An attempt was made to relieve some of the poverty and distress which were so prominently before our eyes. For this purpose a fund was established, a sum of eight hundred dollars being collected among the officers of the force; the subject was brought to the notice of the Chinese officials and wealthier classes in the city, the result being that they not only refused to aid the work, but opposed it in various ways. Finally, notices were issued that the sum collected would be distributed at the house used as a “church” by our troops; a guard of soldiers was mounted to preserve order, and at the hour appointed seven thousand applicants for relief had collected. Unhappily the crush speedily became greater than the guard was capable of resisting; in the pressure of the crowd a number of persons, chiefly women and children, were trodden under foot, several crushed to death, and of those less severely injured fifteen were carried into hospital.
As winter advanced, sickness among our troops increased to such a degree that various yamens or other buildings had in succession to be hired for that purpose. On such occasions, in addition to the officers specially concerned in making the selection, some representative city (Chinese) officials, the whole party under the protection of our own military police, made an inspection of the buildings most suitable for our purpose, after which an application was duly made for the particular one fixed upon. On an occasion of this kind, Captain C. E. Gordon, R.E., who shortly afterwards was to become so prominent a character in Chinese, and subsequently in Egyptian, war-history, formed, as usual, one of the party alluded to. In the course of our excursion we came to what from the outside appeared to be an eligible enclosure for our purpose. A series of loud knocks at the outer door brought to it a neatly attired and rather good-looking boy, as we at first supposed, whose manner of receiving us was the very reverse of polite. He was quickly brushed aside; our party was in act of entering, when our Chinese escort intimated the fact—up till that moment unexpressed—that we were forcing our way into a Buddhist nunnery, against the expressed objection of a nun. Our regret was real; explanations were exchanged; we were informed that the community within adopted male costume as an indication that they not only renounced the world, but with it the emblems of their sex. We were “received” by the Lady Superior, tea and cakes offered to and partaken of by us; we were then permitted to visit the “private chapel,” and finally we parted from the religieuses on the best of terms. Needless to say, their establishment from that time forward was by us held sacred.
A visit was made to “The Temple of Future Punishments.” That temple comprises a series of buildings, the entrance to the general enclosure in which they are situated having on either side a stone figure of a dog, probably the Buddhistic ideal Cerberus. Within the several buildings well-executed clay figures represented the subjects of departed spirits, undergoing all the forms and degrees of punishment to which evil Buddhists were condemned, the whole reminding us, on the one hand, of those described in “The Vision of Meerza,” and, on the other, of illustrations contained in at least one publication by the Roman Catholic Church. Among the various forms of punishment so illustrated was that of crucifixion; another illustration included the humpless bullock, as if relating to the worship of Isis and Osiris; a third presented the rites of the Indian Chukkur Poojah, and so on.
On visiting an old Buddhist temple on the left bank of the Peiho, our reception by the priests belonging to it was most friendly and hospitable. On the principal shrine were the orthodox representations of “the three Buddhas,”—namely, past, present, and to come. In other portions of the same sacred edifice were figures, doubtless of saints; before each a joss stick smouldered, while our venerable entertainers talked and smiled, even in presence of their gods. This portion of our visit over, we were invited by the priest to enter the house of one of the brethren. Having done so, tea in small cups, and cakes, steamed instead of baked, were served to us.
Arrived at a dwelling-house, in which various members of the family were engaged in the ceremonies connected with ancestral worship, we were permitted to be spectators of that ritual. A small shrine, erected for the occasion, had upon it two figures, probably Confucian, for they were without any characteristics of Buddhism. It was further decorated with flags and other ornaments. Offerings of apples were arranged upon the shrine; a vessel containing joss sticks, otherwise incense rods, one of which was taken by each worshipper in his turn and lighted; there were also piles of tinsel paper, from which pieces were successively taken and set on fire, the belief of the worshippers, all of whom were grave and orderly in demeanour, that messages were by that means conveyed to their departed relatives. But there were no women present at the ceremony. On either side of an enclosed passage, communicating with the ancestral hall, a series of tablets, roughly estimated at two hundred, were arranged, the impression conveyed to us being that each ancestor has his particular day on which his worship is celebrated.
We were at first unprepared, on visiting a principal mosque, to learn that several others of less magnitude existed for the considerable Mahomedan population in the city. The mosque alluded to was to a great extent Chinese in external style, but within had all the usual characteristics of such edifices; superadded to these, however, there was, on the middle of the floor, a tablet of Confucius, around which was entwined in bold relief the Taoist dragon! The moolahs were Chinese in feature and costume, and wore the Mongolian queue or pigtail. As we entered we found them deeply engaged in the study of the Koran, written in Arabic, which language they spoke fluently.
Having had the honour of being invited to dinner by a Chinese gentleman, the occasion was taken advantage of to observe the phase of native life so presented. As guest of the evening, I was received with much ceremony by Chang, for such was the name of the host; there was much bowing, “chin-chin”-ing, and hand-shaking, each person for himself shaking his own hands as he held them clasped upon his breast. Then followed a respectful inquiry as to my honourable years,—otherwise, how old I was,—and it by a desire to be informed as to how many children had the honour to call me father, a bow and expressive gesture indicating that sons only were to be counted in the enumeration. All this took place in an outer apartment; the party was then invited to proceed to the dining-hall, separated from that in which we at first stood by a series of apartments, all handsomely furnished and ornamented. In each corner of these rooms stood an ornamental lantern, having in it a red-coloured taper, in token of rejoicing; on the wall directly facing the door, a tablet upon which, in Chinese characters, was the moral maxim, “Not to covet is a virtue,” otherwise a compressed epitome of the tenth commandment. In the dining-room we took the chairs assigned to us. On the table, arranged with much taste, were dishes containing fruit, fresh and preserved; a dish on which were some neatly cut slices of what looked like ham; on another a pyramid of eggs that had been first boiled hard, then permitted to remain buried in the ground for a year. These delicacies partaken of (and the eggs referred to were by no means nasty), our host filled the tiny cup at the side of each guest with hot sham-shu,—i.e., a spirit distilled from millet,—bowed to each of us in succession, and returned to his seat. The course which followed was mainly composed of the root of water lily (Nelumbum); it again by one of sharks’ fins; then olives preserved in syrup, or perhaps rather jujubes;[234] more fruits of sorts, variously preserved; seaweed, sea-slugs[235], and other delicacies. Although chop-sticks were arranged for each of us, knives, forks, and spoons—all of silver, but the last-named of Chinese pattern—were also placed for our use. Several courses of this kind having succeeded each other, the more material part of the banquet was introduced, in the shape of portions of fowl and duck, served à la Russe; then a repetition of preserves as before; winding up with a portion of rice—the sign that dinner was over. Dessert was laid in another room; thither we repaired, and with toasts, talk, and a good deal of festivity the evening passed away.
A visit to an “opium den,” and inquiries to which that visit led, induced me to make, at the time, an entry in my diary thus: “I have witnessed much wretchedness and want among the victims of this vice (namely, opium-smoking); but neither in a greater degree nor among so large a proportion of the people as are debased in the United Kingdom through the evil consequences of indulgence in spirits.” The institution of such establishments was at the time looked upon as among the first fruits arising from the treaty, in accordance with which Tientsin, as a port, has been opened to foreign shipping.
The visit alluded to was made in company with an American missionary.[236] His plan for obtaining influence over the frequenters of such places was to point out to them the evils present and prospective of the vice in which they were indulging, and so endeavour to wean them from it. By seeking for, and assisting in various ways, outcasts and the neglected,—by reconciling, when possible, those between whom misunderstandings had arisen, and in other kindred methods of proceeding, rather than in direct attempts at religious conversion, he had succeeded in making for himself a sphere of great usefulness and influence.
The postal arrangements in connection with our portion of the force were so imperfect that only by means of Chinese messengers employed at high rates of pay, which had to be made up at our individual cost, our letters were conveyed to Chefoo, to be put on board a steamer. The French, on the other hand, had with them two officers from the Post Office in Paris, under them a party of sailors, for the purpose, without expense to individuals, of keeping up postal communication between Tientsin and the same port.