The harbor of Hong Kong is a very commodious and well-sheltered one, in the shape of a half-moon, and its three entrances of Green Island, Cap-sing-moon, and Lymoon passages, can not be seen from its centre. On a shelf which makes a circular sweep, cut at the base of towering volcanic hills, is built the town named in honor of the present sovereign of Great Britain. Victoria, from the water, presents a fine appearance, with its stuccoed warehouses, or “go-downs,” at the beach, and the private residences and churches rising from plateaus made by immense labor above; and the massive stone government offices and barracks that appear on the left, tell how firmly the English plant their foot in the East, and how triumph, with them, is synonymous with occupancy of a slice of an enemy’s territory. This colony is the result of their opium war in China. Our stay was short: the commodore despatched the “Plymouth” to Shanghae, and, in the Mississippi, ran over to Macao, an inland run of thirty-nine miles.
CHAPTER VI.
We anchored in Macao roads about mid-day, perhaps on the very spot, where a sailor’s malice fired a magazine, and blew high in air, with a noise like thunder, the atoms that composed the Portuguese frigate Donna Maria, some years before. Macao, though in, is not of China; instead of the low hut-like structures of unburnt blue brick and fantastic tile of the Celestial, the eye, as it takes in the fine sweep of the Praya, rests on large mansions whose verandahs exclude the sun, whose portals are spacious and stylish, and whose stucco little discolored by time, only appears all the more impressive, and sees rising on the eminence behind venerable cathedrals; while garrisons, crown batteries, and old-looking forts on either side, with the ensign of Portugal, define its ownership, and make the picture more imposing. It was here that the zeal of the Jesuit commenced the propagation of his faith and questioned the ethics of Confucius; it was here that the “glory and shame” of Portugal—one-eyed Camoens—disgusted at the country which could neither appreciate his genius nor reward his courage, spent in voluntary exile five years of his life and completed the Lusiad—that poem which, when shipwrecked, he saved from destruction by swimming and holding it above water, and that was ultimately to meet with the worse fate of being rendered into another language by Fanshaw. It was here that the English displayed the surreptitious boldness of carrying away, by the power of arms, from Portuguese custody, a missionary who had been guilty of the bad manners and overt nonsense of offending people not his own, by a refusal of compliance with a very ordinary custom, on the occasion of a catholic procession, at a time when the authorities and the greater part of the population were witnessing a boat regatta in their harbor; and it was at the outer barrier of Macao, that its governor, a few years ago, while taking an evening ride with one of his aids, was cut to pieces by the revengeful Chinamen, because of his having caused a road to be made through one of their burial-places in the vicinity.
On anchoring, a number of us paid a visit to the shore, which was some distance, in a Chinese “fast-boat,” the ship’s boats being seldom used in those countries, both because of a sanitary regard for a ship’s company, who would suffer from long rows under a new and sickly sun, and because the Chinese conveyances are scarcely the tax of a song: a “fast-boat,” with a crew of three or four rowers, which also serves as the floating habitation of the owner and a family composed of as many more, can be employed for constant attendance on a man-of-war for a very small number of dollars per month. They are always at hand; when not going they are made fast astern, and when triangulating between Whampoa, Macao, and Hong-Kong, they follow with Ruth and Naomi constancy. Will we forget you, old Ashing?—with your punctuality and good-natured readiness, whether disturbed at your chow-chow, or called at late hour of the night? Then, too, your ever equable philosophy; the Irish pilot knew the rocks in the channel well, especially when he thumped on top of one; but your foresight, far surpassing his, always told us, in answer to the question, “Can you take us off?”—“Supposee too much no good wind, no can catchee ship: Supposee no too muchee bad wind, can catchee ship,”—which was so solacing. The name “fast-boat” is a misnomer, except when chased by a good wind, and then they move through the water, impelled by their large mat-sails, with great rapidity. They are built in a wedge-like shape, generally some twenty feet long, with a small indented place with seats under matting for their passengers, and movable decks, below which the crew stretch themselves to sleep. Since the days of the “old woman who lived in a shoe,” nothing can be found which has been made to contain more human beings in the same space than a Chinese fast, or tanka boat, besides having room for cooking purposes, a watertank, a spare spar, and a small altar, in whose front a joss-stick kept burning propitiates their tutelar deity. Ye pampered denizens of the crowded city, upon whose elbows the bricks and mortar of more plebeian neighbors crowd too close, go and learn of those human bees of the world, economy of space.
The water becomes so shoal before reaching the stone pier, that the little vessel lowers sail and drops anchor—this shoalness is the result of that want of force or energy, which, shown in the decline of Goa, could not maintain the fortifications of Point de Galle after building them, and which from sudden and unhealthy culmination, has marked the downfall of all the Portuguese possessions in the East.
We were encompassed by tanka-boats—so named from their resemblance in shape to an egg—a great number of which they could scarcely contain. Their maiden proprietors, with their pretty teeth, big nankeen breeches, nicely-plaited hair, small bare feet and braceleted wrists, at once set up the cry, “Takee my boatee!—takee my boatee!” Some one having taken the cockle-shell barge of Atti, and some other that of Aqui, a few moves of the powerful skull of the Celestial Charon at the stern, as her small feet step back and forth on a neatly-scoured miniature platform, and a few pulls at the sweep-oar of the Celestial Charon in the bow, and the boat now is in the sand of the beach. One of the maidens, with none of the aversion of the feline species, steps over into the water, arranges a small cricket-bridge, and balance-pole of bamboo, and with the right hand of fellowship helps you up on the nice stone jutty. Up, you walk to Franck’s hotel, on the wide and level praya, leading to the circular promenade on which the Rip Van Winkle population, when the hot sun is nearly down, go to take their ante-supper walk and evening airing.
On the 18th of April we left the anchorage of the old Portuguese city, and started for our first visit to the anchorage of Canton for ships drawing twenty feet of water. We stood across the wide and turbid estuary of the Pekiang, and about twelve o’clock we reached the Bocca Tigris—the proper mouth of the Canton river—and passed the forts of the Bogue, that the English ships Andromache, Imogen, and others, handled so badly as they held on their way up to their great city. We were detained some time before reaching here, by having towed under an itinerant fast-boat who had made fast astern. It took some time to right his boat, bail her, and take off the crew who huddled on her keel. The fellow was attempting to smuggle salt which made his boat too deep. He afterward fell into the hands of some of the river pirates who infest the waters of China. We ran through fish-stakes innumerable, passed pagodas—those lofty, circular, terraced piles of brick and porcelain, which some of the Chinamen tell you were built to mark the commencement of learning and civilization with them, and others that they keep off evil spirits from the country visible from their tops—and at three o’clock were moored in Whampoa Reach, surrounded by merchant-ships of all nations; from the mountainous old East Indiaman, to the (cynosure of all) magnificent American clippers. ’Tis here, of all the world, in a limited space, that the alpha and omega of naval architecture are to be seen—the “Flying Cloud,” the “Sea Serpent,” and the Chinese salt-junk.
After chartering a Peruvian-built bark as a coal-ship for the squadron, and ordering two officers to her, allowing those of the Mississippi to make a hurried visit to Canton, and shipping about forty Chinese coolies, whose names puzzled the purser to enter, we returned to Macao and then to Hong-Kong. On the 27th April we left the latter place for the more northern port of Shanghae, where the steam-frigate Susquehanna awaited the arrival of the commodore, who proposed making her his flag-ship because of her noble spaciousness. We went out by the Lymoon passage, and with the ship deeply laden with coal, staggered along up the Formosa channel. For a few days we had a mist so thick that it precipitated in rain, and afterward a fog so thick that we ran slowly and cautiously not to go over Chinese fishermen, and also to take soundings, for which purpose the engines were stopped at intervals. Our band played at intervals: the English-coast pilot on board had a Kanaka servant with him; this fellow would listen to the music with much interest and seem delighted: the Chinese cooley would move about the deck the while, apparently perfectly unconscious of, or indifferent to the sweet strains, or if he observed at all, his smooth and sinister face looked his disapproval of such a barbarian noise.
Our first of May suggested anything else but floral association. It was cold and raw; blowing fresh, and a heavy head-sea, which, during the night, smashed in the port side of the head-rail of the ship; deck wet, sky overcast; no observations, to determine our position could be taken; poor little land-birds, ejected from domicil, were perched in the rigging, too much benumbed to work their passage, and around were small junks of the Chinaman, “laying-to,” with basket-drags from head and stern, like floating anchors.