Another object of very great interest, which engaged attention at Nankin, was the large and extremely ancient cemetery, which apparently, without sufficiently well-ascertained grounds, came to be called the Tombs of the Kings, supposed to be of the Ming dynasty. They were situated on the slope of the hills, at no great distance from the principal gate of the city, at the extremity of a fine paved road.
But, perhaps, still more curious is the avenue of gigantic figures, most of them hewn from a solid piece of stone, which leads up towards the tombs. Nothing else of the kind was seen in China, and they bore all the appearance of extreme antiquity; the grass grew very high among them, and served to conceal the fragments of some which had been broken. The engraving, which forms the frontispiece to this volume, will convey a better idea of them than any written description. It is taken from an admirable sketch, drawn on the spot, by Captain Watson, R.N., C.B. The figures bear the appearance of gigantic warriors, cased in a kind of armour, standing on either side of the road, across which, at intervals, large stone tablets are extended, supported by large blocks of stone in place of pillars, such as are frequently seen on the roads leading to temples in China, and occasionally across the streets, erected in honour of particular individuals.
In the drawing are represented a number of colossal figures of horses, elephants, zebras, and other animals, rudely, executed, and placed without any distinct arrangement. Properly speaking, they are situated at a considerable distance from the alley of giants, but have been introduced to give an effective representation of the whole. There is something peculiarly Egyptian in the appearance of them all, and one could rather imagine that the scene was laid in the vicinity of Thebes than under the walls of Nankin. It tends, in some measure, to strengthen the opinion of those who have endeavoured to trace a connexion between China and Egypt, at a very remote period of their history.
Little remains to be said concerning the rest of the short period of the detention of our forces at Nankin. On the 15th of September, the Emperor's positive assent to the treaty, signed by his commissioners, on the 29th of August, was received at Nankin.
All were now anxious to quit the river without delay, in which so many brave men had already found a grave, through sickness. Every ship was full of invalids; in many of them full one-third of the crew were unable to work, and in some even more. The officers appeared to suffer equally with the men; and on this account some of the transports were in a pitiable condition. The recovery of the men was extremely slow, and, even after the fever was apparently cured, relapses were very frequent. There are no means, however, of ascertaining the actual number of deaths which occurred, but in some ships they were numerous. Among the troops, the 98th regiment and the Bengal Volunteers suffered the most; but the latter were affected more by their confinement on board ship, and by the voluntary starvation to which they submitted, on account of the prejudices of their religion, than by the mere effect of climate. They principally suffered from dysentery, occasioned by their abstinence from proper food. Most of them being Rajpoots, high caste Hindoos, they were prohibited by their superstition from eating any food cooked on board ship. Dry rice and gram (a shrivelled pea, of which sheep and cattle are very fond) constituted almost the only food they would eat, and edible tobacco their only luxury. Medicine could afford little aid to men under these circumstances; and they preferred death to the violation of their religious feelings; indeed, it was not until the survivors reached Hong-Kong, and were sent ashore to live in tents, in order to be able to cook proper food for themselves, that they began to recover strength enough to enable them to support the remainder of the voyage to Calcutta.
While the Hindoos suffered thus severely, the few Mohammedans who were in the regiment escaped almost without sickness, and there was scarcely a death amongst them. A finer regiment than the Bengal Volunteers, when they arrived in China only a few weeks before, nine hundred strong, could hardly be seen. They were even seven hundred and fifty strong when they landed at Nankin, after having been in action at Chin-Keang; and yet, when the regiment arrived in Calcutta, there were less than four hundred survivors. Indeed, there were little more than three hundred upon the field when they were reviewed at Barrackpore, with the rest of the garrison, by Sir Hugh Gough.
Before leaving Nankin, the ceremony of conferring the order of the Grand Cross of the Bath upon Sir Hugh Gough was performed on board the Cornwallis, with all the attendant marks of honour. As it was directed that it should take place in the most public manner possible, the high Chinese officers were invited to attend, and every preparation was made to give eclât to the proceedings. Very few of the Chinese came to witness it, but a few were sufficient to make known to their countrymen generally, that great honours were being conferred upon the English general, for his successes against their best troops.
Towards the end of September, the different transports and ships of war began to move down the river. The steamers were now almost entirely supplied with Nankin coal, immense heaps of which were found regularly stored up along the banks of the river, nearly in front of the city.[73]
The descent of the river was in some respects more difficult for the squadron than the ascent, particularly as the buoys, which had been laid down to mark the channel, had been removed by the Chinese in the interim. Under these circumstances, and in the absence of proper charts of the river, it is highly creditable to the transports that they all succeeded in getting down without any serious accident. Steamers generally went ahead, and gave the soundings by signal, notwithstanding which, most of the ships got aground several times. The weather was now very unsettled and hazy, as the north-east monsoon was just setting in, and this added, of course, to the difficulty.