of the people. A ceremony like that with the plough is performed by the emperor over the silkworms and mulberry-trees, whose leaves are the food of the worm. From before the twenty-third century B.C., the care of the silkworm, and the spinning and weaving of the thread from the coc.o.o.n, has been the particular labor of the women. The mulberry-tree grows everywhere in the country, and silk is manufactured in greater or less quant.i.ties in every province.

"The cotton-plant has been propagated in China; and the cloth is largely used there, though not equal in finish to the imported article, but is heavier and more lasting in wear. Nankeen comes from Nanking. There are no fireplaces in the houses; and the people keep warm, if they can, by increasing their clothing. Woollen goods are not manufactured to any great extent.

"I will not describe the paG.o.das, pavilions, bridges, and palaces; for you will see them for yourselves. The streets of the cities in the south and some in the north are no better than mere lanes; and the crowds of people hustling through them fill them about full, and make you think the place is vastly more populous than it really is. As a set-off to this idea, you will wonder what has become of the women, for you rarely meet any of them.

"The streets are paved with stone slabs, badly drained, and abounding in bad odors, and you are not likely to enjoy your walks through them; but they have magnificent names, which you will not read at the corners, such as the street of Benevolence, Righteousness, etc. When you go into the house of a tolerably well-to-do family, you will find the quant.i.ty of furniture rather scanty, and not luxurious. The floor may be covered with matting, but you will find no carpets or rugs. A table and some straight-backed chairs are the princ.i.p.al pieces. On the walls you may find Chinese pictures, which will not challenge your admiration, though they may be artistic in China. Some jars and specimens of fine porcelain may adorn the room, with writings on the walls expressing moral sentiments. There may be a couch, or more of them, of bamboo and rattan.

"The bamboo is quite as important a production in China as we have found it in India and the islands; and it is used for all the purposes here, and more in addition than have been mentioned to you before. The bastinado of the magistrate and the schoolmaster's instrument of torture are both bamboos.

"Our Nimrods would not find much sport here; for the country is too densely populated to afford hiding-places for wild animals, though a bear or a tiger may sometimes appear, and is quickly killed. There are elephants, rhinoceroses, and tapirs in the forests of Yun-nan; and the emperor has tame elephants at Peking for state purposes. The brown and the black bear are found in certain localities, as well as varieties of deer.

"The domestic four-footed animals are small horses and small cattle, which have not been improved. The donkey is a livelier beast than in England or America. About the capital there are very fine mules, which are fashionable there as they are in some parts of Spain. Birds of prey are common, and magpies are sacred birds which the Nimrods must not shoot. The people are very fond of song-birds and flowers, which proves their good taste.

"There are vast quant.i.ties of minerals beneath the soil of the country, yet little had been done in mining; though, since the government has steamers of its own, they are doing more to develop the mines. The currency of the country is nowhere; for the only coin that is legally current is the copper _cash_, of which it takes ten to make our cent.

Large payments are made in silver by weight, and the housekeeper has to keep a pair of scales handy to ascertain the value of the silver she receives or expends.

"But I know, my friends, that I have wearied you; and though I have something more to say about this very interesting country, I shall defer it till such time as the commander shall appoint."

The professor bowed and retired; but, as an offset to his last remark, the applause was more prolonged and vigorous than usual.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE CONCLUSION OF THE LECTURE

At lunch the pa.s.sengers talked about the lecture that was not yet finished; and all of them who said anything declared that they were very much pleased with it, and they hoped the remainder of it would be given in the afternoon. Of course all of them had read more or less about China; and while there was much that was new to them, they were glad to have their knowledge of the country revived.

"I have been in Hong-Kong, Canton, and Shang-hai, and I have heard no lecture on board that pleased me more than that to which we listened this forenoon; and I appoint this afternoon at three o'clock for the conclusion of it," said the commander.

At this hour all the company, including the pa.s.sengers from the Blanche, were in their places; and the speaker mounted the rostrum, apparently as fresh as ever. He was received with as much and as earnest applause as had been given at the end of the second part of his lecture; and with this pleasant approval of his work, he continued his discourse.

"According to the accounts of all recent travellers, the roads of China are in a villanously bad condition, and there are no railroads worth mentioning," he began. "And yet the necessity of good common roads was apparent to the ruler, even before the building of the Great Wall, and twenty thousand of them have been constructed; but the Chinese, having finished a great work, do not meddle with it again. The roads have never been repaired thoroughly, and that accounts for their present condition.

The rivers and ca.n.a.ls furnish the princ.i.p.al means of communication, though the roads are still used.

"The dress of the poorer cla.s.ses is very much the same for both s.e.xes.

It is regulated by sumptuary laws for all cla.s.ses; but it is varied by the wealthy in the use of costly material, and the ornaments they add to it. You have all seen Chinamen enough in the streets of New York and other cities, and the dress they wear is about the same as that worn in their native land. The queue is the most notable thing about them. This was not the ancient custom of wearing the hair, but was introduced and enforced by the Manchu rulers over three hundred years ago, when it was considered a degrading edict; though now the Chinaman sticks to his queue with as much tenacity as he does to his very life.

"The small feet of the women, even of the highest cla.s.s, is quite as notable as the queues. This species of deformity was not required by the Manchus, for they wore their feet as G.o.d gave them; and it is not an ancient custom, for it has prevailed only from the sixth century of our era. Nature's growth is checked by tightly bandaging the feet in early childhood, subjecting the victim to severe pain and discomfort. But you will see the women for yourselves, and can judge of the effect upon them. The very poor and those in menial conditions are not necessarily subjected to the torture, but fashion carries even many of this cla.s.s into the custom. Small but natural feet are the pride of our young ladies, and some of them complain that when the feet were given out they got more than their share.

"The s.e.xes are kept apart until marriage; and this has been a social feature from the earliest time. Girls and boys in the family did not occupy the same mat or eat together from the age of seven, and when the former were ten they ceased to appear outside of the women's apartments.

Girls were taught manners therein, to handle the coc.o.o.ns, to do all the work appertaining to the manufacture of silk and the details of Chinese housekeeping. This was in the feudal time; and the females were not instructed in book-learning, and are not now, though they pick up something of an education, and learned women are not unknown, even those who have written books.

"In regard to marriage, the parents have entire control, and professional match-makers are an inst.i.tution. It is to a great extent a matter of horoscopes. Usually the bride and groom have not seen each other till the marriage ceremony, and of course they lose all that delightful period which precedes the event. But they appear to take to each other when brought together, and to be happy as man and wife.

Though the man has one legal wife, there is no law or custom to prevent him from taking half a dozen more secondary wives.

"There are seven lawful grounds for divorcing a wife from her husband,--disobedience to her husband's parents; failure to give birth to a son; dissolute conduct; jealousy of her man, especially in regard to the _other_ wives; talkativeness; thieving; and leprosy. I will leave the ladies to make their own comments. There are three considerations which may set aside these reasons for divorce,--that her parents are no longer living; that she has pa.s.sed with her spouse through the years of mourning for his parents; and that he has become rich after being poor.

The children are often affianced in childhood, and probably this fact furnishes many of the grounds for proceedings in the divorce court.

"Infanticide is not an uncommon crime in China, female children being almost always the victims. Probably its prevalence is somewhat exaggerated. It is among the poorest cla.s.s that this atrocity prevails, the universal desire for male children, in connection with the ancestral worship of the people, being the root of the evil. Public opinion is against the practice, though not as decidedly as might be wished.

"The complexion of the Chinese is yellowish, as you have seen in our streets; and from the extreme north to the Island of Hainan, they all have long black hair, almond or oblique eyes, high cheek-bones, and round faces. They are greatly addicted to opium and gambling wherever you find them. Dr. Legge says that the longer one lives among them the better he likes them, and the better he thinks of them; but we are not likely to be able to test the correctness of this remark.

"The Chinese bury their dead in graves in the form of a horseshoe, and with an almost infinite variety of ceremonies and sacrifices. Where the friends are able to pay the expense, the last rites are ostentatious and very costly. You may chance to see something of them before you leave the country. When a very rich Chinaman travels, he takes his coffin with him.

"They have no day in the week corresponding to our Sunday, but they have an annual universal holiday at New Year's. It is a season of rejoicing and festivity all over the country. Stores are closed for several days, and the government offices are shut up for a month. The people 'dress up,' and the temples are visited, the gambling resorts are in full blast, and crackers and other fireworks make Fourth of July of the season.

"There is some sort of a festival every month, such as the 'Feast of Lanterns,' on the full moon, of the tombs, 'Dragon Boats,' and 'All Souls,' in honor of departed relatives, when the supposed hungry spirits from the other side of the Styx are fed at the cemeteries. The people are extravagantly fond of theatricals; and a kind of bamboo tent is erected for the performance, which is usually of inordinate length.

Females, as in India, do not appear on the stage.

"It would be quite impossible for me to follow the consecutive history of China from 2637 B.C. down to the present time; it would be an infliction upon you, and I shall only mention some of the princ.i.p.al events. Our authority in these remarks numbers the Chinese army at three hundred and fifty thousand; the Year Book makes it double this number.

Judged by a European standard, it does not amount to much outside of mere numbers; though in addition to it there is a sort of militia, camped in the several provinces, more in the nature of police than soldiers, of twice as many men as the imperial army.

"The first great war in China was the Tai-Ping rebellion, which the older of you can remember. It began in 1851, and was continued for nearly twenty years. Its leader was Hung, a poor student, who studied up a new religion, which was certainly an improvement upon those of the people, for it recognized the Great G.o.d, and Christ as the Elder Brother. A strict morality and the keeping of the Sabbath were required of its adherents, and idolatry and the use of opium were forbidden.

"Hung incited the rebellion; and its object was to overturn the ruling dynasty of the Manchus, and place himself on the throne. It was at first very successful in its progress, and it looked as though the imperial cause was doomed. In 1855 the rebels, for the want of sufficient re-enforcements in an attempt to capture Pekin, were compelled to retreat to Nanking, and then the decline of the insurrection began. A body of foreigners under an American by the name of Ward joined the imperialists, and rendered important service; but he was killed in battle in 1862. He was succeeded by one of the subordinates, who became General Burgevine; and he was quite as successful as General Ward had been. The new general fell out with the government, and retired. By the influence of British residents at Shang-hai, who had organized an effective army, General Charles George Gordon, of whom you heard in Egypt, was placed in command. He captured Nanking, and the rebellion was suppressed in 1865.

"You have been informed of the movements of the Portuguese, English, French, Dutch, and Spaniards to obtain territory in the East from 1497, when Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope. All of them established colonies; and in 1516 they began to send their ships to China, whose people did not receive them kindly. This was in the early days of the Manchu rulers, who claimed to be superior to all other monarchs on the face of the earth; they would not acknowledge the visitors as their equals, and regarded them as va.s.sals.

"When the Chinese ruler learned of the conquests of those from the West he tried to prevent their approach to his dominions. But trade had been established; and the opium traffic had its birth, and the people were crazy to procure and smoke it. This was the cause of the wars between China and England and France, with the va.s.sal question. In 1800 an edict of the emperor prohibited the importation of opium into his dominions.

"England before this had entered upon the task of making a treaty to settle the relations between the two countries; but no treaty was made, and the smuggling of opium continued for many years. In 1816 another emba.s.sy went to Pekin; but it was summarily and contemptuously dismissed because the amba.s.sador refused to go through the ceremony of repeatedly prostrating himself before the emperor, and acknowledging his own sovereign as a va.s.sal of the emperor.