From Egypt to Japan

by Henry M. Field

Above the landing is the island of Shameen, a mile long, which is the foreign quarter, where are the Hongs, or Factories, of the great tea-merchants, and where live the wealthy foreign residents. Rounding this island, we drew up to the quay, in front of Dr. Happer's door, where we found that welcome which is never wanting under the roof of an American missionary. Dr. Happer has lived here thirty-two years, and was of course familiar with every part of Canton, and was an invaluable guide in the explorations of the next three or four days.

When we were in Paris, we met Dr. Wells Williams, the well-known missionary, who had spent over forty years in China, twelve of them in Peking, of which he said, that apart from its being the capital, it had little to interest a stranger—at least not enough to repay the long journey to reach it. He said it would take a month to go from Shanghai to Tientsin, and then cross the country cramped up in carts to Peking, and visit the Great Wall, and return to Shanghai. Canton was not only much nearer, but far more interesting, and the best representative of a Chinese city in the Empire.

The next morning we began our excursions, not with horses and chariots, but with coolies and chairs. An English gentleman and his wife, who had come with us from Singapore, joined us, making, with a son of Dr. Happer and the guide, a party of six, for whom eighteen bearers drew up before the door, forming quite a procession as we filed through the streets. The motion was not unpleasant, though they swung us along at a good round pace, shouting to the people to get out of the way, who forthwith parted right and left, as if some high mandarin were coming. The streets were narrow and densely crowded. Through such a mass it required no small effort to force our way, which was effected only by our bearers keeping up a constant cry, like that of the gondoliers in Venice, when turning a corner in the canals—a signal of warning to any approaching in the opposite direction. I could but admire the good-nature of the people, who yielded so readily. If we were thus to push through a crowd in New York, and the policemen were to shout to the "Bowery boys" to "get out of the way," we might receive a "blessing" in reply that would not be at all agreeable. But the Chinamen took it as a matter of course, and turned aside respectfully to give us a passage, only staring mildly with their almond eyes, to see what great personages were these that came along looking so grand.

Our way led through the longest street of the city, which bears the sounding name of the Street of Benevolence and Love. This is the Broadway of Canton, only it is not half as wide as Broadway. It is very narrow, like some of the old streets of Genoa, and paved, like them, with huge slabs of stone. On either side it is lined with shops, into which we had a good opportunity to look as we brushed past them, for they stood wide open. They were of the smallest dimensions, most of them consisting of a single room, even when hung with beautiful embroideries. There may be little recesses behind, hidden interiors where they live, though apparently we saw the whole family. In many shops they were taking their meals in full sight of the passers-by. There was no variety of courses; a bowl of rice in the centre of the table was the universal dish (for rice is the staff of life in Asia, as bread is in America), garnished perchance with some "little pickle," in the shape of a bit of fish and soy, to serve as a sauce piquante to stimulate the flagging appetite. But apparently they needed no appetizer, for they plied their chop-sticks with unfailing assiduity.

Our first day's ride was probably ten or twelve miles, and took us through such "heavenly streets" as we never knew before, and did not expect to walk in till we entered the gates of the New Jerusalem. Besides the Street of Benevolence and Love, which might be considered the great highway of the Celestial City, there were streets which bore the enrapturing names of "Peace," "Bright Cloud," and "Longevity;" of "Early-bestowed Blessings" and of "Everlasting Love;" of "One Hundred Grandsons" and (more ambitious still) of "One Thousand Grandsons;" of "Five Happinesses" and of "Refreshing Breezes;" of "Accumulated Blessings" and of "Ninefold Brightness." There was a "Dragon street," and others devoted to "The Ascending Dragon," "The Saluting Dragon," and "The Reposing Dragon;" while other titles came probably a little nearer the plain fact, such as "The Market of Golden Profits." All the shops have little shrines near the door dedicated to Tsai Shin, or the God of Wealth, to whom the shopkeepers offer their prayers every day. I think I have heard of prayers offered to that divinity in other countries, and no one could doubt that these prayers at least were fervent and sincere.

But names do not always designate realities, and though we passed through the street of a "Thousand Beatitudes" and that of a "Thousandfold Peace," we saw sorrow and misery enough before the day was done.

One gets an idea of the extent of a city not only by traversing its streets, but by ascending some high point in the vicinity that overlooks it. The best point for such a bird's-eye view is the Five-storied Pagoda, from which the eye ranges over a distance of many miles, including the city and the country around to the mountains in the distance, with the broad river in front, and the suburb on the other side. The appearance of Canton is very different from that of a European city. It has no architectural magnificence. There are some fine houses of the rich merchants, built of brick, with spacious rooms and courts; but there are no great palaces towering over the city—no domes like St. Paul's in London, or St. Peter's in Rome, nor even like the domes and minarets of Constantinople. The most imposing structure in view is the new Roman Catholic Cathedral. Here and there a solitary pagoda rises above the vast sea of human dwellings, which are generally of but one, seldom two stories in height, and built very much alike; for there is the same monotony in the Chinese houses as in the figures and costumes of the Chinese themselves. Nor is this level surface relieved by any variety of color. The tiled roofs, with their dead color, but increase the sombre impression of the vast dull plain; yet beneath such a pall is a great city, intersected by hundreds of streets, and occupied by a million of human beings.

The first impression of a Chinese city is of its myriad, multitudinous life. There are populous cities in Europe, and crowded streets; but here human beings swarm, like birds in the air or fishes in the sea. The wonder is how they all live; but that is a mystery which I could not solve in London any more than here. There is one street a mile long, which has in it nothing but shoemakers. The people amused us very much by their strange appearance and dress, in both which China differs wholly from the Orient. A Chinaman is not at all like a Turk. He does not wear a turban, nor even a long, flowing beard. His head is shaved above and below—face, chin, and skull—and instead of the patriarchal beard before him, he carries only a pigtail behind. The women whom we met in the streets (at least those of any position, for only the common work-women let their feet grow) hobbled about on their little feet, which were like dolls' feet—a sight that was half ludicrous and half painful.

But if we were amused at the Chinese, I dare say they were as much amused at us. The people of Canton ought by this time to be familiar with white faces. But, strange to say, wherever we went we attracted a degree of attention which had never been accorded us before in any foreign city. Boys ran after us, shouting as they ran. If the chairs were set down in the street, as we stopped to see a sight, a crowd gathered in a moment. There was no rudeness, but mere curiosity. If we went into a temple, a throng collected about the doors, and looked in at the windows, and opened a passage for us as we came out, and followed us till we got into our chairs and disappeared down the street. The ladies of our party especially seemed to be objects of wonder. They did not hobble on the points of their toes, but stood erect, and walked with a firm step. Their free and independent air apparently inspired respect. The children seemed to hesitate between awe and terror. One little fellow I remember, who dared to approach too near, and whom my niece cast her eye upon, thought that he was done for, and fled howling. I have no doubt all reported, when they went home, that they had seen some strange specimens of "foreign devils."

But the Chinese are a highly civilized people. In some things, indeed, they are mere children, compared with Europeans; but in others they are in advance of us, especially those arts which require great delicacy, such as the manufacture of some kinds of jewelry, exquisite trinkets in gold and silver, in which Canton rivals Delhi and Lucknow, and in the finest work in ivory and in precious woods; also in those which require a degree of patience to be found nowhere except among Asiatics. For example, I saw a man carving an elephant's tusk, which would take him a whole year! The Chinese are also exquisite workers in bronze, as well as in porcelain, in which they have such a conceded mastery that specimens of "old China" ornament every collection in Europe. Their silks are as rich and fine as any that are produced from the looms of Lyons or Antwerp. This need not surprise us, for we must remember the great antiquity of China; that the Chinese were a highly civilized people when our ancestors, the Britons, were barbarians. They had the art of printing and the art of gunpowder long before they were known in Europe. Chinese books are in some respects a model for ours now, not only in cheapness, but in their extreme lightness, being made of thin bamboo paper, so that a book weighs in the hand hardly more than a newspaper.