Shanghae.—November 2nd.—You will, I am sure, see how necessary it has been for me to protract my stay to this time. The systematic endeavour to make it appear that my work was a failure could be counteracted only by my own presence. The papers, &c., from England are complimentary enough about the Treaty, but some of the accounts which have gone home are somewhat exaggerated, and perhaps there will be a reaction…. More particularly, I find a hope expressed that we have plundered the wretched Chinese to a greater extent than is the case…. Meanwhile, I have achieved one object, which will be, I think, the crowning act of my mission. I have arranged with the Imperial Commissioners that I am to proceed up the river Yangtze. The Treaty only provides that it shall be open when the Rebels have left it. I daresay this will give rise to comments. If so, I shall have anticipated them, by going up the river myself. I shall take with me my own squadron (what I had in Japan). The weather is beautiful; quite cool enough for comfort. We shall visit a region which has never been seen, except by a stray missionary. I shall lose by this move some three weeks, but I do not think they will be really lost, because it will give so very complete a demonstration of the acceptance of the Treaty by the Chinese authorities, that even Hong-Kong will be silenced.
November 6th.—I hoped to have started to-day, but am obliged to put off till Monday, as the tariff is not yet ready for signature. I grieve over every day lost, which protracts our separation. I see that in the very flattering article of the Times of September 7th, which you quote, it is implied that when I signed the Treaty, I had done my work, and that the responsibility of seeing that it was carried out rests with others. If this be true—and you will no doubt think so—I might have returned at once, at least after Japan. But is it true? Could I, in fairness to my country, or, in what I trust you believe comes second in the rank of motives with me, to my own reputation, leave the work which I had undertaken unfinished?… Besides, I own that I have a conscientious feeling on the subject. I am sure that in our relations with these Chinese we have acted scandalously, and I would not have been a party to the measures of violence which have taken place, if I had not believed that I could work out of them some good for them. Could I leave this, the really noblest part of my task, to be worked out by others? Anyone could have obtained the Treaty of Tientsin. What was really meritorious was, that it should have been obtained at so small a cost of human suffering. But this is also what discredits it in the eyes of many, of almost all here. If we had carried on war for some years; if we had carried misery and desolation all over the Empire; it would have been thought quite natural that the Emperor should have been reduced to accept the terms imposed upon him at Tientsin. But to do all this by means of a demonstration at Tientsin! The announcement was received with a yell of derision by connoisseurs and baffled speculators in tea. And indeed there was some ground for scepticism. It would have been very easy to manage matters here, so as to bring into question all the privileges which we had acquired by that Treaty. Even then we should have gained a great deal by it; because when we came to assert those rights by force, we should have had a good, instead of a bad casus belli. But I was desirous, if possible, to avoid the necessity for further recurrence to force; and it required some skill to do this. This has been my motive for protracting my stay.
[Sidenote: The tariff signed.]
H.M.S. 'Furious.'—November 8th.—I write a line to tell you that I got over the signature of my tariff, &c., very satisfactorily this morning, and set off in peace with all men, including Chinese Plenipotentiaries, and colleagues European and American, on my way up the Yangtze Kiang. We are penetrating into unknown regions, but I trust shortly to be able to report to you my return, and all the novelties I shall have seen.
[Sidenote: Afloat on the Yangtze Kiang.]
This morning at ten, I went to a temple which lies exactly between the foreign settlement and the Chinese town of Shanghae, to meet there the Imperial Commissioners, and to sign the tariff. We took with us the photographs which Jocelyn had done for them, and which we had framed. They were greatly delighted, and altogether my poor friends seemed in better spirits than I had before seen them in. We passed from photography to the electric telegraph, and I represented to them the great advantage which the Emperor would derive from it in so extensive an empire as China; how it would make him present in all the provinces, &c. They seemed to enter into the subject. The conference lasted rather more than an hour. After it, I returned to the consulate, taking a tender adieu of Gros By the way. I embarked at 1, and got under weigh at 2 P.M…. The tide was very strong against us, so we have not made much way, but we are really in the Yangtze river. We have moored between two flats with trees upon them; the mainland on the left, and an island (Bush Island), recently formed from the mud of the river, on the right. Though the earth has been uninteresting, it has not been so with the sky, for the dark shades of night, which have been gathering and thickening on the right have been confronted on the left by the brightest imaginable star, and the thinnest possible crescent moon, both resting on a couch of deep and gradually deepening crimson. I have been pacing the bridge between the paddle-boxes, contemplating this scene, until we dropped our anchor, and I came down to tell you of this my first experience of the Yangtze. And what will the sum of those experiences be? We are going into an unknown region, along a river which, beyond Nankin, has not been navigated by Europeans. We are to make our way through the lines of those strange beings the Chinese Rebels. We are to penetrate beyond them to cities, of the magnitude and population of which fabulous stories are told; among people who have never seen Western men; who have probably heard the wildest reports of us; to whom we shall assuredly be stranger than they can possibly be to us. What will the result be? Will it be a great disappointment, or will its interest equal the expectations it raises? Probably before this letter is despatched to you, it will contain an answer more or less explicit to these questions.
Sunday, November 14th.—Six P.M.—We have just dropped anchor, some eighty miles from Woosung. I wish that you had been with me on this evening's trip. You would have enjoyed it. During the earlier part of the afternoon we were going on merrily together. The two gunboats ahead, the 'Furious' and 'Retribution' abreast, sometimes one, sometimes the other, taking the lead. After awhile we (the 'Furious') put out our strength, and left gunboats and all behind. When the sun had passed the meridian, the masts and sails were a protection from his rays, and as he continued to drop towards the water right ahead of us, he strewed our path, first with glittering silver spangles, then with roses, then with violets, through all of which we sped ruthlessly. The banks still flat, until the last part of the trip, when we approached some hills on the left, not very lofty, but clearly defined, and with a kind of dreamy softness about them, which reminded one of Egypt. Altogether, it was impossible to have had anything more charming in the way of yachting; the waters a perfect calm, or hardly crisped by the breeze that played on their surface. We rather wish for more wind, as the 'Cruiser' cannot keep up without a little help of that kind.
[Sidenote: Aground.]
[Sidenote: Silver Island.]
November 16th.—Noon.—A bad business. We were running through a narrow channel which separates Silver Island from the mainland, in very deep water, when all of a sudden we were brought up short, and the ship rolled two or three times right and left, in a way which reminded me of a roll which we had in the 'Ava' immediately after starting from Calcutta. On that occasion we saw beside us the tops of the masts of a ship, and were told it had struck on the same sand- bank, and gone down about an hour before. Our obstacle on this occasion is a rock; a very small one, for we have deep water all around us. However, here we are. I hope our ship will not suffer from the strain. It is curious that in this narrow pass, where fifty ships went through and returned in 1842, this rock should exist and never have been discovered. Six P.M.—The sun has just set among a crowd of mountains which bound the horizon ahead of us, and in such a blaze of fiery light that earth and sky in his neighbourhood have been all too glorious to look upon. Standing out in advance on the edge of this sea of molten gold, is a solitary rock, about a quarter of the size of the Bass, which goes by the name of Golden Island, and serves as the pedestal of a tall pagoda. I never saw a more beautiful scene, or a more magnificent sunset; but alas! we see it under rather melancholy circumstances, for after six hours of trying in all sorts of ways to get off, we are as fast aground as ever. We are now lightening the ship. Silver Island is a kind of sacred island like Potou, but very much smaller.[2] I went ashore, and walked over it with a bonze, who conversed with Lay. He told us that the people in the neighbourhood are very poor, and will be glad that foreigners should come and trade with them. The bonzes here are much like their brethren of Potou, the most wretched-looking of human beings. Our friend told us that they have no books or occupation of any kind. Four times a day they go through their prayers. He had twelve bald spots on his head, which, were the record of so many vows he had taken to abstain from so many vices, which he enumerated. I gave them five dollars when I left the island, which seemed to astonish them greatly. I asked him what would happen if he broke his vows. He said that he would be beaten and sent away. If he kept them he hoped to become in time a Buddha.
November 17th.—Six P.M.—After taking 150 tons out of the ship, we have just made an attempt to get her off—in vain. The glorious sun has again set, holding out to us the same attractions in the west as yesterday, in vain! Here we remain, as motionless as the rock on which we are perched. I have not been quite idle, however. I landed about noon on the shore opposite Silver Island, and walked about three miles to the town of Chin-kiang. It was taken by us in the last war, and sadly maltreated, but since then it has been captured by the Rebels and re-captured by the Imperialists. I could hardly have imagined such a scene of desolation. I do not think there is a house that is not a ruin. I believe the population used to be about 300,000, but now I suppose it cannot exceed a few hundreds. The people are really, I believe, glad to see us. They hope we may give them free trade and protection from the Rebels. A commodore and post-captain in the Chinese navy came off to us this afternoon. They were very civil, offering to do anything for us they could. They tell us we can go in this ship to Hankow and the Poyang Lake. We have found another rock beside us, and only think that this should not have been known by our Navy!