CHAPTER VI.
LITTLE CHU AND WOO-URH.
O more story Peep-shows of what might be seen in China, no more wondering what the Celestials would be like, for Sybil and Leonard had now landed on Chinese soil, and were themselves at Shanghai, face to face with its inhabitants.
Shanghai seemed, and was, a very busy place, but not a town of very great importance in itself, owing, really, its recent prosperity to having opened its port to foreign commerce. The custom-house, through which the Grahams' boxes had to be passed, struck the children as a very strange and beautiful building, quite different from anything that they had seen before; and there was a great noise of chattering going on outside, which sounded most unintelligible. Coolies were carrying bales of silk and tea to and fro; there were also, ready at hand, some of the sedan-chairs that Sybil had longed to see, and everywhere "pig-tails," or cues, as they were called, seemed to meet Leonard's gaze.
But the ships! Watching them was what he enjoyed better than anything else. The town of Shanghai is situated on the River Woosung, a tributary of the Yangtse-kiang, just at that point where it joins the great river, and about one hundred ships were anchored before this busy, commercial city. Many families resident there have their junks and a little home on the river. There were some very pretty buildings to be seen at Shanghai, and at one of these our little party stayed—on a visit to another missionary from the Church of England—for the three days that they remained there.
At some cities and towns, on the banks of rivers, floating hotels are to be seen; and as people generally have to travel by water, and the Chinese are not allowed to keep open their city-gates after nine o'clock at night, these hotels prove very useful to those arriving too late to enter the city. Lighted with lanterns, they look very pretty floating on the water, and both Sybil and Leonard were very pleased to be taken over a large floating hotel before they left Shanghai. Leonard was very anxious to know how long this town had been open to foreign commerce, and was told since the Opium War, which lasted from 1840 to 1842, when the British, having occupied several Chinese cities, and having captured Chinkiang in Hoopeh, were advancing to Nanking, and the Chinese suing for peace, a treaty was concluded which opened the ports of Amoy, Foochow, Shanghai, and Ningpo, in addition to Canton, to the British, who were henceforward to appoint consuls to live in these towns.
The Chinese are very polite to foreigners in Shanghai; and as the kind missionary who bade the Grahams welcome to his home endeavoured, during their short stay, to interest and show them sights, they enjoyed themselves very much. Sybil and Leonard could not help noticing how very many people they met in spectacles, but they were told that the Chinese suffer very much from ophthalmia, and that when they wear spectacles, some of which are very large, they often have sore eyes.
"There is one thing I cannot understand the Chinese doing," Leonard said one day to Sybil: "and that is, everybody that we have seen, as yet, spoiling their tea by not taking any milk or sugar in it; and father says all the Chinese drink tea like that, and call milk white blood, and only use it in medicine."
"Tea like that would not suit us," Sybil answered, "as we like plenty of both milk and sugar; but I dare say they think we spoil our tea by putting such things into it."
A visit to some rice-fields, a little sight-seeing, a little more watching of ships carrying rice and other products away, and then it was time for the Grahams once more to take their seats on board.
THE CUSTOM-HOUSE, SHANGHAI.
We can imagine how both children strained their eyes, as they steamed farther and farther away from Shanghai, to see what that port looked like in the distance, and how Sybil examined her map as they left the province of Kiang-su, to see at what port, and in what province, they would next touch.
This was Ningpo, in Che-kiang, but they did not land here; neither did they go on shore at their next halting-place, Foochow, in the province of Fu-kien. It was at Amoy, in the same province, where their father had a missionary friend, who had invited them to pay him a few days' or a week's visit, as would suit them best, that they next purposed landing, and this they did about four days after they left Shanghai.
"Whoever thought," Sybil said one day on board, "that we should actually be on the Yellow Sea ourselves? It seems almost too good to be true now."
"I never knew people like to stare more at anybody than they seem to like to stare at us here," Leonard thought to himself when first at Amoy.
He and Sybil were then being very carefully observed by a group of natives of that place, but Leonard had yet to become accustomed to being stared at in China.
"And, father," he said later, "I wonder why so many of them wear turbans? I did not notice people doing this at Shanghai."
A FLOATING HOTEL AT SHANGHAI.
Mr. Graham did not know the reason of this either; but he and Leonard were later informed that the men of Amoy adopted the turban to hide the tail when they were made to wear it by their conquerors, and that they never gave it up. Leonard was also told that they were good soldiers, which, he said, he thought they looked. One thing remarkable about the people of Amoy was that the different families seemed to consist almost entirely of boys. A great many of the inhabitants were very poor, living crowded together in dirty houses very barely furnished. Mrs. Graham had not to be long in China to discover that cleanliness is not a Chinese virtue. Sybil bought some very pretty artificial flowers of some of the inhabitants of Amoy, which they had themselves made. They manufactured them principally, she heard, to be placed on graves.
THE PORT OF SHANGHAI.
Like other Chinese, these people were very superstitious. Here and there large blocks of granite were to be met with, which were regarded by them with reverence, and looked upon as good divinities. On one the Grahams saw inscriptions, which related some history of the place.
Granite seemed to abound here, for the temples and monasteries were, for the most part, erected on the heights between rocks of this description.
Two days after reaching Amoy, Sybil was dreadfully distressed, and shocked, to see a little girl named Chu, of eleven years old, put up for sale by her own parents. At ten dollars (ÂŁ1) only was she valued; and for this paltry sum the parents were ready to sell her to any one who would bid it for her. They were very poor, and could not afford to keep her any longer. She had four sisters and only two brothers; the youngest of all, the baby, was to be drowned by her father, later on in the day, in a tub of water. They had never done anything like this before: this man and woman had never killed a child, although they had had five girls, and many of their neighbours had thought nothing of destroying most of their daughters so soon as they were born; but now, as the man was ill, and able to earn so little, they had resolved to rid themselves of two of them that day. If the baby lived, the mother comforted herself by saying, she must be sold later, or grow up in poverty and misery.
Parents think it very necessary that their children should marry, and sometimes sell, or give them away, to their friends, when they are quite little, to be the future wives of the sons of their new owners.
If sold, they will then fetch about two dollars for every year that they have lived; so a child of five years old would fetch ten dollars; and this little girl, put up for sale, was now eleven years old; therefore she was being offered, poor little thing, below half price. And some little girls of Amoy have been even offered for sale for a few pence!
A FAMILY OF AMOY.
THE MISSIONARY'S TEACHER.
It seemed incomprehensible to Sybil, as it must to us, that a mother could wish either to kill or to sell her little child, but neither the one nor the other event is uncommon in some parts of China, where the parent is poor; and even amongst the well-to-do classes little girls are sometimes put to death, if the parents have more daughters than they care to rear, not only at Amoy, but at other places in the neighbourhood; and even Chinese ladies will sometimes have their poor little daughters put to death.
"Why do people not kill their boys too?" Sybil asked, when she heard all about this.
"Because when they grow up they can earn money that girls could not earn; and not only can they help to support their parents when old, but they can worship their ancestral tablets and keep up the family name."
"I am sure a girl would do this too."
"Her doing so would be considered of little use."
A VIEW OF AMOY, WITH A BLOCK OF GRANITE IN THE FOREGROUND.
It seemed that the very day before Mr. Graham arrived in Amoy, a widow lady there had had her little baby girl destroyed, and then, in her widow's dress, had sat down quietly to talk matters over with her sister-in-law, who thought that she had acted very wisely. Killing a daughter, in China, is hardly looked upon as being sinful. A widow's mourning consists of all white and a band round the head, white being Chinese deepest mourning.
LADIES OF AMOY.
LITTLE CHU.
Whilst Mr. Graham stood by, a purchaser for little Chu stepped forward, holding the ten dollars in his hand; but the missionary was before him, and through a teacher, whom he had already been able to engage, offered the father twice that sum not to sell the little girl at all, but to let him have her for a servant. He hesitated, as though he would rather sell his child right off to any Chinaman than trust her to a foreign "barbarian." But the sum tempted him; and although he could not understand how receiving it did not give Chu altogether to her purchaser, he seemed to be contented, especially when the teacher explained that she would not be a slave, but would be paid for what work she did. Little Chu was well off to have stepped into so happy a service, and the baby was rescued also. A certain sum was to be paid weekly to the father, towards her support, until he recovered his health, if he would only spare her; and both parents, who really fondly loved their children, were very glad to spare their baby, fifth girl though she was. Her name was Woo-Urh, which means fifth girl.
It did not take long to have little Chu tidily dressed, with money that her new master supplied, and her poor mother, who had some beads stowed away, now looked them out and also put these on her. Chu was only eleven years old, but poverty and care had given the little one an old expression beyond her years. Chinese children of from ten to sixteen years of age—about which time they are supposed to marry—have a fringe cut over their foreheads, and Chu wore this fringe now. It has to grow again before they marry.
That evening Chu was sent round to Mr. Graham's brother missionary's house, where, as Sybil's little maid, she was housed for the two or three days longer that they would spend at Amoy; and though Chu had come to live with foreigners, in the family of a "barbarian," as her father thought, we can well imagine that she had never been so happy in her life. Mr. Graham had told her parents that when they reached Hong-Kong he should send her to the mission school.
"And the father would have killed the baby himself!" said Sybil. "How could he have done so?"
"That is the marvel; but it is generally the fathers who commit the deed; other people might be punished if they interfered."
CHAPTER VII.
LEONARD'S EXPLOIT IN FORMOSA.
BOUT the middle of November, eleven weeks after Mr. Graham and his family had left England, they arrived in the beautiful island of Formosa, whither they had crossed over from Amoy.
Three more persons were now added to the travelling party—the teacher, a Chinese maid, and little Chu, the latter having already begun to show herself really useful.
ENTRANCE TO THE PORT OF TAKOW.
There is but little fun in travelling, and one does not see half there is to be seen unless one climbs; and as the Grahams were all bent on having fun and seeing as much as they could, on reaching the port of Takow, in Formosa, they ascended a very high mountain, called Monkey Mountain, because it is the home of very many monkeys, and they were rewarded by having, from its height, a capital view of the entrance to the port. To the front of the mountain were some European houses, belonging to English merchants from Amoy. The port of Takow is a very difficult one at which to anchor, and is closed for commerce during six months of the year, whilst the wind is blowing in an adverse direction; but when the wind and tide are favourable, barks pass between some rocks at the entrance to the port. It is only at the north that the water is deep enough for merchant-ships to pass by. Here Leonard saw men fishing quite differently from what he had ever seen people fish before; and as they walked in the water behind their nets, which they seemed to manage very cleverly, he wished so much that he could have been there with them.
Takow is one of the four ports in Formosa which, through treaties, have been thrown open to foreign trade, the others being those of Kelung, Tamsui, and Taiwan-fu.
THE EXTREME NORTH OF TAKOW.
Formosa, as its name implies, is a very lovely, picturesque island, and the Spaniards, who first made it known to Europeans, named it "Isla Formosa," which, in their language, means "beautiful island." Takow seemed to abound in tropical vegetation, palm-trees being very conspicuous. The gong, used everywhere in China, was much in use here also; and as in other places men carried things by balancing them across their shoulders, so also they did here. But as Mr. Graham's special object in coming to this island was to visit Poahbi, the first centre of the population of a tribe of aborigines, whom the Chinese have named Pepohoans, or strangers of the plain, he moved on thither as quickly as he could. The country through which they now passed was very beautiful, palm-trees and bamboos overshadowing the way.
FISHERMEN OF TAKOW.
Although it was the month of November, the weather was hot here, and women, wearing white calico dresses, were hard at work in the fields. Many of the women of Formosa had compressed feet, and most of the children wore charms round their necks.
The Pepohoans used to live in fertile plains, but when greedy and grasping Chinese drove them from the rich and beautiful lands that were then theirs, and had belonged to their ancestors before them, they took shelter, and made themselves homes, in mountain fastnesses.
Sybil and Leonard were charmed with the people of Poahbi, and thought both their faces and manners very pretty. Although some of the people stared at the foreigners, and laughed at them, many wished to make them welcome in their midst. One woman gave them shelter for the night—a very kind-hearted woman, with a dear little baby, and a very clean and comfortable home. She was a Christian.
At Poahbi Mr. Graham saw a little Christian chapel, which the natives had not only built, but which they also kept up, themselves. Pepohoans are good builders, and do also much work in the fields. They have a most affectionate remembrance of the Dutch, who were once their masters, but who were afterwards expelled from Formosa by a Chinese pirate.
VIEW OF TAKOW, A TOWN IN FORMOSA.
The huts, or bamboo cottages, of the Pepohoans, raised on terraces three or four feet high, looked very picturesque, and consisted first of a framework of bamboo, through which crossbars of reeds were run; the whole being thickly covered over with clay. The houses were afterwards whitened with lime. A barrier of prickly stems extended round the huts, throwing a shade over them, whilst these dwellings often had for roofing a thatch of dried leaves. Most things in Formosa were made of bamboo, such as tables, chairs, beds, pails, rice-measures, jars, hats, pipes, chop-sticks, goblets, paper, and pens. Many of the Pepohoans' habitations were built on three sides of a four-cornered spot, with a yard in the centre, where the families sometimes passed their evenings together. The natives assembled here, in numbers, at about nine o'clock, where they made a fire when it was cold. Old and young people here often formed a circle on the ground, sitting together with their arms crossed, smoking, and talking. It was not unusual for dogs also to surround them. These people were fond of singing, but played no musical instruments. Sybil said, directly she saw them, that they were just the sort of people she liked, but this was before she heard that they ate serpents and rats. The women had a quantity of hair, which they wound round their heads like crowns. None of them painted their faces. Some of the men were very badly dressed. All Pepohoans seemed to have very beautiful black eyes. In the different villages the inhabitants were different, and where they had most contact with the Chinese they dressed better, but were less affable. They seemed to be a very honest race.
The Pepohoans are subject to the Chinese Government. Some of them, like the Chinese, have been ruined by opium. The aborigines, consisting of different tribes, talk different dialects. The people of one tribe, the most savage of all, are very warlike, and think nothing of killing and eating their Chinese neighbours when they get the chance to do so; therefore, they are held in great terror. Sybil and Leonard would not have liked to have visited this tribe, for they also hate Europeans.
MOUNTAINEERS OF FORMOSA.
There was a grandness of beauty in this island of Formosa which could not fail, more and more, to charm Mrs. Graham, and many a pretty sketch did she here make, both for herself and for Sybil's letters. Sybil also liked being here very much; "but if she had only seen," Leonard said, what he and his father saw one day, when they went for a ramble through the mountains, whilst Sybil was helping her mother to sketch by keeping her company, and making clever little attempts at sketching herself, "she would want to be off that very moment."
There were caverns in Formosa, and they were walking along, exploring some, Leonard some little way in front of Mr. Graham, the teacher, and a native guide, who followed a few yards behind, when the English boy suddenly caught sight of two huge, yellow serpents twined round the branch of an overhanging tree. No one but Leonard was near enough to see them, and as the first creature stretched its dreadful-looking head out, hissing towards him, the brave, self-possessed little fellow, who held a stick in his hand, struck his deadly foe with it with all his might, and hit and aimed so well that he had the satisfaction, the next moment, of seeing the serpent roll over and over down the rock. But then the further one (which, although rather smaller than the other, measured about six feet) wound, in a moment, its wriggling body round the branch of the tree, stretching its head out almost within reach of Leonard, when the boy-guide and Mr. Graham, the same instant, came upon the spot. The boy, accustomed to such encounters, at once dealt the snake a blow, that caused it to lose its balance, and thus all were able to pass on their way in thankfulness and safety.
When Sybil heard of the adventure she was very proud of her little brother; but, as he had imagined when she heard that Formosa was inhabited by serpents, she was glad also to think that it was settled for them to leave that island for Swatow in two days' time.
PEPOHOANS AND THEIR HUT.
That evening was spent very pleasantly comparing notes of adventure with an English gentleman, who had been in Formosa for some time, and now called upon Mr. Graham and his family, who were staying at the consul's. He had seen and done a good deal, he said, but he spoke very highly of Leonard's brave exploit.
HUT OF ONE OF THE SAVAGE TRIBES.
In the course of his wanderings, he told them, he had visited the village of Lalung, which is situated on the narrowest part of a large river. During the rainy season the waters would here rise and cover a vast bed, opening out a new passage across the land, and flowing away towards the eastern plain. Great mountain heights surrounded the bed of the river, and the violence of the torrent carried away very large quantities of all sorts of rubbish, which the sea would collect, and deposit, along the eastern coast. Mr. Hardy explained to Leonard how this would account for the port of ThaĂŻ-ouan disappearing, and that of Takow forming lower down.
SERPENTS OF FORMOSA.
THE BED OF THE RIVER LALUNG DURING THE DRY SEASON.
"Formosa," he continued, "shows very plainly how the violence of waters can quite transform the physical aspect of a country."
Mr. Hardy then told them that he, with a guide, had once visited the bed of the river of Lalung, during the dry season, as an explorer, when he had taken off his boots and socks, so as to be able to walk wherever he chose, and fathom the depth of the water in different parts.
How Leonard wished he had been with him on this occasion, which seemed to him a regular voyage of discovery!
Two days later, as arranged, the Grahams made sail for Swatow. In crossing the channel, which separates the island from the mainland, Leonard, as usual, had some questions to ask.
"What made the Chinese call Formosa Tai-wan?"
"Because that word means the terraced harbour."
"The east coast hasn't a harbour at all, has it?"
"No; mountains are on the east, and to the west are flat and fertile plains, and all the ports."
"I suppose you know, Sybil, that there are some wild beasts in Formosa?" Leonard went on.
"Yes, I heard Mr. Hardy say so: leopards, tigers, and wolves."
"I think it's my turn to ask a question now," Mrs. Graham said. "I wonder if you and Sybil can tell me what grows principally in Formosa?"
"Rice," Sybil began, "sugar, wheat, beans, tea, coffee, pepper."
"Cotton, tobacco, silk, oranges, peaches, and plums," Leonard ended. "We saw most of these things growing ourselves, so we ought to know."
"Yes; and flax, indigo, camphor, and many fruits that you have not mentioned."
"The Chinese part of the island, I suppose, belongs to Fukien?" Sybil said, "as it is painted the same colour on my map."
"Yes."
What religion had the aborigines? she then wanted to know.
Mr. Graham answered this question by telling her that he believed they had no priesthood at all.
"What a pity it is," Sybil said, "that a number of missionaries could not be sent out there. I do so like the Pepohoans!"
"How long is it now since the Dutch were driven away?" Leonard asked. "And how long were they in Formosa?"
"About 1634 the Dutch took possession of the island, and built several forts, but a Chinese pirate drove them out in 1662, and made himself king of the western part. In 1683 his descendants submitted to the authority of the Chinese Emperor, to whom they are now tributary. The Chinese colonists, however, often rebel."
"People have not known very long, have they, that the island of Formosa is important?"
"No; only since about 1852."
"About how many inhabitants has ThaĂŻ-ouan, the capital?" Leonard asked.
"I should think about 70,000, but it is now decreasing in population."
"How much you know, father," Sybil said. "I wish I knew all you did!"
"I am afraid that is not very much; but if you notice things that you come across, and try to remember what you hear and what you read, you will soon gain plenty of knowledge and useful information."
SWATOW.
"I wonder what Swatow is like?" Leonard then said; but he had not long to wait to find out, for a week after leaving Formosa they landed at Swatow, the port of Chaou-Chou-foo, in the province of Kwang-tung, where once again, for a fortnight, they were made very welcome: this time by some friends of the missionary with whom they had stayed at Amoy.
E-CHUNG.
Their home, for the present, was very prettily situated on a range of low hills. Many pieces of granite were scattered about on the summit of these hills, as they were about Amoy, which some people say have been caused to appear through volcanic irruptions. On them also were Chinese inscriptions. Leonard was delighted because the Chinese teacher cut his name on one of these pieces of granite. The houses of Swatow were built with a kind of mortar, made of China clay, and attached to some of them were very pretty gardens.
In front of the Consulate, which was a very large building, was a flag-staff, with a flag flying.
WOMAN OF SWATOW.
The ceilings of the house, in which the Grahams stayed, was painted with flowers and birds, and some of the windows were also painted so as to look like open fans. The Chinese are fond of decorating their rooms and painting their ornaments, and the people of Swatow seemed to be better painters than the Chinese; but they kept their pictures hidden, only a very few of them producing any to show our friends. The people of Swatow are also noted for fan-painting.
Sybil thought some of the women of Swatow rather nice-looking, but, like other ladies of the "Flowery Land," they had a wonderful way of dressing their hair. One woman, Leonard declared, had hers done to represent a large shell. A young lady, to whom Sybil was introduced, had the thickest hair that she had ever seen. She and other Chinese girls wore it hanging down their backs in twists. She was just fifteen, and Sybil was told that she was going to be married in about a year's time, so she would soon have to begin to let her fringe grow. She was the daughter of a rich man, and had such pretty, dark eyes.
Round a girl's and woman's head, or to fasten up her back hair, ornaments are generally worn. E-Chung wore rather a large one round her head. Sybil was allowed to spend an afternoon, and take some tea, with this young lady, but they could not talk much together. E-Chung knew, and spoke, a little of what is called pidgin, or business English, because many business, or shop, people and those who mix most with the English, speak this strange language to them; but Sybil could understand hardly any of it. Before E-Chung heard that Sybil had a brother, she said to her, "You one piecee chilo?" meaning to ask if she were the only child. Then she was trying to describe somebody to Sybil whose appearance did not please her, so she made an ugly grimace and said, "That number one ugly man all-same so fashion," meaning "just like this." Another time she meant to ask Sybil if she were not very rich, so she said, "You can muchee money?"
The hair down Sybil's back was such a contrast to her friend's, as was also her rather pale complexion. E-Chung wished very much to enamel Sybil's face, as she did her own, and could not understand why she should so persistently refuse to have it done.
Chinese ladies seldom do without their rouge, and often keep their amahs, or maids, from three to four hours at a time doing their hair.
SYBIL.
