LETTER IV
Peking, 23rd May 1865.
We left Tientsing early on Friday morning the 19th, by which means we had the tide in our favour, and were able to get quicker clear of the hideous sights and smells of the river as it runs through the town. We each had a boat; Saurin’s was the drawing-room, mine the dining-room, and his servant occupied the third as kitchen. They were capital roomy boats, covered in with hoods of bamboo and rattan matting, and with a sort of dresser in each upon which we spread our beds. Each had a crew of three men, and in Saurin’s, which was the biggest, there was a boy besides. They were very cheery, hard-working fellows, and indeed they had no sinecure, for although the wind was ostensibly in our favour, still the river winds round such sharp twists and elbows that in every other reach it was dead against us, and we had to proceed laboriously by dint of towing and punting. But the harder they worked the better humoured the crew seemed to be, and the boy especially distinguished himself by zeal equalling that of an unpaid attaché. The shoals are innumerable, and we were constantly crossing the river backwards and forwards, along a course marked out by twigs stuck in the mud. There is no scenery to enjoy, nothing but interminable fields of millet, and here and there a little wood. There is not a hillock to be seen, and we were lucky in being as short a time as possible over what must be a very dull journey. We reached Tungchou at three o’clock on Sunday afternoon. Here we found our horses, with an escort which had been sent down with them to meet us.
Tungchou was very busy. A fleet of junks had come in with grain, and the quay was alive with crowds of coolies, many of them as naked as they were born, discharging cargo, sifting corn, and carrying it into granaries. Our appearance produced some astonishment, for “foreign devils” are hardly yet quite familiar objects so far north. Tungchou was the place where the unfortunate English prisoners were taken in 1860, and where Wade and Crealock, carrying a flag of truce and demanding to parley with the commander, were fired upon and narrowly escaped with their lives. It is fortified, as all the northern cities are, but its walls would only be a security against native warriors. The roads in this part of the world are miracles of badness, and it is not difficult to conceive the tortures that the English prisoners must have suffered when they were conveyed along them in native carts without springs, and having their hands and heels tied together behind them with cords tightened by water. Every inch of the road to Peking is famous from the events of that time. Some way outside Tungchou we rode over the bridge of Palikao,[5] where the Chinese crossed their spears with the French bayonets, and held their own for half an hour. From this bridge the Général de Montauban takes his title. Its kylins and stone flags still bear traces of shot and shell. Riding through dust over one’s pony’s hocks, and raising a cloud at every step, is very dry work, and I was glad when we struck off the main road, and, coming upon a tea-house in a shady nook, stopped to rest and refresh. The people received us with the utmost bonhomie and civility, and brought us delicious tea, without milk or sugar, in bowls, hard-boiled eggs, and a sort of roll-twist fried instead of baked. We soon had ten or twelve yellow gentlemen round us, eagerly asking all sorts of questions about ourselves, our ages, and belongings. Murray talks Chinese fluently, and Saurin has also some knowledge of it, so we got on capitally. Our ages always puzzle Chinamen. They neither wear beard nor moustache until they have reached the age of forty, so they think that all Europeans who wear such appendages must have passed that age. A single eye-glass is, however, the possession which commands the most astonishment. They are familiar with spectacles and double eye-glasses, for they themselves wear them of portentous size, and mounted in thick brass or tortoise-shell rims. But a single glass is indeed a marvel, and provokes much laughter. Though the peculiarities of foreigners amuse the Chinese as much as theirs do us, it is singular how their natural courtesy prevents their showing it in the offensive manner that every Englishman has experienced in some foreign countries. I had expected to find the country on this side of Peking flat, ugly, and barren. Flat it certainly is, but there are plenty of trees and rich fields, and it cannot be called ugly. The villages and graves argue an immense population. It is not till one is under the very walls of the town that one sees Peking. The walls are high, ruinous, battlemented, and picturesque, of a fine deep gray colour. They are capped at intervals by towers of fantastic Chinese architecture, and, with their lofty gates, make a strange and striking picture. As a means of defence against modern artillery the walls of Peking are probably absurd. However, before I tell you anything about Peking I had better know something myself. At present I only know that I was very hot, very tired, and as dusty as the oldest press in the Record office, when I rode into the court of Her Majesty’s Legation, where I received the warmest welcome from Wade, the chargé d’affaires.
We have received bad Chinese news. Sangkolinsin, the Mongol chief who commanded at the Peiho in 1859, and was temporarily disgraced for not being able to beat off the allies in 1860, has been killed by the rebels in the province of Shantung, some 400 miles hence. He was reputed a brave soldier and an honest man. Although the Chinese affect to disregard the importance of the intelligence, there is no doubt that it is very serious. The fire is burning everywhere, and they cannot or will not take the proper means to put it out.
Note.—I should wish to add here one word of admiration and respect for the memory of Sir Thomas Wade, my first chief in China. He had been Lord Clyde’s adjutant, but gave up the army for diplomacy. A great student and master of many languages, his Chinese scholarship won the admiration even of the learned mandarins with whom he had to deal. During the two Chinese Wars he distinguished himself, not only by his great abilities as a negotiator, but also by the most dauntless courage. Generous and self-sacrificing to a fault, he was one of the greatest gentlemen I ever met.—1900.