From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

UP THE CHINA SEAS—HONG KONG AND CANTON.

In Singapore, as in Batavia, the lines fell to us in pleasant places. An English merchant, Mr. James Graham, carried us off to his hospitable bungalow outside the town, where we passed four days. It stood on a hill, from which we looked off on one side to the harbor, where were riding the ships of all nations, and on the other to an undulating country, with here and there an English residence embowered in trees. In this delightful retreat our hosts made us feel perfectly at home. We talked of England and America; we romped with the children; we played croquet on the lawn; we received calls from the neighbors, and went out to "take tea" in the good old-fashioned way. We attended service, the Sunday before going to Java, in the Cathedral, and on our return, in the Scotch church; so that around us, even at this extremity of Asia, were the faces and voices, the happy domestic life, and the religious worship, of dear old England.

But just as we began to settle into this quiet life, the steamer was signalled from Ceylon which was to take us to China, and we had to part from our new friends.

It had been in my plan to go from here to Siam. It is but three days' sail from Singapore up the Gulf to Bangkok; but it is not so easy to get on from there. Could we have been sure of a speedy passage to Saigon, to connect with the French steamer, we should not have hesitated; but without this, we might be detained for a week or two, or be obliged to come back to Singapore. Thus uncertain, we felt that it was safer to take the steamer direct for Hong Kong, though it was a sore disappointment to pass across the head of the Gulf of Siam, knowing that we were so near the Land of the White Elephant, and leave it unvisited.

The China seas have a very bad name among sailors and travellers, as they are often swept by terrible cyclones; but we crossed at a favorable season, and escaped. The heat was great, and passengers sat about on deck in their easy cane chairs, as on the Red Sea; but beyond that, we experienced not so much discomfort as on the Mediterranean. On the sixth morning we saw in the distance an island, which, as we drew nearer, rose up so steeply and so high that it appeared almost like a mountain. This was the Peak of Hong Kong—a signal-station from which men, with their glasses, can look far out to sea, and as soon as one of the great steamers is descried on the horizon, a flag is run up and a gun fired to convey the news to the city below. Coming up behind the island, we swept around its point, and saw before us a large town, very picturesquely situated on the side of a hill, rising street above street, and overlooking a wide bay shut in by hills, so that it is sheltered from the storms that vex the China seas. The harbor was full of foreign ships, among which were many ships of war (as this is the rendezvous of the British fleet in these waters), which were firing salutes; among those flying the flags of all nations was one modest representative of our country, of which we did not need to be ashamed—the Kearsarge. We afterwards went on board of her, and saw and stroked with affection, mingled with pride, the big gun that sunk the Alabama.

Hong Kong, like Singapore, is an English colony, but with a Chinese population. You can hardly set foot on shore before you are snapped up by a couple of lusty fellows, with straw hats as large as umbrellas on their heads, and who, though in bare feet, stand up as straight as grenadiers, and as soon as you take your seat in a chair, lift the bamboo poles to their shoulders, and walk off with you on the double-quick.

No country which we see for the first time is exactly as we supposed it to be. Somehow I had thought of China as a vast plain like India; and behold! the first view reveals a wild, mountainous coast. As we climb Victoria Peak above Hong Kong, and look across to the mainland, we see only barren hills—a prospect almost as desolate as that of the Arabian shores on the Red Sea.

But what wonders lie beyond that Great Wall of mountains which guards this part of the coast of China! One cannot be in sight of such a country without an eager impulse to be in it, and after two or three days of rest we set out for Canton, which is only eight hours distant. Our boat was an American one, with an American captain, who took us into the wheel-house, and pointed out every spot of interest as we passed through the islands and entered the Canton river. Forty miles south is the old Portuguese port of Macao. At the mouth of the river are the Bogue Forts, which played such a part in the English war of 1841, but which were sadly battered, and now lie dismantled and ungarrisoned. Going by the stately Second Bar Pagoda, we next pass Whampoa, the limit to which foreign vessels could come before the Treaty Ports were opened. As we ascend the river, it is crowded with junks—strange craft, high at both ends, armed with old rusty cannon, with which to beat off the pirates that infest these seas, and ornamented at the bow with huge round eyes, that stand out as if from the head of some sea-monster, some terrible dragon, which keeps watch over the deep. Amid such fantastic barks, with their strange crews, we steamed up to Canton.

At the landing, a son of Dr. Happer, the American missionary, came on board with a letter from his father inviting us to be his guests, and we accordingly took a native boat, and were rowed up the river. Our oarsman was a woman, who, besides the trifle of rowing our boat up the stream, had a baby strapped on her back! Perhaps the weight helped her to keep her balance as she bent to the oar. But it was certainly bringing things to a pretty fine point when human muscles were thus economized. This boat, well called in Chinese a tan-ka or egg-house, was the home of the family. It sheltered under its little bamboo cover eight souls (as many as Noah had in the Ark), who had no other habitation. Here they ate and drank and slept; here perhaps children were born and old men died. In Canton it is estimated that a hundred and fifty thousand people thus live in boats, leading a kind of amphibious existence.