CHAPTER V
My voyage to Macao—General appearance of the port—Gambling propensities of the Chinese—Compulsory emigration—Cruel treatment of coolies on board ship—Disaster on the Paracelses reefs—The Baracouns—The grotto of Camoens—The Lusiads—Contrast between Chinese and Japanese—Origin of the yellow races: their appearance and language—Relation of the dwellers in the Arctic regions to the people of China—Russian and Dutch intercourse with the Celestials—East India Company's monopoly of trade—Disputes on the opium question—Expiration of charter—Death of Lord Napier of a broken heart—Lin-Tseh-Hsu as Governor of the Kwang provinces—The result of his measures to suppress trade in opium—Treaty of Nanking—War of 1856-1858—Treaty of Tien-tsin and Convention of Pekin—Immense increase in exports and imports resulting from them.
I had confided to M. Vaucher, that most amiable of cicerones whom I had been fortunate enough to meet at Canton, my great wish to go to Macao and make a pilgrimage to the grotto where it is said Camoens, the great Portuguese poet, wrote a portion of his most important work, the Lusiads. M. Vaucher at once made arrangements for me to go to the celebrated Portuguese settlement by river and sea, and placed one of his own decked boats at my disposal. He even went so far as to choose a crew for me, and to arm that crew with six rifles. Before I started he warned me to keep in my cabin so as not to arouse the cupidity of the banditti, who abound on the river, by appearing on deck.
"If," he said to me, "my men point out to you a suspicious-looking craft, be on your guard against it. You may easily," he added, "recognize pirate boats for yourself, for this reason, they always prowl about in groups of three, so that each may help the others in case of bad weather or any difficulty; a clever arrangement greatly facilitating their evil designs, for the crews are rapidly transformed from harmless fishermen to fierce pirates should occasion serve for doing a stroke of business."
In spite of these ominous warnings, however, my voyage passed over without incident, and I arrived safely at the port of Macao, situated on the southern extremity of a small peninsula of the island of Hiang-shang and separated from the Chinese province of Canton merely by a wall, which is in as ruinous a condition as is the more celebrated Great Wall of Tartary. As we approached Macao a beautiful scene was spread out before us, wooded hills dotted with charming villas, in which the wealthy English of Hong-Kong spend much of the summer, and groups of picturesque rocks rising from the curving shores of the lovely bay with its stretch of gleaming white sand, to which the Portuguese, to whom Macao was ceded by the Chinese, have given the appropriate name of the Porto de Praya grande.
Here swarms the teeming amphibious fishing population of Macao, and from this perfect bow with its picturesque surroundings were shipped, alas! for all too many years, thousands of coolies for the labour market of Havana and Peru, who were many of them embarked under terribly tragic circumstances.
EMIGRATION AGENTS
A true Celestial is in fact a born gambler, and indulges his instincts to such an extent that when he has lost fortune, wife, and daughters he finally stakes himself! This fact is well known to the emigration agents not only of Macao, but of the other Chinese ports, where numbers were formerly enrolled for service in Peru, Chili, the Philippine Islands, and various places in Oceania with very little, if any, volition on their own part. Emigration agents used to lie in wait for Chinese loungers, and accost those who looked fairly robust politely, take them to the flower-boats and other public resorts where opium was smoked, and if their luckless victims still had any money left, their insinuating tempters would entice them into some low gambling hell, where, after a few throws of the dice, the ruin of the simple, confiding fellows was complete. Then when the unfortunate Celestials had emptied their purses, and their brains were muddled with opium or from the effects of debauchery, their dim eyes were dazzled by the offer of a few piastres, and in exchange for a trifling sum they signed away their liberty. When they came to their senses they found they had bound themselves to leave their country.
The agents were careful when they got the poor fellows' signatures not to let out how far from China were the sugar-cane plantations of the Antilles or the guano isles of Peru. Their victims had only learnt one fact thoroughly, and that was that their country is the centre of the universe, the foreign nations surrounding it being looked upon as its tributaries. If the emigrants asked where they were going, they were told to some place very near the port of embarkation. This wicked deception was really the cause of the terrible massacres of coolies to which many captains of emigrant vessels were driven to save their ships and crews. When after a few days' voyage a vessel had to touch at some port for any reason, and the poor coolies packed away below the hatchways saw above the barriers or through the portholes, the bright verdure of an island of Oceania, or the distant blue mountains of the American continent, they at once jumped to the conclusion that their journey was at an end, and were wild to leave the vessel, no matter at what cost. Some even in mid-ocean, out of sight of land, became so heart-broken from home-sickness that they quietly packed up the few things belonging to them and jumped into the sea with them. Now and then a few of these would-be suicides were fished out again by order of the captain, and would calmly explain their action by some such speech as this: "We want to go back to our own country." Truly those who believe in metempsychosis cherish wonderful delusions!
On one occasion in the roadstead of Manila a swarm of coolies who thought they had arrived at Havana mutinied because the captain would not allow them to land. The crew of the vessel drove them back between decks at the point of the sword, and they all perished from suffocation in a few hours for want of air.