For several days the Houng-Mao-Eul were perfectly furious. They ran about the streets like madmen, flourishing their sabres and vociferating a thousand imprecations against the brigands. All the townspeople got carefully out of their way, respecting their anger with entire veneration. The appearance of these fellows even at their very best, when they are perfectly calm and good humoured, is sufficiently alarming. They are clothed at all seasons of the year in a great sheepskin robe, rudely drawn up round the waist by a thick camel-hair rope. Left to itself this robe would drag along the ground, so that when raised by the cord above the knees it communicates to the chest a most rotund, stuffed, and awkward appearance. They have great leather boots, which come up to just below the knee, so that, as they wear no trousers, their legs are always half bare. Their hair, black and greasy, hangs in long matted locks down their shoulders, and, in fact, falling over the brow, half conceals the face. The right arm is always bare, the sleeve being thrown quite back. A long, broad sabre is passed through their girdle just below the chest, and the right hand scarcely ever quits its hilt. The manners and movements of these inhabitants of the desert are abrupt and jerking, their speech brief and energetic. The tones of their voice have something about them metallic and deafening. Many of them are wealthy, and with these display consists in decorating the sheath of the sword with precious stones, and their own robes with borders of tiger-skin. The horses which they bring to Tang-Keou-Eul are remarkably beautiful, vigorous, well made, and of great grandeur in the step: in all respects far superior to those of Tartary, and fully justifying the Chinese phrase, Sima, Toung-nieou (Western horses—eastern oxen.)
The Houng-Mao-Eul, being famous for their bravery and for an independence which amounts to the ferocious, it is they who give
the ton to the people of Tang-Keou-Eul, who all essay to catch their air and gait, and to acquire a reputation for valour and devil-may-carishness. The result is, that Tang-Keou-Eul bears a strong family resemblance to a great den of thieves. Everybody there makes it his business to have his hair and clothes in utter disorder, everybody bawls at everybody, everybody pushes against everybody, everybody fights everybody, so that everybody from time to time draws everybody’s blood. In the depth of winter, though the winter here is desperately cold, people go about with their arms and half their legs bare. To wear clothing adapted to the icy season would be considered a mark of pusillanimity. A good brave fellow, they say, should fear nothing, neither men nor elements. At Tang-Keou-Eul the Chinese themselves have lost much of their urbanity and of the polished forms of their language, having involuntarily undergone the influence of the Houng-Mao-Eul, who converse together in much the same style that we can imagine tigers in the woods to converse. On the day of our arrival at Tang-Keou-Eul, a few minutes before we entered the town, we met a Long Hair who had been giving his horse drink in the River Keou-Ho. Samdadchiemba, who was always attracted by anything having an eccentric air, cautiously approached the man, and saluted him in the Tartar fashion, saying, “Brother, art thou at peace?” The Houng-Mao-Eul turned fiercely towards him: “What business of thine is it, tortoise-egg,” cried he, with the voice of a Stentor, “whether I am at peace or at war? And what right hast thou to address as thy brother a man who knows nothing about thee?” Poor Samdadchiemba was taken all aback at this reception, yet he could not help admiring, as something very fine, this haughty insolence of the Long Hair.
Tang-Keou-Eul, in consequence of its dirt and its excessive population, is a very unwholesome place to live in. There is an universal odour of grease and butter about, that is enough to make you sick. In certain quarters, more particularly where the especial poor and the especial vagabonds congregate, the stench is insupportable. Those who have no house wherein to shelter themselves, collect in the nooks of streets and squares, and there they lie, higgledy-piggledy, and half naked, upon filthy straw, or rather, dung-heaps. There are stretched together the sick young, and the infirm old, the dying man, sometimes the dead, whom no one takes the trouble to bury, until, at length, putrefaction manifesting itself, the bodies are dragged into the middle of the street, whence the authorities remove them, and have them thrown into some general pit. From amid this hideous misery there pullulates into the bosom of the population, a crowd of petty thieves and swindlers, who, in
their address and audacity, leave far behind the Robert Macaires of the western world. The number of these wretched creatures is so great, that authority, weary of contending with them, has left them to take their own course, and the public to guard their own sapeks and goods. These worthies work, as a matter of preference, in the houses of repose and the inns. Their modus operandi is this: Two of them, associated together for the purpose, hawk about various articles of merchandise, boots, skin-coats, bricks of tea, and what not. They offer these for sale to travellers. While one of them engages the attention of the destined victim, by displaying his goods and bargaining, the other ferrets about and pockets whatever he can lay his hands on. These rascals have inconceivable skill in counting your sapeks for you, in such a way as to finger fifty or a hundred or more of them without your having the slightest notion as to what is going on. One day, two of these little thieves came to offer for our purchase a pair of leathern boots. Excellent boots! said they; boots such as we could not find in any shop in the whole town; boots that would keep out the rain for days; and as to cheapness, perfectly unexampled. If we missed this opportunity, we should never have such another. Only just before they had been offered 1200 sapeks for them! As we did not want boots, we replied that we would not have them at any price. Thereupon the acting merchant assumed a lofty tone of generosity. We were foreigners; we should have them for 1000 sapeks, 900, 800, 700. “Well,” said we, “we certainly don’t want any boots just now, yet, doubtless, as you say, these are very cheap, and it will be worth while to buy them as a reserve.” The bargain was accordingly concluded; we took our purse, and counted out 700 sapeks to the merchant, who counted them over himself, under our very eyes, pronounced the amount correct, and once more laid the coin before us. He then called out to his companion who was poking about in the court-yard: “Here, I’ve sold these capital boots for 700 sapeks.” “Nonsense,” cried the other, “700 sapeks! I won’t hear of such a thing.” “Very well,” said we; “come, take your boots and be off with you.” He was off, and so quickly, that we thought it expedient to count our sapeks once more; there were a hundred and fifty of them gone, and that was not all; while one of these rascals had been pocketing our money under our very nose, the other had bagged two great iron pins that we had driven into the court-yard for the purpose of our camels. Therefore we took a resolution—better late than never—to admit, in future, no merchant whatever into our room.
The House of Repose, as we have already indicated, was kept by Musselmen. One day, their Mufti, who had recently arrived
from Lan-Tcheu, the capital of Kan-Sou, attended at the house, in order to preside over some religious ceremony, the nature and object of which they would not explain to us. Sandara the Bearded, however, had an explanation of his own, which was, that the Grand Lama of the Hoei-Hoei attended on these occasions to teach his sectaries the latest improvements in the art of cheating in trade. For two days, the principal Mussulmen of the town assembled in a large apartment, contiguous to our own. There they remained for a long time, squatting on the ground, with their heads resting on their knees. When the Mufti appeared, all sent forth groans and sobs. After they had sufficiently lamented in this fashion, the Mufti recited, with a perfectly alarming volubility of tongue, several Arabic prayers; then everybody had another turn at lamenting, after which the cheerful assembly separated. This doleful ceremony was performed thrice in each of the two first days. On the morning of the third day, all the Mussulmen ranged themselves in the court-yard round the Mufti, who was seated on a stool, covered with a fine red carpet. Then the host of the House of Repose brought in a fine sheep, adorned with flowers and ribbons. The sheep was laid on its side, the host held it by its head, and two other Mussulmen by the legs, while a fourth presented to the Mufti a knife on a silver dish. He took the knife with great gravity, and approaching the victim, thrust the weapon up to the hilt into its neck. Thereupon cries and groans once more resounded on all sides. These ceasing, the sheep was skinned, cut up, and taken into the kitchen to be cooked, and, by-and-by, a grand entertainment of boiled mutton, presided over by the Mufti, closed the ceremony.
The Mussulmen, or Hoei-Hoei, are very numerous in China. It is said that they penetrated thither under the dynasty of the Thang, which began in 618, and terminated in 907. They were received by the Emperor, who at that period resided at Si-Ngan-Fou, the present capital of Chan-Si. They were kindly entertained, and the Emperor, struck with their fine features and forms, loaded them with favours, and entreated them to settle in his dominions. At first, it is stated, they were only 200 in number, but they have since so multiplied, that they now constitute a large population, eminently formidable to the Chinese. Kan-Sou, Yun-Nan, Sse-Tchouan, Chan-Si, Chen-si, Chang-Toung, Pe-Tche-Ly, and Liao-Toung are the provinces in which they are most numerous. In some particular localities, indeed, they form the majority of the population, as compared with the Chinese. They have, however, become so mingled, so fused with the native people, that it would be difficult now-a-days to recognise them, were it not for the small blue cap which they all constantly wear, to distinguish themselves
from the Chinese. Their physiognomy has retained no vestige of its original type. Their nose has become flat, their eyes have sunk in, their cheek bones started out. They do not know a single word of Arabic—a language which their priests alone are bound to learn, and this only so as to read it. Chinese has become their stepmother tongue; yet they have preserved a certain energy of character which you seldom find among the Chinese. Though few in number, as compared with the enormous general population of the empire, they have ensured for themselves the fear and respect of all about them. Closely united among themselves, the entire community always takes up any matter affecting one of its members. It is to this spirit of association that they owe the religious liberty which they enjoy throughout all the provinces of the empire. No person would venture, in their presence, to cavil at their religious creed, or their religious practices. They abstain from smoking, from drinking wine, from eating pork, from sitting at table with pagans; and no one presumes to find fault with these peculiarities. They do not even hesitate to contravene the laws of the empire, if these contravene their freedom of worship. In 1840, while we were on our mission to Tartary, the Hoei-Hoei of the town of Hada, built a mosque, or Li-Pai-Sse, as the Chinese call it. When it was completed, the Mandarins of the place wanted to demolish it, because, contrary to the law, it rose higher than the Tribunal of Justice. Upon this intention becoming known, all the Mussulmen of the locality rose in arms, assembled, swore to prosecute in common a suit against the Mandarins, to impeach them at Peking, and never to lay down their arms until they had effected the removal of the offending dignitaries. As in China, money has the preponderant influence in all matters of this kind, the Mussulmen of Hada raised a subscription among all their co-religionists in the empire, and by its means defeated the Mandarins, who had desired to demolish their mosques, and effected their deposition and banishment. We have often asked each other how it was that the Christians in China live in a state of oppression, wholly at the arbitrary disposition of the tribunals, while the Mussulmen march about with heads erect, and constrain the Chinese to respect their religion. It certainly is not because the religion of Mahomet is, more than Christianity, in harmony with Chinese manners; quite the contrary, for the Chinese may, without any compromise of their religious duties, live in intimacy with the Pagans, eat and drink with them, interchange presents with them, and celebrate in common with them the Festival of the New Year, all which things are forbidden to the Hoei-Hoei by the despotic and exclusive spirit of their religion. No: that the Christians are everywhere oppressed in China is to be
attributed to the great isolation in which they live. If one of them is taken before a tribunal, all his brethren in the locality get out of the way, instead of coming in a body to his aid and awing by their numbers the aggressive Mandarins. Now, more especially, that imperial decrees have been issued favourable to Christianity, if the Christians were to rise simultaneously in all parts of the empire, were energetically to assume possession of their rights, giving publicity to their worship, and exercising fearlessly, and in the face of day, their religious practices, we are satisfied that no one would venture to interfere with them. In China, as everywhere else, men are free who manifest the will to be so; and that will can only be effectively developed by the spirit of association.