At daybreak, on the 1st of August, in a public hall in Napa—the mayor’s office, I believe—the Loo-Chooan bazar (!) was open. The articles exposed for sale, were some Japanese fabrics, brought there by the junks, some domestic cotton-cloth, and specimens of Loo-Choo lacquer-ware, and chow-chow boxes. By nine o’clock, A. M.—having “opened a trade” with Loo-Choo, all were aboard, when the steam-frigates left for China, taking a look at the Amaccarima islands as we passed, during the day.
The next evening, we espied a sail, which proved to be the United States sloop-of-war Vandalia, which saluted the commodore, and then laid to for her captain to repair on board of the flag-ship. We had hoped for some letters and papers from home by her, but she had none.
After running separated for three days, in hopes of falling in with the Powhatan, the steamers came in company again, near the southern extremity of Formosa. At sundown on August 7th, the Mississippi and Susquehanna, after an absence of three months and eleven days, dropped anchor in the harbor of Hong Kong, China.
CHAPTER X.
The numerous publications upon China, from the large folios of the Jesuits, which record their triangulation of the empire over a century ago, down to the later books, which afford every detail of the strange people occupying the “flowery kingdom,” render an account, of what came under observation, during the time the Mississippi, lay in the waters of China, almost superfluous. Yet during our stay, the state of the Celestials was rather anomalous; owing to the efforts of a portion of the immense population under the lead of an insurgent chief, Thaeping, to overthrow the existing or Tartar government. This rebellion has been continued so long now, that it threatens to become chronic.
At the time of these intestine troubles, the great number of ladrones or land-pirates, who infest the vicinity of the densely-populated cities, whose desperate fortunes, make them indifferent to what government they may be under, generally seize upon the opportunity of plundering, and the foreign hongs, or factories of the American and European merchants, are always an object of attack, from the quantity of specie that is known, or believed to be within their vaults. The existence of the rebellion, and the heavy freshets in the Pekiang causing much loss and distress, had also made the ladrones in the vicinity of Canton very threatening; and a few days after our return from Japan, our ship was ordered to proceed to Blenheim Reach, to communicate with the American consul, and to afford with our force, any aid that we could in the protection of American property at Canton, which, notwithstanding the representations made to our government, has been indebted for some time past to the protection of the guns of a little English brig-of-war, which lay off the factories. But if one thinks of the un-American manner, and the cockneyism, which marks nearly all of the United States merchants, who abide and much do congregate near the walls of Canton, perhaps the protection, which an English flag would give, is more to their taste, such at least is my opinion. It occasions no effort to appreciate the hospitality of these people. Should you be a merchant-man, and indebted to their brokerage for the purchase of tea and silk, or the sale of opium, their spacious-chambers are soon put at your disposal; but if unfortunately an officer from some national vessel, your way to the single China-hotel, with its pent-up rooms, infuriate musquitoes, and pleasant fried-rat odors, will not be impeded by them in the slightest degree. During an extended stay, they might patronise you, if having the financiering of the ship to do, with an invitation to a dinner, or one to a “tiffin;” but they will scarcely be heard from again, unless when they anticipate an emeute of the Ladrone population, when a man-of-war would immediately get representations about the necessity for some force to protect their coffers.
Blenheim Reach is about ninety miles from Hong Kong, and fifteen from Canton, whose port, together with Whampoa Reach, separated from it by paddy-field islands, it may be called. It was up this passage that the English ship “Blenheim” went to Canton, and was enabled to turn the enemy’s flank during the late war. Ahead of us laid the huge old East Indiamen, looking like line-of-battle ships, and waiting till they got aboard their twenty thousand chests, and not far from them the Aberdeen clippers, which may take rank as such only when the American clippers are away. At Whampoa, off a collection of most forbidding-looking houses, built over the muddy water, composing the Chinese town, there lay the foreign ships, the mandarin watch-boats, the junks, the chop-hulks from which stores are supplied, the protestant and catholic floating-bethels for the good of souls, and the well-armed opium-schooners whose cargoes destroy bodies.
We laid in Blenheim Reach under the whole, hissing, hot sun of August and September. There being a heavy fresh in the river at the time of our arrival, the banks were overflown, and our ship did not swing at her anchors for some days. Old China street at Canton was a foot under water, and you reached the entrance to the hongs through the foreign garden, in a sedan-chair, or on the backs of wading coolies. During the height of the swollen current, dead Chinamen floated down and hung in our wheels; and when the water subsided, the exhalation of fields of alluvial black mud, and the visits of furious flowery-kingdom mosquitoes, who, like the ghostly breeches of Mickey Free’s father, were ever going between us and sleep, neither contributed to the healthfulness nor comfort of our anchorage. Our comforts were further increased by looking upon scenery which was unrelieved except by a litchee grove here and there. The weather was terribly hot, and if the thermometer had been longer, it would have probably been hotter; with ratan-mat and bamboo-pillow you sought a spot under the awnings of the hurricane or poop deck, that you might half-restless and half-snoozing pass the night, while during the day the windsails were of little use, and drop and drop came down the tar from the rigging. Boils and other cutaneous eruptions affected the crew, with annoyances greater than those of Job, and yet they had not the salubrious climate of a Palestine in which to endure them. The dislocating-jaw beef, and fowls, and fresh food furnished us by the Chinamen, together with watery vegetables, nearly destitute of any nutritious qualities, were only partly compensated for by the half-fresh cherrymoya, custard-apple, banana, or splendid persimmon—persimmons splendid! Sometimes we would have a thunder-storm which would purify the atmosphere for a time, but back would soon come the stagnated, sweltering temperature, which neither white slippers nor grass-cloth could make more comfortable, and which made the staid, starched, stiff collar, soon bow its points, and relax into the opaque, prostrate Byronic. Every one who could, like the personator of Minerva at Mrs. Leo Hunter’s fétê champétre, carried a fan. Such weather we had for two months.
Occasionally, during the month of August, we had requests for aid from merchant-captains arriving, who represented their crews in a state of mutiny. After the confinement of the men, a consular court is usually held on board to adjudicate the difficulty. I attended one of these, and was surprised to see what an entirely ex-parte affair it is; the examination is absurd. The captain’s testimony is mainly if not entirely depended on, and if a bad man, may not only maltreat his crew, without any one to confront him effectively with the fact, but after having contracted with his men, for high wages perhaps, in California, on arriving in China, for some insubordination, prefers a charge of mutiny; the men are put in irons, the consul’s decision forfeits their wages, and thus a speculation is made for the owners. If not this, for the acts of one or two bad men in a ship, the whole crew are put in irons and punished indiscriminately. One fellow brought aboard of the Mississippi in irons, called a “mutineer,” and subsequently regularly shipped, would not have mutinied against a sheep.