Rations to soldiers, honours, promotions, pardons, etc., were ordered in honour of the day—“Every perfectly filial son or obedient grandson, every upright husband or chaste wife, upon proofs being brought forward, shall have a monument erected with an inscription in his or her honour.” Soldiers who had reached the age of ninety or one hundred received money to erect an honorary portal, and tombs, temples, and bridges were ordered to be repaired; but, as Dr. Williams slily remarks, “how many of these exceedingly great and special favours were actually carried into effect cannot be stated.”
This edict of the Emperor Tao Kwang is of high interest at this moment (1900), as illustrating the position of the present Dowager-empress Tsu Hsi, which has seemed so incomprehensible to us Westerns. An ambitious woman, with the master mind of an Elizabeth or a Catherine, would, it is easy to perceive, find opportunities which she has certainly turned to the best, or worst, advantage.
4th June.
I wished my friend General Hêng-Chi with all his soldiers a long way off when my boy came to pull me out of bed at daybreak yesterday morning. We had had a great storm the night before, so the dust was laid, but en revanche the streets were a sea of mud, and many of them regular rivers, and we had to flounder on, our horses putting their feet in holes at every step. It took us nearly an hour and a half of this work to get to the parade ground on the Anting plain. The ground was kept by means of sticks and red string, with a soldier at each stick. We were shown straight to a small blue tent, where the general received us with much ceremony. When we had drunk tea the three generals, the Russian Embassy, and ourselves left the tent and took up our place on a small mound. Our appearance was the signal for the military music to strike up. The band was composed of about twelve Chinamen, and their instruments were large sea shells or conches, out of which they produced the most dismal and distressing and continuous howl that it ever was my bad luck to listen to. I hardly know what to compare it to. You have heard the noise in a shell—it was like that, but magnified a million times. As soon as we had taken our position, a soldier in front of us waved a huge flag, and the business of the day began. There were about two thousand soldiers, and they were to exercise, not with the swords, and bows, and shields of “the Braves,” but according to our drill book, which Wade has translated for them, and with rifles and guns given them by the Russians. They went through their evolutions respectably, so said Wade, who is an old soldier and a first-rate drill; but I own that when they advanced close up to us and delivered a volley bang in our faces, I felt that it was not unlikely that, as at our Volunteer reviews, a stray ramrod might have been left in a rifle. However, no accident occurred, barring the bursting of the powder box of one of the big guns, by which four men were severely scorched and five put hors de combat, for the lieutenant in charge of the gun was then and there collared and summarily bambooed, coram populo, for carelessness in giving the word to fire before the powder box was closed. Such is discipline!
The sun was beginning to be very powerful, so it was a great relief when the review was declared to be over, and it was announced that each of the men was to receive three halfpence for his good conduct that day in the field. Upon the hearing of this joyful intelligence, the army to a man went down on one knee, in token of gratitude, though they knew perfectly well that they never would see the money. Poor devils!
Breakfast was served in a temple hard by. When we sat down Hêng-Chi was not to be found. It turned out that, with a thoughtfulness which would have done credit to many a more civilised host, he had gone to see that the men of our and the Russian escorts were well cared for.
A Chinese meal exactly reverses the order of the things which is practised in Europe. First came cups of tea, and when these were all cleared away two tiny saucers were placed before each person. Then the dessert and sweets were put upon the table; oranges, apples, candied walnuts, sweets of all kinds, hemp seed done up with flour and sugar, apricot kernels preserved in oil and dried, and other delicacies. Next came the savoury meats—of these the most remarkable were sea-slugs, like turtle-soup in taste, bamboo sprouts, sharks’ fins, and deers’ sinews—all gelatinous dishes are the most highly prized; the famous bird’s-nest soup is just like isinglass not quite boiled down. Finally came a sort of soup of rice. I found it very difficult at first to eat with chopsticks. The manner of eating is to dip your chopsticks into any one of the bowls, and transfer a morsel to your own saucers, which are not changed, neither are the chopsticks wiped, during the whole proceeding. If you wish to pay a person a compliment, you select a tit-bit with your own chopsticks and put it on your neighbour’s plate, and he does the same in return. This gives the entertainment the appearance of an indecorous scramble, for one is continually leaning across two or three people to repay some civility. The dishes are very rich, and I should think unwholesome in the extreme. There were upwards of sixty different eatables put upon the table, and I must own that although my chopsticks went into nearly every little bowl, there was not one which did not please my taste. Native wine was served to us in little cups of the size of our liqueur glasses; it had rather a pleasant taste, and was very dry. As soon as breakfast was over the Chinese gentlemen produced out of their boots—which seem an inexhaustible receptacle for everything, from tobacco to state papers—small pieces of paper, with which they wiped their mouths and ivory chopsticks, and then came a piece of Chinese politeness which is very offensive to Europeans; for it is good manners here, out of compliment to the host, and in token of having eaten well and been satisfied, to produce the longest and loudest eructations, and Hêng-Chi and the two generals left nothing to be desired in that respect, making a great display of good breeding. Tea and conversation in the court of the temple brought my first Chinese entertainment to a close. I can’t tell you how strange it seemed to me to begin with dessert and end with soup!
LETTER VI
Peking, 23rd June 1865.
Since I wrote to you last I have neither seen nor done anything worth recording. The thermometer has been standing at from 95° to 107° in our courtyard, so there is not much temptation to go sight-seeing, or even to move outside the Legation; inside, the days are as like as twins. However, there is a bag going to-day, so I must try and patch up a letter.