CHAPTER IX.
AT CANTON.
PASSENGER-BOAT conveyed our little travellers, and their parents, in three days, from Hong-Kong to Macao, a pretty little sea-side place at the entrance of the Bocca Tigris, a little gulf, to the head of which is the city of Canton.
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 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!
MACAO.
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 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.
After a short, but pleasant, stay at Macao, the Grahams went on to Canton.
"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.
THE ENGLISH CONSULATE AT CANTON.
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 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.
"Why is your house called a yamen?"
"This word means the same as does consulate, the official residence of the consul."
"What are you here for?"
The consul smiled. "To protect your interests and those, commercial and otherwise, of every English citizen resident here."
"Who is that Jui-Lin of whom you have a picture? and is he alive now?"
"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."
JUI-LIN, LATE VICEROY OF CANTON.
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 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.
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."
CHINESE BOAT-WOMAN.
A FISHING VILLAGE ON THE CANTON RIVER.
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 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 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.
CHINESE FISHING.
"I have seen just the sort of thing for you to sketch, mother," Sybil said one day. Like her mother, she 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 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.
PAGODA ON THE BANKS OF THE CANTON RIVER.
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 had come to see it. Then other hills appeared, covered with trees, and dotted here and there with temples.
"Where did they all come from?" Leonard asked.
Mr. Graham was looking very serious. This was a scene calculated to leave a deep impression upon the beholders.
ON THE CANTON RIVER
"From the hand of God," he said very quietly.
VILLAGE OF POLO-HANG IN CANTON.
A week later, Sybil wrote again to her friend.
"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 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 TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GODS, 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 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.
AN OFFICIAL'S PALANQUIN.
"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 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; 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 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.
"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. 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."
A CHINESE WRITER
CHAPTER X. A BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM. |
HE Street of Apothecaries was no exception to the general rule that Sybil had laid down. It also was very narrow, and, like many other streets in Canton, was so covered over at the top that in walking through it the sun did not burn too fiercely, neither did the rain fall upon the passers-by.
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.
THE STREET OF APOTHECARIES, CANTON.
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."
A BEGGAR.
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 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 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.
BRIDESMAIDS
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 out. Her bridesmaids helped her to alight. The mirror was supposed to ward off evil influences.
BRIDE AND BRIDEGROOM.
Sometimes, much for the same purpose, a bride is carried over a charcoal fire on a servant's back, but this 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 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.
AT A CHINESE FARM.
"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 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 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 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 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.
A VILLAGER.
A COOLIE.
"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 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. 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 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."
