I daresay you will be curious to hear something more of our temple life than I have been able to tell you hitherto. We have been exploring the neighbourhood in all directions, and certainly there is plenty to be seen, although all the points of interest are temples, either Buddhist or Taoist, and the description of one might hold good for all. The most curious of these is at a distance from us of about a mile and a half; it is called Wo-Fo-Ssŭ, “the temple of the Sleeping Buddha,” from a huge sleeping idol which it contains, about 20 feet in length. At first I thought the figure was meant for a female, a sort of Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, but the attendant priest assured me that it was meant for Buddha himself. The idol lies sleeping in a huge shrine, surrounded by a number of lesser saints. His slippers, made of softest velvet and satin, are lying at his feet ready for him to put on whenever it shall suit his Holiness to get up; each of his attendants is likewise provided with slippers. He has been sleeping now for more than 700 years, so he brings no great profit to the shoemaking trade. The shrine is held in great reverence, and is decorated with an inscription by the Emperor Chien-Lung himself, who seems never to have lost an opportunity of writing and building; of both these favourite pastimes of his, Wo-Fo-Ssŭ bears examples, for leading out of one of the courts of the temple is a most beautiful little Imperial abode, now falling into decay, like everything else here, but which once must have been perfectly lovely. Of all the pavilions, courts, rockeries, and shrines, the Lotus Pond alone remains in all its glory. Equally in ruins is an Imperial hunting lodge, close by our temple, standing in the middle of a deer-park which reaches up to the top of the mountain, fenced in by a high wall. This, too, was a favourite resort of Chien-Lung, and he must have spent a king’s ransom in decorating it; a gate or two, here and there a summer-house, and one pagoda of yellow and green tiles, show what it must once have been. But the whole place has crumbled to pieces, and the deer and game stray at pleasure through what were once the gorgeous apartments of the Emperor. The yellow tiles here, worked in the highest relief with dragons, griffins, lions, and other emblems, are marvellous specimens of potter’s work. Whole pediments are made in small pieces and so cunningly joined together that they look like one block. A very small annual expense would have kept the place in perfect repair; but to keep in repair is not an Asiatic attribute. Alongside one of the paths of the park, which is full of the most delightful resting-places, I noticed the remains of what looked like a number of stalls at a fancy-fair, and on inquiring I found that they were little shops at which it was the privilege of the eunuchs of the palace to sell trinkets and other trifles to the Emperor as he passed with his wives.
Among other things that Chien-Lung did for these temples, he imported from the palace of Jo Hol in Manchuria a quantity of a kind of tree cigala, by Europeans called wee-wees from the noise they make, by the Chinese called Tatsŭ-chi-liao. They are the most curious insects, and make a clatter which is as if it were produced by the metal tongues of an accordion. They go on all day and drive one nearly distracted. Sometimes one can hardly hear oneself speak, but the Chinese delight in them, and my teacher told me the story of their introduction as if he had been speaking of an importation of nightingales. Happily at Peking they declined to flourish; there we have only a lesser and more piano sort, which it is an Imperial amusement at certain times of the year to catch off the trees with long bamboo rods tipped with bird-lime. The Chinese certainly find pleasure in what are to us very disagreeable noises. Fancy a flight of pigeons with Eolian harps tied to their tails! The first time I heard it above my head I thought something dreadful must be going to happen. However, that fancy has a practical side to it, for it keeps off the hawks which abound at Peking.
We have been revelling for two days in the very rare luxury of wet weather. What a pleasure a real rainy day is in this burnt-up climate! a day when the hills look as if they might be Scotch moors, and the temples and pavilions as if they ought to melt away and be replaced by the clubs in Pall Mall. On these wet days we wander about our own place, of the size of which you may judge from the fact that one building alone contains Buddha and his five hundred Lo-hans, or saints of the third class, larger than life, just like the temple of which I told you at Canton, where, however, they are smaller; then whole courtyards are surrounded by buildings, in which heaven and hell are represented by hundreds upon hundreds of wooden dolls. The Buddhist heaven is a very queer place according to this view of it, where the height of happiness seems to consist in riding a tiger or griffin, or some equally uncomfortable mount; but hell is really too grotesque, especially the ladies’ department, where the unfortunate women who have sinned in this world are to be seen experiencing what is, to say the very least of it, very inconsiderate treatment at the hands of a number of lavender-kid-glove-coloured fiends. In the gentlemen’s department a favourite punishment is for sinners to have their heads cut off, and be compelled to walk about with them under their arms like a crush hat at a ball. No description of mine could give you any idea of the absurdity and ugliness of the idols and dolls. I can’t say that, so far as I can judge, any real respect is paid to them. The people seem to make sort of picnic parties here, quite as a matter of sightseeing, rather than of religion, just as some tourists visit cathedrals for their beauty and for the art treasures which they contain, and not as an act of worship. However, they call visiting a temple “Kwang Miao,” which means to do an act of respect and worship, so perhaps some may attach a religious importance to it. The priests at our temple are a lazy, brutish lot, and rather inclined to be insolent. At Wo-Fo-Ssŭ they are far more respectable, and a man who was staying there told me that they had constantly choral service in the temple, especially at night; here I very rarely hear the bell and drum beat for prayers. I must do our priests the justice to say that one day I offered one of them a glass of wine, which their laws forbid, but their stomachs crave for, and he refused, although there was no one by to have told the tale, so I suppose they have a conscience somewhere and that they regard its pricks.
I am sorry to say that by being out here we missed seeing the state funeral of the famous general San-Ko-Lin-Sin. He was carried all the way to Peking from Shantung, where he was killed, every mandarin on the road being bound to furnish men to bear his body. The Emperor pays the expense of his funeral and of his lying in state at Peking, and went himself to pour a libation before the coffin. San-Ko-Lin-Sin was a feudal Mongol prince, and his son has now been created a Wang, or prince. There are many people who say that the general was not killed by the rebels, but by his own troops. The account of his death, however, was given with great details, and he was probably killed fighting. “A corner of the Great Wall has gone,” say the Chinese, in their picturesque way, when a great general is killed in battle.
LETTER X
Peking, 24th July.
No mail in—we are expecting it any minute, but have begun to fear that we must send off our bag before its arrival. I never saw anything so curious as the change which the last few wet days have caused in all the face of the country—its whole appearance is altered. What were before arid and desert patches of sand are now turned into green and luxuriant corn-fields—roads that were like dried water-courses, with six inches of dust lying on them and banks of sand on each side, are fresh English-looking lanes. The crops have sprung up to be so tall, that we could not see our usual landmarks, and lost our way; for the plain between Peking and the hills is so scarred and intersected by roads and paths, that one has to make straight for some point in the distance, or one is thrown out—all the houses and groups of cottages are exactly like one another and afford no assistance in steering; it is a regular Chinese puzzle. The thermometer has fallen from 108° in the shade to 75°. Such a relief!—I hope that we have now got quit of the very great heat.
By the bye, in my last letter I spoke about Chinese doctors and prescriptions, and their doctrine of the hot and cold influences. My teacher has been telling me about their principles of diagnosis. It appears that they attach great importance to examining the tongue. Now if the tongue is white the patient is under the cold influence. If it is yellow, he is under the hot influence. If the centre of the tongue is white, and the edges yellow, he is under the cold influence inside, and his skin is under the hot—and so vice versa. Palmistry and the study of the face and features are also brought to bear upon medicine—certain conditions of feature portend certain events in the future. My teacher told me that he feared he should not be long-lived, because the lobe of his ear was small—a large lobe to the ear is much admired on all accounts, but specially as a sign of wisdom, and Buddha and the other idols are represented with huge appendages. A soft hand is the sign of longevity; the eyes, nose and nostrils, and chin, all have certain prophetic meanings to those who are wise to read them. I told my teacher about phrenology—he was delighted with the idea, and stood open-mouthed while his bumps were being felt. His character, however, did not interest him much, but he was very anxious to know how long he would live, and whether he would hold an office of any kind.
We have no news.