The Awakening of the East: Siberia—Japan—China

by Pierre Leroy-Beaulieu

Tien-tsin is the biggest open port in North China and the third in rank in point of activity and commerce in the whole Celestial Empire. It is, moreover, an immense Chinese city of nearly a million inhabitants, but its European concession is very inferior to that of Shanghai, and as a native city it is of little interest in comparison with Peking, Canton and many other towns. It is from here that travellers used, in former times, to begin the disagreeable journey to the capital, either on horseback or by junk up the Pei-ho. The river route was usually performed partly by sail and partly by oar, but occasionally the boat had to be towed by men. The junks took two or three days to ascend the sinuous course of the river. Sometimes, however, when the wind was to the north, and the shoals numerous, the journey occupied from four to five days before Peking was reached. Now the daily express, which speeds along at the rate of twenty miles an hour, takes three hours and fifty-three minutes to cover the ground which separates Tien-tsin from the station at Peking.

The country through which it passes is very flat, and it is only just before arriving at its terminus that the blue outline of some rather high hills come into sight towards the north-east. In the month of September, when the rains are over and are replaced by a drought that lasts until the end of winter, the environs of Tien-tsin, including the cemetery, are entirely under water, and as we looked from the train window, we could see a coffin floating about, and another like gruesome object stuck on the embankment of the line, which led us to reflect that, though the Chinese make such a fuss over their ancestors, they apparently care very little for their graves. The inundation at first stretched as far as the eye could see. Presently the land began to peep out. If you expect to find the soil from which the waters have just retired uncultivated, it will only be an evident proof that you know very little about the indefatigable industry of the Chinese agriculturist, and the great care and skill which he brings to his task. All that emerges has already been carefully sown, even down to the very brink of the water, and at a few steps from the limits of the inundation, the future harvest which has sprang up under the hot September sun from the moist but rich soil begins to make its appearance. The mud villages now succeed each other rapidly, and presently the traveller reaches an admirably cultivated country where not an inch of soil is wasted, and where the wheat and sorghum fields are alternated by kitchen gardens and orchards.

The temporary station at Peking, built of planks and galvanized iron, stands in the midst of this landscape. Very little is to be seen of the high walls of the city, which are almost entirely hidden by trees, and by a slight rising in the land. Nothing indicates that the gates of the capital of the oldest Empire in the world are so near. In order to traverse the mile which separates the station from the entrance to Peking, it is necessary to exchange the most highly perfected of human conveyance for the most barbaric. The Chinese are unwilling that the stranger should dispense, in order to enter their most holy capital, with a thorough jolting in their national carriage, unto which the Siberian tarantass may be compared as the most luxurious of vehicles. Two enormous wheels, covered with iron and garnished with a triple row of nails, support this shapeless waggon, which is protected by a blue awning, and is dragged along by two mules harnessed one in front of the other. Whilst the driver sits in front under the awning, the hapless traveller has to accommodate himself on the floor, with his legs stretched out in front of him. Now begins the torture, for one is literally jolted about against the wooden sides of the cart like a pill in a box. Presently the wheel goes over a huge stone, only to fall into a deep hole, or stick in a rut. Meanwhile, the diabolical waggon behaves in a most abominable manner, to the unutterable agony of its wretched inmate, who lives in terror of being either precipitated into the mud, or of having his brains knocked out by the collapse of the whole structure. Of this latter catastrophe there is little or no likelihood, for about the only good quality this appalling conveyance can boast of is solidity: nothing could break it. About twenty minutes after leaving the station a high battlemented wall, surrounded by a mud-filled moat, is reached. Next, you pass over a bridge, beyond which a gate admits into a sort of half-moon surrounded by walls, beyond which is yet another gate admitting to the city proper, where, after another hour’s jolting, the unhappy traveller alights at a hotel in Legation Street kept by a Frenchman.

Although not the most ancient city in the Celestial Empire, Peking is an epitome of the rest of China, together with its ancient civilization and its present stagnation and decadence. It belongs to a very different type from the cities of Europe, or even of the Moslem world, and the sight of its immense wall and successive enclosures, which divide it into four distinct parts, reminds one of Nineveh or Babylon. In the centre is the ‘Forbidden’ or ‘Purple City,’ about a league in length from north to south, and a quarter of a league in width, containing the palaces of the Emperor and Empress Dowager, and the gardens and the residences of a swarm of parasites numbering, it is said, between six or eight thousand persons, inclusive of guards, concubines, eunuchs, functionaries, gardeners and other attendants upon the Imperial harem. The only Europeans who are allowed to cross the sacred threshold of the Purple City are the members of the Diplomatic Corps, to whom the Emperor gives audience on New Year’s Day, as well as since quite recently on the occasions of their arrival or taking leave. Around the Purple City extends the Imperial City, its walls painted pink, which in its turn is surrounded by the Tatar City, a rectangle of 4 miles in length, by 3 miles in width, whose sides face the cardinal points. Its colossal walls are 50 feet high, and at their summit are 50 feet wide. Their external fronts consist of two strong brick walls, rising from a substructure of stone. The interior is filled up with earth, and the summit, covered with flagstones, forms a walk bordered by embattled stone parapets. Bastions project outwards, and huge pavilions built of brick, pierced with many balistraria, and coated with highly varnished coloured tiles, ornament its four corners and gates. It rises only 99 feet above the ground, beyond which height it is never allowed to build, lest the flight of the good spirits might be inconvenienced thereby. This magnificent rampart, which to the north-east and to the west rises abruptly from the midst of the country, Peking having no suburbs, presents a most imposing aspect; and it is not less impressive when beheld from any one of the half-moons, which are very vast, and are built before the various gates, but which, owing to the height of the embattled walls which surround them on all sides, each of which is surmounted by a massive brick pavilion, look like wells.

To the south of the Tatar City is a group of less imposing walls surrounding the lengthy rectangle which includes the Chinese City, the commercial part of Peking. The broad street that intersects it from north to south, and cuts it into two equal parts, especially close to the Tsieng-Men Gate, by which you pass into the Tatar City, is the most animated artery of the city. In the central walk, paved with magnificent flagstones, not one of which is now in its right place, and which apparently only serve as stumbling-blocks to pedestrians, and are covered with mud a foot deep in summer, and by a pestilential dust in winter, circulate in the utmost confusion the ever-present waggons, already described, palanquins, sedan-chairs, whose colours vary with the dignity of the owner, chairs drawn by mules, men riding on small Manchurian ponies, indefatigable asses, which are the best means of locomotion in the place, enormous one wheeled barrows, coolies struggling under the burden of huge baskets filled with fruit, vegetables, and other comestibles, fixed to the end of a very long pole slung across their shoulders—all this busy world bustles along, filling the air with shouts and cries of every kind, from the croaking of the porters to the stentorian shouts of the waggoners. Occasionally a long string of huge two-humped camels, a cord running from the nostrils of one animal to the tail of the other, and led by a Mongolian urchin, adds to the incredible confusion. All this crowd, together with beasts and vehicles, has to content itself with what, under ordinary circumstances, would be a very broad roadway, if at least a third of it were not encumbered by a sort of permanent open-air fair, carried on in rows of booths, some of which are used as restaurants, others as shops of every description. These booths turn their backs to the middle of the street, and thus hide the line of shops beyond, of which, from the centre of the road, you can only perceive the enormous and innumerable signboards hanging from a veritable forest of gaily-painted poles.

Beyond the Tsieng-Men Gate is situated the Beggars’ Bridge, always thronged by groups of wretches clamouring for alms and ostentatiously displaying the most appalling mutilations, with all kinds of loathsome diseases added to their sordid misery to excite compassion. The narrow side-walks, which are bordered on the one hand by booths, and on the other by big shops, are filled by a motley gathering of small shopkeepers, each plying his business in the open-air barbers, hairdressers, and fortune-tellers, among whom the crowd has no little difficulty in threading its way. Here you see men in light-blue blouses, with long pigtails; Chinese ladies with their hair dragged back magpie-tail fashion, who balance themselves painfully as they go along on their tiny deformed feet; Tatar women, whose hair is puffed out on each side of their faces, and who, like their Chinese sisters, stick a big flower behind their ears. Not being crippled by bound feet, like their less fortunate Chinese sisters, these women strut along with as firm a step as their high-heeled clogs will permit. Their faces are bedaubed with rice-flour, and their cheeks painted an alarmingly bright red. Children with their heads shaved in the most comical manner, dotted about with little tufts, that have a very funny appearance, being cut according to the taste or caprice of their parents, also run about. Among the well-clad children of a better class are others, stark-naked, looking for all the world like small animated bronzes, so dark and warm-coloured is their polished skin. In order to avoid being mobbed, one has occasionally to seek refuge in a shop, which usually opens on to the street, and is without windows. In the back the shopkeepers are peacefully seated behind their counters smoking long pipes, whilst exhibiting their goods and listening to the bargainings of their customers. These shops are always very clean, and the goods are arranged with great order and even considerable taste. A bowl with goldfish, or a cage full of birds, adds not a little to the charm and peacefulness of the scene, which is peculiarly refreshing after the noise and dirt of the streets.

All the great arteries of Peking are equally filthy and closely resemble each other, excepting that not one of them can equal, either in the size of the shops or wealth of their contents, the famous High Street that leads to the Tsieng-Men Gate. In summer, after the rains, a coating of mud some two feet and a half deep covers both road and footpath, which when the weather dries again is converted into thick clouds of dust. The sideways, always lower than the central road, are usually filled by pools of green water, whence arises the most horrible stench of decayed vegetables and rotting carcases of animals, in addition to the accumulated offal of the neighbouring houses. The wonder of it all is that the entire population of Peking has not long since been swept away by some appalling epidemic.

Leaving aside the few broad streets, one frequently comes across immense open spaces, whose centres are generally occupied by a huge dunghill. The narrow little streets that branch out in all directions can be divided into two classes—those which border on the three or four principal commercial thoroughfares, which, like them, are lined with shops, but are scarcely broad enough to allow of the passage of a single cart, although they are thronged from morning to night by a seething, noisy crowd; and the silent and deadly dull private streets, where the dwelling-houses are to be found. On either side runs a gray wall, whose monotony is broken at intervals by a series of shabby little doors. If any one of these happens to be open, one can only perceive from the street a small courtyard a few feet square, and another dead wall, beyond which is the inner courtyard, shut off from all observation, and on which open all the windows of these singular dwellings, not one of which is more than one story high, and always protected by a gray double-tiled roof, usually ornamented at the four corners by some grotesque stone beast or other, but never turned up at the ends as are invariably those of the temples and the monuments. There is no movement whatever in these streets. A few children play before the doors, a dog or so strays about in the road, and now and again a coolie or an itinerant merchant, with two baskets suspended from a pole across his shoulders, breaks the silence by a shrill cry; sometimes a donkey or a cart passes along but fails to enliven the deadly quiet of the street, which is so still and monotonous that one might almost imagine one’s self in a village instead of in one of the most populous cities in the world.

The scene changes entirely when Peking is seen from the heights of the walls which form the only agreeable promenade in the capital, to whose summits ascends neither the mud nor the stench of this dirtiest of cities. The eye wanders pleasantly over a forest of fine trees, for every house has one or two in its courtyard, and barely a glimpse of the offensive streets is to be had: only the gray roofs of the little houses; and thus Peking looks for all the world like an immense park, from whose midst rise the yellow roofs of the Imperial Palace, and to the northern extremity of the city, a wooded height called the Coal Mountain, surmounted by a pagoda.

As to monuments, there are very few in Peking worth the seeing, and into these foreigners are never allowed to enter. Twenty-five or thirty years ago visitors were admitted into a great number of the temples: that of Heaven, which is now being restored, and where the Emperor goes annually to make a sacrifice, and the Temples of the Sun, the Moon, and of Agriculture, and they were even allowed to peep into the Imperial Gardens; but since the entry of the Anglo-French troops into Peking, in 1860, the Chinese have been very reticent with respect to their monuments, doubtless a consequence of the salutary lesson they then received, which they are philosophical enough to endeavour to forget, as all wise folk should do things that wound their pride. To-day the people affect to believe the official story invented on that occasion to save appearances, wherein it was stated that the Emperor Hien-feng, instead of fleeing before the allies, merely went on a hunting excursion in his park at Johol in Mongolia. Their usual insolence towards foreigners had completely returned, to be modified, however, so soon as they heard of the successes of the Japanese, and they were seized with absolute terror at the prospect of beholding the Mikado’s army marching through their gates.