LETTER XVII
Peking, 25th November 1865.
We are sending off a mail to-day in the hopes that it will yet be able to leave Tientsing for Shanghai before we are finally shut out by the frost from communication with the outer world. After this our posts will be rare and uncertain, going by land to Chihfu and thence on. The winter has well set in; we have had several sharp frosts, which, although they are child’s play to what I have seen in Russia, are aggravated by cutting winds which blow clouds of dust, pricking one’s face like flights of needles. Nothing can be more bare and desolate than this city, now that it is stripped of its leaves. Everything looks gray and black, and the Chinese houses have a poor, pinched appearance that to English eyes, accustomed to see a cheerful fire blazing in even the poorest cottages, is very shivery. The natives are already swaddled up in furs and wadding, and commend me to a cold Chinaman for looking wretched. Their yellow-brown faces get perfectly livid and corpse-like under the effect of the cold winds, a great contrast to the tanned and sturdy Mongols who are beginning to flock into the city. The life in the streets is changed too by the innumerable droves of Bactrian camels with double humps that are pouring in long streams of merchandise.
One great advantage of this time of year is in the improvement of our larder. In summer we are obliged to ring the changes on tough beef and stringy mutton; now we have plenty of game—hares, several sorts of pheasants, wild duck, teal, snipes, and other birds innumerable. Soon we shall have varieties of venison, amongst them that of an antelope of Mongolia which the Chinese call Hwang-Yang, “yellow sheep,” said to be the daintiest venison in the world. Of fruit we have plenty; there is a certain small apple-shaped pear, by far the best I ever tasted. Grapes we have every day in the year, so that nature does as much for us as Mr. S——’s gardener does for him. To be sure, the gardener beats nature hollow as to quality.
The Peking Gazette has just announced an appointment in the Chinese Foreign Office (the Tsung-Li Yamên), which is said to be the most important event, as far as foreign relations are concerned, that has taken place since the signature of Lord Elgin’s treaty. A mandarin of the name of Hsü has been named one of the high Ministers of the Office. This man some years ago was in high office in the province of Fohkien, and while there, he, with the help of certain American missionaries, wrote a work on the geography of the world, in which he examined foreign institutions and men with an interest which no Chinaman had ever before shown. His two favourite heroes were Napoleon and Washington. The book was written in a popular form, and had a large sale. After he had been in office three years he came to Peking to pay his respects to the Emperor, and during his visit was degraded on the plea that he had not conducted his government well, but really on account of the new views put forward in his book, and of his admiration and intelligence of foreign affairs. Now, for the very qualities which before brought him into disgrace, he is raised to the dignity of a red button of the third rank, and appointed to a vacancy in the Board of Foreign Ministers, which was made this spring by the dismissal of a mandarin named Hsüeh, who was degraded on account of his being suspected of attempts to bribe the Prince of Kung at the same time that His Imperial Highness was also out of favour. Hsü’s acceptance of office is looked upon as the beginning of a new era in our intercourse with the Chinese.
Sir Rutherford Alcock has reached Tientsing after a series of disasters. He came in a man-of-war from Shanghai, disdaining the regular steamers, and the consequence is that everything has gone wrong, the last mishap being the loss of the Legation treasure outside the bar at Taku, with 18,000 dollars. The sailors managed to upset the chest into the sea as they were transhipping it into the little steamer which was to bring it up the Peiho. There is a rumour that divers have recovered the chest; if it is true, I think they deserve all its contents for their pains. The weather is not exactly suited for diving. Meanwhile the Legation courtyards are being flooded with carts and packing-cases containing furniture, pianos, harmoniums, and games of croquet; the latter will be hard to use, for there is not a blade of grass nearer than the park round the Temple of Heaven.