As we have said above, the Mantchou Tartars have almost wholly abdicated their own manners, and adopted instead those of the Chinese; yet, amid this transformation of their primitive characters, they have still retained their old passion for hunting, for horse exercise, and for archery. At all periods of their history, they have attached an astonishing importance to these various exercises; any one may convince himself of this by merely running his eye over a Mantchou dictionary. Every thing, every incident, every attribute relating to these exercises, has its special expression, so as to need no circumlocution to convey it. There are different names, not only for the different colours of the horse, for example, for its age and qualities, but for all its movements; and it is just the same with reference to hunting and archery.
The Mantchous are excellent archers, and among them the tribe Solon are particularly eminent in this respect. At all the military stations, trials of skill with the bow take place on certain periodical occasions, in presence of the Mandarins and of the assembled people. Three straw men, of the size of life, are placed in a straight line, at from twenty to thirty paces distance from one another; the archer is on a line with them, about fifteen feet off from the first figure, his bow bent, and his finger on the string. The signal being given, he puts his horse to a gallop, and discharges his arrow at the first figure; without checking his horse’s speed, he takes a second arrow from his quiver, places it in the bow, and
discharges it against the second figure, and so with the third; all this while the horse is dashing at full speed along the line of the figures, so that the rider has to keep himself firm in the stirrups while he manœuvres with the promptitude necessary to avoid the getting beyond his mark. From the first figure to the second, the archer has bare time for drawing his arrow, fixing, and discharging it, so that when he shoots, he has generally to turn somewhat on his saddle; and as to the third shot, he has to discharge it altogether in the old Parthian fashion. Yet for a competitor to be deemed a good archer, it is essential that he should fire an arrow into every one of the three figures. “To know how to shoot an arrow,” writes a Mantchou author, “is the first and most important knowledge for a Tartar to acquire. Though success therein seems an easy matter, success is of rare occurrence. How many are there who practise day and night? How many are there who sleep with the bow in their arms? and yet how few are there who have rendered themselves famous. How few are there whose names are proclaimed at the matches! Keep your frame straight and firm; avoid vicious postures; let your shoulders be immovable. Fire every arrow into its mark, and you may be satisfied with your skill.”
The day after our arrival at the military town of Koukou-Khoton, we repaired on a visit to the mercantile district. Our hearts were painfully affected at finding ourselves in a Mantchou town, and hearing any language spoken there but the Mantchou. We could not reconcile to our minds the idea of a nation renegade of its nationality, of a conquering people, in nothing distinguishable from the conquered, except, perhaps, that they have a little less industry and a little more conceit. When the Thibetian Lama promised to the Tartar chief the conquest of China, and predicted to him that he should soon be seated on the throne at Peking, he would have told him more of truth, had he told him that his whole nation, its manners, its language, its country, was about to be engulfed for ever in the Chinese empire. Let any revolution remove the present dynasty, and the Mantchou will be compelled to complete fusion with the empire. Admission to their own country, occupied entirely by Chinese, will be forbidden to them. In reference to a map of Mantchouria, compiled by the Fathers Jesuits, upon the order of the Emperor Khang-Hi, Father Duhalde says that they abstained from giving the Chinese names of places in the map; and he assigns for this the following reason: “Of what use would it be to a traveller through Mantchouria to be told, for example, that the river Sakhalien-Oula is called by the Chinese Hé-Loung-Kiang, since it is not with Chinese he has there to do; and the
Tartars, whose aid he requires, have never heard the Chinese name.” This observation might be just enough in the time of Khang-Hi, but now the precise converse would hold good; for in traversing Mantchouria it is always with Chinese you have to deal, and it is always of the Hé-Loung-Kiang that you hear, and never of the Sakhalien-Oula.
CHAPTER V.
The Old Blue Town—Quarter of the Tanners—Knavery of the Chinese Traders—Hotel of the Three Perfections—Spoliation of the Tartars by the Chinese—Money Changer’s Office—Tartar Coiner—Purchase of two Sheep-skin Robes—Camel Market—Customs of the Cameleers—Assassination of a Grand Lama of the Blue Town—Insurrection of the Lamaseries—Negociation between the Court of Peking and that of Lha-Ssa—Domestic Lamas—Wandering Lamas—Lamas in Community—Policy of the Mantchou Dynasty with reference to the Lamaseries—Interview with a Thibetian Lama—Departure from the Blue Town.