YUAN PAO HÊNG SUGGESTS PROHIBITION OF OPIUM SMOKING IN CHINA—NEW BUILDINGS FOR THE INSPECTORATE—THE FIRST INFORMAL POSTAGE SERVICE—THE FRENCH TREATY OF 1885—OFFERED POST OF BRITISH MINISTER
Curiously enough, almost as soon as Robert Hart was back in Peking (1880) the opium question was brought to his attention again. This time it was by a Chinese official—one Yuan Pao Hêng, an uncle of the famous Yuan Shih Kai, whose influence is paramount in the Flowery Land to-day, and who more than any other single man was probably responsible for the Imperial Edict (1906) which ordered the opium traffic to be abolished within ten years.
The uncle was as bitter an enemy of the drug as his nephew, but though his views were sound they were in advance of his time, and the I.G. very properly pointed out to him that the cultivation of the poppy could not be stopped suddenly. However wise theoretically it might be to do this, practically it would be dangerous. A great source of revenue must not be cut off abruptly, or China might find herself in the position of the man in the old fable, who thoughtlessly mounted the tiger, and then found out too late that he had forfeited the right to dismount when and where he pleased.
Haste in the Far East is a commodity for which it is easy to pay too high a price—when it is obtainable at all—which, to tell the truth, it generally is not. "Change slowly—if change you must" has ever been the motto of China, and for years the capital itself was an example of the saying. Improvements were not encouraged. There were no more public buildings in 1879 than in 1863. I doubt if a single tumble-down wall had been replaced—the dirt and smells still remained, and the roads were no smoother. Only a few more Legations had established themselves there, and, by clustering together, they formed what might by courtesy be called a Legation Quarter, which lay between the pink wall of the Imperial City—the innermost of the ring of three cities that form Peking—and the frowning, machicolated grey wall of the Tartar town.
The Chinese, partly no doubt with the idea of keeping all the foreigners together and partly for the convenience of business, presently gave the I.G. a piece of land in this quarter, and he accordingly moved down to comparative civilization—as we understand it—from his far-away corner of the suburbs, as soon as the buildings were ready. He had a modest row of low offices, several houses for his staff, each standing, Indian fashion, in its own compound, and, in a large garden, his own dwelling.
This, like the rest, was a bungalow—for the Chinese in those days objected to high buildings lest they should overlook the Palace—and built in the form of a letter H, partly from a sentimental connection with his own initial, and partly to utilise all the sunshine and southerly breeze possible. Two fine drawing-rooms, a billiard- and a dining-room filled the cross-bar of the letter: one of the perpendicular strokes was the west, or guest wing; the other contained his own private offices, a special reception-room, furnished in Chinese style—stiff chairs and rigid tables—for Chinese guests, and his living-rooms. It was characteristic of the man that these were the most unpretentious rooms in the whole house.
Undoubtedly one of the chief reasons which allowed Peking to preserve its mediæval aspect intact for so many years was the difficulty of communicating with the rest of the world for several months of the year. Its port, Tientsin, was ice-bound from November to March, and the foreign community was therefore completely cut off during the long winter. Neither letters nor papers enlivened la morte saison until the I.G. conceived the idea of arranging a service of overland couriers from Chinkiang, a port on the Yangtsze, to Peking. The seven hundred miles intervening was covered by mounted men, who took from ten to twelve days for the journey, and they as well as their mounts—the latter of course in relays—were provided on contract by a clever old mafoo (groom) who had the reputation of getting the best ponies for the Tientsin amateur race meetings, and who was in league with all the picturesque Mongol horse-dealers.
[Illustration: OUTSIDE SIR ROBERT HART'S HOUSE BEFORE 1900.]
On the whole the system worked admirably, though of course there were occasional hitches. Sometimes a messenger was attacked by bandits on the way and had his bags stolen. I know once the I.G. chuckled over such a disaster. It so happened that in the missing bags there was one letter which he had written giving an appointment in the Customs to a certain man. No sooner was it gone than he regretted what he had done, and would have recalled his decision had it been possible. Well, believe it or not, this and one other were the only two letters of that lost pouch ever discovered, and they came into the possession of a French Missionary Bishop and were afterwards returned by him to the I.G.
Now and again, too, an accident happened to the incoming mails even after they reached Peking. Of course they were taken direct to the Inspectorate for sorting, and while headquarters were still in the Kau Lan Hu Tung the messenger was more than once thrown on his way down to the Legations—perhaps he met one of those gong-beating processions which would be enough to frighten a hobby-horse—and his mails recklessly distributed by the terrified animal. And sometimes a courier would stumble into a ditch in the rainy season when the road was all river, and narrowly escape being drowned, but these little incidents were only the fortunes of war.