To face p. 126.
There is really, after all, no mystery in this. Fifty or sixty years ago they were both born upon a boat of the precise size and shape of the one they are now living in. The old lady with the wrinkled features, and the eyes of which the flash and the sparkle have died out, and with the raven locks that have turned to grey, came here forty years ago as a bride, from a neighbouring boat, amid the sounds of fire-crackers and the chorus of congratulations that the Chinese are always prepared to give the newly-made wife.
The young fellow that received her then as his future wife was the pick out of all the fisher lads in the fishing fleet of that time, but he, too, is old now. Yet both husband and wife are content, for their home is a happy one. Have they not their own son to care for them in their declining years, and to save them from sorrow and hunger now that their strength is not what it used to be?
The son is indeed a man to be proud of by a Chinese father. He has the look of a man who can hold his own in the world, and though utterly uneducated, his face has a semi-refined appearance, that speaks of a tender heart and of a mind that would easily be influenced for good. His young wife has a face that it is a pleasure to look upon. It is not by any means a beautiful one, for there is not a single feature in it that could by the widest charity be called pretty, and yet it is just such a one that has an attraction about it, that it wins men’s homage though every canon of beauty is defied by it. She has high cheek-bones and a large mouth, and a nose that is as far removed from the Grecian as it is possible to be conceived, but her eyes are bright and sparkling, and it seems as though the spirit of fun lay close behind them, for there is a perpetual suggestion of laughter in them. Her face, too, browned with the great Eastern sun, is a most kindly and pleasing one, and smiles at the least provocation ripple over it, and fill it with sunshine or shadows, as the mood happens to take her.
She and her young husband are busy hoisting the nets high up on a bamboo pole to have them aired and dried in the sun. The youngest child, which is but a baby, is strapped on her back, where he is sound asleep, the motions of the mother acting as a cradle would do in lulling him into forgetfulness of everything around him. The other child is a little over two, with a round, chubby face and large, staring black eyes, that look upon you with wonder as you make various signs of friendliness to him. He is stationed in the “sitting-room,” to be out of the way of the workers, and to guard against his moving beyond certain limits and tumbling overboard, a good strong string has been tied to one of his legs, which effectually prevents any such accidents happening to him.
The old father, calm and placid looking, is sitting on his heels near the tiller smoking a long bamboo pipe. This mode of resting is a most popular one amongst the middle and lower classes of the Chinese, but one which an Englishman could not endure for five minutes without considerable discomfort. His wife is fussing about the diminutive kitchen, getting ready the meal for the family, and deftly cooking the rice and the salted turnips and the pickled cabbage that are the principal features in the daily meal of vast numbers of the Chinese.
NETTING FISH FROM THE SHORE.
The above is an attempt to describe the kind of boat that a certain class of people who get their living by fishing in inland waters everywhere use. They are absolute facsimiles of each other. The question often arises, how is it they are all so identical? Why should not some of them be, say, a foot or two longer, and a few inches wider, so as to anticipate the needs of a growing family?
Such a thought never occurs to a Chinaman, or if it does, it is at once rejected as heterodox, or as treason to the original designer. A profound sense of the benefits conferred upon them by the man who had the brain to devise such a boat, though an Englishman would have the daring to think that any idiot could devise a much better one in five minutes, will prevent this nation from ever venturing to think it possible that any change could be made in it that would improve it in one single respect.