CHAPTER XII
A JAUNT IN A HOUSE-BOAT—THROUGH THE HOME OF THE WILD WHITE ROSE
I have been lying in a steamer chair, in which I have crossed half the large bodies of water in the world, and trying to recall the absolute stillness of the night I drove from the theatre in Shanghai to the canal up which we were going into China,—Chinese China, I mean; not semi-European China! Nothing moved. The crunching of our carriage wheels was the only sound we heard. The pungent Chinese flowers scented the air, and the clear moonlight brocaded the white ground with sharp black shadows of the blue wistarias.
Many weeks’ hard work was over. We had been playing bravely through the hot Chinese summer; now we were going to have a rest. This was one of our delightful little vacations, all the sweeter for being stolen, as they almost invariably were; and to which I look back as the Swiss going into exile looks back to the high white peaks of his native mountains. We can recall several years very full of hard work. But we can also recall days of rest we snatched from our own busy life as it rushed by us—days when we were free and breathed new air.
China is intersected with canals, as an oak leaf is netted with veins. Every primitive people has its favourite mode of travel. The travelling Chinaman goes in a house-boat, a junk, or a sampan; and the European who would pierce beyond the outer edge of China must adopt the Chinaman’s method of journeying,—there is no other way to get into China.
A delightful fellow, who lived in Shanghai, was supping with us one night. My husband spoke of my mania for seeing queer places, and told how I had gone in Hong-Kong where no European woman had been before me; of how I had gone into the Burra Bazaar in Calcutta at midnight, and told of a hundred other follies, for which I had been soundly scolded at the time, but which I had thoroughly enjoyed, and remember with considerable pleasure.
Mr. Brown said, “Would you like to go in a house-boat up one of the canals into Chinese China, where Europeans almost never go?”
I was overjoyed at the suggestion. There were two difficulties in our way, but woman-like I ignored them, and man-like they overcame them. The first difficulty was that we were playing six nights a week, and the second was that the house-boat was very small and had only one cabin. My husband agreed to give our company a short holiday. Mr. Brown suggested that they two could sleep on deck, or if it turned cold, a curtain could be stretched across the tiny cabin. We were to go, and I was happy.
It was about one in the morning when we reached the boat. It was a funny little bark, and looked as if it had been carved from a big Chinese nut. The moonlight was so bright that we could see the faces of the scantily clad coolies who lay on the deck. They were our sailors. There were only two servants, the cook and Mr. Brown’s “boy,” who was to act as butler and general factotum. They stood waiting for us, their bare feet hidden by the coarse Chinese grass that grew on the banks, their long cues beautifully braided and finished with red cotton, and their long blue garments (for all the world like pinafores) new laundried.
I was asked once more if I were afraid—if I really wanted to go; then our carriage turned back, and we went on board.
The sailors undid our moorings. They took up their long poles, and we moved on through the moonlit darkness. We stood on deck a few moments before we went down to supper. We were alone with the night, and with China. I leaned over the rail and felt that I was the only European woman in China; those in Shanghai and in Hong-Kong didn’t count, no, nor even those in Sha-mien. But I was in China, and I was going up, up into the forbidden country.
Mr. Brown made me go below. What a capital host he was; and what a funny little cabin. There was a table a little smaller than that at which I’m writing, and there were seats round the cabin’s sides, a bunk at one end, and that was all. No not all: there were red curtains at the windows; there were cushions on the seats; there were satin heaps of eider down on the one bunk (my bunk); there was a vase of flowers; and Ah Loon was bringing in the supper.
We had a pigeon pie that would have done credit to the Langham; we had an omelet in which the blessed cook had stirred pâté de foie gras; we had anchovy sandwiches and salad. The men sipped whisky and water as men will, and I had some champagne. We had some easy talk, but not for long. Two of us were tired, so after going on deck for one more look at the moon-bathed shore and the queer sailors, I said “good-night” and went below. Ah Loon had taken away the supper and pulled down the little red curtains. He had dived into my bag and laid out my kimono. I put it on, pulled up the curtains, put out the lights, and climbed into my throne-like bed. Yes; and I was as happy as a queen!
I have found that natives and monkeys warm to one who goes among them fearlessly. And then it would have meant such bitter reckoning for those sailors if any ill thing had befallen us. The night was still, the moonlight accented everything, but no leaf moved. Two sounds broke the stillness now and again. As we passed some temple the tom-toms clashed out the brazen prayer of the priest who was spending the night in worship; then as we passed some other boat, our boatmen cried out, in Chinese, “Make way, make way for us; we have distinguished foreigners aboard.” I tucked the eider down more cosily about me and sank back, drowsy with the delicious luxury of being called a “distinguished foreigner.” A sweet, mild smell of tobacco came from the deck like a last good-night from my husband and our host. I dozed, then I woke to feel a faint perfume creep across my face, it was my welcome into China; it was the scent of the wild white rose.
When I woke in the morning Ah Loon was brightening the cabin with Oriental disregard of narrow European bedchamber sanctities.
“You sleep wellie?” he said. “I bling you tea decky or you dlinky in bedie? They gone decky, they done washie.”
I had my tea in bed, and then I induced him to leave the room. The cabin was sweet with yellow jasmine. One of the sailors had swam ashore to pull it. I dressed myself, but my boots were gone. I found them in the cook-house with Ah Loon. He refused to part with them. So I had to take him back to the cabin and let him button them for me. He wanted to “dlessie” my “hailie” but I postponed that.
All day we went on through panoramaed details of Chinese life. In one place big-leaved tobacco plants grew almost to the canal’s edge. The coolies who were cultivating the field rested from their work to look at us. It was quite a shock to me to see tobacco untended by American darkies. A sudden shower drove us below, and made the coolies bundle into their odd rain-coats. These garments are made of long, coarse grass. They make one think of the old nursery rhyme, “The beggars are come to town,” but they keep their wearers dry and they are very light.
Breakfast was ready. The French and the Chinese make the best coffee in the world. The Chinese are excellent cooks; ours had been borrowed from the “Shanghai Club,” and he was, what it is a crime for a cook not to be, an artist. He had done some delightful things with fresh fish, and he had made a suprême of chicken breasts in which tomatoes, mushrooms, and olives were mingled with the happiest result. The Chinese fruits (of course we ended our meal with fruit) are delicious. And you can’t eat them out of China. They are as pertinacious in their love of home as the Chinamen themselves. You can buy liches at Covent Garden—dried liches, but they are no more like the big pink-green fruit you eat in China than the toy pagoda you buy at the Lowther Arcade is like the great pagoda at Canton. After breakfast I went and tried to make friends with the cook. He was crouching over a little naphtha stove. The weird, blue flame made the six feet by seven kitchen look like a baby “Blue Grotto” and it threw a purple haze about yellow Yen Yang that turned him into a picturesque demon. He failed to make me over-welcome, and the sickly smell of the naphtha disgusted me; so I went back to the cabin.
The rain was over. We went on deck. We were just in time to see a dozen or more Chinamen of the better class clustered about the base of an old Pagoda. “Loong Hwa” it was called I think, and it had a long interesting history. We passed acres and acres of rice, in different stages of growth. In many of the fields men, women, and children stood knee deep in the water without which the young rice won’t grow. Then we passed through a strange crowded city. The “Soochow” canal, on which we were, seemed to be the city’s principal street. Shops and houses were huddled together indiscriminately. All were open to the view of passers-by, and all were swarming with life. The buildings were of brick, of mud, of wood, and of bamboo. The roofs, which were invariably peaked, were covered with anything and everything; matting, broken flower pots, grass, tiles, and fifty other materials. On half the roofs children were playing or sleeping. Outside a shop, in which a “red button mandarin” was making a purchase, waited his little body-guard of seven soldiers; six of them carried round bamboo shields, and one bore his flag. We passed a famous Chinese temple and paused a little to study a wonderful idol on the outer wall. It was in bas relief, and tinted with every colour on the Chinese palette.
All that day and all the next—all that night and all the next—we went on through “that old world which was to us the new.” I have not space for even passing mention of half the wonders I saw. My pen must skip much that I shall always remember. But I must not omit a passing description of our wine-cellar. Three ropes trailed behind our house-boat. They hung low in the water—one was weighted with a bottle of beer; one was heavy with a bottle of claret; and one sunk deep in the cool stream because a bottle of champagne was tied to it. It was the duty of a half-grown Chinese boy to watch those ropes, and to watch a grass bag filled with bottles of soda-water which hung over one side. When a bottle was pulled in, another replaced it; and all our drink was beautifully cool.
On the third morning we landed. I had to walk across a thick bamboo pole, which they threw from the deck to the bank. I toddled like a “small-footed” woman of the best Chinese society; and I should have fallen had not Mr. Brown on shore and my husband on the boat, held the two ends of a tightly stretched-rope. I steadied myself by holding to it with one hand. And I stood in China!
We had a long walk before us—a walk up to where Rome sat enthroned on the Chinese hills; for we were going to a cathedral presided over by an eminent Roman Catholic prelate. We had gone about a quarter of a mile, climbing over rocks, breaking through tangling flowers and shrubs, when we came upon a sea of perfumed beauty. We had reached the home of the wild white rose.
Eighteen years before, at Heidelberg, my father found and gave me a wild white rose. It was the first wild white rose we had ever seen, and, though William Black tells of wild white roses in England, my father never saw another. Now I saw a wilderness of wild white roses at my feet. They lay like unmelting snow-flakes on the breast of the Chinese summer. We went on, up the hills. We passed through three or four Chinese farmyards. No one molested us, and they scarcely looked at us, though Europeans were almost unknown there. Chinese dignity is imperturbable.
I grew tired. A woman who was hulling corn gave me a glass of milk. But when my two comrades intimated that they too were tired and thirsty, she shook her head and frowned. Who shall say that the women of the Orient are not emancipated?
Half-way up the hill we stopped and looked across China. Green—green—green! Rice—rice—rice! The food of the nation was growing on the land of the people. Every known and unknown shade of green was there. The boundaries of each farm were cleanly outlined; and in the atmosphere, as clear as that of Italy, we could see for miles and miles; far in the distance the green fields and the blue sky melted into each other—making by their mingling a lovely indescribable gray.
We had reached a little chapel. Over the doorway was a crucifix. On the hill above stood a white cathedral. It would have adorned any street in Paris or Vienna; and the great gold cross that tipped it flashed like intersecting rainbows in the noon-day sun.
We waited in the chapel while our cards were sent up to the fathers. The walls were hung with Scriptural texts (in Chinese characters) and Biblical illustrations from a Mongolian point of view. Joseph, and a greater than Joseph, wore “pigtails,” and Mary had “little feet,” and the ample trousers of a Chinese woman. I have noticed all over the world that the Church of Rome is very wise in her concessions to the peoples she would convert. She adapts her teachings to the language her hearers can easiest understand.
Our messenger came back. The fathers were in retreat, and of course could not see us; least of all could they see me. But the head of their order kindly sent me down his “chair,” and two coolies to carry me up to the cathedral. I appreciated that courtesy, before we reached the top; for my husband and our friend found the climb very hard. The steep steps were cut in the rock in a manner typical of the Journey to the Cross. The first set of steps bore upward to the right; then a rude shrine was cut in the rocks. That represented the first station. The next set of steps bore upward to the left; then another niche represented the second station. The third set of steps bore upward to the right; the fourth bore upward to the left. There were twelve sets of steps, and at the end of each a holy lamp burned in front of a niche frescoed with the pictures that you will find in every illustrated Roman Catholic prayer-book. From the last station three broad, easy steps led into the beautiful cathedral. There were no pews; mats lay upon the mosaic floor. The huge building was empty. At the door the marble basins held holy water unrippled by devout fingers. The altar-piece was wonderfully fine, and reminded me of the admirable figure of Mary on the high altar of the cathedral in Montreal.
We lingered a long time in the cool, vacant fane, speaking in hushed tones of the vast enterprise of Rome. Her priests have made practically no converts in China; and they know it. But they persist. They spare no expense, count no cost of life; because they believe that in after generations they shall have so permeated Chinese life with Roman Catholic thought that real conversion of the Chinese may be possible. I am not a Roman Catholic; but the longer I live—the farther I travel—the more deeply I respect the Church of Rome. She sent her Sisters of Charity into the battlefields of old Europe; she has encouraged art and literature when, but for her, they must have perished; and her pioneers press always in the advance guard of civilisation.
It was sunset when we returned to our house-boat. We seized upon the dinner table. I had had a glass of milk since breakfast, and the hospitable priests had sent us a light lunch into their outer garden; but we had climbed eight miles at least; the men had walked up and down the long, steep steps leading to the cathedral; and we were very hungry.
We went on deck for coffee. We had begun our return journey. I tried to paint the sunset. How I failed! Red melted into orange, and warm violet faded to cold green, before I could fix either to my half liking. A few miles down, the canal widened into a lake. We waited there a little to watch some novel fishing. On the centre of the lake were three or four motionless sampans; in each were two or three Chinamen; but the fishermen were huge cormorants. Each man had two birds; each bird was fastened, by one foot, to a long string, the other end of which was secured to the Chinaman’s wrist; each bird had a metal ring about his throat, to prevent his swallowing the fish he caught. The birds sat on the edge of the sampans, peering intently into the water. Suddenly one would plunge into the water, coming up almost instantly, with a silver fish gleaming in its cruel beak. The cormorants never made a mistake. It was only after a fierce fight that they could be made to relinquish their prey; and the men who had them in charge had many a torn finger. When the boats were full, the men poled to the shore. The birds were carried some distance from the sampans; the rings were taken from their necks; and they were given a few of the fish they had been used to catch. I have seen few sights more weird, more distinctively odd, than the fishing cormorants of China.
An hour later—it was still bright and light—we passed through a Chinese town. A high picturesque bridge that spanned the canal was teeming with people. It was the Chinese hour of rest; the Chinese (the busiest people on the globe) were doing nothing but enjoying themselves. They were all talking—their language is never musical, but it is characteristic.
I have heard a great deal of Chinese antagonism to Europeans; I have never witnessed it. Friends have told me of hair-breadth escapes from Chinese mobs, and of loathsomely insulting language to which they have been subjected by the Chinese. My experience has been quite to the contrary. I have traversed the length and breadth of the island of Hong-Kong alone, but for my ’rickshaw coolie. I have gone down into the depths of old Shanghai; and I have stood, one of three Europeans, in the midst of ten thousand Cantonese, and I have received courteous kindness—nothing else. I have had them laugh at me. A woman in Canton crept up to me and felt the strange European texture of my dress; a woman in Shanghai begged a glove from me—giving me a ring in return. I have had presents, unsolicited and unrequited, from almost every class of Chinese. As we passed beneath the big red bridge, a girl leaned over the parapet and threw a bunch of sweet-briar into my lap. In reporting my days in China, I must report unbroken kindness; for no grown woman can be expected to count the fact that, as she sat on the deck of a house-boat, half-a-dozen Chinese urchins called out, “La-le-lung! La-le-lung!” That means a thief, a liar, and something else as complimentary. And one boy called after us, “Fankwai!” which means foreign devil. But the delightful frankness of the small boy is too world-wide to be laid at the door of China; and to me a small boy is the most delicious animal in the wide world; and I can forgive him sins much more grievous than calling me a “foreign devil.”
We didn’t land where we had embarked a few nights before. We kept on down through the entrance to the Soochow creek. There the native houses, with their queerly ventilated walls, clustered in indescribable confusion. The roof of every Chinese building is peaked liked the prow of an ancient ship. I have often wished for leisure to study Chinese architecture, the few theories I have heard about its peculiarities are so interesting.
We forced our way through a multitude of native boats, out into the fresh breezes of the open water,—we were in the river. We made for the harbour.
We were back in Shanghai; our happy holiday was over. I shall always hold Mr. Brown’s memory very blessed; and remember as one of the most pleasant and unique experiences of my life our jaunt in a house-boat through the home of the Wild White Rose.