LETTER XV
Peking, 25th October 1865.
I who so lately wrote to you about blazing sun and scorching heat am now glad to nestle into the chimney-corner and watch the “pictures in the fire.” Outside, the rain is falling fitfully and the wind blowing a hurricane; it moans and howls dismally through the courts and cranky buildings of the Legation, piercing its way into all sorts of odd nooks, and routing out old bells that jangle in a harsh and discordant way from the quaint eaves, as if they were angry at being disturbed in their dusty dens. Doors are creaking and timbers groaning in every direction, and the windows threaten to burst in, but the stout Corean paper holds good, though it gets stretched and flaps unpleasantly like loose sails in a calm, and on the whole I confess I prefer glass. Every now and then, as the storm abates for a while, I hear the tap, tap, tap, of the watchman’s bamboo as he goes his rounds, and can’t help grunting with Lucretian satisfaction as I look at my fire and think of how cold he must be. In short, we are working gradually into winter. In another fortnight the trees will all be bare, and Peking, throwing off the green clothes which it puts on in summer, in order to delude stray visitors into the idea that it is a pretty place, will stand naked, dirty, and ashamed. The last month has been very pleasant—neither too hot nor too cold; and the early morning rides, before wind or dust has arisen, and when the evil smells of the town, which are beaten down by the night dews, have not had time to assert themselves again, put fresh life into us after the great heats. I have got a new horse. The first one which I bought in the spring turned out to be possessed of every vice to which horse-flesh is heir; so I sold him at a loss, after he had bored my life out for four months, and am now well mounted on a first-rate Mongol cob.
Talking of horses leads me to dogs. I have had a sad loss in my little dog Nou-nou, of whom I was very fond. I told you what a little Turk he was, always getting himself into scrapes about his amours. Well, the other day he had some words with a big dog belonging to the sergeant of our escort, which ended in his getting a bite in the back that broke his spine and killed him. Everybody in the Legation regrets him, poor little beast; he had been at Peking ever since the foreign Legations first came here, and was quite a character about the place. I was very much grieved at his death.
We have been interested lately in the steps taken by the Russian Government to establish a telegraph from Kiachta to Peking and Tientsing. The Russians wish that it should be a Chinese enterprise, but that they, the Russians, should set it up and help in working it. Accordingly, they have sent an officer of engineers here with a complete apparatus to show the Chinese Government. It is set up in the gardens of the Russian Legation. Some four years ago, when Baron Gros returned to Europe, he sent out to the Prince of Kung a present of an electric telegraphic apparatus. Such was the horror which the Chinese then had of innovations, that the Prince not only refused to accept it, but even to see it. Now, however, the Government is more ripe for taking impressions from abroad. The members of the Foreign Office, and afterwards the Prince, have been to see the machine work, although the Prince took good care not to allow that his visit had any special purpose, and with that view went the round of all the Legations the same day. He watched the working of the telegraph without showing any great astonishment or perception of what was going on; but a few days afterwards M. Vlangaly, the Russian Minister, who had drawn up for the Prince a paper upon the subject of the international utility of telegraphs, received a very satisfactory despatch from the Foreign Office to the effect that one visit was not enough to enable the Ministers to appreciate so wonderful an invention, and that they hoped to be allowed to see it again. M. Vlangaly has had the happy idea of having some intelligent Chinese lads taught to work the telegraph, so next time the Prince comes he will see that his own people can learn to send off and take down messages. This is all a great step in advance. The French, who are always on the look-out to find that other Powers are extending their “influence,” as they call it, and in this case have the additional motive for jealousy in the refusal of Baron Gros’ present, look upon this move of the Russians with great distrust and dislike. We, on the contrary, are all for supporting any Power who will help the Chinese to move forwards. The superstitions of the people would be a great difficulty in the way of carrying out telegraphs, railroads, or any great engineering project in China. They would view with the utmost horror anything which might disturb places deemed sacred, lucky, or unlucky. They have a regular system for determining propitious places, manners of building, and the like. This they call “Fêng Shui,” the wind and water system, and it is universally believed in. No Chinaman, however educated, would inhabit a new house without ascertaining that it fulfilled all the requirements laid down in the books which treat of “Fêng Shui.” Some time ago one of our men was ill; our chief teacher, a man of great learning as Chinamen go, said quietly to Wade that it must be owing to a new chimney which had been built opposite to the sick man’s room, but about a hundred and fifty yards off. Any work which might be undertaken here must be carried out with all respect to the “Fêng Shui,” or it would run the risk of being destroyed. Graves and other sacred places must also not be interfered with. In carrying any engineering project into execution, the best plan would be for the engineer to lay down his line and employ Chinese experts in such matters to see how nearly it could be followed.
I have rather a good story to tell you. One of our subjects of complaint at the Chinese Foreign Office has been our being insulted in the streets of Peking by the riffraff of the place. Their means of annoyance is to howl out “Kwei-tzŭ” (devils) after us when our backs are turned, and then, of course, to look as if they had not done it. Well, the other day M. de Mas, the Spanish Minister, being about to leave Peking, exchanged compliments p.p.c. with all the members of the Foreign Board. Amongst them all Hêng-Chi distinguished himself by his empressement, sending M. de Mas a magnificent dinner à la Chinoise. M. de Mas went to thank him, and after the two old gentlemen had exchanged banalities to their hearts’ content, the Spaniard knowing that Hêng-Chi had a little son, the child of his old age, of whom he was inordinately proud, thought it would be a very pretty compliment if he asked to see the little boy, who was accordingly produced, sucking his thumb after the manner of his years. Him his father ordered to pay his respects to M. de Mas—that is to say, shake his united fists at him in token of salutation, instead of which the child, after long silence and much urging, taking his thumb deliberately out of his mouth, roared out “Kwei-tzŭ” at the top of his voice and fled. Imagine the consternation of the two old twaddles! Hêng-Chi was horrified, for after all his protestations of friendship to us, which by the bye took nobody in, it bored him not a little that we should find out that his child was brought up in the privacy of his harem to look upon us as devils.
A French missionary has been murdered in the province of Ssŭ-Chuan, in the extreme west. It is said that there are 800,000 Christians in the province. There have been persecutions and disturbances on their account of late, and the Government of Peking will have to take very active steps in the matter, or the French will be down upon them. The central Government are always slow in punishing their provincial authorities, whom they fear; and in this instance they will be the more reluctant, as the governor of the province is a man who has done them good service as an administrator.
We hear rumours of reforms in China. If the present dynasty is to be preserved and China to remain independent, they must be brought about quickly, for the moment is critical. Nothing can be more rotten and corrupt than every branch of the administration, nothing can be more faithless than the conduct of the Chinese towards foreigners. With misery and discontent at home, and angry reclamations for breaches of treaty from abroad, the Government are beginning to tremble for their existence. If the remedy does not come soon it will be too late.