We had heard of the boat population of Canton, and here we saw swarming crowds in their floating homes as we neared the wharf. Families not only live in these boats, but they carry on quite a trade in ferrying passengers from one point to another. They are a race by themselves, and are looked down upon with suspicion and unkindness by their brethren of the terra firma. They are considered as aliens of contemptible origin, and are prohibited from intermarrying with landspeople. Before we left the steamer we were met by a decently-dressed Chinese woman who had come on board as a “drummer” for one of the hotels. But a gentlemanly looking Chinese guide who could speak English had already been recommended to us by the captain, and we put ourselves in his hands, to be taken first to the missionary headquarters. We left the densely crowded wharves in sedan chairs, each of us with three bearers, and proceeded through narrow streets, where nearly every one is on foot, apparently with some definite object in view, for they move along, these blue-costumed Celestials, silently and swiftly. Most of those we see belong to the middle or lower classes. Many of them are carrying heavy burdens suspended on a bamboo stick which is slung across the shoulders. The bamboo is as important a growth in China as the palm in India. Almost every article of furniture in a Chinese habitation is made from the bamboo—chairs, tables, screens, bedsteads, bedding, paper, and various kitchen utensils. It is also employed on boats for masts, poles, sails, cables, rigging and caulking. It is used for aqueducts and bridges, and it can be made into a swimming apparatus or life preserver, without which no Chinese merchant will undertake a voyage. The leaves are generally placed around the tea exported from China to Europe. It is also used as an instrument of torture in the bastinado, which is the punishment most frequently inflicted in every part of China, and for almost every species of offence, the number of blows being regulated by the magnitude of the crime. The criminal is held down by one or more coolies, while the chief actor, furnished with a half-bamboo six feet in length and about two inches broad, strikes him on the back part of the thighs. In this degrading punishment the rich and the poor, the prince and the peasant are included. The Emperor Kien Long ordered two of his sons to be bambooed long after they had reached the age of maturity. The Presbyterian Mission occupies pleasant grounds which slope down to the Canton River. There are three substantial brick houses, one of them being occupied by the medical missionary, Dr. Ker, the other by the preacher, Rev. B. F. Henry, and the third by the ladies who have charge of the school, Misses Noyes and Butler. We were received most cordially by Mrs. Henry, who urged us, with such unmistakable earnestness, to stop with them during our twenty-four hours in the city, that we promised to return after making a tour of inspection with our Chinese guide. The chief place of interest shown us was the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii, a collection of sitting, life-size statues rudely painted and gilded, hideous or grotesque in expression, and sometimes with bright blue hair and beard! In one of the outer corridors leading to this temple was a group of Chinese youth playing shuttle-cock, their feet taking the place of the battledore. At a Buddhist temple near by we saw several priests going through their genuflexions and prostrations, which reminded us of the ceremonies at Rome. Our guide seemed chiefly anxious to show us the best quarters of the city, and to induce us to buy something at the shops, whereby he himself would doubtless have had a certain commission at our expense.
The next morning we began our peregrinations by visiting Dr. Ker’s hospital before breakfast. This institution is for the benefit of the natives and is undenominational, being supported by the foreign residents of Canton, who number less than an hundred among the million of the Chinese. In contrast with the large, airy wards and the convenient appointments of the hospitals of Europe and America this seemed pitifully mean and poor, but it was neat, and much valuable work has been done here. Many more patients apply than can be accommodated, as it is the only institution of the kind in this great city. Directly after breakfast we found Miss Noyes waiting to take us over the boarding-school for girls and women. This building was planned by Miss Noyes, and its recitation-rooms and dormitories, with accommodations for one hundred boarders, are admirably well arranged. It seemed strange, remembering the Hindu school-girls, with their salaams and musical “Nâmâska, Mem Sahib,” to be received in perfect silence by these Chinese maidens, who all rose to their feet, however, as we entered, and then came forward two by two, paused in front of us, made a deep curtsey, and, instead of shaking hands with us, each clasped her own hand and raised it to her forehead. This operation, repeated in solemn silence, became rather embarrassing to us and we begged the teacher to present our general greeting to the school and to excuse us from these special obeisances.
Coming from the school we found Mr. Henry waiting with three sedan chairs and their bearers in attendance to show us the sights of the city. The Merchants’ Guild consists of a series of buildings fitted up with much elegance and taste and combining a council hall, temple and theater. The rooms have no luxurious upholstery, but the black-wood furniture is highly polished and elaborately carved. The screens are embroidered and painted in the highest style of Chinese art, and there are numerous mirrors which, in the East, is always a sign of wealth. Among the various temples we visited the one which most impressed itself upon us, and where we saw the greatest number of worshipers, was called, very appropriately, the Temple of Horrors. It was a Dante’s “Inferno” put into a hideously realistic form. It is the Chinese conception of the future torments of the wicked, and those who have been guilty of the crimes whose punishment is here portrayed come to expiate their guilt by bribes. The gods these poor heathen worship never inspire in them love, but fear and a dread of impending wrath. The court leading to this temple was filled with vociferous hawkers, and the greatest confusion prevailed. A dentist’s stand was festooned with the teeth of his victims!
From this revolting heathen temple we went to the daily noon service in the Presbyterian chapel. The doors were thrown open on one of the busiest streets of this packed city, and soon a crowd came drifting in out of curiosity. Mr. Henry read and explained passages of scripture for nearly half an hour with great earnestness, and succeeded in attracting the attention of those who at first were simply gazing at us, the visitors, with a stupid stare. The crowd was orderly and quiet. One man was smoking. An open-mouthed boy on the front bench soon fell asleep. There was no deep earnestness in the faces, but we were told that at almost every gathering of this kind, two or three are sufficiently interested to remain after the service and ask questions. One of the chief difficulties in making any religious impression upon the Chinaman comes from his sublime self-complacency. Even the meanest of the people, our chair bearers for instance, look down upon us as “white devils,” and according to their doctrine of transmigration, they believe that we are the re-appearance of those who in a former state of existence were bad Chinamen. No wonder that regarding us with such contempt it is hard for them to accept our religion. The Examination Hall interested us greatly, for here is the real entrance to the aristocracy of China, which has its recruits not from the ranks of the high born and wealthy, but from all classes who have attained excellence and thoroughness in scholarship. Once in three years thousands come here to compete for the second literary degree. They are locked in a great enclosure containing ten thousand cells resembling horse stalls in a country church yard. These cells are six feet long by four feet wide, perfectly bare with a ground floor. Every candidate is expected to write an essay, an original poem, and a portion of the Chinese classics. The strictest watch is kept over the students so that they may not communicate with each other. The same subjects are given to all at daylight and the essays must be handed in the following morning. Out of the 8,000 who competed at the last examination, only 130 passed, and these are booked for promotion in civil offices. They are also required to go to Pekin to compete for the third degree. The streets and the people are, after all, the most entertaining sights in Canton. The dimly-lighted narrow streets make a gay picture, the business signs of long lacquered or gilt boards with the Chinese characters in red or black being hung perpendicularly before the shops. These open shops, with their tempting display of embroideries and ivory carvings, gay lanterns and fans, we gaze into as we pass along in our sedan chairs. Many of the streets have high-sounding names, such as Longevity Lane, Ascending Dragon Street, Great Peace, and Heavenly Peace streets. The names on the signs are not infallible guides to the true character of the proprietor; for instance a most unscrupulously sharp dealer had modestly advertised his abode as “The Home of the Guileless Heart.”
We were to take the afternoon boat to Hong Kong in order to catch the next P. & O. steamer for Yokohama. A dozen or more of our friends came to see us off. It was a pathetic and yet an inspiriting picture to look back upon this little company of our countrymen and women as they stood on the wharf waving their farewells, for they seemed such a feeble folk as compared with the teeming million of this crowded Chinese city, and yet they were there in obedience to that divine command, which Wellington has so aptly called the “marching orders of the church.”
What a rest it was after the excitement and rush of our busy twenty-four hours in Canton to glide with quiet, easy motion, down the Pearl River as the sun was setting. The wooded islands glassed themselves in the still waters. Our stately steamer had as little motion or noise as a phantom ship. We passed native junks on which the bull’s-eye was prominent on either side the bow. The Chinese consider these indispensable to the safety of a ship; their argument being: “No got eye, how can see,” and with these guardians the easy-going mariners give themselves liberty to sleep on watch while the craft is on the qui vive for danger!
Reaching again the harbor of Hong Kong we exchange our roomy, river steamer for more contracted quarters on board the “Sunda,” which is to bear us to Yokohama. Five days tossing on the rough China Sea, which reminds us more of the North Atlantic than anything we have experienced since crossing that turbulent ocean, and we rejoice to hear on the sixth morning out that we are nearing the shores of Japan. Through the courtesy of the first officer we are invited on the bridge, and from this favorable place of outlook we watch our tortuous course through the network of islands which are clothed in all the fresh beauty of spring. Rocky islets and hills, covered with pine forests, and low-growing shrubs lift their green heads out of the sparkling blue waters. Clusters of houses are scattered along the hill slopes, and they harmonize with the landscape in a way that would delight John Burroughs. There may be much Japanese history and legend connected with these heights, but we are ignorant of it all, and to us they rear their heads unsung.
Nagasaki harbor is not unlike Hong Kong, but the town itself does not make so much of an appearance. The Japanese boats resemble somewhat the Venetian gondolas, painted white instead of black. We went on shore in one of these row-boats, and each of us took a jinrikisha, which resembles a Bath chair, or a magnified baby carriage, and is drawn by one or two men, according to the avoirdupois of the occupant. One can best understand Japanese art here in its native surroundings, as one can only thoroughly appreciate Dickens’s characters in London. These Japanese ladies, with their glossy black hair and head ornaments, their almond-shaped eyes, full, pouting lips, and the peculiar contour of the tightly-draped figure, how familiar they look! Yet where have I seen them before? Only on pictured screens and painted fans and embroidered hangings, but here they are, these same quaint creatures in veritable presence. Through many narrow streets, and around sharp corners, and over bridges, and in sight of stony water-courses, and the sun-deluged tender green of the mountain sides, our jinrikisha men rattle us along on our way to the photographer’s, where we find unexpected good fortune in the shape of beautifully colored views. At the chief tortoise-shell emporium of the town we are received as guests rather than purchasers. Our European bow seems an impertinent nod compared with the profound salaams which are bestowed upon us. We are invited to take seats at a large centre-table in a cheerful apartment, which is a combination of parlor and show-room. Straw-colored tea in dainty cups of exquisite porcelain is brought to us. Medals from various exhibitions are shown, but there is no undue eagerness to sell their wares, and when at last we make our selection and offer silver rupees in payment we are blandly informed that they can not accept foreign coin. Although we assure them that the rupee has been weighed in Canton, and they can take it at its exact metal value, yet they are politely inexorable, and we meekly walk away feeling like impostors as well as boors. At three o’clock in the afternoon we are moving out of the harbor, and it is a cheerful omen as we watch the receding shores to be told that the most prominent building on the hill-slope, a large, new structure, is a school-house for Japanese girls, under the auspices of Methodists from our own country.
Soon after sunrise the next morning we enter the straits of Shimonoseki, the narrow entrance to the Inland Sea. We remember that this newly risen sun which is shedding its golden glory on these thousand islands, has just tinged with its farewell rays the elms of New Haven and the encircling heights of Lake George. A member of our party once said to some young Japanese visitors in Boston, “Do you want to see the sun rise on Japan?” and in response to their bewildered acquiescence he took them to a west window and pointed to the sun sinking, with gorgeous pageantry of color, behind the Milton hills. All day long we glide through placid waters, the scene varying with every turn of the wheel. Islands of most fantastic shape rise everywhere. Sometimes an abundant vegetation clothes them from head to foot; again they are not only destitute of clothing but of flesh, and show only a bony framework of jagged rock pierced by grottoes and caves. Along the shores, indented with bays, is a fringe of fishermen’s huts. Range after range of mountains rise back of each other in beautiful outlines varying in color from green to softest blue and faintest grey until the most distant heights melt into the horizon. We pass curious fishing junks with square, puckered sails. In the midst of these foreign looking boats we are surprised to see now and then a trim little schooner, exactly like those we are familiar with at home. We pass one American man-of-war with the national flag flying. It seems a pity that half of our passage through this marvelous Inland Sea must be made in the night, although we have the anticipation of seeing in the morning Fuji-yama, the Peerless Mountain, worshiped by the Japanese as divine. A note from our attentive first officer breaks up our morning nap with the announcement that Fuji is visible and we hasten on deck to see the snowy cone of this youngest mountain in the world lift itself above the clouds into the blue sky. It has the shape of an inverted fan, and from the sea you can trace its outline from base to summit to a height of 14,000 feet. According to Keith Johnston, it was thrown up by some tremendous convulsion, for which this volcanic region is famous, about 300 B. C.
Late in the afternoon our ship dropped anchor off Yokohama, which thirty years ago was an insignificant fishing village. When Commodore Perry appeared with his fleet in this bay, in 1853, the rude inhabitants were filled with wonder at their first sight of a steamer, and when they saw the spark-spangled smoke rising from the stacks at night they were seized with superstitious awe of the foreigners, who they thought had imprisoned volcanoes on their ships! Tokio is the literary center of this part of Japan while Yokohama is commercial, and has not only a modern, but really an American appearance, and in the hotel as well as in the shops we detect the atmosphere of our native land, especially of San Francisco. The English give the tone to society here, as everywhere throughout the East, and class distinctions are more rigorously observed than in the mother island itself. At Yokohama we seemed to meet the blessed spring-time of the temperate zone. The day after our arrival we took jinrikishas and went out into the country-like suburbs of the city. We walked a part of the way through rustling wheat fields, with the Peerless Mountain in sight and the broad blue bay, dotted with ocean steamships from all ports, and white-sailed native junks. It was like a perfect June day at home, and after nearly a month on shipboard the touch of the brown solid earth under our feet was enough to make us shout for joy. The blue violet, the wild strawberry, and even the common dandelion, were here to greet us like old familiar friends. Birds flew past us with happy chirp, but no song. Some critic has said that “Japan is a country of birds without song, flowers without perfume, and poetry without music.” But what were these strange, weird, unearthly, mysterious melodies that came floating down to us from the azure? We stopped our jinrikishas to listen and look. There, above our heads, were half a dozen immense kites, made of bamboo, in the shape of winged dragons and bats, and it was an Æolian attachment that sent down to us this music. The Greek boy sends up his kite at night with a light attached so that it gleams like a star through the darkness, and our patriotic member is somewhat chagrined that the American boy should be surpassed, even in such a juvenility as the kite, by the Greek and Japanese! A pleasant reception by the American residents, especially those engaged in mission work; visits to the temples and native quarters; observation of educational and evangelical work, carried on here by our countrymen and women, filled our week in Yokohama. At the end of that time we took train for Tokio, which is only one hour distant by rail.