It was a Sunday in autumn, and the early morning air felt keen as we steamed down to Woosung, and landed at the fort. Eleven gunboats in a row, all decorated with large flags, the biggest flag in each boat a different arrangement of black, red, yellow, and white, had prepared us for its being a gala day, but hardly for the pretty sight we found upon the parade-ground, where five hundred men were being drilled with a hundred banners among them, not to speak of bannerets, many of the banners being ten feet square. The men formed in square, in rallying groups, fired altogether, one after the other, all to the sound of a bugle, without a single order being given. Drill sergeants in huge straw hats stood before them, and inspected them; and the men's own dress was picturesque enough—loose jackets with large characters upon them behind and before placed in circles like targets, and large loose-flapping leg-guards of decided colours. To the bugle's note the men folded their banners round the spears they carried, to the bugle's note they again flung them loose to the wind, executing both manœuvres with a singular adroitness. There was never a hitch, and the drill appeared admirable, recalling that to be seen from Birdcage Walk in a very curious fashion; for it was every now and again diversified by a primitively savage jump forward with spears pointed, to the sound of a terror-inspiring yell, and then a sort of goose-step retreat, after which the banners that had been tightly wound round the spears were shaken out again, and the men became civilised soldiers once more, admirably drilled.
JUNK.
From a Picture by a Chinese Artist.
After this I saw no more of Chinese soldiers for some time, only noticed that the one Chinese mandarin who showed anything approaching to gallantry towards me was a Chinese general, who, calling upon the Consul with whom we were staying in all his war-paint, was kind enough to take off his necklace for me to admire, when I had broken the ice by praising his embroideries; drew up his gown for me to admire his boots, which, like his necklace, were insignia of his official standing; and finally invited us, whenever we could succeed in effecting a landing there, to spend a long and happy day at new Kweichow. Unfortunately this city, built by order, is so situated, with all the worst rocks in the river just at the foot of it, that hardly any one ever can land there; and we never have succeeded in so doing, which I the more regretted as he was kindly careful to inform me that, though his own wife was dead, his daughter-in-law would do the honours to me. I flattered myself at the time that I had made quite an impression upon the General, who was over six feet one, and fully broad in proportion, and who presented a most gorgeous appearance in long brocade gown embroidered for about a foot round the bottom with waves of the sea and other Chinese devices. He wore also a long satin coat with embroidered breast-plate, and a similar square of embroidery on the back, with the horseshoe cuffs, forced upon the Chinese by the Manchus when the present dynasty came to the throne, falling over his hands. High official boots, an amber necklace of very large beads reaching to his waist, and aureole-shaped official cap with large red tassel, completed his costume. And when he first advanced into the room, and found me seated there with the British Consul, on whom he was paying a visit of ceremony, the huge creature turned back, growing crimson and giggling like a schoolgirl, as he said to one of his attendants (a numerous retinue of pipe-bearers and the like followed him), "Here is one of these foreign women. Whatever am I to do? I never was in a room with one before, and have no notion how to behave." Yet such is army training all the world over, that in five minutes the General was doing the polite in the most finished style.
There must be something in being a soldier—even in being a Chinese soldier. When we travelled with some thirty or so coolies and attendants, it was of course necessary for me to decide upon one man whose duty it was, whenever I got out of my sedan-chair, to follow me with the camera, help me to set it up, and generally attend upon me. Twice I picked out my man, without knowing anything of his antecedents, and in each case found I had selected the one ex-soldier of the company. It was idle for our man-servant to say they were probably bad characters, for a man did not go away from home and become a soldier for nothing. They were so handy and obliging, that, though both, alas! have come to grief since then, I have still a soft corner of my heart for my two Lao Liu's; for curiously enough both rejoiced in the same name, and mightily jealous of each other they were when they ultimately met. When it is considered that their duties varied from carrying my little dog, the untiring companion of all our wild travel, to carrying me myself pick-a-back across a mountain torrent, and included choosing the picturesque view-points for photographs (at least they both thought themselves mighty fine judges on this point), as well as defending me from infuriate peasantry when they rushed at me with mattocks, and regularly carrying me in a sedan when that was the mode of progression, together with collecting and caring for all my little odds and ends of wraps, boots, and the like, it may be seen what a very handy creature a Chinese soldier is, when he—shall we say is after a soft billet, or wants to oblige a lady?
Of course, we had unpleasant experiences with soldiers sometimes. On the S.S. Kuling they stole every portable bit of brass off the steamer whilst making a little voyage in her. On the S.S. Yling they managed to eat up or carry off all the food that had been intended to last for months, whilst their officers were being entertained by my husband at a dinner party.
Then came the Japanese War, and all the river between Ichang and Hankow became gay with most picturesque junks laden with Chinese soldiers going to the war. Their flags flew upon the breeze; they themselves, in their motley and decorative uniforms, sat in groups mounted up on top of the junks. Occasionally the old-world, almost antediluvian music of their long, somewhat mournful trumpets sounded across the water. "Nous allons à la boucherie, à la boucherie, à la boucherie," sang the French recruits in their train-loads hurrying to fight the Germans. These Chinese levies might well have sung the same. But they sat impassive and yellow-faced beneath their high black turbans, apparently in nowise excited or discontented with their lot. How mercifully the future hides from us what may be in store for us on the morrow! And how terrible would it be, could some
"power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us"!