A Chinese usually prefers to travel by water, and in the southeastern provinces it may be said that vehicles solely designed for carrying travellers or goods do not exist, for the carts and wheelbarrows which are met with are few and miserably made. But north of the Yangtsz’ River, all over the Great Plain carts and wheelbarrows form the chief means of travel and transportation. The high cost of timber and the bad roads compel the people to make these vehicles very rude and strong, having axles and wheels able to bear the strains or upsets which befall them. Carts for goods are drawn by three or four horses usually driven tandem, and fastened by long traces to the axle-tree, one remaining within the thills. The common carts, drawn by one or two mules, are oblong boxes fastened to an axle, covered with cotton cloth, and cushioned to alleviate the jolting; the passengers get in and out at the front, where the driver sits close to the horse. In Peking the members of the imperial clan and family are allowed to use carts having the wheel behind the body; their ranks are further indicated by a red or yellow covering, and a greater or less number of outriders to escort them. The wheelbarrow is in great use for short distances throughout the same region. The position of the wheel in the centre enables the man to propel a heavy load readily. When on a good road, and aided by a donkey, the larger varieties of barrow carry easily a burden of a ton’s weight; two men are necessary to maintain the balance and guide the rather top-heavy vehicle.
SEDAN CHAIRS AND RIVER CRAFT.
Where travelling by water is impossible, sedan chairs are used to carry passengers, and coolies with poles and slings transport their luggage and goods. There are two kinds of sedan, neither of them designed for reclining like the Indian palky. The light one is made of bamboo, and so narrow that the sitter is obliged to lean forward as he is carried; the large one, called kiao, is, whether viewed in regard to lightness, comfort, or any other quality associated with such a mode of carriage, one of the most convenient articles found in any country. Its use is subject to sumptuary laws, and forbidden to the common people unless possessing some kind of rank. In Peking only the highest officials ride in them, with four bearers. In other cities two chairmen manage easily enough to maintain a gait of four miles an hour with a sedan upon their shoulders. Goods are carried upon poles, and however large or heavy the package may be, the porters contrive to subdivide its weight between them by means of their sticks and slings. The number of persons who thus gain a livelihood is great, and in cities they are employed by headmen, who contract for work just as carmen do elsewhere; when unengaged by overseers, parties station themselves at corners and other public places, ready to start at a beck, after the manner of Dienstmänner in German cities. In the streets of Canton groups of brawny fellows are often seen idling away their time in smoking, gambling, sleeping, or jeering at the wayfarers; and, like the husbandmen mentioned in the parable, if one ask them why they stand there all the day idle? the answer will be, “Because no man hath hired us.”
The chair-bearers form a distinct guild in cities, and the establishments where sedans and their bearers are to be hired suggest a comparison with the livery stables of western cities; the men, in fact, are nicknamed at Canton mo mí ma, ‘tailless horses.’ A vehicle used sometimes by the Emperor and high officers consists of an open chair set upon poles, so made that the incumbent can be seen as well as see around him. It undergoes many changes in different parts of the country, as it is both cheap and light and well fitted for traversing mountainous regions.
In the construction and management of their river craft the Chinese excel. As boats are intended to be the residences of those who navigate them, regard is had to this in their arrangement. Only a part of the fleets of boats seen on the river at Canton are intended for transportation, a large number being designed for fixed residences, and perhaps half of them are permanently moored. They are not obliged to remain where they station themselves, but the boats and their inmates are both under the supervision of a water police, who register them and point out the position they may occupy. Barges for families, those in which oil, salt, fuel, or other articles are sold, lighters, passage-boats, flower-boats, and other kinds, are by this means grouped together, and more easily found. It was once ascertained that there were eighty-four thousand boats registered as belonging to the city of Canton, but whether all remained near the city and did not go to other parts of the district, or whether old ones were erased from the register when broken up, was not determined. It is not likely, however, that at one time this number of boats ever lay opposite the city. No one who has been at Canton can forget the noisy, animating sight the river offers, nor failed to have noticed the good-humored carefulness with which boats of every size pass each other without collision.
It is difficult to describe the many kinds of craft found on Chinese waters without the assistance of drawings. They are furnished with stern sculls moving upon a pivot, and easily propelling the boat. Large boats are furnished with two or three of these, which, when not in use, are conveniently hauled in upon the side. They are provided with oars, the loom and blade of which are fastened by withs, and work through a band attached to a stake; the rower stands up and pushes his oar with the same motion as that employed by the Venetian gondolier. Occasionally an oarsman is seen rowing with his feet. The mast in some large cargo boats consists of two sticks, resting on the gunwales, joined at top, and so arranged as to be hoisted from the bow; in those designed for residences no provision is made for a mast. Fishing boats, lighters, and sea-going craft have one or two permanent masts. In all, except the smallest, a wale or frame projects from the side, on which the boatmen walk when poling the vessel. The sails in the south are woven of strips of matting, sewed into a single sheet, and provided with yards at the top and bottom; the bamboo ribs crossing it serve to retain the hoops that run on the mast, and enable the boatmen to haul them close on the wind. A driver is sometimes placed on the taffrail, and a small foresail near the bow, but the mainsail is the chief dependence. No Chinese boat has a bowsprit, and very few are coppered, or have two decks, further than an orlop in the stern quarter in which to stow provisions; no dead-lights give even a glimmer to these recesses, which are necessarily small.
The internal arrangement of dwelling-boats is simple. The better sort are from sixty to eighty feet long, and about fifteen wide, divided into three rooms; the stem is sharp, and upholds a platform on which, when they are moored alongside, it is easy to pass from one boat to another. Each one is secured by ropes to large hawsers which run along the whole line at the bow and stern. The room nearest the bow serves for a lobby to the principal apartment, which occupies about half the body of the boat; the two are separated by trellis bulkheads, but the sternmost room, or sleeping apartment, is carefully screened. Cooking and washing are performed on a high stern framework, which is admirably contrived, by means of furnaces and other conveniences above and hatches and partitions below deck, to serve all these purposes, contain all the fuel and water necessary, and answer for a sleeping place as well. By means of awnings and frameworks the top of the boat also subserves many objects of work or pleasure. The window-shutters are movable, fitted for all kinds of weather and for flexibility of arrangement, meeting all the demands of a family and the particular service of a vessel; nothing can be more ingenious.
The handsomest of these craft are called hwa ting, or flower-boats, and are let to parties for pleasure excursions on the river; a large proportion of them are also the abodes of public women. The smaller sorts at Canton are generally known as tankia boats; they are about twenty-five feet long, contain only one room, and are fitted with moveable mats to cover the whole vessel; they are usually rowed by women. In these “egg-houses” whole families are reared, live, and die; the room which serves for passengers by day is a bedroom by night; a kitchen at one time, a washroom at another, and a nursery always.
DWELLERS ON THE WATER.
As to this custom of living upon the water, we have an interesting testimony of its practice so far back as the fourteenth century, from the letter of a Dominican Friar in 1330. “The realm of Cathay,” writes the missionary, “is peopled passing well.... And there be many great rivers and great sheets of water throughout the Empire; insomuch that a good half of the realm and its territory is under water. And on these waters dwell great multitudes of people because of the vast population that there is in the said realm. They build wooden houses upon boats, and so their houses go up and down upon the waters; and the people go trafficking in their houses from one province to another, whilst they dwell in these houses with all their families, with their wives and children, and all their household utensils and necessaries. And so they live upon the waters all the days of their life. And there the women be brought to bed, and do everything else just as people do who dwell upon dry land.”[357]