The boat population of Canton is famous as being something unique, but it exceeds all ideas I had formed of it. It is said that three hundred thousand people live in boats ranging from the size of a skiff to that of a yawl. I have seen a family of six huddled together in one of the former size, but these were the poorest of the poor. The usual passenger boat is twenty feet long by four and a half wide—the size of the hotel boats we use. We got into one this morning, and as the crackers were going off from numerous boats on all sides, our woman explained that the unusually vigorous fusilade was owing to this being "Joss day." "All people go Jossee Temple this day." "Do you go?" "No; have got Jossee here on boatee." "Where? Show us." With that one of the girls at the stern pushed aside two small sliding-doors in the extreme end of the boat, and revealed a little shrine with a lamp ever burning, and Joss sticks in the incense bowl. The entire family burst into laughter at our surprise, evidently tickled with the idea that it was a decidedly cute thing to have their Joss cooped up "Jack-in- the-box" style. Yesterday the Emperor, at Peking, after fasting all the previous day, would ascend into the Temple of Heaven, accompanied by two thousand of his highest officials, and worship, while his subjects celebrate the event by this fire-cracker carnival.
I was curious to see how a small yawl could be the residence of a family, and examined several of them. The centre of the extreme stern is occupied by the Joss temple, on either side of which small dishes, cans, etc., are arranged; then comes an open space extending across the boat, about four feet long, over which is thrown a light board about six inches wide, upon which stands the woman who sculls and steers the craft. A permanent bamboo roof is built over about the next six feet of the boat, and around the walls are hung a few ornaments, generally old-fashioned plates and cheap prints from the English illustrated papers, while on a shelf are those indispensable articles, the smoking pipes of the family—large and curious affairs, with richly ornamented square brass bowls about four and one-half by two inches in size. A tiny china tea-set and various little "curios" are found in the best boats. The next portion, where passengers sit, has nicely cushioned seats running across the boat, and on each side as well, and is also covered by the roof. Next to the bow is a platform three feet deep, upon which stands the second woman, who rows or poles the boat, as may be necessary. Under her feet is the kitchen, and she has only to lift a board to show a small square covered with clay, upon which a fire can be built. Pots and pans are seen snugly stowed away around this, so that, by means of movable platforms, trap-doors, etc., the entire boat is rendered available to its very keel. At night, when the business of carrying passengers is over, all the boards are made into a fine flush deck, which is divided, in a very few minutes, into sleeping apartments by means of bamboo poles and mats; and so it comes to pass that what I was before disposed to believe almost impossible is accomplished with a degree of comfort quite surprising. These boat people live for less than ten cents a day. Rent there is none; food costs about five cents per day for each person; clothing does not cost two. From the child of eight to the great- grandmother, all do something. When not otherwise engaged, they sew, make Joss-sticks, slit bamboo, or do something or other, the baby being strapped on the mother's back that her capacity for work may not be interfered with; and her stepping backward and forward as she sculls must be a soothing lullaby, for we haven't heard a child crying yet in China. Upon such boats as I have here attempted to describe, and many far smaller and destitute of ornament, millions of the people of China live, move, and have their being. Children-are born, old men die, upon them, and many thousands of their occupants have never slept a night upon shore.
I was surprised to hear that there is no theatre at Canton. The government had some time ago to prohibit night performances, as they were constantly the scenes of disorder. The only amusement is furnished upon large gayly decorated boats, where feasts are given, at which girls belonging to the boats appear and sing. We saw one of these, but it was a poor performance compared with our experience in Japan.
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SUNDAY, December 22.
We allowed our guide to leave us for to-day, and strolled about alone. In the early part of our walk we heard music—a harmonium and a well-known old hymn tune—and on entering a building found Rev. Dr. Hopper preaching in Chinese. We had entered at the wrong door, and were among the women, who are separated from the men by a high, solid wall; but Mrs. Hopper rose and conducted us to the other side, and after service the Doctor came and greeted us cordially. We spent an hour in their house, and were surprised to hear that both were old Pittsburghers. There were at church that morning about thirty Chinamen, all of the poorer classes, principally servants and dependents of Europeans. In the afternoon we stumbled upon the large Catholic cathedral, which is now almost ready for use. It is a magnificent granite structure, three hundred feet long and eighty-eight feet wide. If anything can impress the Chinese mind it must be grand mass in such a temple, with its vaulted roof, stained windows, the swelling organ, and all the "pride, pomp, and circumstance" of Catholic worship. As we stood admiring, the saintly bishop approached and greeted us with exquisite grace. He could not speak English, but. his French was the easiest to understand of any I ever listened to, and my little knowledge of the language enabled us to carry on an interesting conversation. When I told him I had been in St. Peter's at Rome, and had seen the Pope when the assembled thousands fell prostrate before him as he advanced up the aisle, carried upon his palanquin, he seemed much affected, and pressed us to visit his quarters, apologizing, as he showed us into a poor one-story building, for the poverty of his apartments, but adding that the true prêtre Catholique must needs dwell in poverty among the poor of the earth. I asked if he did not expect to return to France to die; but, laying his hand upon his heart, he answered that he must not allow himself to think of France, since it had pleased God to place him here. For thirty years he had labored among these people, and among them he must die; it was the will of God. There were only a table and a few chairs in this bishop's palace, not even a mat or carpet on the floor; but he ordered a servant to bring wine, of which he only tasted, while we drank "sa santé." He subsequently took us to the orphanage, where we saw eighty boys being educated. About an equal number of little girls are in a separate building. If the Chinese are ever to be reformed, this is the way to do it—get control of the young, and teach them. As for the older generation, I fear it is too late to do much with it. There are in and around Canton about five thousand Chinese Catholics, mostly recruited, I understand, from among the young, taken by these sagacious workers into their schools and orphanages and other institutions, and educated as Christians from their youth up.
When I told the good Bishop we spent our summers at Cresson, very near Loretto, and often drove to Count Gallitzin's tomb, he grasped my hand and gave me his benediction. Oh, blessed man! a grand Catholic, Father Gallitzin!
Every one has heard of the great wall of China, which stretches across the northern frontier from the sea to the westernmost province, a distance of twelve to fifteen hundred miles. It is fifteen to thirty feet high, with brick towers about forty feet high at intervals along the whole route. This gigantic work was begun in the third century before Christ by one of the greatest rulers of men the world has ever seen, the Emperor Che Hwang, who hoped that it would prove an insuperable barrier to the inroads of the Tartar hordes. But a still greater warrior than he; Genghis Khan, leader of the Mongols, showed in 1212 that it could be overcome. To this day the Chinese dynasty is Tartar, but the four hundred millions of people remain the same, having assimilated the foreign element. The Tartars are fast becoming Chinese, although a difference between the races is still clearly discernible. The Heathen Chinee changes not. The Jews and the Scotch are perhaps the races in Europe who preserve their types with the greatest tenacity, but compared with the Chinese they must be considered plasticity itself. Apart from their overwhelming numbers, which, being of one unvarying type throughout, constitute a mass upon which it is almost impossible to make much impression, one sees how climate and conditions of life in China operate to bring to the Chinese type all foreign elements, and to retain them there. Mrs. McC. has just been explaining to me to-day how much trouble she has to keep her children, for instance, from becoming young Celestials. They are of pure Scotch parentage upon both sides, yet are constantly alarming their fond mother by developing tastes wholly opposed to hers in food, dress, habits, manners, language, everything. It is just the same in India: the child of foreign parents there must be taken home for years before he is seven or eight years old, or he becomes a Hindoo. We have just such differences at home in a less degree. If two brothers leave Boston with their families, one for New Orleans, another for Chicago, the differences in their grandchildren will be very noticeable. The dream of some dreamer, that Englishmen can be grown in Hindostan or Australia, or even in America (or in Ireland, for that matter), will be rudely dispelled by a few weeks' residence in China or India. The opening gowan transplanted from its Scottish glen loses its modest charm and grows rank upon the prairies of the West even in its second year. The shamrock pines away in exile beyond the borders of its own Emerald Isle. Man, the most delicately touched of all to fine issues, is also the creature of his surroundings, even to a greater degree.
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MONDAY, December 23.