ivory, ebony, or bamboo, borders on the marvellous. In their hands, held between their fingers, they become like a pair of pincers, with which they can pick up the smallest objects, and can eat rice-grains, beans, or peas as easily as they can separate the flakes of a fish from its skin, or remove the shell of a hard-boiled egg.
As to the ingredients of the dishes presented, we must frankly avow that by far the greater number were utterly unknown to us, for the Chinese cuisine, oddly enough, sets great store on making the materials unrecognizable, and altering their natural flavour by various recipes and culinary mysteries. According to the inquiries which we made of our carver, our host seemed so anxious to fulfil to the letter his promise to give us a real Chinese repast, that he had resolved on not sparing us a single one of the rarer dainties of Chinese epicures. Thus we not only had swallows' nests, lapwings' eggs, and steamed frogs, but also roasted silk-worms, shark-fins, stag and buffalo tendons, biche-de-mar, bamboo roots, sea-weed, half-fledged chickens, and various other natural delicacies. The table was supplied at least three times with fresh delicacies, and we believe we do not exaggerate when we estimate the number of different dishes at not less than half a hundred. Meat of all sorts was at a discount, and was served up in small morsels ready carved;[157] on the other hand, rice and vegetables
were presented in every imaginable form. During the meal one young girl, who had played a part in the dramas, was incessantly occupied with filling for each guest a very small cup with a warm beverage distilled from millet, thus carrying out the code of Chinese civility, that the cup should never be suffered to be empty, and therefore, that however little has once been drunk it must forthwith be replenished. Of the juice of the grape the Chinese make no use, although there are many districts in the country which are eminently adapted to the growth of the vine. All the native drinks consist of nothing but poor-flavoured, highly-perfumed drinks, chiefly distilled from millet and rice, and known by the general name of Samshoo, although this name is solely applicable to that obtained from rice, which somewhat resembles arrack. After the meal is over there are no spirits presented, but only tea, usually the common green tea, or else a tea prepared from almonds. The Chinese are, on the whole, a very temperate people, and even their passion for smoking opium is rather a vice among the masses of the coast provinces and the large towns, than of the interior of the kingdom. During the banquet, as well as after it, there were further theatrical exhibitions, but the guests, who had been sufficiently wearied with the first of these, preferred to retire quietly to
their own residences, and, seated in a rocking-chair on the delicious verandah, to recall all the peculiarities of the entertainment at which they had been present.
The rites of hospitality to strangers were not, however, limited in fulfilment to Ta-ki, since the various consuls settled at Shanghai, as well as several of the English, American, and German merchants, invited the members of the Expedition to dinner-parties given in their honour, each vying with the rest in refined courtesy. An especially pleasant memory attaches to one indication of this feeling, the spontaneous offering of a number of Germans to our commander and his associates. We were sitting in the house of Mr. James Hogg, the Hanseatic Consul, when from the garden there suddenly arose a serenade of men's voices, singing German melodies. Surprised and deeply affected, the entire company rose from table and strolled into the garden, but the serenaders were concealed behind a group of trees, and as they withdrew, singing, the last cadence of a thrilling patriotic song was heard melting in the distance!
The Germans already constitute a by no means inconsiderable portion of the foreign community of China, and it is painful to observe what slender encouragement and support their energy and industry have as yet met with from the various governments of Germany. The number of Bremen ships which visited the harbour of Shanghai has of late years equalled that of the United States, and would be very greatly increased if the German mercantile community and the
home-shippers to the Chinese market could depend upon protection such as the English and French can rely upon. The German States, such, for instance, as the Hanseatic Towns, Prussia, Oldenburg, have indeed unsalaried Consuls here, but the shrewd, material Chinese people require something more than an empty intercession—they require to be convinced by an unmistakeable physical ability to back these representatives. Many a crying injustice, which the helpless German merchants and ship captains have to put up with without hope of redress in the various ports of China, would not and dare not occur if but a single German ship-of-war were stationed in Chinese waters. What the effect is, under similar circumstances, of even one single small boat was well illustrated by Mr. Alcock, formerly the English Consul at Shanghai,[158] who with a small English brig blocked the mouth of the Yang-tse-kiang, and did not suffer one single "junk" of the many hundreds stationed in the river to put to sea under threat of firing into them until the Chinese Government had paid attention to his demands, and surrendered for trial by an English tribunal the murderers of an English missionary. The bare menace of closing the river sufficed to secure the Consul in his rights, and he speedily saw his various demands complied with. Only a month or two later a Bremen captain sustained such severe losses through the wilful act of the Chinese Government that he had to sell his ship, the energetic protest of his Consul to the native authorities meeting no
other attention than an insulting chuckle over the powerlessness of the German empire.
In consequence of the Treaty of Pekin securing to Europeans the unobstructed navigation of all canals and rivers throughout the Celestial Empire, the trade with China is becoming so rapidly developed, that some remedy of this sort is imperatively needed,—if German commerce and industry would avoid receiving a serious check, if she would not be supplanted by other and more fortunate nations, in the endeavour to avail herself of the great alteration for the better in the facilities for trade in China.
The activity and energy of the English in opening up new outlets for their native manufactures were here astonishingly visible. Hardly are the ratifications of peace exchanged, opening the most important rivers and harbours of the Empire to free commerce with the subjects of England, ere the country has been surveyed and explored in every direction. A number of English merchants ascended the Yang-tse-kiang as far as Hang-kow[159] (mouth of trade), a city containing several millions of inhabitants, which, in consequence of its extraordinarily advantageous site, has already been described by Huc as the chief emporium of the 18 Provinces, and whence all the foreign trade radiates into the interior. Others undertook a land journey from Canton to Hang-kow; a third company ascended the Pei-ho and visited Tien-Tsin, while yet a fourth were contemplating the formidable undertaking of