Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

Men with keen and eager watch marked the rise of the tide, and when it was found that the flood had risen higher than the tops of the piers, the huge rafts with their mighty cargoes were skilfully guided down the flowing river, and the slabs having been moored in the position they were to occupy as parts of the roadway of the bridge, the workmen waited for the fall of the waters, when they each subsided into the exact place they were intended to fill. The river itself was thus made the engineering force by which at a comparative little cost and at no very great expense of labour, those huge masses of stone, that no hydraulic power in the world could have lifted into position, were placed in the very simplest manner where they have remained for more than two hundred years.

We found the boat we had ordered waiting for us by the river side, nestled under a great clump of bamboos, that stretched their feathery, graceful branches right over it as though they would cast their protecting shadow over the place where it lay.

At this point our land journey ends, but before going on board we have to settle with our chair-bearers, and, as is universally the case in China, to part with these usually demands a little diplomacy. In spite of the fact that we had agreed upon the sum we were to pay them at the end of the journey, they were very insistent that we should make them a present in addition. This is one of the traditions of the profession, that “wine money,” as the tax is called, should be demanded from every fare they carry. If the day is stormy and the roads bad, amidst the loudly expressed complaints of the bearers at their sorrows and miseries, there will be continually heard the comforting assurances uttered by themselves, that at the end of the journey the present of the “wine money” will be a very liberal one. They repeat this so often that they finally come to consider that they are entitled to the sum they have mentioned, and when the stipulated fare has been handed over to them, they will assume an injured air as though they were being defrauded, and they will demand the “wine money” as a right which may not be denied them.

As they had been very nice during the journey, we made them a present of one hundred cash, equal to about twopence halfpenny, with which they expressed themselves highly pleased, and declared that we had hearts that knew the sorrows that chair-bearers had to endure, and that we were tender-heated enough to sympathize with them in a way they could understand.

It would have seemed from this that our parting from these men was going to be a very pleasant and a very amicable one, but those who are acquainted with the wiles of this class of men will easily understand that this outward expression of good-will did not mean that they were not going to try and squeeze some more money out of us. The usual way in which payment is made is in copper cash. These are made up in hundreds, and ten of these are so strung together that they form a string of a thousand. In ordinary transactions these are accepted at their full value of nine hundred and ninety eight, two being deducted to pay for the string on which the whole are strung.

The chair-bearers for private reasons of their own refuse to accept these strings of cash until they have all been counted over and the five per cent. of bad ones that custom allows have all been eliminated. They insist, too, that the counting of these unwieldy coins shall be done on the ground and by themselves. Each string of one hundred was accordingly unloosed and cast upon the ground, and with the deft fingers of these unscrupulous bearers not only were the spurious cash spotted and laid aside in a heap by themselves, but a few of the really good ones were also abstracted in such a clever fashion that no one could catch the motion of their nimble fingers. In the dispute about the disappearance of the cash, one of the men was observed putting his bare toes on two or three that lay together and grasping them with them. He then quietly and naturally drew up his leg behind his back, and in an easy, unsuspicious way removed them and concealed them in his hand.

We felt that there would be no credit in disputing about the stolen cash, for the whole amount did not come to more than a little over a penny, so the men departed highly pleased with the cumshaw (present) that had been given them and with the few cash that they had been able to abstract under our very noses.

We had no sooner got on board than the large sail was hoisted, and the men taking to their oars we were soon speeding away at a tolerably quick rate on our journey up the river. Our boat was a very comfortable one, and it was quite a relief after being cramped up in the chair to be able to stretch one’s legs and to indulge in a lounge or sometimes to take a walk along the bank of the river.

The boat was about twenty feet in length and five or six in width at the centre. It was divided into four sections. There was the bow, where the men stood when they rowed or hoisted the sail. Next to this was a room that was used as sitting-room, bedroom and dining-room. Further aft was a diminutive space where the servants could lie, and in the stern was the section where the steersman stood and guided the boat. It served also as a kitchen, for all the meals were prepared here, and at night, after the boat was anchored, the crew of four men lay upon the planks of the deck, and covering themselves with their wadded quilts, slept soundly till the dawn called them again to their work.

As the wind freshened our boat rushed through a narrow gorge, where the hills, beautifully wooded down to the very water’s edge, presented a most charming and picturesque view. It was not an extensive one, and so we soon emerged from it into an extensive plain which was in the highest state of cultivation. This was rendered possible by this noble river that flowed through the very centre of it. The farmers had taken advantage of this, and with great ingenuity had managed to train the waters so that they should flow into the fields far beyond the banks on either side of the river, and flood the fields of rice.