Within the walls of this Temple of Honan was a spacious and curious garden, where the dwarf trees and flowering shrubs were ingeniously trimmed to make them grow in the forms of various animals; and here was a large pond of the sacred lotus in bloom, the thin, soft, white velvety leaves displaying every line and vein in their formation. The fragrance was very delicate. In the poetical language of the East the lotus is called the "goddess" as we call the rose the "queen" of flowers. We were here shown the cremating ovens in which the bodies of the departed priests are disposed of, and also the crude cells and the large refectory of the order. But somehow these priests, who pretend to lead such lives of self-denial, are wonderfully round and unctuous in personal appearance. Our visit to the Temple of Honan was a very curious and not uninteresting experience, made up of a strange conglomerate of swine, priests, fat idols, flower gardens, human roasting ovens, and pond lilies.
All over Canton may be seen lofty towers, square in form, which dominate the town. Our guide called these warehouses, or storehouses for the safe keeping of goods, they being both fire-proof and thief-proof. But further inquiry proved them to be a series of pawnbroker's establishments. In summer the average Chinaman pawns his winter clothing, and other articles not in actual use, thus enabling him to employ more capital in his business, whatever it may be. When the cold weather comes he redeems his needed clothing, and the same with other articles. So universal is this practice that hundreds of these tower-like pawning places are required to meet the demands of the citizens. As these establishments are supposed to be fire-proof, they do certainly afford a place of safety for valuable articles not in use, the owner paying storage in the form of interest for the money loaned, the goods being security.
The dwelling-house and pleasure-grounds of the late Poon-tin-qua, a distinguished and rich Chinaman, were visited, and proved to be typical of all Chinese pictures. Here were airy summer-houses, pavilions, bridges, rockeries, and ornamental sheets of water, as we see these things represented on lacquered ware, decorated China dishes, and fans. It was really very curious and amusing, and showed much of luxurious life,—even a private theatre being contained in the establishment. Though all seem to be deserted now and somewhat neglected, still the garden showed us roses, camellias, azaleas, lilies, and green shrubs trained in the usual grotesque manner, not forgetting the dwarf trees, which seem to give this people great satisfaction when successfully cultivated.
As regards the punishment of crime in Canton, one would look in vain for justice, but there is plenty of cruelty. We visited the execution yard, a circumscribed space in the very heart of the city. Here, our guide told us, twenty condemned prisoners were executed weekly, by decapitation, each Friday being devoted to clearing the docket. The executioner takes off a head with one stroke of the sword, and the guide said he had witnessed the decapitation of eleven heads in seven minutes. Through a grating in the wall of the yard, an open area was seen where a crowd of manacled prisoners were sitting upon the ground, no shelter being afforded them night or day. The place was more filthy than a cattle-pen,—so offensive that we remained but a few moments. It is doubtful if anywhere else in the world such barbarous carnage and cruelty exists, under the guise of legal punishment.
Much has been said about the wonderful Water-clock of Canton, but it is actually a very simple and crude mode of measuring time, which any smart Yankee school-boy would improve upon. It consists of four tubs of water, located one above the other on a wooden frame, each dripping slowly into the one below it, the last being furnished with a float, the rise of which is measured on a graduated scale, indicating units of time; and such is the famous Water-clock of Canton. We were not disposed to walk any more than was necessary in the public streets, where the foulest odors assailed us at every step, and disgusting sights met the eye in the form of diseased individuals of the most loathsome type. The stranger is jostled by staggering coolies, with buckets of the vilest contents, or importuned for alms by beggars who thrust their deformed limbs into his very face. It is but natural to fear contagion of some sort from contact with such creatures, and yet the crowd is so dense that it is impossible to entirely avoid them. Underfoot the streets are wet, muddy, tortuous, and slippery, so that one comes from them with a feeling that a hot bath is an immediate necessity. Why some deadly pestilence does not at once break out and sweep away the people is a mystery. We know that the Ghetto at Rome, which forms the most filthy part of the Eternal City, was entirely spared when the rest of the place was decimated by cholera; but Canton generally is far dirtier than the Roman Ghetto.
As we found it almost impossible to traverse the streets of Canton on foot, we were carried, each person, in a palanquin, upon the shoulders of four coolies. These vehicles can make their way through the narrow streets, but cannot turn round in them without going to some open space where several streets meet. The bearers trudge along, keeping step with each other, and uttering a loud, peculiar cry to clear the way, reminding one of the gondoliers on the canals of Venice. People were obliged to step into shops and doorways, or flatten themselves against buildings, in order to make room for us to pass in the palanquins, but they did so with a good grace and took it quite as a matter of course. Whenever we stopped for a trifling purchase or to visit some point of interest, a small crowd was sure to collect. The narrow lanes are lined in many sections by stores containing very attractive goods, curiosities, silks, fine China ware, ivory, scented woods, mother-of-pearl and carved tortoise shell, all goods of native manufacture. The remarkable patience and imitative skill of the Chinese enables them to produce very choice goods in these lines of art. The shops being all open in front, the entire contents can be seen by the passers-by. Many of these passages are covered over at the top by matting, which effectually excludes the sun, and, indeed, much other light, so that they often have a sombre and dreary appearance.
It was interesting to watch the operation of the primitive hand-loom in which is woven the favorite Canton silk. The fabric is beautiful and expensive, being sold by the pound in place of by the yard, as with us. Men and boys only engage in silk weaving. Women assume the heavier and more exposed branches of labor, and of out-door-life, besides lugging their infants. Some of the lofty and utterly useless pagodas, which are over twelve hundred years old, are quite unique in architecture and ornamentation. One was visited which was nine stories high, measuring in a vertical line about two hundred feet. Observing a woman at one of the shrines fanning an idol, the guide was asked for an explanation. He said that the woman would presently take this fan home with which to fan some sick person, and from this process would hope for miraculous intervention in behalf of the suffering one. "And do you believe there is any efficacy in such a proceeding?" we asked. "You would call it the result of credulity and imagination," was his intelligent reply, "but I have seen some wonderful cures brought about after this manner. Do not people, who call themselves Christians, believe in prayer?" "Most certainly," we replied. "Well," continued the guide, "this is simply Chinese prayer." After this explanation, the queer proceeding of fanning an idol seamed less strange. That was certainly a good answer,—calling it Chinese prayer.
Undoubtedly our type of features is repulsive to the average Chinaman, certainly his is very much so to us. One looked in vain among the smooth chins, shaved heads, and almond eyes of the crowd for signs of intelligence and manliness. There are no tokens of humor or cheerfulness to be seen, but in its place there is plenty of cunning, slyness, and deceit, if there is any truth in physiognomy. The men look like women and the women like children, except that their features are so hard and forbidding. The better classes wear a supercilious expression of features that makes the toes of one's boots tingle; and yet in all the shops there is a cringing assiduity to get all the silver and pennies from the outside barbarians that is possible. In the streets there was a most unmistakable surliness exhibited that would have broken into forcible demonstration as we passed through them only for the instinctive cowardice of the Asiatics. It is quite impossible to express what a strange sea of life these narrow Canton streets exhibited, as we floated through them in palanquins upon the shoulders of the coolies. Their filth dominated all other characteristics, and forced upon the memory Charles Lamb's remark to his friend, when he said: "Martin, if dirt was trumps, what a hand you would hold."
Philanthropic societies are numerous in the cities of China, hardly exceeded in variety and excellence of design by those of Europe and America. These embrace well-organized orphan asylums, institutions for the relief of indigent widows with families, homes for the aged and infirm, public hospitals, and free schools in nearly every district. As with ourselves, some of these are purely governmental charities, others are supported by liberal endowments left by deceased citizens. Depots for the distribution of medicines to the poor are numerous, and others exist for distributing clothing to the needy. One organization was mentioned to us which supplied coffins to the poor, and bore the expenses of burial. Among the dense population of the country there must be ample occasion for the exercise of such charities. It must be remembered that these societies and organizations are not copied from European or American models; they have existed here from time immemorial.