For a chief of so exalted and powerful a position, and who, moreover, had received ample provocation to treat Englishmen as his deadliest enemies, Chung-wang received me with remarkable condescension and kindness. Whereas the meanest official understrapper of the Manchoo government would with the most insulting hauteur receive any foreigner (unless under coercion, as when the treaties have been arranged), and consider himself degraded by any contact, the Chung-wang, generalissimo of some four or five hundred thousand men, second personage in the Ti-ping government (being only inferior to the Tien-wang, the king), and Viceroy of the whole territory (at that period more than twice the size of England, and containing more than 70,000,000 inhabitants), advanced from his vice-regal chair, and shaking me by the hand in English style, made me be seated close to himself. He seemed about thirty-five years of age, though the trace of arduous mental and physical exertion gave him a rather worn and older appearance. His figure light, active, and wiry, was particularly well formed, though scarcely of the Chinese middle height; his bearing erect and dignified, his walk rapid but stately. His features were very strongly marked, expressive, and good, though not handsome according to the Chinese idea, being slightly of a more European cast than they admire; the nose straighter than usual among Chinese; the mouth small, almost delicate, and with the general shape of the jaw and sharply chiselled lips, expressive of great courage and determination. His complexion dark; but it was his brow and eyes that at once told the observer he beheld a great and remarkable man. It was not alone his singularly high and expansive forehead, but the eyebrows and eyes, which, instead of being placed obliquely, as is the usual characteristic of the Chinese, were quite dissimilar: the eyes were nearly straight, the only Chinese part being the shape of the eyelids; and the brows, placed high above them, were almost even, the inner, in place of the outer, ends being slightly elevated. This peculiarity I have never seen so prominent in any other Chinaman; I have seen a few natives of Honan approach to it a little, but it gave the Chung-wang an un-Chinese look.
His large eyes flashed incessantly, while the lids were always twitching. From his very energetic features, and the ceaseless nervous movement of his body (some part being continually on the move and restless, either the legs crossing or uncrossing, the feet patting the ground, or the hands clasping, unclasping, or fidgeting about, and all by sudden starts), no one would imagine he could possess such perfect coolness in battle; yet I have often since observed him in action, when, in spite of his apparent excitability, his self-possession was imperturbable, and his voice—always low and soft, with a musical flow of language, slightly affected by a wound he received from a piece of a British shell before Shanghae, in the month of August, 1860—unchanged, save being more rapid and decisive in moments of the greatest danger. When I obtained my first interview with the Chung-wang, I found him rather plainly dressed. Instead of the long robes and large coronets, constituting the state dress of all the superior chiefs, he was simply attired in an ordinary scarlet quilted jacket. On his head he wore a scarlet hood, of the usual shape, surmounted by a kind of undress coronet peculiar to himself, consisting of a large and valuable jewel in the front, with eight curious gold medallions, four in a row on each side.
CHUNG WANG'S HEAD-DRESS.
While in Soo-chow I became one of the congregation of Ti-pings during their performance of divine service on Sunday. The Sabbath is observed not upon the same day as in Europe, theirs being the Saturday of our reckoning. My interpreter was with me, and translated every part of their service. Their numbers, and apparent devotion, could not have been objected to by the most orthodox Christian.
I shall ever remember with feelings of the liveliest pleasure the first few days I spent with the Ti-pings at Soo-chow. I could not move through its streets without experiencing the excessive friendliness of these warm-hearted converts to Christianity and civilization, thousands of whom were afterwards destroyed by a nation whose religion and civilized institutions they were earnestly striving to imitate.
Nor can I ever forget the eager manner with which, the moment I was seated in his house, my entertainer for the time being would give a copy of the Bible to my servant—waiting impatiently with the book in his hands till the etiquette of presenting me some tea had been observed,—asking if it was the same as mine; and his satisfaction, when, after hearing parts of it translated, I assured him that it was.
The conversation I had with the Chung-wang naturally touched upon his late repulse from Shanghae by the British and French. He seemed to feel that event very deeply, and deplore the suicidal policy of those he had always striven to make his friends. The points of his communication were:—Why had the English and French broken faith with him? the English particularly, whose solemn written guarantees of neutrality the Ti-ping government held. The Ti-pings and the English worshipped the same God and the same Saviour, and were consequently of one religion and brotherhood, why, then, did they assist the common enemy, the Manchoo imps—the idol-worshippers and enemies of our Heavenly Father and Jesus the heavenly elder brother? By what right or law did the English soldiers take charge of the native city of Shanghae, preventing him, their friend, from capturing it, and defend it for the very Manchoos with whom at the time they were themselves at war?
Neither shall I ever forget the noble, enlightened, and patriotic designs, which absorbed them:—to propagate the Bible, to destroy idols, to expel the Tartars from China, and establish one complete and undivided native empire; to become brothers with the Christian nations of the West, and introduce European sciences and manufactures—seemed always their principal wish and determination.
He continually inquired: "Why are the English inimical to us? Have we ever done them the slightest harm? Have we not always acted with good faith and friendship?"