[Sidenote: Ningpo.]
Ningpo.—March 18th.—We arrived here yesterday, and I have been walking both days about the town with Mr. Meadows, the author, who is vice-consul here. I am disappointed with the city, of which I had heard a great deal. But the people are even more amiable than at any other place I have visited. Oliphant has rejoined us in high spirits, after his visit to Soochow. I cross-examined a Church of England clergyman about his converts. When pressed, he could only name one who seemed to be conscious of the want which we believe to be supplied by the Atonement. About 100, however, including children, attend churches in Ningpo, of whom thirty have been baptized.
Ningpo was one of the places which had been treated with more than ordinary severity in the last war. It was also one of the places in which the natives showed the most friendly disposition towards foreigners. To the resident traders the inference was obvious: the severity was the cause of the friendly disposition, and it had only to be applied elsewhere to produce the like results. With evident satisfaction Lord Elgin sets himself, in an official despatch, to refute this reasoning. After observing that the natives showed rather an exaggeration than a defect of the desire to live peaceably with foreigners, he proceeds:—
The state of Ningpo in this respect furnishes their favourite and, perhaps, most plausible argument, to that class of persons who advocate what is styled a vigorous policy in China; in other words, a policy which consists in resorting to the most violent measures of coercion and repression on the slenderest provocations. They say, 'Remember what happened at Ningpo during the last war, and observe the consideration and respect which is evinced towards you there. Treat other towns in China likewise, and the result will be the same.' I question the soundness of this inference. Ningpo is situated on the south-eastern verge of the mighty valley of the Yang-tze-kiang, which is inhabited by a population the most inoffensive, perhaps, both by disposition and habit, of any on the surface of the earth. Their amenity towards the foreigner is due, I apprehend, to temperament, as much, at least, as to the recollection of the violence which they may have sustained at his hands.
I have made it a point, whenever I have met missionaries or others who have penetrated into the interior from Ningpo and Shanghae, to ask them what treatment they experienced on those expeditions, and the answer has almost invariably been that, at points remote from those to which foreigners have access, there was no diminution, but on the contrary rather an enhancement, of the courtesy exhibited towards them by the natives.
[Sidenote: Missionary schools.]
H.M.S. 'Furious.'—March 20th.—Yesterday, I called on a clergyman to see Miss Aldersey,—a remarkable lady, who came out here immediately after the last war, and has been devoting herself and her fortune to the education and Christianisation of the Chinese at Ningpo. She seems a nice person, but I could not get as much conversation with her as I wished, because the Bishop, &c., were present all the time. She has to pay the girls a trifle, as an equivalent for what their labour is worth, for coming to her school, or to board them and keep them, as it is not at all in the ideas of the Chinese that women should be educated. She does not seem to have got the entrée into Chinese houses of the richer class. Mrs. Russell (wife of the English clergyman), who speaks the language, has obtained it a little. I cannot make out that, when she visits them, they ever talk of anything except where she got her dress, &c.; but on great occasions, when they assemble for ceremonies in the temples, they seem very devout. In private they treat these matters with great indifference. I had some of the missionaries to dinner. They put the converts at a larger number than I understood Mr. Russell to do, but otherwise their report did not differ materially from his.
[Sidenote: Chusan.]
[Sidenote: French missionary.]
Chusan.—March 21st.—This is a most charming island. How any people, in their senses, could have preferred Hong-Kong to it, seems incredible. The people too, that is to say, the lower orders, seem really to like us. We walked through the town of Tinghae, and asked at the shop of a seller of perfumed sticks for the 'Mosquito tobacco,' but in vain. We then passed through the further gate of the city into the country beyond, and seeing something like a chapel, made towards it. A man, dressed as a Chinaman, came out to meet us. He addressed us in French, and proved to be a Roman Catholic priest. He was very civil, and asked us into his house, where he gave us some tea, grown on his own farm. He has been here two years quite alone, and he was ten years before in the province of Kiangsù. He says that he has some 200 converts. Some twenty boys, deserted children, he brings up, and works on his farm. I saw them, and I must say I never beheld a more happy and well-conditioned set of boys. In the town was an establishment for younger children, chiefly girls, under the charge of a Chinese female convert. After he had given us tea, the missionary accompanied us in our walk. He first took us to a sort of cottage- villa, belonging to one of the rich inhabitants, consisting of about a couple of acres of ground, covered by kiosks and grottos and dwarf- trees, and ups and downs and zigzags,—all in the most approved Chinese fashion. From thence we clambered up a mountain of, I should think, some 1,200 feet in height, from which we had a very extensive view, and beheld ranges of hills, separated by cosy valleys, on one side; on the other, the walled city of Tinghae, surrounded by rice- fields; beyond, the sea studded with islands of the Chusan group. It was a beautiful view, and we returned to the ship very much pleased with our scramble.
[Sidenote: Scenery.]