Before I left, the proprietor conducted me into his house, and treated me to a cup of tea prepared after the fashion in which it is usually drunk by rich and noble Chinese. A small quantity was placed in a China cup, boiling water poured upon it, and the cup then closed with a tightly-fitting cover. In a few seconds the tea is then drank and the leaves left at the bottom. The Chinese take neither sugar, rum, nor milk with their tea; they say that anything added to it, and even the stirring of it, causes it to lose its aroma; in my cup, however, a little sugar was put.
The tea-plant, which I saw in the plantations round about Canton, was at most six feet high; it is not allowed to grow any higher, and is consequently cut at intervals. Its leaves are used from the third to the eighth year; and the plant is then cut down, in order that it may send forth new shoots, or else it is rooted out. There are three gatherings in the year; the first in March, the second in April, and the third, which lasts for three months, in May. The leaves of the first gathering are so delicate and fine that they might easily be taken for the blossom, which has no doubt given rise to the error that the so-called “bloom or imperial tea” is supposed not to consist of the leaves but of the blossom itself. [{114}] This gathering is so hurtful to the plant that it often perishes.
I was informed that the tea which comes from the neighbourhood of Canton is the worst, and that from the provinces somewhat more to the north the best. The tea manufacturers of Canton are said to possess the art of giving tea that has been frequently used, or spoiled by rain, the appearance of good tea. They dry and roast the leaves, colour them yellow with powdered kurkumni, or light green with Prussian blue, and then roll them tightly up. The price of the tea sent to Europe varies from fifteen to sixty dollars (£3 to £12) a pikul, of 134 lb. English weight. The kind at sixty dollars does not find a very ready market; the greater part of it is exported to England. The “bloom” is not met with in trade.
I must mention a sight which I accidentally saw, one evening, upon the Pearl stream. It was, as I afterwards heard, a thanksgiving festival in honour of the gods, by the owners of two junks that had made a somewhat long sea voyage without being pillaged by pirates, or overtaken by the dangerous typhoon.
Two of the largest flower boats, splendidly illuminated, were floating gently down the stream. Three rows of lamps were hung round the upper part of the vessels, forming perfect galleries of fire; all the cabins were full of chandeliers and lamps, and on the forecastle large fires were burning out of which rockets darted at intervals with a loud report, although they only attained the elevation of a few feet. On the foremost vessel there was a large mast erected, and hung with myriads of coloured paper lamps up to its very top, forming a beautiful pyramid. Two boats, abundantly furnished with torches and provided with boisterous music, preceded these two fiery masses. Slowly did they float through the darkness of the night, appearing like the work of fairy hands. Sometimes they stopped, when high flames, fed with holy perfumed paper, flickered upwards to the sky.
Perfumed paper, which must be bought from the priests, is burnt at every opportunity, and very frequently beforehand, after every prayer. From the trade in this paper the greater portion of the priests’ income is derived.
On several occasions, accompanied by Herr von Carlowitz, I took short walks in the streets near the factory. I found the greater pleasure in examining the beautiful articles of Chinese manufacture, which I could here do at my leisure, as the shops were not so open as those I saw during my excursion round the walls of Canton, but had doors and windows like our own, so that I could walk in and be protected from the pressure of the crowd. The streets, also, in this quarter were somewhat broader, well paved, and protected with mats or planks to keep off the burning heat of the sun.
In the neighbourhood of the factory, namely in Fousch-an, where most of the manufactories are situated, a great many places may be reached by water, as the streets, like those in Venice, are intersected by canals. This quarter of Canton, however, is not the handsomest, because all the warehouses are erected on the sides of the canals, where the different workmen have also taken up their residence in miserable huts that, built half upon the ground and half upon worm-eaten piles, stretch far out over the water.
I had now been altogether, from July 13th to August 20th, five weeks in Canton. The season was the hottest in the whole year, and the heat was really insupportable. In the house, the glass rose as high as 94½°, and out of doors, in the shade, as high as 99°. To render this state of things bearable, the inhabitants use, besides the punkas in the rooms, wicker-work made of bamboo. This wicker-work is placed before the windows and doors, or over those portions of the roofs under which the workshops are situated. Even whole walls are formed of it, standing about eight or ten feet from the real ones, and provided with entrances, window-openings, and roofs. The houses are most effectually disguised by it.
On my return to Hong-Kong, I again set out on board a junk, but not so fearlessly as the first time; the unhappy end of Monsieur Vauchée was still fresh in my memory. I took the precaution of packing up the few clothes and linen I had in the presence of the servants, that they might be convinced that any trouble the pirates might give themselves on my account would be thrown away.