When the gun-boat Algerine arrived off Canton, the Commodore, although it was late in the evening, was accompanied by a military escort to the head-quarters of General Straubenzee, commander of the allied troops. A stillness as of a grave-yard reigned throughout the city, and not a light was to be seen. By 10.30 P.M. the Commodore reached the post, and was most hospitably received by the General. The
head-quarters were situated on a hillock commanding the city, surrounded by the numerous buildings of a country-seat or Yamun, which had been the property of the father of Governor Yeh, who had acquired such notoriety during the recent warlike troubles. The ostentatious splendour of the apartments, the splendid ebony carved work, gave such an idea of the magnificence, the luxury, the gorgeousness of the Chinese princes, as can only be paralleled by what we read of the palaces of the emperors of ancient Rome. Yeh himself had by this time been removed from the political scene, and was a state prisoner in Calcutta, where he lived in more than monastic seclusion. To judge by his portrait, which was for sale in all the print-shops of Hong-kong, Yeh was a fine-looking man with energetic features, and an expression full of intellect, and, so far as his physical appearance went, seemed to take after his father, who in his ninety-second year was still tasting joys of paternity. In his own country, even among the Europeans, Yeh enjoys the reputation of being not only an able diplomatist, but a man of varied information as well. While at Hong-kong we were shown some large anatomical woodcuts, which Yeh had himself borrowed from a European work on anatomy, and published at his own cost on an enlarged scale, accompanied by a preface from his pen.[119]
Even more extensive and elegant in its outward aspect than that of Yeh, was the palace of the Tartar general Pihkwei,
now employed for barracks and the officers of the English and French commissariat, while a much less pretentious building had been assigned to the Tartar general for his present residence.
The Commodore had reached head-quarters and was sitting at the tea-table with General Straubenzee, when an alarm of fire was heard. The "Braves" had fired a house close by in the hope, it should seem, that the flames would catch the barracks as well as the powder depôt, or at all events compel the English to withdraw their troops from the post, and give an opportunity for inflicting some loss on them. Fortunately, however, what had been set on fire burned quite out, without fulfilling the anticipations of the "Braves."
In the course of a stroll, which our Commodore took with the General somewhat later in the night, they perceived that the Chinese kept up a continual flight of rockets against the sentries and buildings of the post, from a small eminence not two hundred yards distant, which was provided with ramparts and cannon, and the Austrian guests greatly marvelled that no energetic steps were taken to obviate the disorders produced by these guerilla bands of Chinese, who every night with their incendiarism and fire-balls kept the city, the head-quarters, and the pickets in constant alarm, seeing that their inactivity only tended to animate the courage of the Chinese, while in such harassing service, unattended as it was with any results, their own forces, already very much reduced, were proportionately weakened.
The morning after their arrival the Austrian officers, accompanied by the English commissioner Mr. Parkes, whose imprisonment near Pekin has since made his name widely and universally known, paid a visit to the sole Chinese authority still remaining in the town, the Tartar General and Mandarin, Pi-Kwei. An immense crowd had assembled in the streets through which the foreigners wended their way, and their reception by the Tartar General was accompanied by all the ceremonial of Chinese etiquette: three howitzer salvo-shots, and ear-splitting Chinese music, the General's body-guard, disarmed, drawn up on the staircase, the General himself, wearing his Mandarin cap on his head, nodding and laughing more or less to the foreigners presented, according to their higher or lower rank. The Commodore was provided with a raised seat. In the course of conversation, during which Mr. Parkes kindly acted as interpreter, tea was served. Pi-Kwei inquired as to the objects of the Expedition, and asked the names of the officers, which, owing to the symbolic nature of Chinese writing, could not be done but after much difficulty. Pi-Kwei, a man of colossal proportions, behaved and spoke like a lamb in presence of the small physically insignificant-looking Mr. Parkes. Like the regents appointed by the Dutch Government in Java, he was nothing more than the agent to carry out the orders of the English.
Our departure was not less ceremonious and noisy than our reception: a number of fire-balls were let off in front of
the building, the noise of which gave much more the impression of an infernal machine than a salute. The rest of the day the officers spent in reconnoitring various parts of the city, as far as circumstances admitted, and all returned in the evening to Hong-kong in the same gun-boat which had conveyed them to Canton.